Mushikaburi-hime

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.

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.

I want to make something very clear: I NEVER go into watching, reading, or playing something wanting to hate it. Whenever I see something that seems like it appeals to my tastes, I actually try to keep an open mind about it. Similarly, there are certain shows and genres that I avoid like the plague. Don't expect me to talk about any ecchi anime ever and don't expect me to watch shows such as Haruhi Suzumiya, Redo of Healer, or Ranma 1/2 or anything of the like. If you like those shows, cool, good for you. So when I first heard about Bibliophile Princess and ... its upcoming anime adaptation, I thought it seemed cute, so I decided to try it out. Since the light novels are only available digitally, I can't really rent them, and I don't want to buy something and then find that I don't like it and be unable to return it, y'know? I thought, "Hey! Maybe Bibliophile Princess might be good! I'll give it a watch and see for myself!" Boy howdy do I regret that decision so, so, sooooo much. Dear lord, I wanted to like this show so badly. I really did. But seriously, watching Bibliophile Princess was like being made to go through a muddy river with the promise of a prize at the end, only to find out too late that there was never a prize to begin with. By God, not only is Bibliophile Princess one of the most utterly generic, mediocre, frustrating anime I've ever seen, based on what little I've read of the light novels, it completely fails as an overall adaptation.

In the kingdom of Sauslind, Lady Elianna Bernstein and her family of self-professed bookworms live in relative peace, with no desire for power and content with spending their days doing nothing but reading and acquiring knowledge. During Elianna's debutante season at court, she is proposed to by the dashing Prince Christopher, the heir to the kingdom. At first, Elianna balks at the idea of being married to him, as she feels there are better candidates out there, but Christopher makes an offer she can't bring herself to refuse: If she marries him, she'll have special access to the fabled royal archives, a repository of rare tomes, and her social duties will be intentionally limited. Unable to resist the allure of reading new books, Elianna accepts and becomes Christopher's fiance, but she does wonder why he of all people would rather marry her and make her his bride when there are other, far better suitable people that want it more?

Man, I honestly thought Prima Doll was going to be the worst anime I saw this year, but Bibliophile Princess took the throne by virtue of the fact that everything about it just screams "I don't give a shit." Seriously, there's barely anything redeemable about Bibliophile Princess as an anime. Everything it does has been done way better in other shows, some of which I'll mention further down. Bibliophile Princess at best is a boring cliche-fest that has zero ambition. Now, cliches in and of themselves aren't inherently bad, and I abide by the philosophy that as long as you flesh out the characters well and care about the story you want to tell, you can make anything good whether it's cliche or not, as there's no such thing as a truly original story anymore. But everything about Bibliophile Princess just feels extremely passionless, listless, and workman-like, like the staff on the show only produced this because they were mandated to do so to fill out a light novel adaptation quota. From the obnoxiously bright, washed out, and shadowless animation to the similarly mediocre and generic soundtrack, the whole production feels like a poor man's Ascendance of a Bookworm. Speaking of Bookworm, does anybody else think that the only reason Yuka Iguchi was brought on to sing the opening was because the producers for this wanted to cash in on Bookworm's fame and popularity? Ironically, the opening song is actually the best thing about this show.

Beyond that, the writing is just outright stupid. This is the kind of show that was written by people who think that its target audience has the mental capacity of a lobotomized squirrel. Characters act solely on what’s convenient to the plot and make the most bizarre leaps in logic at times. Any attempts this show makes to try and be genuine is overshadowed by their complete stupidity. Add that to a story that is just chockful of plot devices and inconsequential politicial babble that we never even see portrayed on screen, and you basically have a bland mess. Even the character designs have no passion put into them, as the men are all just generic bishounen that are carbon copies of each other save for Alan (Who, ironically, is the only character in this show I liked even though his whole running gag is that nobody remembers him at all), and all the women have similar faces that you wouldn't be able to tell apart even if you swapped their hair styles and costumes. The show's attempts at political intrigue fall flat because a lot of it just consists of catty girls trying to sabotage Elianna with absolutely no sense of subtlety whatsoever. Characters telegraph their evil intentions like blaring neon lights. The show thinks its smart when it actually isn't.

