Egao no Daika

Egao no Daika is an anime about this klutz loli princess who is ridiculously awkward and also 12, a dude who didn't make me question my sexuality but it's pretty clear he is questioning his with that fabulous hair, and a girl who wears glasses and has big boobs.

The series focuses on our trio (2 of the 3 to be precise) doing very important princess stuff like browsing tablets and making appearances on a public forum just to regret it 3 seconds later. Suddenly it's actually some type military mecha anime and I don't really know why, but apparently there are lots of political ... stuff going on and everything seems to go to shit because the country is ruled by 12 years-old loli UNTIL it actually turns the other way around since she is actually a born leader who can fix the world by making everyone smile.... Sounds smarter Death Note to me.

The story line is just hilarious and so are the characters. Random people criticize the loli princess for fucking shit up by saying something super neutral like "You didn't perhaps do the best job with this thing" and then this gender-knight quite literally goes "What the fuck did you just say to her majesty, you little shit? I will let you know..." etc. Basically goes full-rampage and declares he will murder everyone who says bad stuff about her lolisicions (like decisions but more loli) and then they fight with these huge mecha and start a war or something.... Amazing and epicasfuck. If this anime really wanted to make the whole planet smile then cross my name because it surely did its job for me.

The production is a bit weird. Occasionally it looks like the thing was solely made for ironic viewing and other times the mecha fights looks like it's actually trying to convince someone. As a whole, the animation is decent, same with overall art. Nothing really to complain there. Doesn't make the series better, but doesn't ruin it either. Tho best battle ship design from any anime ever. That type of stuff. The music is occasionally really wobby during action scenes which makes them less boring for sure and some of the half-comedic princess-like songs add to the entertainment value.

Kinda recommend this. Watch it for the lulz if you have a sense of humor or something. Works especially well as a parody of any political/military thriller show that took itself too seriously.

Is war really justified? Does human greed make up for the big mistakes humanity has done? Isn't there anything else we can do to avoid a major conflict? Many anime out there has touched the war topic trying to send a message to the viewer with its themes, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 comes to my mind as an example of what Egao no Daika might have been if things where handled better. And while Egao no Daika isn't bad, it still struggles with its theme that makes it look cheesy and minimized, yet, the message its still there.

Egao no Daika revolves around 2 different sides: ... Yuki Soleil's kingdom (which name I already forgot lol) and there's Stella's team, one of many squads of the army of Grandiga. The plot is pretty straight forward as it revolves about the kingdom of Grandiga who wants to get their hands on the new Chrars tech (or whatever that kind of mech is called) for themselves... I think. The reasons behind this are pretty vague as it is just there as a plot device, it isn't explored that much and it's there just for the sake to create a "war"

Yuki Soleil is a 12 year old girl who is a Princess which pretty much ignores war. Its was a matter of time until things didn't go her way, witnessing the crude reality of war after shit happened due to how oblivious she was. You can't really blame her as every single adult on this anime tried really hard to hide this reality from her, fooling her into thinking that everything is laughs and smiles and making dumb decisions that leads to her suffering. Yuki side of the story is pretty cheesy and childish, specially her idealistic world where there is no war, which is kinda impossible as we all know how human kind is after all.

On the other side, we have Stella's Squad, which takes the spotlight of this anime imo, as it has the strongest emotions and the best episodes of this anime. Stella is a blue haired girl that will smile no matter what as she was told that smiling would lead her anywhere. Kinda hard to do as war is her job and there's only suffering coming from it.

I really like that we have both sides of the stories on this "war", making you sympathize with each side in order to understand their point of view. It helps a lot on understanding what this anime tries to achieve and how the characters feels about it. That said, the message behind the story might be childish, yet, thing should be more this way.

Characters on this anime are far from perfect but they are good enough to carry this show, specially Stella's faction as it holds the best moments on this show, for example Stella's past which was really sad and most of her motivations to keep on living.

Animation is okay although it suffers a bit on latter episodes, but nothing that can make it unwatchable. It is good enough to tell a story visually. Ost on the other hand really caught me by surprise as it is really good and well placed among scenes that requires it.

Despite its looks, this anime is really entertaining and as long as you don't expect some stellar story telling you will have a good time with this anime. Definitely not as bad as it seems, still better than Domestic na Kanojo tho.

