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[series:4753#628] | ||||||
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(Two episodes watched): A new take on the 'I am trapped in a video game as a character who is the main villain and will meet a terrible end if nothing changes' genre. Except this doesn't seem to be a video game at all, instead some completely unexplained time travel has occured. That could have been intriguing, but I got a very bad feeling when the grim opening scene of Mia's imprisonment and execution suddenly was replaced by a sort of goofy comedy. The messsage was that Mia's very real problem would barely be taken seriously--she initially dismisses it all as a dream. The only proof she has that it really happened is that she still has the blood spattered diary she kept as a condemned prisoner. But even so, she doesn't ask any questions like how in the world this time travel might have happened and who or what might be behind it. And it's not clear if she has really changed; about the worst of her excesses as ruler (it seems that she was the absolute ruler, not her father or husband) was striking servants who annoyed her, and she was too weak to really harm them. Was she really moved by the loyalty one of these former maids continued to display even after she had been deposed? Or is she just trying to change things out of pure self-interest, because she doesn't want to be decapitated again? I got little or no indication that much care had been taken to send us a message. Instead this felt almost like a children's version of the 'I am trapped as a villain' genre. I think it was a big mistake to attach a comedy to a real (alternate) world story of genuine cruelty and violence rather than just a video game. I have no confidence that this story will get at all deep or meaningful, and the comedy is nothing to write home about, so I see no purpose in watching. So I watched another episode. The premise had definite potential, even if it apparently wasn't exploiting it, and Mia is sort of likeable, so I hoped my first impressions had been wrong and things would improve. But episode two only reinforced them. It's all very shallow: the economist who has been warning that the Empire is headed for financial disaster goes from considering Mia irresponsible and part of the problem to worshipping her in the blink of an eye after she makes clear that she knows the problem really exists. Mia's solution to a looming epidemic was simplistic and it was hard to believe it would really work in a country with 18th century technology (what good is a hospital when nobody even knows that germs exist?). And what was the point of subsidizing a 'personal author'? Is Mia already the ruler of the Tearmoon Empire at age twelve? There's no mention of her parents. This show would make more sense if the evil Princess really had been replaced by a completely different person, perhaps from modern-day Japan, because the new Mia has virtually nothing in common with her old self. And a radical change of personality like that is also hard to believe. This is another show of the sort which I feel that once presented with the basic premise, I could write a better plot than the makers of this anime did. Last updated Saturday, November 25 2023. Created Thursday, November 09 2023. | ||||||||
