A lonely orphan sells herself into slavery to a mysterious, skull-headed magical being.
In short: Chise Hatori, a teenager ostracized by society, makes a desperate choice to find a home: she auctions herself as a slave. Purchased for five million pounds by Elias Ainsworth, a seven-foot-tall magus with a beastly skull for a head, she enters a surreal world of magic, faeries, and ancient, dangerous secrets.
The Ancient Magus' Bride, written and illustrated by Kore Yamazaki, explores the complex relationship between Chise and her enigmatic master. Chise is a Sleigh Beggy, a rare individual capable of drawing immense magic from her environment. This ability is a double-edged sword; while it grants her power, it places a lethal strain on her body, leaving her fated to die prematurely in about three years. Elias, a being of mysterious origins who may be a former mage who lost his humanity, purchases her with the dual hope of preventing her early death and learning to comprehend human emotions.
The narrative unfolds in a supernatural version of Great Britain, where the boundaries between the human world and the realm of fae are thin. Elias, often called the Child of Thorns, struggles with his own identity as a creature caught between human and faerie worlds. He is frequently viewed as an abomination by other faeries, yet he maintains a complex connection with figures like Titania, the Faerie Queen, who views him as a child of nature. His physical form is fluid, often shifting to hide his monstrous, skull-headed true appearance.
Central to the series is the struggle against the curse of Cartaphilus, also known as the Wandering Jew. An ancient being fused with a young gravedigger named Joseph, Cartaphilus is cursed with immortality and perpetual decay. His desperate, gruesome experiments to escape his suffering drive much of the conflict. As Chise navigates this world, she encounters diverse figures like the alchemist Mikhail Renfred and the dragon caretaker Lindel, all while grappling with her own trauma and the fragile, magical bond she shares with Elias.
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