Speaking of Elianna, I hate to say it, but she's the absolute worst aspect of this show. Bibliophile Princess is constantly beating into our heads that Elianna is this super awesome lady who does great things for her kingdom and others, even showing other characters praising her for her feats...but the thing is, the anime doesn't actually show her doing anything of note on screen, so any praise she winds up getting feels not only unearned, but completely undeserved. For example, episode 2, which I feel encapsulates every single flaw this show has, has Elianna be caught up in some girl's bad attempt at trying to usurp her as Christopher's fiance, and the nobles all wax poetic about all the wonderful things Elianna has done for them. What does Elianna actually do throughout the entire episode? Nothing! She literally just stands at the top of the stairs like a deer in the headlights, making absolutely no attempt to refute any of the mean girl's accusations when she has all the power to do so, and everyone else just does everything for her. And she spends THE ENTIRE FUCKING EPISODE JUST STANDING AROUND!!! The fact that everyone worships the ground Elianna walks on even when the anime makes no effort to show her actually doing anything of note on screen just makes Elianna come off as a blatant Mary Sue straight out of someone's bad fan fiction, and I've both read and written my fair share of bad fan fiction (My fics were a lot worse as a kid, and I can say I've vastly improved my writing since then)! Furthermore, Elianna's personality doesn't change all that much and her views are never challenged. There's one arc where a military guy points out a lot of the flaws in Elianna's proposal about storing food and putting less money into war weapons, and the guy actually makes some fairly reasonable points considering Elianna has literally no experience with military affairs and is a bit too idealistic about preventing war, but after she makes some overly cheesy speech, the guy just laughs it off and accepts Elianna without a second thought! Plus, Elianna never makes the effort to actually talk to people about any issues she has, especially when it matters (Again, episode 2 is the worst example of this), and any time she tries, somebody else steps in and does everything for her, or claim that she did nothing wrong when a lot of conflict could have been avoided if she had just talked to SOMEBODY AT ALL. All throughout the series, Elianna just comes across as a whiny, listless, passionless waif who only cares about books and nothing else, yet is constantly shilled by the entire narrative as this amazing person when she's done literally nothing to deserve any praise at all and is given little to no agency or autonomy. The one time she does try to do something (During the Star of Sissel arc) also falls flat because she recklessly throws herself into a situation where a nobleman could easily kill her right then and there, and she didn't bother to bring her guard with her. Gee, it's almost like trying to confront a powerful nobleman without any weapons or self-defense training is a bad idea!

And the thing is, Elianna does have established reasons for being the way she is in the light novels! The LNs establish that she mostly stayed away from social gatherings because she was picked on by aristocratic girls for her love of books and her plain looks, which the anime never bothers to establish in the beginning. Even during the Irene incident, Elianna, while she still stood around and didn't do anything, she saw through Irene's ploy and even snarked about it in her head, and the LN establishes that the only reason she didn't speak up was because she didn't know if she was supposed to act or just stay put and follow the mental script everyone was acting out. So basically, the anime deliberately left out what little personality Elianna had in the LNs in favor of making her into a swooning, spineless waif who jumps to conclusions at the slightest thing and barely does anything of her own initiative, even when she has all the power and freedom to do so. Any reasons she has for being the way she is are left out, so it's really hard to feel any sympathy for anime Elianna because she basically brought a lot of her own issues on herself and doesn't even make the effort to solve her own problems! Do you want to know an anime that features a character that actually does shit and has legitimate reasons for being the way she is? Raven of the Inner Palace, which is airing right now! In that anime, Shouxue is shown to be lonely and isolated because not only does her position as the Raven Consort dictate such, if certain people find out what she really is, they will literally kill her, yet Raven of the Inner Palace actually shows Shouxue going out of her way to help people and solve their problems, whether by their own request or because she wants to, so any loyalty she receives from her new friends and acquaintances actually feels earned. Plus, it is possible to write a heroine who starts off listless and dispassionate as long as the reasons for her being such are plausible. For example, I'm reading the light novel My Happy Marriage right now (Which is getting an anime fairly soon), and in that series, the heroine, Miyo, is quiet and has zero self-esteem because she was abused and mistreated by her family for her entire life, with the series making it clear right off the bat. Her life improves when she's made to marry a rich man named Kiyoka, but marriage alone doesn't magically resolve all of her trauma and issues, with the series empathizing that Miyo's path to healing will be a long one. In that series, Miyo's arc is about her regaining her self-worth, agency, and autonomy and allowing herself to become a more self-assured individual now that she interacts with people who genuinely love and care about her. Elianna doesn't have that excuse, so her problems, again, come off more like a girl's insufferable whining than anything truly genuine.

