Chise's entire life before the Magus is a quiet devastation, and this OVA doesn't flinch from showing you how small a person becomes when nobody has ever loved them. Every frame looks like someone spent hours on it, but the animation isn't showing off, it's in service of watching a broken kid slowly realize she's worth something to someone. The price of entry is three episodes and a willingness to sit with a character's loneliness until the moment it breaks, but what you get back is a portrait of rescue that never feels sentimental.

Chise Hatori, age 15, has grown up with neglect and cruelty, alone and without a family to rely on. Everything changes when Elias, a non-human sorcerer with the head of a beast, buys her at a slave auction and takes her in to train in magic, with the intention of making her his bride. As she slowly settles into a calmer life, a shipment of magical supplies from Angelica in London arrives with a gift: a Japanese picture book Chise knew as a child. When Elias asks about it, she tells him of Miura-san and a mysterious library she once found in the forest, back when she was troubled and lonely. This three-episode drama and fantasy OVA covers her life before she met Elias.