Tag: The Magical Revolution of The Reincarnated Princess and The Genius Young Lady

Posted on in anime, Anime Orbit Weekly

Anime Orbit Seasonal Check-in: Beyond the Royal Rainbow in THE MAGICAL REVOLUTION OF THE REINCARNATED PRINCESS & THE GENIUS YOUNG LADY

Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week.

Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.

It’s not common, but it happens; an anime that is decidedly fine but not great will unexpectedly just tap into something: a raw vein of resonant or intense emotion, a particularly strong theme, an exceptionally charismatic character will appear, etc. In doing this, the show goes supernova, breaking itself out of whatever little genre-box it’s stuck in and becoming something pretty unique—or at least interesting—in the process. If not permanently, at least for a while. Thus, we have the anime adaptation of The Magical Revolution of The Reincarnated Princess & the Genius Young Lady, a series that has been on Magic Planet Anime before, though not actually in its anime form.

I haven’t covered the series’ anime adaptation until this point because, frankly, until today, I wasn’t terribly impressed with it. I fell off following the manga not long after writing that original Manga Shelf column. And since then, Magical Revolution—MagiRevo, to its friends—has stuck in my mind, certainly, but not been at the forefront of it. Its anime, in particular, I have been a bit down on; just by being an anime, it has the obvious baked-into-the-format disadvantage of simply being of fixed, linear length, meaning that the balancing act between the more lighthearted yuri elements of the series and the more serious, dramatic, and intrigue-driven plot of the series has not always been easy to keep up, given that it’s stripped of the flexibility presented by reading a manga nor novel at one’s own pace. Sometimes, it has felt like watching two anime glued together. But no longer! Over its past few episodes, MagiRevo has largely discarded any pretense of being light and fluffy and has dived headlong into some surprisingly big ideas. Any feeling of trying to split the difference is long in the rearview by now.

To very briefly get the uninitiated up to speed: after what I previously discussed in the Manga Shelf column, MagiRevo starts getting into the story of Anis’ (Sayaka Senbongi) brooding younger brother Algard (Shougo Sakata). It was clear from day one that Algard was up to something, but over the course of, in particular, episodes 8 and 9, the series paints a compelling portrait of a man who is deeply troubled by the feudal realities of the world he lives in, and who takes drastic steps in reaction to them. It’s not long before he’s literally ripping the magical power out of supporting character and basically-a-vampire Lainie (Hina Youmiya), leaving her for dead in the process, and attempting to stone-cold murder his sister to secure his ascension to the throne.

This goes poorly for Prince Al, who at this point has basically ruined his own life as part of this harebrained plot to get Anis out of the picture. The tragic thing is that his motives are quite sympathetic! We see him moved by the plight of the poor, and furious at how his fellow nobles turn up their noses at those commoners. But tragically, he has no real idea of how to turn that righteous indignation into an actual plan to fix things. He conflates these systemic issues with his own complicated jealousy of his sister, and throws any real shot at repairing the underlying problems of the show’s world away for petty score-settling. He is, honestly, pretty lucky to get out of the whole ordeal alive at the end of the arc. Although being exiled to the kingdom’s borderlands ensures he won’t be playing a major role in the plot again any time soon.

Look at how smug he is about it.

That exile creates a new problem, though. With Algard out of the picture, Anis is once again the kingdom’s only valid heir. Her father, Orphanse II, restores her hereditary rights, and Anis is suddenly faced with the prospect of being forced into a queenly role that she neither wants nor is suited for. Perhaps surprisingly, she accepts all of this without much of a fight, resigning herself to her “duty” to the kingdom and to the other nobles, in spite of the fact that it’s not what she wants and that she isn’t the right person for the job anyway.

There’s an element of sad irony here; Anis, a genius in what is basically her world’s version of a STEM field, can’t seem to quite pick apart the systemic issues that her brother could. (We don’t get a great sense of what Anis actually thinks of the whole socioeconomic setup of her kingdom. She clearly likes the commoners as people, but it’s not clear if she really understands what makes them commoners in the first place the same way her brother did.) Algard, of course, wasn’t smart enough to come up with a way to solve those issues. One gets the sense that if they had been working together from the start, things would be much more on-track at this point, but complex interpersonal problems have gotten in the way, and the situation, as it stands at the end of episode 10, is very complicated all around.