That's not even getting into all the other little problems the anime has as well. In one episode, the series just randomly introduces a character named Lilia and expects us to already know that she and Elianna are acquainted without even showing us how they know each other. Like, the hell? I know Arte had this problem with its anime, but Bibliophile Princess is actually worse about it because even though this girl is in the opening, she just disappears after that arc and never shows up again. The LNs establish that Lilia is Elianna's cousin on her mother's side, and yet again, the anime just chucks her in there without rhyme or reason. Like, why even put this girl in the opening if you're only gonna have her be in the series for two or three episodes and then never again?! God, just thinking more about this series makes my head hurt. Overall, if you're into shows like Bibliophile Princess, that's totally cool, more power to you. If you like it, great! I personally feel the Bibliophile Princess anime is frustrating and terrible, mainly because it commits a cardinal sin that no adaptation should ever do: It made me question if the source material is even that good to begin with. Seriously, there are so many other things out there that manage to tackle their premise and characters better than Bibliophile Princess could ever hope to do, some of which I've named. All in all, Bibliophile Princess is not only a hopelessly blank, generic anime, but also a terrible adaptation. But don't just take my word for it. ANN writer Rebecca Silverman did weekly reviews for the series, and since she's read the light novels, she also recognizes the adaptation's failures in capturing the spirit and essence of the source material, and even other ANN writers don't feel the anime is worth much. But ultimately, you should make your own judgment and see for yourself whether you like or dislike Bibliophile Princess, or anything else, really. At the end of the day, my reviews are just my personal opinions on the stuff I read, watch, and play, nothing more and nothing less.

i'm actually proud of myself, i used to watch the entire anime even if i saw obvious signs of it being garbage but now i don't waste my time and simply drop it
i love books, i thought i would like this anime even if the mc is 1 dimensional,generic,not having a single fucking personality trait besides reading,mary sue. but i was wrong, in episode 2 i realized it's over, elinna agrees to be married to a prince because she gets access to a special library with rare books and she 'slowly' falls in love with the prince, now that's the plot, first off what a ... whore!, she marries someone not out of love but for personal gain, second off after 4 years the prince is talking to another female character named Irene and elinna realizes oh i love the prince actually! there is no interaction between elinna and the prince, NONE, but what really sealed the deal for me was how in episode 2 Irene out of absolutely nowhere framed elinna for pushing her down the stairs and how prince tried to "solve the mystery" acting smart and all. that was so fucking cringy that i had to take a hot bath
don't watch it, it really is as bad as other reviews are warning you it is

This review is based off entirely on an anime-only perspective as I have never read the manga.

It is really true that Shoujo Anime as a genre has been slowly lacking and becoming more and more obscure. Bibliophile Princess is one of the few shows for this year under this genre. So I was hoping this show should do good.

Premise is quite cliche and just your standard Royalty/Monarchy settings & it does not try to pretend to deviate away from it. It does not over do things to make it bland and does a good job to keep you hooked at least for the first ... 4 episodes.

The characters are well-written but some are pretty predictable at best. The first 2 episodes introduced a female antagonist that we can say is your standard Shoujo Anime antagonist. How strong is that second episode? Well it felt like it should have been the season ending.

