Mar 15, 2024
The premise for this anime had everything I thought I would like; an otome isekai is right up my alley and subverting the trope by making it a romance between the female lead and the villainess should have kept my attention. However, everything goes so wrong so quickly that the premise is entirely wasted.
To start with, the relationship between Rae and Claire is kinda fucked up. Maybe the tsundere archetype isn't for me, but my god it just feel like I'm just watching Claire get harassed by a psycho stalker the entire time. Considering the fact that we rarely get to hear Claire's inner dialogue
...
means there's no way for the viewer to know when she is enjoying Rae's company and when she is being smothered. It also completely contradicts the idea that Rae wants to prioritise her happiness. I just know that if Rae was a man it would give very much Mineta vibes.
Mid way through the show we find out that one of the main supporting characters has been in an incestuous relationship with her brother the entire time, and we are supposed to be happy with them being exiled together. And if that's not enough, them trying to make their incestuous relationship accepted in society resulted in the near-death of a student fighting for his rights to not be harassed by the upper-class, Claire and Thane. They don't even get blamed for this either, they just get shipped off so they can have their deformed incest babies in another country.
And at the end we get introduced to a character that is implied to have raped one of her servants and we're just supposed to gloss over that because she feels guilty. Are you fucking joking? And she acts as if it is the result of her thinking her feelings won't be returned and she just puts those feelings on Rae as if they didn't just meet like a week ago. Bestie you're the rapist, maybe stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and get yourself a prison sentence. Let us not forget the fact that in this universe a huge plot-point is that the upper-class nobles can get away with anything and the lower-class commoners have to just put up with it lest they get punished for questioning a noble. The rapist in question is a crown princess and the victim is a commoner servant. She said it herself that she knew she would get away with it. This is treated as so inconsequential for the rest of the show and I honestly couldn't fucking believe it.
The premise of this goddamn show is wasted because for whatever reason the writer decided that dedicating time to minimising incest and rape into almost insignificant crimes was more important than prioritising literally anything else. This was a chance for a positive, healthy lesbian relationship to be in the limelight when the representation is already so scarce, but then the show decides to compare a gay relationship to some of the worst crimes imaginable. What a waste of my brain cells.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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