This leaves Euphie in quite the spot, too. Episode 10 does a wonderful job of capturing just how powerless Euphie feels to really help Anis in any meaningful way. The succession issue is her problem too, since she loves Anis—she actually explicitly says as much here for the first time, no subtext here—and can’t stand to see her making forced smiles through the whole process of preparing for queenship. (This seems to mostly involve winning over the country’s nobility, which, given what we’ve seen of them, and given that we already know that they hate Anis because she can’t do magic, would seem like profoundly thankless work even if the show didn’t outright say as much.) She eventually goes to curse scholar and only slightly toxic friend of Anis, Tilty (Yuu Sasahara), for advice, and Tilty eventually gets it out of her that it’s not just that Euphie can’t solve Anis’ problems, it’s that Anis’ problems are her own, given how close they are. It’s worth reiterating the feeling of powerlessness captured here; the inadequacy, the friction between Euphie’s own feelings and the outside world. It’s surprisingly intense stuff, especially given that it’s mostly conveyed solely through dialogue, which, it’s worth noting, is wonderfully voice-acted.

Between Euphie’s feelings, Anis’ situation, and Algard’s arc that led up to that situation, the show also does a pretty good job of exploring how the systems that create the upper classes tend to strip even those people they’re intended to privilege of genuine happiness. Every single one of these characters is a landed and titled noble, wealthy in ways that you or I cannot really imagine, and they are all absolutely fucking miserable. It takes a deft hand to make that kind of thing actually sympathetic.

All in all, MagiRevo has become dark, fascinating, and surprisingly heady for something that really seemed like it wasn’t going to ever amount to much more than a power fantasy. (A gay power fantasy, which is a thing worth having, but a power fantasy nonetheless.) Episode 10 leaves us with the introduction of a new character—the mysterious Lumi, whose spirit contracts may offer a way out of Anis’ situation, but there are clearly some strings attached we’re not totally privy to yet—and a lot of unanswered questions. And, hey, on top of all that, there’s also a pretty spectacular bit in episode 9 where the maid Ilia (Ai Kakuma) saves Lainie’s life by making out with her. That’s pretty great too.

Absolutely bitchin’.

There is still a very promising year ahead of us, as far as anime goes, so I don’t know how many people—myself included!—will really remember MagiRevo’s surprisingly strong turn here come December. (Honestly, even if it totally flames out in its final two episodes, having a strong middle section is noteworthy enough, given how many single cour anime manage to have a noticeably weak one.) And fans of the original light novels, or even just those who’ve kept up with the manga, won’t be as shocked, of course, but the raising-of-stakes here is pretty great all around, and it’s taken MagiRevo from a show that’s decidedly okay to one that’s absolutely worth keeping an eye on. In a season this quiet, things like this have a chance to stand out that they might not otherwise get, but even in a stronger season, something like this would be worth taking note of. Mark MagiRevo down for “most improved since its premiere.”

A Note: I have COVID-19 at the moment. I think I’m through the worst of the infection, but that’s why content has been so scarceon the site lately, and it will probably continue to be irregular at best for a while longer. Hoping to be fully recovered by the end of the season so I can get on top of next season’s premieres! But, I don’t want to promise anything. If you’d like to help, now more than ever, I would appreciate donations at the links below.

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All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, The Manga Shelf

The Manga Shelf: The Exuberant Lesbian Wizard Science of THE MAGICAL REVOLUTION OF THE REINCARNATED PRINCESS AND THE GENIUS YOUNG LADY

The Manga Shelf is a column where I go over whatever I’ve been reading recently in the world of manga. Ongoing or complete, good or bad. These articles contain spoilers.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; totally average person from our world dies and gets reincarnated as someone of note in a stock JRPG-style fantasy universe. This is, fundamentally, the rock that the modern iteration of the isekai genre is built on. There are many, many variations of it, but the central premise remains familiar to anyone who has even a slight familiarity with modern anime.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and The Genius Young Lady, monstrously long title and all, is really only different in one key way. Our protagonist—and her obligatory love interest—are both girls.

