Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon

My Happy Marriage, at the outset, feels like the 1000th remake of Cinderella. It has the evil stepmother, the family abuses the MC, and she gets “saved” by a strong, powerful man. It’s a bit more than that though, as it’s a largely character driven story with the main female character, Saimori Miyo, trying to find her self worth after years and years of people telling how useless she was, as shallow as the reasons were, in that she supposedly lacked the abilities that her family members had. She is married off to a man named Kudou Kiyoka, who was known to be a cold-hearted,insensitive man who dismissed his previous fiancées, likely in an attempt to get rid of her and have her suffer more. Obviously, as you would expect, Kiyoka treats Miyo in a way she doesn’t expect, and the relationship builds from there. Then what makes this anime stand out, if it just feels like another Cinderella story? The first thing would definitely be the visual presentation. The animation overall is very fluid, while being rather simple in its designs. There are great looking action scenes, the character expressions are worthy of praise, and the soundtrack by Evan Call, who worked on Violet Evergarden, complimented it a lot. Virtually no issues from the production side of things. I dare say it might have been one of the best produced shows of the summer season. It has strong attempts at characterization, with directing and symbolism that I really enjoyed, as there was a level of nuance there to develop Miyo and Kiyoka’s relationship throughout the story. What unfortunately holds it back from being in the upper echelon of shows from this season for me is the shallow writing, especially outside the main duo. In that way, it might feel more like Cinderella, in that the characters are very “fairy-tale” like. They’re evil for the sake of being evil, with malicious intent that goes over the top at times. Sure, there are a lot of political aspects in play especially in this setting, with families all thirsting for power, doing whatever it takes to gain reputation, but some of the actions that the Saimori family took early in the season just felt a bit much, perhaps a bit melodramatic at times. The supernatural aspects were interesting for sure, and I’m sure will be developed in the future, with the upcoming OVA or perhaps in future instalments of this series if it ever happens, but I felt it somewhat took away from the more grounded relationship with Miyo and Kiyoka. The supernatural parts do give the series more flare and pizzazz, but I question whether all of it was necessary, as especially in the second half, where I felt the lore and the presence of Grotesqueries, besides being haphazardly implemented at points, also limited the time that could have otherwise been spent on developing the romance aspects a bit better, as well as Miyo’s character. The cast of characters was fine, but besides a couple characters outside the main duo, the rest were forgettable. A lot of scummy characters for sure, and I do see that popping up a lot in shoujo series. Miyo’s character was frustrating at times to watch, but she had some very good developments as well at the climax of the first half, and the aforementioned symbolism really helped with that. Kiyoka I had more interest in, especially in his abilities. I liked how he treated Miyo, and how his attitudes changed towards her throughout. You can basically say that Miyo and Kiyoka bring the best out of each other, as Kiyoka helped Miyo break out of her self-deprecating nature and stand up for herself, while Miyo helped Kiyoka open up more as a person. My attention was always there when the relationship was being developed, but like I said, outside of that, it was an up and down ride. The first half was very strong and at that point had the potential to be the best anime airing this season, but the second half was markedly weaker in that I felt the romance could have been prioritized a bit more, and the supernatural aspects executed in a more meaningful way. Overall, it was still a high quality anime, but just missed the mark a little bit for me to say it was truly incredible.

What seemed to be a promising emotional story about a girl who finds self acceptance from a childhood of neglect and trauma from a relationship with a cold yet gentle man. Into a story of saving the helpless princess. It just falls flat. The soft magic system makes the battles almost feel like plot devices to move the story on as the viewer never really knows the limit's of each character's ability. There is a lack of suspense and the victors seem predictable. With the exception of Arata using his illusion at the end of his fight. The idea or message behind her finding self acceptance whilenot being special. Is completely undermined immediately by the story revealing that the whole entire time she was actually super special and is deeply desired by her secret family. What does this show want to be, a josei/shojo love romance story or a battle shounen story? Not so say that you cannot interweave them together , but there wasn't enough time to properly develop either. animation and music was great tho!

This anime is entirely carried by the good-looking characters and the animation. Everything else is just bad: the MC is meek, indecisive, has zero self esteem and her personality is practically being depressed and doing chores for her husband. The pacing is slow and the plot is boring. The action parts are lacking suspance or any real sense of danger and you can easily predict the outcome. The romance scenes are meh, there's no chemistry and the male lead's feelings seem to develop from pity. Watch if you have nothing better to do and want to hear people talking in the background.

This anime feels like a typical Cinderella story but with strange powers that seem completely unnecessary. The inclusion of these powers caught me off guard and cheapened the overall experience, making the characters seem one-dimensional. Beyond the main character's trauma, she lacks any real personality, and there's nothing to make her stand out. While the animation and music are impressive, they can't fully redeem the weak plot. The story is unoriginal, and the characters have no depth, which made the experience frustrating. The music is the only thing that somewhat compensates for the lack of substance in the narrative and character development.

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