Niehime to Kemono no Ou

Located at the end of the world, the Kingdom of Ozmargo is inhabited by beasts of all shapes and forms, ruled by a fearsome nameless king. After a hundred-year war between Ozmargo and the neighboring human kingdom ended, a peace treaty was signed: every year, a sacrifice must be sent to be devoured by the king on the night of revelation.

Sariphi is the 99th and latest human sacrifice. Although frail-looking, she neither fears the king nor has a family or home to return to should she manage to escape from her impending demise. Intrigued by the audacious girl, the king lets Sariphi roam around the palace despite the disapproval of his advisor, Anubis.

Little by little, the king and Sariphi begin to warm up to each other, but the night of revelation is fast approaching. Unbeknownst to them, the fateful day unleashes a series of events that will change the course of destiny of not only Sariphi and the king but also of their respective worlds.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sariphi Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Leonhart Main

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Lanteveldt Supporting

Hatanaka, Tasuku Japanese

Anubis Supporting

Terashima, Takuma Japanese

Amit Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Bennu Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Maalo Supporting

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Cy Supporting

Nukui, Yuka Japanese

Clops Supporting

Fujiwara, Natsumi Japanese

Jormungand Supporting

Kobayashi, Chikahiro Japanese

Usui, Hisato Producer

Fujishiro, Atsushi Producer

Suzuki, Kousuke Producer

Matsuoka, Takanori Producer

Reviews

Sep 27, 2023

Marinate1016

Recommended

Niehime is one of the most underrated anime of 2023 and it’s an absolute shame. This show has one of the best female MCs in recent memory. Along with a fantastic cast, rich world, political drama and a very well written romance.

Admittedly, Niehime grew on me. I wasn’t in love with it from the start. I liked the world, but the age gap between the two leads was.. a bit odd to say the least. However, as they were both developed and more contextual information revealed I honestly forgot I was ever even upset about it. Life is not always black and white and context ... matters in these situations. Sariphi and Leo’s forbidden love is so well developed and grounded that I’d go out on a limb and call it one of the best in modern shoujo.

Romance aside, the biggest selling point of Niehime is how strong and compelling a protagonist Sariphi is. Despite her being a human in a kingdom of beasts that despise her, she stands tall in the face of racism and wants not to abandon the kingdom, but make it a better place. Even though she has no magical abilities and lacks the physical strength that beasts have, she never backs down and is determined to change the culture of the kingdom. It’s always nice to see a female protagonist who isn’t waiting on someone to come save or bail her out, but making active strides to improve her situation and that of those around her.

Little by little, Sariphi melts the hearts of even the most steadfast bigoted beasts and recruits ally after ally to her side. Can’t stress enough how much I appreciate her character. She’s not a damsel in distress but the driving force behind so many events in the story. Acting as the perfect pillar of support for Leo.

Speaking of Leo, as I began to touch on earlier, he and Sariphi’s relationship is extremely well done. They both compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses perfectly. Despite coming from totally different backgrounds, we see that they have so much in common and are able to relate to each other in a way that no one else has before. Obviously there’s shades of beauty and the beast with their relationship, but it quickly separates itself from the Disney classic with its depth. Think of it as Belle and the Beast but with an actually well written relationship with way more substance. I loved seeing Sari and Leo’s teamwork develop over the course of the series. They have such a profound sense of trust with one another based on mutually shared hardship that makes it all feel more natural.

The world of Niehime is also extremely rich. The beast kingdom is diverse and full of various races who have been traditionally segregated and discriminated against. It’s not until Leo’s reign that equality was guaranteed for all. The political intrigue and negotiations between Ozmargo and other constituent domains was fun to watch. It’s hard being king when not everyone respects you. It creates some unique challenges for Leo that with Sariphi’s help, he’s able to overcome. The human realm was only briefly touched on in the anime, but also has its own unique history, culture and political situation that I wish we got more of. Hopefully in a second season that will be expanded upon especially with the lore drops that we got towards the end.

There’s a ton of really good supporting characters in Niehime as well. As I said, Sariphi makes a lot of friends and creates important political alliances in her role as acting queen. I really liked how well written most of the characters are. They all feel unique and play big roles in the story. What they all have in common is that Sariphi gradually melted the ice around their hearts.

HanaKana gives one of her best performances as Sariphi. She perfectly captures this “I may be cute, but I’m not a pushover” energy and I couldn’t imagine the story without her. Satoshi Hino’s Leo is great as are the other characters. There’s so much energy they’re able to convey in scenes which only heightens the emotional impact.

There’s surprisingly good sakuga in the show as well. While action scenes aren’t the primary focus, in the few big fights that are in the show, they’re all great. A reminder that JC staff are behind the show.

Unlike many other shoujo stories, Niehime doesn’t rely exclusively on romance and cutesy tropes to sell itself. It instead focuses on creating an immersive world, well written characters and a genuinely gripping story with a strong female lead. I think we only scratched the surface of this series and I can’t wait to start reading it. It is without a doubt one of my favourite anime of the year and it’s a shame it didn’t get the attention it deserved. Wednesdays may have been packed in both seasons it aired, but it was near the top of my heart.

