On Thursday, January 13, the staff for the anime adaptation of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 announced the premiering date for the upcoming installment. The news came alongside the release of the first trailer, a main key visual, and the cast members.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 is set to officially release on April 6, 2023, at 10 pm JST on Tokyo MX. The core cast from the previous is set to return for The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2, along with several new additions for the College arc. In addition, a brief synopsis of the upcoming season’s plot and the setting was released by Crunchyroll on their website.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 is set to follow Chise during the College arc
Following this broadcast on the channel, the episode will air on the BS11 network. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video and Hikari TV will manage the Japanese streaming of the series, with Crunchyroll handling all international streaming outside of Asia.
Alongside the release date announcement came a key visual and a subtitled trailer for the upcoming season. The key visual features Chise and Elias front and center, flanked by new characters for the upcoming College arc. The cast for these new characters of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 is as follows:
- Minami Tsuda as Lucy Webster
- Maki Kawase as Philomela Sergeant
- Seiichiro Yamashita as Rian Scrimgeour
- Daiki Kobayashi as Zoe Ivy
- Reina Ueda as Veronica Rickenbacker
- Kotaro Nishiyama as Isaac Farrar
All six characters are students at the College, a secret society of mages who reside underneath the British Library. As per Crunchyroll’s description of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2, Chise receives an invitation from the “mutual aid organization for mages called the College,” presumably accepting/ attending the same:
"Chise was able to accept Elias and herself, if not necessarily everything about her situation. After Cartaphilus fell back into a slumber that would not last forever, Chise was able to go back to her regular life. Then she receives an invitation from a mutual aid organization for mages called the College."
It further continues:
"Under the British Library exists a secret society of mages. Encounters and interactions with people are about to open some new doors. This is a story about saving yourself to save another."
The returning cast is the same from the series’ last project, an OAD (original animation DVD) project produced by Studio Kafka, which includes the following:
- Atsumi Tanezaki as Chise
- Ryota Takeuchi as Elias Ainsworth
- Kouki Uchiyama as Ruth
- Aya Endo as Silky
- Mutsumi Tamura as Alice Swayne
- Satoshi Hino as Mikhail Renfred
Studio Kafka was established specifically for the OAD project, and will be taking over mainline series animation from WIT Studios, who produced the first season. From the OAD project to the upcoming season, the staff remains largely the same.
The series follows Chise Hatori, an orphaned Japanese high school student who decides to sell herself at an auction to find a new home after being ostracized by her relatives and society. She’s bought by Elias Ainsworth, a magus who seems more demon than human, who will either bring her the light she seeks or drown her in darkness in her new home in Great Britain.