The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess

This arc has way more melodrama than I enjoy. Kinda dragging the whole show down for me

Yep, and MC behaves to much out of character. At least it will be the shortest.

At least for me Anis isn’t really acting out of character. She was heavily affected by what happened to Algard, and subsequently thrust into the royal politics which she hates a lot (and for good reason). Think we could have spent more time seeing her getting worn down, but otherwise I think it gets the point across.

The problem is, Anis was never shown as dumb and current situation has a whole bunch of less painful solutions.

Which ones, outside of the one suggested by Tilty?

For me, this feels like Anis is finally treating her position with the weight it deserves - and while that's a bad thing for her personally and it's not going to make her happy, it's always felt like Anis feels a bit of a disconnect from the reality of her life in Palettia. It's not that she treats it like a game (despite it feeling like an "otome game isekai" setting at first, intentionally), but by abdicating, she largely got to enjoy the perks of her position without the responsibility. And with the added bonus of being known as the "weird princess," she more or less got to do what she wanted.

None of that is Anis's fault, and I don't think it's a bad thing that she was pursuing her own dream. But if something happened to the king in the middle of the night, she could wake up on any given morning as Queen Anisphia, and I'm sure she knows that. She's choosing to fit herself back into that box rather than risk the royal family's position or the kingdom's stability now that there's no other option.

Of course, with Euphie in play, I'm sure they'll find a way to shake up Palettia while also finding personal happiness.

Edited by RedSavant on Mar 15th 2023 at 7:21:27 AM

The irony is that Anis has really become Al in this episode.

Trapped in a role that she can't escape, yet can never fully embody, she's forced to do stuff like marry someone she doesn't even want just to do the job. She's even rejecting Euphie's desire for communication too.

The look on Orphanse and Sylphine's face was brutal. It must hurt hearing your daughter say that not too long after your son told you he despised the entire world. They didn't notice Al's problem and they clearly didn't notice Anis' either. They must really feel like shit now.

Just from the top of my head.

1) She could play along with nobles (you know find some consort candidate but do not sleep with him and and just pretend she stopped doing magicology) but than pull Peter the Great. She is pretty strong herself and has commoners, the strongest mage in the kingdom and a vampire om her side after all. She has way more tools than her grandpa before.

2) More cinical variant (sorry GL fans), give them an heir they want but on her own terms and do what she wants when. Or just find a way to drag the whole thing untill her parents get anouther heir (they are pretty young still). In fact, it is clear that nobles are not worried about her being the only heir and just wanted to use the situation to insult her. If she actually used your brain, she could have just play them (or get rid of them) instead of taking this that seriously. They probably want to use the situation to get rid of magicology but if she is not a heir apparent anymore, she could do what she wants again.

3) Yes, she could actually use the Titlties solution and just adopt some fitting noblr as an heir (or her parents could do it). It would be odd if it was impossible due to the laws, but judging by the fact Euphy asked for this, it would have workled just fine with any other candidate with strong magic. Euphy only needed thr spirit contract because nobles hate her being the queen regnant almost as much as with Anis.

So, a coup in function if not in name, based entirely around her own personal strength, likely causing a civil war; an "on her own terms" that she can't control and is in no position to force; or do what Euphie is currently doing.

1. Unlike her grandfather, she can afford to do a coup as she has way more means for it. And noone says do it unprepeared.

2. What is the problem if her parents, for example, find the consort for her instead of noble council? They literarly just need a father who has a strong magic?

3. It is not. Euphy has to make a controversal spirit pact to proof her candidacy. Because she is also a girl and because high nobles are not to fond of her, not because it is an obligatory requirement for a monarch. Any other fitting candidat is better because:

A) They can proof their position without such drastic means. B) Euphy will not need to sacrifice things herself in Anis place.

I am sure therre are a few other candidats who will satisfy both parties.

Also, these are just options from the top of my head and they all do look better than what Anis planned. These whole situation is made just to make a plot reason for development the author wanted: make Euthy save Anis and make her reliant on "mana-transfer" (cosidering the end of the previous arc guess how it will be done).

Edited by Nachtwandler on Mar 16th 2023 at 8:34:45 AM

1. What means? Magicology is still not developed enough. There is no guarantee the commoners will rise in rebellion for her and she has little to no support among the nobility. She and her friends are strong, but few in number.