The Price is a bit of a Mess that lost all Potential

Let's start with the good. The mecha combat scenes are (in 3D CG yes) really well done and they are quite nice scenes to watch as in they are well presented. This is for all the mecha combat scenes in the show making these scenes quite consistent (unlike the plot) throughout the show. While not all the characters are that good there are a few characters that are quite likeable making their story and struggle more relatable compared to other characters. While I don’t really like the plot the world background is quite good ... as it depicts, the struggle for the general population to survive and the human cost of war is shown really strongly. While that is essence is only backdrop it feeds into the story and the characters in different ways.

Right the bad stuff now. The world setting is slightly confusing as it was a little unclear who side people where on (a bit of surprise for the last few episodes) meaning while you might be routing for a side take a closer look just to make sure who's side they are on. Further to that the whole main plot is confusing as it jumps around quite a bit without explaining anything with too many turns and twists (example in spoiler section) to create any consistency (which can work is shows like ‘The Idolmaster’ but not this). Overall it makes the show a bit difficult to follow and loses its audience. The problem is due to the inconsistency it draws all the attention to it and it becomes the main focus instead rather than the show itself. On top of that as events are spread out far from each other with long dialog section (where the show gets philosophical but not very well (compared to the world building) it’s a bit boring.

In Summary then, while ‘The Price of Smiles’ is deeply inconsistent, very difficult to follow, very surprising (in a bad way) and a little boring, it does have some good points with a okay story, good world building and a nice main focus character. But the best bit it manages to make what would have been a bad show into a fairly okay show by having really good parts that are really good and shows potential but the bad parts that spoil the whole show. I would recommend it if you just wanted something to watch not follow. ‘It’s not bad, but it’s not good either’.

Spoiler free review

Look I gave it a fair shoot from reading some other reviews how ever the ideals of the character are challenged a few times through out the anime however she was not pushed to a major breaking point. This lack of a breaking point made the protagonist feel lacking in any growth which had been occurring but very slightly.

Then the ending felt convenient for the anime.The ending makes sense in the way the story is setup but this still felt boring say compared to the ending of code geass.

Where I feel if the protagonist had this breaking point before the ending had ... occurred it would of made the story a lot better in my opinion.

I watched it through to the end, which says a lot, but I have a few big complaints.

The characters were extermely stereotypical/trope-y, and the overall moral of the story is utterly cliched.

This is basically an eco-hardliner's propaganda piece dressed up as a beautiful story, similar to several of Miyazaki's films that have an anti-technology, anti-war, eco-friendly, romanticized "let's all live the simple life" utopia as if humans didn't fight devastating large-scale wars in pre-technology times.

Still, the fact that I made it through to the end without dropping it is an endorsement, so I recommend this series overall. I just don't like the overall message.

The Price of Smiles focuses on two young women living on a distant planet with both their kingdoms at war. The first, Yuki, is the princess of the kingdom of Soleil and national symbol following the loss of her parents, who has an idealistic belief in wanting the best for everyone while oblivious to the true reality of war. The second, Stella Shining, is a soldier within the Grandiga Army attempting to find purpose in her life after having been raised as an orphan and has difficulty expressing her true emotions to others due to her rough upbringing.

To start things, I'll just say first impressions ... with this series can be a bit misassuming. The first episode has you believe this may be a light-hearted mecha series with the typical story setup it establishes with Yuki's character and I've read that this has led some folks to not watch the series beyond this point as a result. The Price of Smiles isn't afraid to explore how harsh the realities of war can be. While the series explores how both kingdoms have justification to fight in their war, it shows both sides committing morally questionable acts to accomplish their goals and the series isn't afraid to kill off major characters to emphasize this. It also shows that having the more capable mecha within the series can mean squat as Grandiga's greater numbers for their armies are occasionally shown to overwhelm Soleil in spite of their superior technology. Plus, idealism isn't always a good thing to have in a brutal conflict such as war, which Yuki is painfully shown to realize throughout this anime's 12-episode run.