This may be your usual prince and princess romance but the amount of romantic scenes and banters from both Elianna & Chris will make the female audience fan-girl in romantic excitement like what a good Shoujo Anime should be. So if you enjoy shows that will make you feel terrible being single - you should at least give this a try. If you are a fan of this genre, you should give the show a chance.

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.

I will always prefer a manga to an anime. I felt that the anime isn't doing the manga art justice, nor the story. The anime feels a bit fast-paced but maybe that's because reading takes a bit longer than actually watching an anime. Although I like the story, I am not as invested as I am with the manga. I definitely am amazed with the accuracy in their voices and such but I am not too fond of the execution of the story. Who knows, maybe I am being biased from reading the manga first but I'm not too invested in the anime.

Look, I wanted to like it so bad but I just can't do this anymore...

Apart from the Fruits Basket remake, shoujo romance has honestly started to feel more and more like a dying niche these last few years. Shounen romance has been dominating the scene instead, so when I heard of a cutesy old-school shoujo romance directed by the same guy who did One Week Friends airing this season, I was extatic. Extatic to the point that I was willing to ignore multiple warning signs along the way, only to realize I can now feel my own brain actively trying to stop me from pressing ... play on episode 8...

Bibliophile Princess is about a bookish royal lady that's engaged to the crown prince of a country. They like each other but she's shy about it, other girls want to have him but for some damn reason he treats her like she's God's gift to mankind or something and every now and then they get wrapped up in insufferably boring sociopolitical stuff that I could not for the life of me care to try and follow. (Also I think the second half of the show is building up to some larger conspiracy but I just cannot bring myself to be bothered anymore...)
You would think a show like this would at least make the characters interesting to make up for the lack of plot, but you'd be wrong. Eliana feels like a 13-year-old wattpad writer's Mary Sue self insert. I wouldn't be so mad at the whole smart yet gullible sheltered princess archetype if this damn show was self-aware enough to make her face some sort of consequence for her naïvety, but no: everytime she messes up she's got some pawn there to save the day for her. Hence, her default is passive, polite and inoffensive except if someone dares to even look at a book the wrong way - then the little wallflower suddenly goes badass mode like straight out of a 2011 "don't fck with me, you wouldn't want me to unleash my dark side" tumblr post. And it's not epic or cool. It's embarassing.
Prince Chris has a few decent moments of characterization here and there but really, everybody else barely matters because dialogue that could have been used to establish the personalities of a nice little supporting cast is instead spent explaining historical backgrounds and politics that noone watching this for the romance actually gives a shit about.

One of the saving graces of this show seems to be that it's pretty - at first glance... While the character designs might not be the most original, I do still find them pleasing to look at, especially the many lovingly designed dresses worn by the main character. However, the problem here is that they're obviously made for pictures in a light novel rather than fluid animation. So by the time episode 4 rolls around, movements have become stiff, proportions have gotten wonky, shot composition and camera angles are now boring and even the few action scenes are disorientating and almost impossible to follow. It is also around the same time that the show completely abandons the rule of "show don't tell", so if unlike me you're actually a fan of creative depictions of fantasy politics, forget about it. It's literally just pictures of two people talking with some lip flabs on top of it.

The audio of this show too is all in all forgettable; the opening is cute but nothing special, I have never once bothered to listen to the ending all the way through and I can't remember any track on the OST sticking out to me either. The voice actors' emotional range is extremely limited by the fact that firstly, 99% of the dialogue is dull exposition dumping and secondly, they are for the most part constricted to this frustratingly calm and polite court language that allows for almost no real feelings. Basically, if you want to hear some good Reina Ueda, watch Hanayamata, and if you want to hear some good Ryouhei Kimura, watch Haikyuu; this show will not be the one to sell you on their talent.

I think, what upsets me the most is that this review isn't even coming from a place of hatred (not as long as there's a show about a sentient fcking ASMR microphone airing at the same time...) but rather from a place of disappointment. I wanted to like this so bad, I kept clinging to it because I wanted this to be my new Earl & Fairy, my new Snow White with the Red Hair but it just isn't. I can maybe see someone who is into all those royal palace isekai webtoons giving this a 6 or even a 7 but I've just had enough and will now be learning to be okay with the fact that I have ended up dropping the first promising-looking shoujo romance in years.

