The Ancient Magus' Bride Vol. 8 (The Ancient Magus' Bride, 8)

It's all coming to a head. This story gets more heartwarming and fresh by the volume. And just when I think I've gotten it figured out the twist starts showing. I love this series. The manga and the anime. The characters and world building is stellar. But even though it's a fantasy slice of life series it has its darkness. The next volume can't come out fast enough. What will happen to Chise and Ainsworth?

Absolutely love this series, it's been a long time since I was a crazy fan of a manga, but this one is so worth the time and money. Compelling characters, expansive world, delightful storytelling, this is a true gem. The mount of research and time that has gone into building the world of The Ancient Magus Bride is very obvious, the lore is just beautiful. You wont be disappointed, read the manga, watch the series!

A lot of this volume and the next one. Had major plot developments. Yet they where good ones. It makes me squeal with joy and some sadness. It had my inner fan girl coming out quite a bit.

Chise is cursed! Then Elias feelings for Chise are growing and he is trying to know his feelings more! Wonderful series, get to have the chance to see the anime but the manga is just as good!

Grandson selected this for part of his straight A reward

Kore Yamazaki continues to create a gorgeous and spellbinding world with each consecutive issue. As Chise's emotional and psychological motivations are laid bare, she has to decide the worth of her own life. How badly does she want to live?

It’s just an amazing series and you really can’t expect the outcomes. Highly recommend. Beyond worth owning if you love fantasy!

Looks like all of the inside content is correct but for some reason the cover is black and white, also seems like the paper it is printed on is thinner/cheaper than the other books that I have from the series. Annoying that it doesn’t match all of the other books.

Great manga to add to your collection

I absolutely love this story I can wait for the next volume to be out.

It's all coming to a head. This story gets more heartwarming and fresh by the volume. And just when I think I've gotten it figured out the twist starts showing. I love this series. The manga and the anime. The characters and world building is stellar. But even though it's a fantasy slice of life series it has its darkness. The next volume can't come out fast enough. What will happen to Chise and Ainsworth?

Absolutely love this series, it's been a long time since I was a crazy fan of a manga, but this one is so worth the time and money. Compelling characters, expansive world, delightful storytelling, this is a true gem. The mount of research and time that has gone into building the world of The Ancient Magus Bride is very obvious, the lore is just beautiful. You wont be disappointed, read the manga, watch the series!

A lot of this volume and the next one. Had major plot developments. Yet they where good ones. It makes me squeal with joy and some sadness. It had my inner fan girl coming out quite a bit.

Chise is cursed! Then Elias feelings for Chise are growing and he is trying to know his feelings more! Wonderful series, get to have the chance to see the anime but the manga is just as good!

Grandson selected this for part of his straight A reward

Kore Yamazaki continues to create a gorgeous and spellbinding world with each consecutive issue. As Chise's emotional and psychological motivations are laid bare, she has to decide the worth of her own life. How badly does she want to live?

It’s just an amazing series and you really can’t expect the outcomes. Highly recommend. Beyond worth owning if you love fantasy!

Looks like all of the inside content is correct but for some reason the cover is black and white, also seems like the paper it is printed on is thinner/cheaper than the other books that I have from the series. Annoying that it doesn’t match all of the other books.

Great manga to add to your collection

I absolutely love this story I can wait for the next volume to be out.

My son really love this book.

Can’t wait for Volume 9. Have it on pre-order

I LOVE this manga!!! It's so beautiful and I can't wait for the next volume to come out in the fall!

The inside content is all there but the cover is in black and white. Super weird but doesn't make a difference to me even though it won't match lol

This is my all-time favorite manga and it keeps getting better with each volume. I love seeing these characters learn and grow together. Can't wait for the next volume~! <3

I really enjoy the artwork in this series.

Another great volume

I love every comic in this series. My only wish is that they would be longer, because I can't take the suspense between releases.

Wonderful story. Beautiful art.

