Mushikaburi-hime

Simply put, this show was just not for me. I’m all for more shoujo anime being out in the anime world, but this was not the best showing of what the shoujo genre can offer. It’s just a simple story in a royalty setting, where someone who doesn’t really belong tries to fit in, and people get jealous because she’s the prince’s fiancée. It’s quite the bland story with a very straight forward romance, and boring politics that I couldn’t bring myself to care about. STORY: In a nutshell, Elianna Bernstein, a noble from the Sauslind family, which was not the most renowned family out there, isinvited by the Crown Prince, Christopher Selkirk Asherald, to become his fiancée, in exchange for being able to enter the royal archives filled with books to satisfy her craving to read, as she’s a bookworm. Elianna believes the relationship is just one devoid of real love, but just convenience, so she constantly thinks that she’s no match for Christopher, and that she’s a burden to him. This sentiment from Elianna lingers for most of the series, and eventually, she does try to prove that she is worthy of the prince’s hand in marriage, but these doubts in her mind constantly hold both her, and the show back, because it just dances around this theme, and is quite slow in developing effectively. ART: It looks fine, though the movement is quite limited. I would have expected a bit more from Madhouse, but they haven’t been nearly as good of a studio for quite a while now. MUSIC: Not very noticeable, the OP and ED are quite generic and average, and so is the soundtrack. CHARACTERS: By far, Elianna does have the best development out of all the characters, but it’s still quite slow. She learns over time that her words matter, and that her knowledge due to reading books can be put to good use to help others. She’s sadly quite gullible while being smart, and I suppose that’s due to her limited interactions with others since she spends a lot of her time reading. She’s so much a bookworm, she’d probably care more about books than Prince Christopher. Most of the other cast members, including Christopher, just didn’t really do anything for me. Most of them support Elianna well, and for Christopher, there are some good romantic moments, but he didn’t do anything too memorable. ENJOYMENT: I never really liked it, or hated it, it was just consistently average all the way through. THEMATIC EXECUTION: If anything, the romance was executed decently, but not very memorably. The political themes were not really intriguing at all, and I struggled to care about them. Some of the normal royalty tropes were there, with the drama, but they were only decent at the start. OVERALL: There wasn’t much to take away from this, other than the aesthetic being quite decent. There could have been more done around the dramatic aspects of this show, and it felt more slice of life than anything else. It’s not bad by any means, just very average and bland for me personally.

This is garbage. Elianna, the protagonist, has no personality outside of reading books, and the love interest’s only personality trait is being a creepy boyfriend. Yay! Her love for books means basically nothing by the way. It’s pretty much a gimmick to show she isn’t a piece of cardboard. Unfortunately, possibly the most boring gimmick imaginable was used so it doesn’t work. These characters are so bland it’s ridiculous. Almost every episode goes one of two ways. First, some girls are jealous of Elianna and try to take her place while being gross toward her, and this somehow makes Elianna question whether her obviously obsessed boyfriend actuallylikes her, only for him to save the day. Second is there’s a villain doing evil things. Of course, there’s book damage involved because there has to be a reason for Elianna’s existence. And then her boyfriend saves the day, either directly or indirectly. The plot is truly obnoxious. Nothing’s ever developed in this anime. Elianna’s wrongly accused of something? Let’s spend half the episode on flashbacks that never happened on screen during the same scene! Someone’s mad at Elianna? Time for a flashback of what she did because nobody knows what he’s talking about! This abysmal writing is all you get when her boyfriend isn’t busy being a total creep. I don’t know if this is just the fault of the adaptation, but it feels very much like someone’s first attempt at writing a story.

if miscommunication and anxiety had a baby it would be this anime. Or should I rather say no communication. But the series is not inherently bad there were some scenes I genuinely enjoyed but it does tent to become boring after a few episodes. But still it’s cute and at the end it showcases a rather healthy relationship. So if you need something cute to shut down your brain to then this is for you but if you want exciting please retain your self from watching the bibliophile princess The story is not unique in any way and not a good representation of the Shojogenre I was we would be adapting better story’s like Queens quality. Bibliophile princess is just a mother show in this niche of series of which we seem to have always one of in every season but as sad it can be enjoyed as a adorable romcom on a depressed Sunday night or something Hope this was helpful ^^

I see that there are mixed feelings about this anime... If I could describe it in a few words it would be; Cute romance. Determined. Intelligence. Subtle. Passive. (Unconventionally) Strong Female lead. Slice of Life. Political I wasn't really expecting anything when I first started to watch this anime. I walked in with no context nothing. If I had read the description. Where to start? The main female character doesn't have major super powers but her character development was subtle, gentle and slow. I will admit that there are flaws in her but that's what, to me, made her more loveable. She starts as a character with one solefocus and purpose, but as she's ushered into a new world faced with different challenges she learns how to branch out of her one dimensional character. There was a significant moment where she was in the wrong, she knew she was in the wrong, she knew that she had hurt someones feelings. This misunderstanding caused a lot of trouble for herself, but she was able to acknowledge it and move forward and do what was needed to fix it. Issues I have with her, is that she is naive and comes off easy to push around, and that character flaw never goes away... However she starts speaking for herself and she starts explaining her thought patterns behind why things should be the way that they are. This is not a Female lead that will spark a heated argument, nor is she a character that will fight in the front lines. She does what she does best, which is be herself. There was something else in this anime that I really liked and that was that there is an idea of perfection that we seem to have, "It's okay to strive for perfection as long as that is not the only thing you strive for." There was a sense of you don't need to rely on yourself and what you are bad at, others are good at. This isn't something that you pick up straight away, in fact it wouldn't be something that you'd think about unless you are writing a review or talking to someone about it. The cute romance part captured my attention, this guy is determined to have Eli and he fights for that right... Not physically. But it was nice to see a Male lead that didn't really have a gaggle of girls around him. This would, I think, classify as a political anime too. Maybe not in the same way as others but I think that this is a hidden gem and maybe a little niche. There is so much to say about this but I don't want to give it away. I understand what everyone else says is there own personal opinion, but I thought I would throw my 3 cents in.

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