I've never written a review before. My god is this show bad. I gave up after episode 2, and feel compelled to write a review entirely because of how bad it is at this point. I probably should watch the rest first, but I've read episode synopses and the discussion posts, and now I know it's completely unnecessary. I've seen some bad anime before, and this is probably not the worst, but man does it try to be.
So let me start by saying that I understand in the show's setting our main character Leticia is a European-style noble (by anime's standards), and so would traditionally have little if any choice in who she ultimately gets to be with. I get that, whatever. Regardless, this is the worst portrayal of that I have seen.
I'm getting ahead of myself, let's set the stage. I'm gonna try to avoid spoilers, but let's be real, I don't think you should be watching this anyway so nothing is really a spoiler. Also I only really know the plot in earnest through episode 2.
Episode 1
Leticia has been told at the tender age of 7 that she is to leave her family, pet dog John, and little village behind to become betrothed to this kingdom's prince. She must leave now to begin lessons on etiquette and royal behavior, among other things. Except none of that's true, because nobody tells her F--KING ANYTHING. Maybe she's given a better explanation in the source material, but she's just told by her excited mother, "Be happy, your future is decided! You're going to the castle! No we can't go with you. Your dog can't either. See you sometime~!"
Like, WTF? Do you not care about your child at all? What kind of terrible parents are you? At least show some sympathy for the kid, and explain what's going on. Yeah, she's a kid, but kids understand things way better then you think they do, especially anime kids.
...anyway, her brother who apparently hates her guts and sees her as nothing more as an object to get close to the royal family takes her to the castle and doesn't speak to her once. How can I be sure of all of that about her brother? That's how he treats her, with absolute disdain. He clearly hates being near her.
When they get there, she is sent directly into etiquette lessons where the "teacher" immediately begins abusing her for not being perfect in every possible way. And, to be clear, at this point she has still apparently been given no explanation as to why she is where she is. She somehow manages to only cry a little bit, which she gets completely berated for, and carries on with her stupid lessons. Then she's thrust by her ~~demon~~ brother into a random bedroom, told "if you try to escape it'll just be worse for you," and passed off to a completely emotionless and heartless maid.
For 10 F--king years.
Does she ever see her parents? Apparently not! Does she ever see this evil prince? Not as far as we know! Just abusive lesson after abusive lesson, until the fateful day where this prince she's supposed to marry comes in with another girl and heavily implies (this bit's important) that he's going to break off the engagement. Somehow, despite being forced to suppress her emotions for 10 years and having her childhood completely stolen from her, she manages to immediately break her royal façade and be super excited about everything, heading out and going to enjoy her life in the countryside.
Now if that's where the story picked up and we just got to see her enjoy herself in the countryside, maybe while fighting off her brother or some other interesting guy comes around, this could be a cute and fun show. But nope! Episode two happens, and it's clear where things are going from here.
Oh, and if you're wondering why "Leticia" is the only character I'm giving a name to, it's because all of the other characters are so god-awful that I can't be arsed to remember their names. Leticia herself is a great character, and only her. She can't carry the show on her own, unfortunately. Anyway.
I'll try to keep episode 2 short.
Episode 2
So now that she's in the countryside, she can go and hang out in nature to her heart's content. And who should run across her while she's fishing? Why, the prince who broke off the engagement of course! He follows her around like a stalker for some bizarre reason, but makes clear that he still likes her and wants to marry her. Why did he break off the engagement in the first place? Well, as he runs away back to the castle at the end, we learn that he never broke off the engagement because he didn't explicitly say it! Sure, Leticia explicitly asked you if you were going to call it off and you said, "I'm sorry," strongly implying that you would, but since you didn't say it yourself then it's not actually off!
Oh, why did he do it in the first place? She learns when talking to her brother that he was just trying to get her jealous. Like...what the absolute f--k. Turns out the replacement girl, who I'm just gonna name "replacement" since I can't be bother to remember her real name, is there and hates the abusive teacher just as much as Leticia did, so replacement is trying to force Leticia to go back to the castle.
Then her parents come and shame her for running away from a bad situation and try to force her back themselves.
So Leticia does what I was screaming at the TV for her to do from the very beginning of the very first episode: Get out of Dodge now. As she tries to make her escape, though, replacement catches her. With some negotiating, replacement lets her go, but then she's caught not much longer by who else then the prince, of course! In the middle of the night. Outside of their residence.
If this isn't stalker behavior I don't know what is.
I started episode 3 at this point, but it was all just gaslighting from her parents about how "they get along well" and "they make a good couple" while she's literally slung over the prince's shoulder and desperately flailing and trying to run away. Her brother just ignores her, and she did not punch him in the face like I yelled at the screen for her to. He was close enough and deserves it. The random maid says, "I wish you happiness" and the replacement is trying to get her to go by saying they look good together and other BS (which, to the replacement's credit, is exactly what I would expect her to do).
The amount of gaslighting was so bad after 5 minutes of the episode I turned it off. I read the episode 4 synopsis and the first sentence says, "Stuck behind bars in a new room, Leticia..." and that pretty much tells me all I need to know about that.
My Take
If my recap didn't make it clear, I hate this show. This is supposed to be a romantic comedy, but it's actually a sad tragedy about a girl whose childhood was stolen from her, whose parents hold no real parental love for her, and who is constantly chased and tormented by a stalker that happens to be royalty. Reading through episode synopses, it apparently results in Stockholm syndrome eventually setting in and the poor girl getting married to her stalker, despite him literally imprisoning her.
I recognize that Japan in particular has some issues with gender equality, but this was clearly written by a misogynist who sees women as nothing more than playthings. It's absolutely abhorrent. Many (most?) anime do not portray women as equals to men, but at least they tend to retain their autonomy and aren't generally expected to fall in love with stalkers. This show almost reads like the author trying to convince women who watch it that they should let stalkers into their life, and it's kind of disgusting. I'm hoping the original material wasn't nearly this off-putting, but I'm not going to bother buying or reading it to find out. I might be reading too much into it though, not every show needs to have a moral.
I'm gonna go watch something mindless and entertaining now, and get this ragebait garbage out of my mouth. I should have paid closer attention to the score before starting.
TL;DR
Terrible show about a little girl being taken away from her parents, who are all for it, and forced to marry a prince. She constantly tries to escape but is constantly thwarted by the prince's stalker behavior. Stockholm syndrome in the end. Don't watch unless you're a misogynist or really, really into non-con and gaslighting.
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