This can change given time but her enemies are not blind, deaf or dumb. If they notice her making moves, they'll forestall her. Even if it does go to plan, the end result will still be a civil war, which no one not even her would be able to control.

2. Her parents are not absolute rulers. They need the support of this faction to rule.

Anis is already at a disadvantage due to her previous behaviour, her lack of magic and promoting magicology. If the spirit faithful push their own king consort candidate, it will be tough for them to refuse, especially since they just got done disinheriting Algard and purging the Chatereuse family.

Even if her parents do find someone, this goes back to the same issue Al had with Euphie. Where would they find a nice noble boy who would be willing to engage in a fake marriage and be trusted enough not to sell her out? Even if they could find such a saint, it's still going to make Anis unhappy no matter what.

3. Adopting some noble child even with high magic is pointless. What gives the royal family the right to rule is being descended from spirit contractors. That's why Euphie has to go through the trouble of doing a spirit contract even though she's the daughter of a Duke with the best magic in the country.

Bringing in outside blood is tantamount to ending the authority of the royal line, which would lead to again, civil war.

Edited by Chaosjunction on Mar 16th 2023 at 11:17:21 AM

Basically, the difference between what Tilty suggested and what Euphie is doing is that Tilty is suggesting Anis simply adopt anyone she wants and then say "this is my heir, they're the next member of the royal family, deal with it." Tilty has very little respect for what the nobles want, and her advice is not very well suited for the actual political situation.

What Euphie is doing is getting the royal family to adopt her, so she's continuing the royal line on paper, while also getting the spirits to acknowledge that her bloodline is also blessed. Tilty's suggestion runs on going "this is what I'm doing, got a problem?" while Euphie's is "I think you'll find everything is in order, what exactly are your grounds for objecting?"

Euphie's solution satisfies the Nobility. But, it stomps all over Anis's self-identity, and Anis doesn't want Euphie to lose her humanity. So Its the opposite problem of Tilty's

Titly's solution satisfies Anis and Tilty and no one else.

Euphies solution satisfies everyone except the person she hoped it would satisfy.

thus neither work.

I will say, I don't know if this is intentionally hinting that Tilty is sweet on Anis, but I really like the tenderness she showed in this last episode. It felt like a subdued version of Rem's confession to Subaru in Re:Zero, if anything - an offer to be together and run away, knowing that the person would never accept because of their strong sense of duty.

Reading book 3 now. I'll post a more in depth review later along with some stuff the anime cut out and changed (there's a lot, some of it is good, other stuff is bad or confusing), but here's the basic review so far.

Book's not great. The anime cut out a few scenes with the characters, mostly Anis and her family, talking things out, but the problem in the book is that the same conversation happens maybe three times, and the characters repeat themselves a few times each time it happens. There's a good amount of depth to each character's feelings, but they're static and don't change particularly naturally.

The book gives a lot more context to the division between nobility and commoner, and why that's a thing - the anime frames it only as a matter of material classism and that's a terrible way to view it. Bad change.

If you thought Anis and Algard's philosophy argument consisted mostly of vague platitudes, generalized statements and Vibes, you haven't seen Euphie and Anis's disagreement yet. The book DOES give her more time to explain why she's fixated on inheriting but the anime looked at those four explanations and cut them all instead of cutting 3.

Lumi's explanation of spirit contracting is very different in the book and I expect they changed it because the anime doesn't touch much on the spirits, so losing memories is a much more personal tragedy.

Interestingly, in the book Anis runs to Tomas the smith's place instead of Tilty's. I much prefer the anime version because it helps reinforce Tilty's character, shows that they are friends despite it all, and gives them a chance to make up that they don't get in the book.

More later and some more thoughts, possibly once I've finished.

I need to get and read that.

Who on earth was asking why it was a thing? It's one of the most self-explanatory concepts out there.

Finished the book.

I stand by my earlier take that it's not very good. It has good broad strokes concepts and it's enjoyable on a Vibes level, but getting closer to the details highlights that surprisingly little is done with them. I know it's a light novel, but the characters stay a little too static in their feelings and motivations to draw out as much drama as this book wants to - thus characters repeating themselves.

I think this is a prose problem and not a translation problem - the book is extremely loose on its use of "magic." We've talked before about how Anis instills the word with a lot more concepts and associations than it necessarily has in Palettia, but the narration (which is from Anis) does too, which can lead to confusion.

