Kore Yamazaki's highly-regarded manga The Ancient Magus' Bride is set to air on Japanese TV (and stream on Crunchyroll) in the Fall 2017 season, but its first three episodes actually made their debut at 2017's Anime Expo, followed by a worldwide screening in theaters, courtesy of Crunchyroll. Based on this screening, I predict that if Wit Studio (the producer of Attack on Titan) and director Norihiro Naganuma (making his TV series) can maintain the quality seen in these first three episodes, then this will be the title to beat for top honors of the season if not the year.

Beyond even its strong source material, this title's visuals easily rival Wit Studio's efforts on both Attack on Titan and Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress in character designs, background art, and animation quality. More importantly, it fully retains the style and sense of visual wonder that helped make the source manga so appealing. The character designs for Chise, Elias, Elias's household servant Silky, and the others that they meet are wonderfully replicated in full color, while the designs of fey creatures, dragons, and other spirits fully embody the mystical sense of something distinct from humanity, an aesthetic that anime fantasies almost never accomplish to this degree if they accomplish it at all. The occasional use of magic in the first three episodes also stands out; special attention has been paid to making them glorious events even for relatively simple spells, such as one neat scene where a letter Elias writes folds itself into a bird before flying away to deliver itself. Also neatly-reproduced is Elias's propensity for dramatics, which can evoke similarities to shojo manga without going overboard in indulging its genre hallmarks. Episodes also replicate the manga's habit of using SD designs for occasional comedic moments, for better or worse.

The musical score also serves as a capable complement to the animation. Neither the opener nor the closer for the series were shown in the screening, but the background music effectively evoked a sense of aged whimsy and something mystical but also medieval, even though the story is set in the modern era. At other times, the score supports comfortable sentimentality or even the occasional tense moments.

The series shines on the story front, too. Its first three episodes are highly faithful adaptations of the first three chapters of the manga at the remarkably slow rate of one episode per chapter. For all that, though, the episodes never give the sense of dragging or stretching things out, and in fact even eliminate some scenes and details; the manga provides a little more explanation about what a Sleigh Beggy is, for instance, and one scene where Chise mistakes the relationship between Elias and Angelica was dropped. Still, those trims are sensible cuts, as are some minor bits of reordering, to the point that I found the story to actually flow a little more smoothly in this form. An expansion of the opening scene also makes it clearer up front that Chise went through the auction by choice rather than by force.

But just being a faithful adaptation doesn't make a series good. This is the story of a girl who has been so beaten down by her circumstances that she can't appreciate her own value, with implications that she has at least contemplated suicide, agreeing instead to be sold just to find a home, showcasing the extent of despondency. The emphasis on her as the viewpoint character is reinforced by her own occasional narration. Elias represents her salvation and her gateway to the greater world of magic, but he does not neatly fill the role of prince, father figure, mentor, or even just her owner; instead he acts as a little of all four. It's not clear how seriously he's taking the whole eventual marriage thing at this point, and at times he treats Chise like a pet though he doesn't intend to be demeaning and never treats her cruelly. The implication is more that he doesn't know much about how to deal with Chise in his life, so he experiments to find the proper way to interact with her. While anime is replete with asocial male deuteragonists, Elias's decidedly inhuman appearance gives much more of an air of authenticity to his sense of mystique.

The story doesn't hesitate to bring in other interesting characters and situations, either. Episode one shows that, while fairies can be quite friendly, they're also not without their own motives and sense of possessiveness, while episode two introduces a female artificer who attempts to straddle the line between the magical and non-magical worlds, along with a local priest who uses Elias's magical curatives in a curious take on church-pagan relationships. Episode three brings Elias's own mentor and dragons into the picture, with the highlight being Chise's encounter with an ancient dragon on the verge of passing away. All of these situations gracefully weave together an overall picture of magic, life, and death in the world in ways that can be quite emotional.

Also accompanying the theatrical presentation was the 15-minute Children of Ether ONA, a post-apocalyptic original story by LeSean Thomas (co-director of the first couple of seasons of The Boondocks), which is being co-produced by Satelight for Crunchyroll. It made for an incongruous pairing with this presentation, as it's a more action-adventure-oriented tale, but it's worth a look as well, currently available streaming on Crunchyroll.

If I had to describe the first three episodes of The Ancient Magus' Bride with a single word, it would be “magical.” It's already one of the most-anticipated series for Fall of 2017, and its first few episodes at least will live up to the hype. Some may find the pacing to be a little on the slow side, but when nearly every action of every scene seems to matter on a deeper level, it's hard to complain about that.