Yes, it’s true, a yuri fantasy isekai. There are a couple of these. I’m in Love with the Villainess is well-liked, and The Executioner and Her Way of Life has an anime airing right now. Revolution Princess is a bit simpler than either of those, though. It is, at least going by the nineteen chapters currently available in English, a more straightforward heroic fantasy. (That’s nineteen chapters of the manga, for the record. It’s based on a light novel, presumably much farther along, by Piero Karasu.) It also draws a bit on the “tech boost” subgenre, a style wherein the hero uses their modern knowledge to fast-track technological development in their new world. It’s a fraught, and frankly, very silly, style, but that doesn’t much matter here. We haven’t really seen many fruits of this pursuit of better living through magitek yet, and indeed some part of the series’ point seems to be in illustrating how difficult doing such a thing would actually be. But I risk getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the basics.

Anisphia (“Anis” for short) is the princess of a roughly medieval European-ish kingdom somewhere in a fantasy world. She used to be someone else, in another life. We don’t learn much about that “someone else,” but we do learn, crucially, that she was obsessed with the idea of magic. Now living in a world where it’s a reality, she’s hellbent on learning as much about it as she can. (Credit here, the scene of young Anis’ personality being “built” puzzle piece by puzzle piece, and finally completing as her past life memories come rushing back to her, is an intriguingly poetic visual.)

Because of a condition, she can’t actually use magic herself, directly. But over the course of her young life, she studies it extensively, becoming something of a magical mad scientist, creating useful gadgets for herself and inventing an entire field of study; a sort of “applied science of magic” called magicology. If that all seems a little dry to you, early parts of the manga are indeed a bit so. Things get more interesting when we’re introduced to Anis’ co-protagonist.

The daughter of a duke, one Euphyllia (“Euphy”), is renounced by the man she was betrothed to. That man? Anis’ older brother, the kingdom’s prince. It’s not totally clear why he’s dumping Euphy—he claims she was talking badly to a lady-friend of his who he seems to have far stronger feelings for, but the situation seems more complicated than that and we don’t learn all the details—but he’s doing it very publicly, destroying her reputation in the process.

Cue Anis, flying in on a magic broomstick of her own design. In an absurd—even in-universe—turn of events, Anis sees this as an opportunity. She reasons that if her older brother doesn’t need Euphy anymore, maybe Euphy should come with her instead. None of the nobles present are particularly okay with this, but Anis does manage to (eventually) convince the only person whose opinion on the subject really matters; Euphy herself.

Even this early on, Anis’ spur-of-the-moment decision to pick up this random disgraced woman as her (we soon learn) lab assistant is strange, but Anis is a beaming ray of pure personality, and it’s hard both for the other characters and for us the audience to not be charmed by her. Her sudden absconding with the Duke’s daughter somehow manages to scan as romantic.

Anis is, in general, an endearing protagonist, although not a flawless one. She’s charming when taken with the magic of her world, which she’s singlehandedly wrought into a science mostly by herself. She has an enthusiasm for admiring her own handiwork (sometimes to a positively Dexter’s Laboratory-ish degree).

But she also has a cool side. She was born without the ability to use magic naturally, and so Sciences her way around problems that would ordinarily be solvable with “regular” spellcasting. It’s easy to be cynical about this kind of thing nowadays, but Revolution Princess sells this characterization very well, partly by making it clear how into her Euphy is, and partly by cutting it with her general immaturity to not make her too perfect. She can occasionally come across as remote and, when pursuing her interests, reckless.

(There’s also the matter that her disregard for the spirits that are responsible for the world’s magic system, and the stones they leave behind that she uses to power her devices, does feel kind of Reddit Atheist-y at points. Thankfully it doesn’t come up enough to be a real problem.)