The series does a bad job of establishing that, in reality, the area Palettia is in is supposed to be very dangerous, and full of monsters. The nobility's ability to use magic is part of a noblesse oblige sort of thing. A big part of magicology is meant to be weapon development to allow commoners to protect themselves. So there IS a qualitative difference, it's just poorly expounded upon.

Overall I think this series is definitely not at its best when it's trying to do human drama, and the characters definitely function better when they're allowed to be a bit broader and a bit less involved. I'm surprised to learn that there are more books after this one, since it ends pretty conclusively with an "annals of history" type summary and title drop about Queen Euphilia and Princess Anis's magical revolution and then a short "the adventure continues" epilogue with Anis and Euphie being cute. I don't know where it could go next and I'm not sure it needed to?

Although! We are on track for a big damn kiss and I'm cautiously optimistic that it might be presented better than in the book, since the Anis-Tilty talk was anime original (at least, some of it) and I enjoyed the feeling there. Guess we'll see on Thursday.

Yeah I think I generally agree (being anime-only) that the drama doesn’t really work that well because of its reliance on vague feelings being thrown around.

Edited by fillerdude on Mar 19th 2023 at 5:01:56 AM

I think all the characters have solid reasons to feel the way they do, but the interactions that actually make up the mechanics of the drama are very messily written, like the Anis and Algard fight.

Which isn't to say that everyone should be perfect at explaining what they feel and what they want, of course. But even in cases like that the characters' inability to explain themselves should help move the story along, instead of having them repeat the same points multiple times.

At this point I'm wondering if the manga might end up as the best adaptation of the story. The anime has some good oomph to it and I like the additions of more Tilty, but it cuts out a lot of the context and even some of the actual nature of things like spirit contracts (in the book, it's said that spirit contracts are made with a spirit inside one's soul, the spirit presence that allows you to use magic in the first place. The wish you make while contracting will then slowly fuse your soul into the spirit, until you're essentially a spirit possessing a body as a vessel, working in pursuit of that wish. Still, the voice acting and direction are good and help break up some of the more static talky scenes.

Meanwhile, the book is clumsily written and really makes the awkwardness of the philosophical arguments much more of a slog, since a lot of the time you only have dialogue to go off of. Anis and Euphie both get narration turns but there isn't too much to say about any differences in their narrative voice, though that could also be a translation issue.

We'll have to see. I think the manga is getting to Anis and Algard's duel soonish, so we'll see if it can help spruce up their argument.

I've been told that the scene at the beginning of episode 11 with Anis and the nobles was anime original, so I gotta give the point to the anime since that was one of the most effective scenes in the entire show.

It was, yeah. Anis also goes to hide at Tomas's forge in the book instead of to see Tilty, so I much prefer the anime version. It gives Tilty and Anis some time to talk about their disagreement, open up a bit, and reconcile, whereas otherwise Tilty only appears very briefly near the end of the book and their falling-out never gets discussed.

Episode 12: The battle for the throne commences. And ends in short order. As expected, Euphie wins.

Surprisingly, Anis admits to Euphie that she has memories of her past life. I'm not exactly sure why Euphie wasn't more surprised by that. This conversation flowed awkwardly into Anis having an existential crisis, but it's all good because THEY KISSED. Even Anis couldn't believe it so Euphie KISSES HER AGAIN. Then pushes her down on the bed because the night is still young. Hell yes.

Another surprise is that this finale was even more of a finale than I anticipated. By which I mean that a quick cut later, Euphie has already become a spirit contractor, and crowned queen. Then somehow convinces those yucky nobles to approve of thaumaturgy (really wish we saw more of how she did that) and hold a public demonstration of wonderful magic hoverbikes. Even the closing narration talks about Euphie and Anis as though they were historical figures. And as if that wasn't a lot already, for good measure, Euphie gets another kiss in. Whew!

Overall very satisfied with the kiss and explicit romantic confirmation, while not quite satisfied with everything else.

It sounds like they really kind of patched over some things, yeah.

For what it's worth, in the book, Euphie is stated to already have become a spirit contractor, possibly as early as the duel, but when she kisses Anis she drains her magic (because that's what spirits eat) and knocks her out. That's Tilty's reappearance in the book, when she's looking Anis over afterward.

I'm still looking for the manga to end up as the best version of this story, I think.

Edited by RedSavant on Mar 22nd 2023 at 7:29:49 AM

Loved the finale. Very satisfying ending.

No, they do show the spirit contract happening during the duel.