Mushikaburi-hime

For generations, the Bernstein family has been recognized as a house of nobles who favor books over everything else. Elianna Bernstein, daughter of a baron of the Sauslind Kingdom, is no different. But instead of being called a bookworm, she is known as the Bibliophile Princess.

Four years ago, the crown prince, Christopher Selkirk Asherald, offered Elianna a special arrangement: if she would become his fiancée, he promised that she could continue to spend all her free time reading. Despite having to inherit a title of great responsibility, she agreed to the proposal, enticed by the prospect of gaining access to the royal archives housing a wide selection of books.

To this day, Elianna firmly believes that her engagement is void of romantic sentiment. When she notices Christopher's interactions with another girl, she presumes that the days she spends with him will soon reach an end. Yet, during this period of uncertainty, Elianna and Christopher open a new chapter in their relationship, gradually uncovering their genuine feelings as they grow to better understand each other.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Bernstein, Elianna Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Asherald, Christopher Selkirk Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Agnes Supporting

Neya, Michiko Japanese

Eisenach, Glenn Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Ferrera, Alan Supporting

Satou, Gen Japanese

Anna Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Rei Supporting

Maeno, Tomoaki Japanese

Bernstein, Alfred Supporting

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Rona Supporting

Mimura, Yuuna Japanese

Slade, Sylvia Supporting

Yasuno, Kiyono Japanese

Nemoto, Yuuka Producer

Maruyama, Hajime Producer

Yoshida, Yuuki Producer

Nishimae, Shuka Producer

Reviews

Dec 22, 2022

Marinate1016

Recommended

Mushikaburi-Hime is a must watch for any shoujo/josei fan, because for one, we don’t get enough of these shows, and for two, this is a really cute watch with a couple that will quickly become one of your favourites.

Mushikaburi-Hime, like most other shoujo/josei is a character driven slow-burn in which your entertainment depends on how much you like the couple. Fortunately, Chris and Eli have one of the cutest relationships I’ve seen in a while. Premise is straightforward and honestly there’s not much story to speak of. It’s very slice of life based and through their daily struggles Chris and Eli get closer and develop ... a stronger bond. I personally enjoyed seeing their love blossom, but also the personal growth that Eli goes through. Going from a shy bookworm who could not express herself, to being a fitting future queen was a really cool journey and it was organically done with incremental steps over the season.

The show is of course pretty cliché and plays into many of those 90s style shoujo tropes with a beautiful princess being courted by all these different guys and a main guy who fawns over the MC, etc. And that would probably be one of my biggest complaints. While I loved Eli and Chris’ relationship, I felt the male MC did not really have any growth. If anything, he regresses from a cool noble prince to a simp who can only fawn over Eli. This is cute for a couple episodes, but over a 12 episode run time... it can get kind of old. I would have liked to see him get more development and come into his own as a character more. Obviously with it being a female demographic, that probably was not the intention of the author and I still enjoyed the show without it, but it holds it back from being higher rated IMO. I’d point to Fruits Basket as a gold standard of how that should be done.

As with most Josei and most Madhouse projects, art is amazing. Has a really unique look to it and while it doesn’t 100 percent recreate the light novel art, it stays true enough to it.

While it’s not the best Josei this year, or even this season, Mushikaburi-Hime is still a must watch for any fan of the romance genre and shoujo/josei fans in general. Our selections are just so slim we don’t have much opportunity to be picky. The plot may not be the strongest, but it is still a very cute story with a loveable MC that you can’t help but want to protect, and a fairy tale type feel.

Mushikaburi-Hime gets 8 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 22, 2022

Mcsuper

Mixed Feelings

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, is ... invited 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 22, 2022

jtsk

Not Recommended

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 actually ... likes 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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