Niehime gets 9 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Mar 1, 2025

Zeno_Artaxerxes

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (7/24 eps)

A romance anime between the kind of beasts and a human girl meant as a sacrifice for the beast's kingdom. A cute, sweet, with a bit of fluffy, forbidden love story that has a Disney feel to it.

I may be in a minority here, so you should read this review knowing that I dropped the anime after finishing episode 7 to switch to manga, and the reason is the following:

Since the beginning of the anime, I felt a bit wrong about the pacing of the anime. Scenes would switch from one important moment to another without much build up in between them, characters would get ... so close to each other without seeing them interact much, so I had to assume they did it behind the scenes or something, sometimes deep things wouldn't get explain enough and would happen and go too fast, and that is not that good for me unfortunately. Then when I reached episode 7 and finished it, and in consequence, finished an arc, I decided to go read the last parts of this arc in the manga, as it felt wrong again, especially towards the end... And suprise surprise, I was right. They skipped scenes. Alas, scenes that might be considered not important, as they seem like scenes that can be missed and not lose much when it comes to the main plot, but for me those are the scenes I've been feeling like they were missing and made things feel wrong. Scenes that put more life in that world, more world building and character development shown, that will get me more attached to the characters.

I get that time is short and they need to put everything inside 24 eps, but for me, especially for a story that I consider pretty basic in terms of plot, the action isn't that important as the journey of it. I don't need to be shown only the main scenes, that contribute to the main plot, and nothing else, because that way I am feeling like I look at a summary of some sorts, or just a gift to the manga readers... which is lowkey going against what anime is these days: an ad for the source material which shows only the main action and that's it. But when I saw the appreciation on the internet and the mark this anime had, I thought that maybe this wasn't one of those, but it seems I was fooled a bit. While this anime doesn't feel like an 100% ad for the source material, the 24 eps limit I think made them skip scenes, and a bit too many for my taste.

I am not sure how much they skipped before this or after, maybe it was just this part and I just happened to catch it right now, but given that I had this feeling from the beginning, maybe they skipped more. Can't say for sure, but it was enough to make me want to read the manga and not continue watching the anime.

Story: 7 -- Story is pretty basic. Forbidden love between the King of Beasts and a Human girl that was meant a sacrifice for him. The king falls for her, with a good motive, and things keep happening from there as he tries to protect her and keep her close, and she wants that too. But it is a bit too basic and the presentation made me feel like it is wrong in a way. The ideas were there but the execution was lacking a bit for my taste.

Art: 8 -- Art is done well, calm type of art that has a nice feeling to it.

Music: 8 -- The songs are done pretty well as well

Characters: 7 -- The character seem very interesting and the world as well. All have some depth to them, but again, the presentation was lacking and a lot of stuff became either very superficial, or when something deep happened, because of the lack of build up, it felt disingenuous to me...

Enjoyment: 7 -- It was a goodish watch

Overall: 7

Right now it has 7.94 from 27.648 votes Ranked #750 Popularity #2399 Members 87,960 as of 02/03/2025.
While I may have critiqued this anime a bit here, if you really want to watch anime and not read manga, I still recommend this anime for those that want to see some sweet, calm and easy to watch forbidden love type of story, which (as of where I dropped it) is still going strong with the good vibes/feels to it, and are okay with the level of details and the presentation of them in the anime. I personally wasn't, so I will be switching to manga and restart from chapter 1, as I want to get the full experience of the story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 29, 2024

LURMERFUR

Not Recommended

I don't know what I was expecting. I started watching because I saw the rating was at 7.99 and I thought this story would be somewhat similar to "Mahoutsukai no Yome". As cliche as a story like "beauty and the beast" would be, I thought if it was a boring story then the art must be fantastic since something made the rating go up to 7.99.... but I thought wrong.


First, the art is just sub-par (4/10). Nothing unique. The 1st episode showed the motions of the characters being somewhat fluid, but just as expected, as soon as it reached the 2nd ep it turns all ... robotic and stiff.

Second, the story is the same old trope of a beastly main male lead who is timid around the fragile female lead. Honestly!.. their relationship formed too quickly on the first episode leaving no room for development. (5/10)

Lastly, I searched all the torrent sites and could only find the english dub. One of the main reasons why I dropped this series.


Overall I don't recommend (4/10)

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Niehime to Kemono no Ou Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) KANLen09 - Apr 19, 2023	64 replies	by AoButa16 »» Mar 3, 7:06 AM
	worth watching? Kitsune_089 - Oct 9, 2024	13 replies	by Charleeiza »» Jan 29, 2:47 PM
	Poll: Niehime to Kemono no Ou Episode 24 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 27, 2023	64 replies	by Kixyy »» Sep 24, 2024 3:38 AM
	Poll: Niehime to Kemono no Ou Episode 23 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 20, 2023	26 replies	by HiljainenSipuli »» Aug 21, 2024 8:12 PM
	Poll: Niehime to Kemono no Ou Episode 22 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 13, 2023	18 replies	by HiljainenSipuli »» Aug 21, 2024 7:48 PM