▶ Video #####(The above video contains audio from the OP, feel free to unmute.) My Happy Marriage, at the outset, feels like the 1000th remake of Cinderella. It has the evil stepmother, the family abuses the MC, and she gets “saved” by a strong, powerful man. It’s a bit more than that though, as it’s a largely character driven story with the main female character, Saimori Miyo, trying to find her self worth after years and years of people telling how useless she was, as shallow as the reasons were, in that she supposedly lacked the abilities that her family members had. She is married off to a man named Kudou Kiyoka, who was known to be a cold-hearted, insensitive man who dismissed his previous fiancées, likely in an attempt to get rid of her and have her suffer more. Obviously, as you would expect, Kiyoka treats Miyo in a way she doesn’t expect, and the relationship builds from there.

Then what makes this anime stand out, if it just feels like another Cinderella story? The first thing would definitely be the visual presentation.

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The animation overall is very fluid, while being rather simple in its designs. There are great looking action scenes, the character expressions are worthy of praise, and the soundtrack by Evan Call, who worked on Violet Evergarden’s music, complimented it a lot. Virtually no issues from the production side of things. I dare say it might have been one of the best produced shows of the summer season. It has strong attempts at characterization, with directing and symbolism that I really enjoyed, as there was a level of nuance there to develop Miyo and Kiyoka’s relationship throughout the story.
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#####(A wonderful example of the symbolism this show has, with Miyo's "dream", shattering, signaling her awakening)

What unfortunately holds it back from being in the upper echelon of shows from this season for me is the shallow writing, especially outside the main duo. In that way, it might feel more like Cinderella, in that the characters are very “fairy-tale” like. They’re evil for the sake of being evil, with malicious intent that goes over the top at times. Sure, there are a lot of political aspects in play especially in this setting, with families all thirsting for power, doing whatever it takes to gain reputation, but some of the actions that the Saimori family took early in the season just felt a bit much, perhaps a bit melodramatic at times.

The supernatural aspects were interesting for sure, and I’m sure will be developed in the future, with the upcoming OVA or perhaps in future instalments of this series if it ever happens, but I felt it somewhat took away from the more grounded relationship with Miyo and Kiyoka. The supernatural parts do give the series more flare and pizzazz, but I question whether all of it was necessary, as especially in the second half, where I felt the lore and the presence of Grotesqueries, besides being haphazardly implemented at points, also limited the time that could have otherwise been spent on developing the romance aspects a bit better, as well as Miyo’s character.

The cast of characters was fine, but besides a couple characters outside the main duo, the rest were forgettable. A lot of scummy characters for sure, and I do see that popping up a lot in shoujo series. Miyo’s character was frustrating at times to watch, but she had some very good developments as well at the climax of the first half, and the aforementioned symbolism really helped with that. Kiyoka I had more interest in, especially in his abilities. I liked how he treated Miyo, and how his attitudes changed towards her throughout. You can basically say that Miyo and Kiyoka bring the best out of each other, as Kiyoka helped Miyo break out of her self-deprecating nature and stand up for herself, while Miyo helped Kiyoka open up more as a person.

My attention was always there when the relationship was being developed, but like I said, outside of that, it was an up and down ride. The first half was very strong and at that point had the potential to be the best anime airing this season, but the second half was markedly weaker in that I felt the romance could have been prioritized a bit more, and the supernatural aspects executed in a more meaningful way. Overall, it was still a high quality anime, but just missed the mark a little bit for me to say it was truly incredible.