The World is Still Beautiful
Feb. 6th, 2021 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSo I was recced this as a sweet, funny fantasy m/f romance anime. And it is! ...if you're up for shota (sexualised tween boys) Which I generally am not! So my feelings are very mixed.
The setup: the female lead is a spunky teen princess with magical powers from a tiny pseudo-Asian island nation who comes to a huge pseudo-European colonising country as an arranged bride for the cold, dictatorial, secretly traumatised tsundere Sun King. He is rude, controlling, and a bit sexually skeevy, but has a good heart and quickly becomes devoted to her. She slowly teaches him to open his heart and learn to love the world, while he teaches her to be a powerful queen, and over time they form an affectionate and mutually supportive marriage.
He is also. ELEVEN. YEARS. OLD.
The opening credits give a fair idea of the dynamic
I got attached to the setup and female lead before his youthfulness was revealed, and after some googling reassured myself that he was just a very short 15ish to her much taller 18ish. A little squicky, especially given all the long lingering shots over his small semi-naked body, but I was enjoying it otherwise. But he is drawn so small that I looked more thoroughly and apparently the mangaka changed her mind and changed him from 15 to 11 as the manga progressed. And I mean, age is just a number when it comes to anime, especially when it's inconsistent like this, and he sounds and acts more like a 15 year old. And I have great difficulty believing an EIGHT YEAR OLD acting like he does in flashbacks to the start of his kingship, even with anime ages. And while there's the implication of mutual sexual attraction all they do by the end of the anime is kiss. But also...nnng.
The life of the anime het fan into male leads who are androgynous/shorter/younger etc but squicked by shota is suffering. At least these two act like peers, a lot of shota-y shoujo/otome has the boy be super innocent and childlike and the girl is very mothering. Not that...there aren't a lot of parallels drawn between her and his dead mother he's obsessed with...
Asides from all that there's a moderate amount of Unfortunate Sexist Humour around sexual harassment etc.
But if you can deal with all that (or are into that!), it's good for what it is, and available on Crunchyroll. The fantasy setting is a bit silly and shallow but mildly interesting, the side characters are fun etc. I mostly enjoyed it, even if I had to keep thinking "HE'S FIFTEEN IT'S FINE" a lot. If he'd been like half a head taller and 16 to her 19 (there being a notable age gap does create an interesting dynamic) and maybe a little less prone to CLIMBING INTO BED WITH HER NAKED I'd have been happier, but all the stuff I found squicky is a feature not a bug to the target audience, so. It is what it is.
The setup: the female lead is a spunky teen princess with magical powers from a tiny pseudo-Asian island nation who comes to a huge pseudo-European colonising country as an arranged bride for the cold, dictatorial, secretly traumatised tsundere Sun King. He is rude, controlling, and a bit sexually skeevy, but has a good heart and quickly becomes devoted to her. She slowly teaches him to open his heart and learn to love the world, while he teaches her to be a powerful queen, and over time they form an affectionate and mutually supportive marriage.
He is also. ELEVEN. YEARS. OLD.
The opening credits give a fair idea of the dynamic
I got attached to the setup and female lead before his youthfulness was revealed, and after some googling reassured myself that he was just a very short 15ish to her much taller 18ish. A little squicky, especially given all the long lingering shots over his small semi-naked body, but I was enjoying it otherwise. But he is drawn so small that I looked more thoroughly and apparently the mangaka changed her mind and changed him from 15 to 11 as the manga progressed. And I mean, age is just a number when it comes to anime, especially when it's inconsistent like this, and he sounds and acts more like a 15 year old. And I have great difficulty believing an EIGHT YEAR OLD acting like he does in flashbacks to the start of his kingship, even with anime ages. And while there's the implication of mutual sexual attraction all they do by the end of the anime is kiss. But also...nnng.
The life of the anime het fan into male leads who are androgynous/shorter/younger etc but squicked by shota is suffering. At least these two act like peers, a lot of shota-y shoujo/otome has the boy be super innocent and childlike and the girl is very mothering. Not that...there aren't a lot of parallels drawn between her and his dead mother he's obsessed with...
Asides from all that there's a moderate amount of Unfortunate Sexist Humour around sexual harassment etc.
But if you can deal with all that (or are into that!), it's good for what it is, and available on Crunchyroll. The fantasy setting is a bit silly and shallow but mildly interesting, the side characters are fun etc. I mostly enjoyed it, even if I had to keep thinking "HE'S FIFTEEN IT'S FINE" a lot. If he'd been like half a head taller and 16 to her 19 (there being a notable age gap does create an interesting dynamic) and maybe a little less prone to CLIMBING INTO BED WITH HER NAKED I'd have been happier, but all the stuff I found squicky is a feature not a bug to the target audience, so. It is what it is.
