Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「ハッピーエンドプリンセス」 (Happi Endo Purinsasu) by Sumire Uesaka
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「断頭台から始まるお姫様」 (Dantoudai kara Hajimaru Ohime-sama)
“The Princess Starting from the Chopping Block”
While spiled brats of dubious royal quality are already well-represented among this season and anime as a whole these days, never doubt the ability of the medium to turn out new takes on the latest hotness. There’s always room to shake things up, and as Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari shows, sometimes it doesn’t take much to stan out from the crowd.
As known from a glance via the RC preview, Tearmoon is basically what happens if you take otome villainess isekai and instead convert it into fantasy resurrection. Lead Mia Luna Tearmoon (Uesaka Sumire) is full royal kusogaki, emulating the best of France’s Ancien Regime, trying her hardest to upstage Marie Antoinette, and winding up getting the guillotine for her valiant efforts. And never once realizing why she’s getting the experience thanks to pure ignorance. It’s honestly a run of the mill setup, except for the fact Mia’s execution winds up throwing her back a few years into her prime brat phase with the knowledge of what fate has in store for her. Oh yes, pretty clear what the intention of this story will be going forward: this princess will be saving her kingdom if only to literally save her own head.
Given the relative convention of Tearmoon’s story the strength of the series will come from its characters and Mia too once again gives a good idea of what to expect. Although ostensibly rude and obnoxious, Mia’s awakening per say does reveal a sense of awareness which hints towards noticeable growth over time. Her normal outbursts over disliked food quickly get shelved thanks to memories. Her lashing out at servants brought under control knowing the lengths some of them will go for her as time progresses. It’s easy to think of scenes like this as cheap or shallow (particularly given this is an opener), but it does show that Tearmoon understands the limits of comedy and how it must be supported with proper story and character development. Remains to be seen just how well it sticks with that progression over time (Anne (Kusunoki Tomori) especially will be one to watch given her important supporting role), but so far all the pieces are present to yield something very fun (and funny) in the not-too-distant future.
Considering what Tearmoon already has on tap, I’m certainly interested seeing just where this one goes.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「Queen of the Night」by KanoeRana
End Card
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Considering that this seems to be a comedy, I am really surprised they opened with the MC getting guillotined and yet use the said guillotine as a gag at the same time. I do hope the comedy doesn’t get in the way of Mia’s development though, and hope the story treats her beheading as the serious subject it actually is as it goes on.
Also, hope it’s not a red herring, but it seems like it was Anne’s prayer that gave Mia a second chance at life. I am officially invested to see where this goes!
On your comment, I too think she’s probably inspired by Marie Antoinette with the idea of basically “what if Marie Antoinette was isekai’ed into France’s past”
Yeah I firmly suspect the author decided Marie Antoinette was cool enough to throw into a resurrection scenario if gifted with the knowledge of her ignorance. Not a bad concept all things considered because it does allow for a good deal of personal growth – just matter of seeing how well it’s executed (no pun intended haha).
There is actually a Marie Antonette isekai manga. A modern japanese office lady reincarnates and ends up in a fancy palace in the body of a young princess named Antonia. The MC assumes that she must have reincarnated into the some sort of otome game, probably as a villainess princess! She figures “hey I just need to avoid bullying anybody then I can easily avoid bad ends, after all I’m a beautiful princess now life is easy mode!”
And then one year after reincarnation her mother informs her she’ll be marrying the King of France, and it dawned on her that she did not reincarnate in an otome game, but rather in 1700s Austria.
The rest of the manga is about her trying to avoid the guillotine which extra hard, considering she marries into France with absolutely no political power.
I don’t want to come off as a horrible person, but at the very beginning of the episode, when we see Mia enjoying a cup of tea, the whole scene turns into a painting at the center of a revolt got me laughing. Happy was Mia, ignorant of the suffering of those below her. Mia sipped without worry—I bet the common folk wished Mia drank Hemp. (What Socrates drank.)
What I wanna know is if Mia is irredeemable. Should Mia be allowed to continue her life without time-traveling back to when she was twelve? To do better for her people and avoid execution by the guillotine, would she? A part of me says no. Mia can’t or won’t be able to see her death flags.
She’s not likely to be irredeemable just due to her nature and what she now knows. Much like you said Mia is ignorant, not arrogant: she was raised in a very sheltered home with every whim catered to, but when she got the first taste of seeing what the other side is like she reacted in a way which only helps her ultimate cause.
That exploration and understanding will be the foundation for this series, with the comedy serving to butter over its more crass elements. What will be interesting for me especially is how she acts once she finally has to personally deal with commoners (as the bit with Anne and the gold coin alluded to.)
This series has an identity crisis. Am I supposed to take this seriously or not?
You can’t do both serious and comedy, or at least if you do, it’s got to be done better than this.
You definitely aren’t supposed to take it seriously. I suppose it was a judgement the director had to make in terms of serious/comedy balance in the first episode because the serious stuff is absolutely pivotal to the rest of the story, but maybe a double-length episode would have set the tone better.
There are Anime that do mix both comedy and seriousness. Both Demon Slayer and Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru do all the time. If anything, Mia from Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari: Dantoudai kara Hajimaru, Hime no Tensei Gyakuten Story (…GOD, this is a long ****ing title.) seems to have a similar goofy personality as Catarina Claes from Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta.
As mentioned it’s not meant to be taken seriously. Debatable whether it could’ve been handled better (such as through flashbacks or more innuendo than showing), but it’s a hard balancing act when the entire series is premised on Mia wanting to avoid that outcome a second time running.