Love it

Love this series and can't wait for more. Magic, fun, action, drama. AMAZING!!

Everything is great with this manga, but at the end I got a chapter repeated. I’m disappointed that this even happens.

Honestly I just find this series so enticing. The story line. The writing. Can't wait for the next one honestly.

It was a quick read. So much has happened and the character growth is really shown in this volume.

ALSOME💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

Amazing as always

My grand-daughter loves all these books, she has all 8 vol.now & is still has the supplement coming yet

The eighth volume of The Ancient Magus' Bride deals with the aftermath of Chise's effort to save a dragon. She succeeded, only to learn that in the process, she now has a horribly deformed arm from absorbing the dragon's magical energy. Worse, this condition is likely to kill her soon. Elias and the others are trying to find some sort of cure. A witch offers the help of her coven and Chise meets the high priestess, Phyllis, who suffers from a similar condition. Odd point. Years ago, I had an interest in Wicca and read some books by Phyllis Curott, a notable Wiccan high priestess. Might she be the inspiration for this character's name? When they cannot break the dragon's curse, Elias looks for a solution that may lead him to a terrible act and it looks like Volume 9 is going to be epic. The Ancient Magus' Bridge remains a wise series, and the new volume is always worth the wait. The use of witches was a nice coincidence as a few months ago, I discovered another manga series, Generation Witch. While a bit more light-hearted than Magus, I found a similar spirit. Sadly, its first two volumes have poor sales rankings (and yes, this plug is my attempt to help correct that situation).

This started out as a good series. It has good artwork, in my opinion, but the story starts going downhill and getting really uncomfortable in the later volumes. Its a toss up.

Despite volume 7’s surprising cliffhanger, The Ancient Magus’ Bride volume 8 begins with life almost as usual for Chise. All of her friends are rather concerned by her enlarged arm, especially once it becomes apparent that it’s a potentially fatal curse passed onto her from the dragonet she saved. But Chise’s quiet fatalism means that she continues to take everything in stride. Except Chise has begun to change. Slowly, but noticeably to the reader, she’s begun to realize that her life has value too. Not all readers would call her brash but Chise essentially admits that she’s been as such to Elias in this volume. In some ways she reminds me of someone awakening from a long depression, when you’re in the state that you begin to recognize what’s behind you and struggle even harder to escape the depression as it threatens to pull you back in. I’m still a bit cautious with how Kore Yamazaki portrays her main character — after all she’s brought together several delicate topics to create Chise — but I am glad that the Chise we met at the beginning of the series does not seem to be the same young woman that we will end with. Many readers have remarked on how Chise and Elias’s positions seem to be reversed by this point, with Chise the “wiser,” more mature character and Elias prone to acting more impulsively, and I wonder if Elias will go through as much character development as her by the end (since he really has remained almost unchanged eight volumes in). As benefiting Chise’s changing nature, I’ve been happy to see that this and the previous volume have been spending more time on the human side of the magical world. The fae are all interesting but, while they might consider her one of them, Chise is still human first and foremost and not the first Sleigh Beggy so it’s fun to see what other positions humans have in this fantasy setting. I also personally prefer fantasy stories with large, complex world-building behind their settings and Yamazaki seems to be thinking the same way. There aren’t stark, black and white difference between humans and the fae so much as there are shades a difference between humans and other humans, fae and other fae. Seeing these differences is what makes worldbuilding fun I think. I enjoyed meeting the witches in this volume and it starts to give both the reader and Chise an idea that she might end up in a position like that, something that hasn’t been suggested to her yet but that is still waiting out there. Like the last volume, this one ends on a cliffhanger and I’m tempted to go and watch the end of the anime since it goes just slightly farther than this volume. Otherwise, September isn’t that far off and I’m eager to see more of Chise’s world and her growth. - Helen