Euphy, meanwhile, is so dazed by the sudden shakeup in her life that it takes a while for her to know what to do with herself. She knows she likes Anis, at least in some way. She knows that all the training she did to become the future queen—remember, Anis’ brother is a crown prince—was for naught. She feels directionless and adrift. Anis doesn’t entirely get this, and the two come into conflict a few times over it. Anis, you see, is more than content to let Euphy do what she likes, but since she doesn’t know what “what she likes” even is, it just makes her feel restless.

They come to an understanding during of the manga’s first—and currently only—big, dramatic arc, wherein Anis decides to try stopping a rampaging dragon. Why? Well, aside from the fact that if left unchecked it might kill a lot of people, she wants the magical stone it carries within it to make more magitek gadgets. Fair enough. There’s a whole other slate of stampeding monsters to take care of, too, and Anis gets to really show off her action heroine chops here. (For those of you who, like me, just enjoy watching anime girls go full stone-cold killer, this is probably enough to sell the manga alone.)

The fight with the dragon is a visual treat, artist Harutsugu Nadaka‘s compositional skill is really something to behold in general, and he knocks the climactic battle scene here out of the park. I could easily fill this whole article with examples, and the dragon itself is worth highlighting; all shadowy wings beating the air, teeth and claws.

But I have to say my personal favorite is this absolutely bonkers page where Anis uses one of her gadgets, a magic dagger, to split the dragon’s breath in two.

These would be the obvious highlights of any hypothetical anime adaption as well, but don’t consider Nadaka a one-trick pony who’s only good at fight scenes. He can also excellently portray say, warm intimacy or imposing projection equally well, and it is this that gives the manga most of its visual strength. It’s immersive in a way that’s all too easy to take for granted.

When Euphy saves Anis from her first, botched run at the dragon, the princess is undeterred, and the panel makes her look positively majestic. You can practically see her cape flapping in the wind, feel the breeze blowing, and smell the sulfur and burnt fabric. It’s only natural that this eventually leads to that page of Anis splitting the dragon’s breath above. How could someone this confident not be able to do the impossible?

This is the difference between a relationship that feels convenient and one that feels real, and it’s here where Anis and Euphy seem to finally “click” with each other for good. The general sentiments here are old—far older than the manga format itself—but they’re expressed very well. Reading Revolution Princess, I get why Euphy and Anis are into each other, and the visuals play a huge part in selling that. At a ball, some weeks later and held in celebration of Anis’ victory, Euphy straight-up confesses. I’ve seen a lot of confession scenes over the course of my time reading manga, and I have to say that this is one of the sweetest. I absolutely love how we get to see a rare shot of Anis being totally, sincerely flummoxed by someone else’s actions, the brave isekai heroine reverts to a blushing schoolgirl in the face of such strong feelings. (Note also how this scene and the one immediately above mirror each other. I like that, it’s a nice visual touch.)

I’d tell you more—because goodness dear readers, do I ever want more people to pick this up—but in truth, there isn’t much more, at least not yet. Revolution Princess is still a fairly young serialization, and as good as it’s been so far, I feel as though its best chapters are ahead of it. I can only hope it picks up the following it deserves. In addition to its obvious appeal to the WLWs of the world (or just anyone who likes a good romance), there are other, intriguing plots forming in the background; dragon prophecies, jealous older siblings, and and an eccentric girl who “collects curses.” A world is being built here, and while Anis and Euphy are at the center of it, they aren’t the only interesting parts of it.

I often lament that so much yuri focuses solely on the romantic aspect. I like romance (I’m covering two romance anime this very season!), but having some other plot as well definitely helps things feel more fleshed-out and lived in. In general, I’m fond of this current wave of yuri isekai manga, and I hope that Executioner is not the last to get an anime adaption. Stories like this are built on old foundations, but Revolution Princess is a breath of exhilarating, magical fresh air.

Update: If you liked this article, be sure to check out my writeup on the anime!

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All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.