This story is a slow one with some dry humor sparingly used as a nice accent. Overall it’s an okay series and consistent pace. The animation is pretty much nothing special, but is still pretty art and color choices. Voices, music, and sfx are similar pleasant. The cast isn’t anything special but they work well with a solid world setting.

Now, the biggest hurdle this series can never overcome is nuance. There is next-to-no depth given to any scene and, unless you’re already overly familiar and nearly exhausted from this type of genre and its usual tropes, you’ll be left confused. Because everything that’s needed ... to build-up the plot points is effectively ignored and, in effect, leave the desire for an actual story unlike the generic SoL wherein viewers aren’t teased with such a thing.

And this is likely an issue of adapting straight from the comic. This animation should’ve built where it was overlooking. It sadly would’ve used nearly no additional effort in regard to the actual animation that prides itself in aesthetically pleasing filters with hardly moving figures. Thanks to 90% of action is off-screen...

All that said, there is some touching romance. But as it’s between a young man who’s rarely blunt and a young woman who’s only now realizing she has feelings beyond her love for books... it’s not particularly romantic? Depending on tastes, this might mean nothing beyond its cuteness.

A simple story of the awkward princess becoming betrothed to a prince and the trials and tribulations that happen as a result. It leans into politics a bit however it isn't a fantasy story. Which is what I liked about it. No other world main hero, no magical chosen one powers. Just a simple story about a princess to be that actually READS and learns and uses that to solve problems.
The greatest drawback of this anime is how abbreviated things are from the books. There's a lot cut out about her reading about stuff and knowing things. It just seems she pulls it out of ... thin air when that's not the case.
I also like the touch where the king isn't some old dude with a beard, but is actually around the same age of the queen.

Overall if you want a shoujo/josei series that isn't super action packed and is more iyashikei, this is a good one to watch. Also has a lot of pretty boys as supporting cast.

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 Shojo ... genre 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 sole ... focus 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.

The Saint's Magic Power is Being a Bookworm.

From the title I just conjured up in my mind you might think that I’m implying Bibliophile Princess is a sort of cross between The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent and Ascendance of a Bookworm, but in reality it has very little in common with those two shows. For one, Bibliophile Princess is not an isekai with overpowered, magical, cardboard protagonists thank christ (not to say The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent and Ascendance of a Bookworm are bad because they’re isekai, in fact they’re both rather good.), but a period, regency romance about a young, socially awkward ... noble lady called Elianna who loves nothing more than to read books, and a dashing prince called Christopher who bribes her with access to the royal library in exchange for her posing as his finance so he can keep all the greedy and annoying suiters being forced onto him off his back.

It’s a cute show stylised akin to a shojo romance manga thanks to Madhouses use a light colour pallet and shaders that thoroughly explores Elianna’s struggles and the anxiety that comes with the role of being the future queen, and how she deals with an onslaught of women and powerful families behind the scenes that want her out of the picture. However, the show itself restricted by the light novel story arc structure that it’s adapting. There are long stretches of episodes which feel like they go on and on -maybe because the director didn’t know how to adapted them from book to the screen- which results in a lot of tell-don’t-show instead of the other way around. This is unfortunately a persistent problem throughout the season.
A good example of this is the way Elianna’s achievements are not really shown to us, but rather told to the audience via the prince or someone else close to her boasting to the villain of the episode about what she’s done and how valuable her contributions are. What makes this boasting sillier is that Elianna achieved these feats by reading books and studying topics such as fallen/prosperous kingdoms, medicines or and other cultures, and putting the lessons and knowledge they provide into practice for the betterment of the kingdom and it’s people. The thing is though… any noble can do that(?), but it’s treated like a freak occurrence which begs the question, how is the kingdom still standing? Either the nobles can’t read or they’re just incompetent in my opinion.