We first meet Chise, chained by the neck and wrists being passed over to her new owner, a bone-headed mage whose name she learns later is Elias. A penniless orphan sold on the black market she learns about herself, the magical world filled with fairies and other fantastical creatures as well as what it means to be a part of a family. Her new life as a mage's apprentice is just the beginning as it comes with the secondary title of Ancient Magus' Bride... I have been consistently RAVING about this series since volume one. It's takes ideas that are seen in a specific light and turns them on their head.... Things like slavery, power, and what it means to be abused. It was great and beautiful... Until volume 8... (DARN IT!) Well that was a bit dramatic considering I only lowered the rating a star. But the thing is I can't get behind where this is going... the villain is NOT someone that should be sided with no matter what you believe is going to happen, especially when you expect your loved one to accept your own decisions. This is the first time that the relationship felt one sided. The mangaka actually has written it to be this way and I can see the deliberateness in bringing us to this moment and having Chise rebel. I get it and in a way support the female empowerment in it. BUT a relationship is a TWO WAY STREET! You want to die and want your loved one the accept it?! Then you have to accept that they may want to try to do something about it. This idea of FORCING others to accept your messed up choices is why so many teenagers are committing suicide. It's okay to compromise. It really is okay, especially when they compromise for you too! This totally lacked all tension because I knew the outcome as soon as events came to light... Okay so what am I saying?! It sounds like this volume made the series go totally bad in a hand basket. No, no, its not that bad. I don't agree with Chise's thinking on this one issue but I see it stems from society... its hard to blame her. And she is mentally ill. Let's get that straight from the start... Chise has been mentally ill since her mother abandoned her. And as for the plot I quite enjoyed the whole coven issue, I was quite tense through that whole ordeal and worried about the one witch... So there is still some of the old magic from the series! I just hope this is resolved quickly and we move on... The art is gorgeous. That never changes and for that I am grateful! I quite enjoy characters that are overboard sacrificing for others. There is a beauty in that idea that I love to explore. It doesn't really work with the idea that what Elias wants comes second to Chise's self-sacrificing... it makes this entire plot so contrived that I physically hurt from reading this. It's not hateful though and most will enjoy seeing the all-powerful Elias get taken down a peg or two. The Ancient Magus Bride is a sensational series... I seriously love it and find it the best seinen series around! I frankly didn't enjoy the direction of the plot for this volume and hope we don't linger in this for too many future volumes... but I still can't help NEEDING to know what Elias will do next and see if, for once, Chise can have a little self-preservation or if not allow Elias to have it for her!

This is the eighth volume in the Ancient Magus Bride series. I enjoyed it a lot and am curious to see where the story goes next. A lot happens in this installment. Chise has accidentally been cursed by the very baby dragon she helped free. Added on to her other curses, this new one means she doesn’t have long to live. When Chise is approached by a witch she met at the auction, the witch suggests Chise joins their coven in order to help get rid of the curse. Elias is less than pleased by this suggestion until he starts to see what the dragon’s curse is doing to Chise. Again beautifully illustrated and full of amazing characters. I enjoyed a lot of the story development that happened in this one and am incredibly curious as to how things will play out between Chise, Elias, and Josef. The coven of witches introduced in this book are magical prostitutes, this doesn’t get incredibly specific or detailed but they do talk about sex some. My 11 year old son is reading these books, so I wasn’t thrilled to see this in there and don’t really understand how it plays into the rest of the story (seemed a bit unnecessary). However, because these are rated teen I have been reading them before him...so we will see how he takes this volume. Overall an excellent installment in this series. I continue to really enjoy these and am sad that I have almost caught up to the last book. I would recommend to young adult and older readers who enjoy magical fantasy manga.

We have actual conflict that arises in this one, and it's mostly because these two are actual idiots and Elias thought he could be sly and it works most of the time but this time Chise said No, we aren't doing this!!! Because it turns out that when you try to sacrifice your wife's friend for a sacrificial ritual without her permission she isn't too happy with you. And there is some with craft in it but that's like a minor plot point that I didn't really see the point of? More like to just introduce witches into the universe as a whole.