As far as the storytelling for the series goes, it has its ups and downs. Yuki and Stella serve as the focus characters for each side of the war to explore how their kingdoms are faring. The series does a solid job showing off the justifications both sides have in their conflict and that the characters focused on in both factions are not irredeemable. Stella's character focus was largely solid in exploring her rough upbringing and shown to undergo gradual development as she comes to develop bonds with her brigade members and finds purpose for herself. Yuki's character focus is more weaker as the series chooses to still have her stick to her idealist beliefs throughout the series in spite of the hardships of war she is confronted with and makes her feel quite out of place in the story that Price of Smiles is going for. The ending for the series also felt both a bit rushed and rather anti-climactic in how it addresses both a certain element of Stella's past and how the war gets ultimately resolved in spite of hints to this direction being alluded to. In addition, the series can get fairly heavy-handed in how it expresses its themes at points and this could potentially turn off viewers who hate this approach to storytelling.

In short, Price of Smiles offers a mostly solid, though somewhat flawed, series that takes some creative risks with bucking a number of the typical cliches of a mecha war series in exploring the realities of war and exploring how the focus characters withing both kingdoms cope with these realities. Personally, I felt Stella's developments with the series were better handled than Yuki's and I do realize this series is likely to not be everyone's cup of tea with the rather mediocre first episode and the heavy-handed approach to handling its themes. Still, I'd at least recommend sampling the first few episodes of the series to see if it's something you may have interest in watching the entirety of.

Bueno que podre decir la historia pintaba bien al principio pensé que la historia trataría de mostrar algo mas a lo code geas pero esta no fue así después de su capitulo 3 esta tuvo una gran decaída a lo que estaba enfocada dando muchas muertes innecesarias a la historia y el desarrollo de los personajes era muy tedioso y pensar que estas dos protagonistas tendrían un deseo tan codicioso y no mostrar después la verdadera cara de la moneda de lo que es la GUERRA y para terminar el final fue muy *INFANTIL* y así no debió terminar este anime que prometía mas ... de lo que muchos tal vez esperaban.

I started watching because the first episode is interesting, but then after few episodes it become flat and bit annoying towards the end because I waited one week for it and the storyline is about the same as before. The only thing I love about this anime is the opening song! Nevertheless, it was okay. I don't think I wasted my time watching it, but I did wasted my emotion for waiting for better episode every week. I would recommend it if you're bored and wanting to kill time, as you can just fast forward when you binge watch. But, if you want to watch ... an awesome robot battle, this is not for you.

Where to start. I suppose I have to start with just the basic premise of the show and then I can jump to the finer points outlined in the rating section. The basic premise as far as I could tell in the episodes I actually watched, and the little I overheard as I did more important things around the house, is about a planet that was long ago colonized by humans after leaving earth hundreds (An assumption of how long it was) of years ago. From the map in the Anime in the second episode, it can be assumed that this is taking place on ... the same planet as well as the fact that the mecha they use cannot take off from the planet and no other method of travel to space was seen. From what little I could gather two nations that somehow popped up as separate entities are fighting it out for food I suppose. It alluded to a lack of food overall. Their fight and the show itself is surrounded by poor actions on both sides that show the horror of war.

The Story: Rated 1 of 10
The story itself is a colossal joke. Its portrayal of the horror of war is a travesty, I would know I am a soldier in the military and even I find the "shock and horror" of each episode to cliche and overbearing. Aside from that, I couldn't understand anything about the story as being something that actually makes sense. Supposedly they landed on this planet as a colony ship, alright I can get that, what I fail to understand is why the hell there are two nations? The basic premise of a colony ship is to land and create ONE unilaterally controlled colony, they don't even take any time to address why two nations exist. Even if they had, why arent there four or more notions around why do we only see the two? The next problem I saw was the basic drive the Empire had to attack, food. Mind you it is a necessity to live and easily a thing to war over, but holy shit, how is it they didn't just come to a trade agreement, the princess in the first episode was about to hand them a massive amount of food for free to show goodwill! Another thing I couldn't understand, why is the Princess and the Soldier from the empire so forgiving? She literally saw her childhood friend, someone I got the feeling she loved deeply, dead in his hospital bed. She is young! and Naive, she should have flown off the handle and ordered the complete destruction of the Empire in every form, and never would have backed down from the order.

