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I write this review with a pained heart, as I am a fan of the light novel.

Now, I am a huge fan of this series, having bought the light novels when they released in English. When I heard there would be an anime adaptation, you can bet I was super hyped. Unfortunately, the anime given to us is a shit show at best.

Firstly, the plot is all over the place. I understand that as an anime adaptation, they have to cut some bits so that they can fit everything in. Yet the way they did this ruined the story by messing up the flow. Events ... that should've been shown are nowhere to be found. The whole getting transported to another world scene can only be found in the opening (which is also mediocre), resulting in a feeling of being thrust into a story midway. It's like jumping into a sequel of a game without having played the first, a very jarring feeling.

The largest complaint I have with this anime are the monsters. They are a CGI monstrosity. Of course, not all are CGI, and the difference in quality shows when you compare the two. However, you spend barely any time with the hand drawn monsters, while every boss type that you spend nearly the entire episode with are CGI shit shows. Even in fight scenes whenever the characters interact with the monsters it just look extremely unnatural.

Sound wise it is mediocre. Voice acting feels off at times with the grunts, and the sounds of the monsters makes my ears bleed.

Characters are also pretty damn bad. Hajime goes from zero to hero in like 5 seconds and it just doesn't make sense. With the novel you can read their thoughts which made the transition much more natural. Here, he goes from wimpy to a bad ass like it was nothing in an extremely unnatural way. A missed chance to develop his character. The other characters we barely spend anytime with. Even Yue, the heroine is pretty one dimensional, where your first impression of her is her entire character.

Overall, as a fan of this series I cannot in good conscience, give this anime anything more than a 4. Even this score is biased because of my feelings for the light novel. Avoid the anime and read the light novel if you can.

Brundage no Mahou no Shiro is a short 5 chapter story about a village girl named Adrienne, who has been kidnapped by an evil magician prince, named Charles Donatian as he wishes to have a baby with her to pass on his magical power and secrets etc. In a way I thought it was like Beauty and the Beast, but once you've read it, you can tell the story of course falls short of the Disney masterpiece and ends with being extremely average.

Story: The story was decent, but as it just jumped straight into where Adrienne was already in love with the Prince, I ... felt there was no drama or a chance for us to get really attached to the characters. Although it only has 5 chapters (+1 extra chapter for a total of 6) the stories are pretty much 5 one shots starring the same characters in different situations with no advance to the plot except that they love each other. The situations themselves were very unique, with different worlds and things like that so it wasn't boring, but it wasn't anything outstandingly spectacular. Also the situations may have been unique, but the outcomes were extremely predictable which just made it boring. The story overall was average with decent moments here and there.

Art: The art was decently drawn, with the shoujo styled drawing which we have all seen before. Was good, but as we had already seen before it wasn't anything special. The characters were well drawn, as well as teh backgrounds so I felt there was nothing lacking. The art overall was good and complimented the story well.

Character: One of the worst things about this short series was definitely the characters as there was no development whatsoever. We were plunged straight into a story where the girl had already accepted living with the prince and had fallen in love with him. The series could have been great if they gave us the character development between the main two characters but they threw away that chance and gave us stories where we knew they would just say they love each other in the end.

Overall I felt the manga series was very typical, and not something you would read if you loved romance. Yes it is a romance manga, but you won't find heart throbbing moments or kawaii characters that you can get attached too. I recommend this manga series for people who just want something to read, but for people who want real romance I suggest they look elsewhere as they will not find much here.