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Great anime come in all shapes and forms. Some greats pull off different complex themes that transcend the norm and challenge them to think about its messages and leave the viewer deep into thought after they finish the show. And some other greats masterfully build up their worlds and characters to establish a climax that takes everything we saw from the beginning up to the very ending and leaves us with a nonstop thrilling show from beginning to end.

Or some other greats, take all the already established conventional and “cliched” tropes from anime and other media but make them their own by adding their own spice and unique twists to make themselves a fun experience anyone can enjoy. And that’s exactly what Maoujou de Oyasumi or its English name, Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, establishes itself as a formula-based slice of life-esque fantasy show that adds its own bright colors to give the viewers a uniquely wholesome experience.

At first, the show sells itself with a basic premise we’ve seen tons of times in anime. We start in the insert kingdom name kingdom where the royalty live peacefully, and everyone loves the royal kingdom until one day, the Demon King of insert demon king dungeon name swoops into the castle, kidnaps the princess, and locks her up in a cell in his dungeon. Now it’s up to the handsome, perfect hero to save the princess from the Demon King! See? Stuff we’ve seen (way too many times) before.

But this is where the show pulls off its “twist.” Instead of following the generic fantasy formula and following the hero, we follow the story of the princess, Aurora Sura Rhys Kaymin ~~(who I will be calling Princess for the entirety of this review because everyone calls her “Hime” for the entirety of the show as if her name is irrelevant because of her noble status)~~, as she attempts to pass the time by doing what she does best: sleep. But oh, no! The bed in her “cell” is SUPER uncomfortable, and she needs to think of a way to optimize her sleeping experience.

So what does any normal captive princess in the Demon King’s lair do? Just deal with it? Of course not! She’s a princess! She will do whatever it takes to make sure she gets what she wants! This basic premise is the driving force of the show and the relationships the princess builds with her “captors” around her.

Even if there is a lack of “plot” in the show, since it can be described as the Princess trying to get her hands on different materials from around the Demon King Castle, the show doesn’t let its lack of a story progression stop itself from being a fun experience from start to end. Instead, the show relies on building the demon’s relationships with the Princess combined with its satire on the fantasy/isekai genre to carry the show’s comedy.

All the characters’ designs are built to follow typical anime fantasy designs such as your beautiful princess with a cute gown, your authoritarian Demon King with his two little horns sticking out on the top of his head, your perfect hero wearing his plated armor and sense of justice along his chest, and many more designs for the other demon and human characters that poke fun of the overused designs within the fantasy genre.

Even if the designs themselves are pretty forgettable because of this, the characters themselves are not. Our protagonist, the Princess, appears to be gracious and calm like how a princess should be. But this Princess is everything but “gracious” and “calm.” She uses her wit and diligence to trick little teddy bear creatures into breaking out of her own cell, sneaks off into different areas of the castle for things for her own beauty sleep, and even manages to get the Demon King and his right-hand man to submit to her by leashing them around just for their precious materials for her bedding! Absolute scenes!

And speaking of the Demon King, we can’t talk about this anime without mentioning the Demon King and his demon folk and their counterparts, the Hero™, the perfect examples of what this anime represents. Although their designs and actions suggest that they’re cookie-cut from their respective tropes taken straight from fantasy anime, they act as jabs to the fantasy genre by grounding them as “human” rather than “ideals.”

The demon folk, for example, are meant to be the “big baddies” of the universe and represent everything evil. But rather than true evil like how they seem to the outside world, they act as reasonable demons who act on good morals contradicting their outside personas within the castle. This leads to some great comedic moments between the demons and the Princess with them rather than acting as captors and captives, but as, sometimes, captive and captors, but most of the time as friendly equals.

The Hero™ is also a great play on the fantasy genre because it does a great job of painting his over the top for justice attitude and exaggerates that point to borderline insanity. Even though his intentions are always good, like an ideal hero, his overenthusiasm ends up hurting those around him, and more importantly, the Princess. Even though he’s continually on a journey to the Demon Castle and not physically with the Princess, we still have great moments with him and the Princess together as flashbacks and “nightmares” when the Princess is sleeping.

But even with all these great comedic characters that lead to great comedic moments, the best part about this show is the simple yet powerful message that the Princess says to the demon folk that she knows that they’re “all kind and good people.” And that’s the entire message of this show. Although we can easily group people into “good” and “evil’” based on our conventional past perceptions of these groups, we never know what these people, or demons, are like until we spend valuable time with each other as equals. Although it’s not a complex theme that challenges the viewer to spend time pondering on its ideals and flaws, it’s a rather good takeaway anyone can get from this anime to “imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes,” or to put it into simpler terms, “imagine yourself in the situation or circumstances of another person to understand or empathize with their perspective, opinion, or point of view.”

Although this anime is not the perfect experience, it establishes itself as a surprisingly solid watch from beginning to end, filled to the brim with wholesomely comedic moments and characters. I highly recommend this anime to anyone who needs a break from the deep and psychological a lot of anime tries to be and needs to binge a solid, wholesome series that will bring them some good laughs without thinking too hard about what they watch.____