More than that is my general confusion at the lack of any information that we can't just assume. They leave any semblance of world-building in the garbage and blatantly laugh in the faces of any watching. I literally made this account today to leave this review. It fails to go into any detail the cause for the war sans the basic assumption of food, which was touched on as being something that was getting harder and harder to grow. They don't give any time to explain anything at all using the generic action sequence in the first episode and shocking the audience with death to keep us confused but invested so as to see what happens later. The use a common trope in writing to keep us from getting the answer right away by jumping to a different point of view (The Empires side) and use a hook from that side to once again keep us generally interested, this is a system they use back and forth until the ending. It's a poor way to keep people involved in each episode and keep them watching and as a story element is degrading to the story overall, not that there is much good to the story as it is.

The Art: Rated 8 of 10
I'll admit the art is fairly well done, as with most anime now you don't find poor artistic design or color schemes. I will however say I have seen anime with better art overall and aside from this small notation, I don't really have much more to say.

The Sound: Rated 7 of 10
I would repaste my section for art but I do have more to say on this. This loses a point as certain aspects of the sound are used to assist the viewer in seeing the shock of war and it uses too much screaming and yelling to do so, I understand intensity in the scene is important but there is a moment where you lose the viewers interest by over saturating the episode with that kind of general sound usage.

The Characters: Rated 3 of 10
The characters are horrific. The Princess herself is bubbly at first and while it's mildly adorable at first it gets grating and annoying to deal with as the series goes on. She seems to get over the death of a loved one far too quickly into the war, and seemingly just outright understands the soldier on the other side's point of view too easily. She decides that the war can be forgiven as though that is supposed to excuse the decisions the other side made in start8ing the conflict, to begin with. It actually made me even more confused as to how she can jump from emotion to emotion so easily, it's an emotional rollercoaster that gives me a headache and gave me one in the series.

The soldiers blew me away as she was far to happen in combat. Don't misunderstand, soldiers go into combat zones and joke around and have a good time, but in the thick of combat it's serious and effective, after your back at base jokes and good times all around but you don't smile creepily during and engagement, one of the other characters even commented on this in the second episode and I agreed with the man, it's weird to see. Soldiers can have fun, but not in situations that demand you keep series and be attentive. She had just taken a town and now they stand around and she smiles all relaxed, lady there could be a combat team that held out right around the corner ready to pop your head off, can you keep your eyes peeled?

The Dead Guard (Princess Love interest?) lost all my respect. The man seemed to be single-minded on his parent's wishes, and only around the show some token effort on the part of the writers to give a history on the princess side that is supposed to make us support them. It actually confused me why he was even named in the first place as he could have been any of the throwaway soldiers on the battlefield itself and no one really would have noticed.

Enjoyment: Rated 4 of 10
When I get down to it I found so many better anime to watch and I let it all go in order to watch said anime, but while I definitely wouldn't recommend this anime it wasn't horrible in every sense, the greater art, and fairly good sound can keep you compelled if you are looking for good action sequences. so I enjoyed those portions, Every moment storytelling came along I lost interest overall. It only rated so high due to these factors.

Overall: Rated 5 of 10
It's not god awful, but it isn't anything to write home about, at the end of the day as an action show to see cool shiny explosions and mecha's battling it out, it was pretty good, but it isn't anything that should compel someone that wants a story. I've lost interest in this review so I'll cut it here and say this. Watch it yourself to see what I mean, Take everything I say with a grain of salt as everyone has their own preference, and never at least try an anime once, I learned where my preference lies from that last rule alone.

Egao no Daika or price of smiles is quite an interesting anime to watch because there are quite a few plot twist that is unthinkable before watching or knowing how the story goes, the story goes in a planet where a kingdom is at war with another kingdom for their territory and the technology of the main character kingdom, most of the story focus on the development of the main character personality and attitude to become a great ruler in the future. There are two perspective shown in this anime where the first one is from Yuuki perspective and the other one is from Stella ... perspective, but most of it is Yuuki. The development of the character and story is quite good, but it is a bit to rush especially in the final episode and most of things is not explain in the end, although could be guess by the viewer itself, so it could be an open ending.

Personally, I recommend you to watch it if you like the type of anime that show character development from story that is quite realistic where people died in a war.