I actually really enjoyed Elianna’s and Christopher’s relationship. They’re very sweet together, and although it’s slightly repetitive I think the struggles and pressures they both go through to balance their romance whilst acting in their respective roles is well depicted.
I can’t say I liked the rest of the cast though. I don’t hate them or anything. Apart from Christopher’s cheeky uncle there weren’t any stand out performances, but the characters who did stand out stood out because they felt like they belonged to different anime genre.

Overall Bibliophile Princess is fine. I don’t think it will particularly wow anyone, but if you’re looking for a chill, period, regency romance and drama with underlying themes of what it means to love someone and what it means to be in a position of power… then you could probably do better, but this is a good alternative.

6/10 It’s Okay *Thumbs Up*

i won't say that this is excellent but it was good !!as the story is nice kind of felt slow paced (maybe because i am used to fast paced) !the art is decent enough !!the plot itself is okay as there were many instances when it felt like someone was bullying the female lead!! it was kind of sad to watch but the end result or should i say the character development was satisfying !! the side characters were also nice as they get got less screentime as the side characters should get !! so as for me it's -6.6 stars / 10 stars !! ... it's a lighthearted casual romance slightly political story with a happy end!!

I thought reverse harem/regular harem "reincarnated in otome game" isekai was the most cringe combo ever, but it seems like the regular generic medieval romance shoujo gives it a run for the money.

At least in "reincarnated in a otome game" type novels or anime, the rest of the cast is kind of bland or NPC-like for a reason. The characters are from a reverse-harem game or something, and thus, they kind of act more wooden and there's no reason to go delve deep into the characters. Similar to using the generic "medieval fantasy" setting, these types of shows thrive on having the MC be in ... a world of familiarity so the world doesn't need to be expanded upon, and knowing all of the basic personalities of characters. Thus, the spotlight is on the MC, trying to figure out her situation, and she generally ends up having a strong personality, since her monologuing and actions essentially carry the show.

Mushikaburi-hime does the exact opposite of having the most boring and bland MC while also having suffering same problem with generic characters. First of all, Elianna is a character that's a contradiction. Clearly, the emphasis on her knowledge and intelligence is highlighted over and over again. She's constantly reading books, her family is extremely smart and bookish as well, and she even reads more academic topics, like the history of her empire. Yet, you're telling me that a person with such erudite attributes is somehow also an airhead that's a doormat? Elianna shows no initiative. She gets thrown into the midst of courtroom politics and is unable to follow up. She doesn't really try to get information, and even when given obvious hints that something is brewing, she's completely clueless. All of the sudden, she can't connect the dots. She lacks the drive or motivation that an otome game reincarnated MC would generally have, but all of the characters are also extremely generic and don't have much going for them either. A majority of screen time is spent on Elianna, yet she still possesses very little characterization.

What ends up happening? The clueless girl that's somehow also an extreme academic that possesses a plethora of knowledge gets saved by her prince. Essentially, she does nothing. She gets plotted by, and in the end, gets saved by external factors. You could say that her contribution to her getting saved is zero. Nilch. A piece of cardboard would have done the same amount of effort to saving their own demise as Elianna did. Is this what shoujo is about? Being at the whim of others and hopefully, your loved interest will save the day?

Of course Elianna and the prince both slowly fall in love with each other over the course of four years. This is also conveniently time-skipped in order for there to be as little of a connection between the watchers and the relationship of Elianna and the crown prince. How could you possibly enjoy this show?

True to the shoujo genre, the artstyle and overall visuals of this anime are very pretty, dialed up to 11 with the princess's frilly dresses and the endless bishounen characters with tall and slender builds that appeal to many of (Japan's) shoujo fanbase. Of course, being an animated work, the art will never measure up to the manga, and that's fine; I'm usually lenient with artwork not measuring up to still images in anime.

For other mostly superficial aspects of the show like sound, it was mostly okay. Nothing about the soundtrack stood out or was particularly grating, bar the constant senpai-you-to-death tier of high ... pitched frailness in the main character's voice acting which got annoying after a while.

However, when it comes to what counts, this show fails on multiple levels.

Yes, I acknowledge that sex appeal sells and so do escape fantasies. However, I believe it is possible to have a bit of this without making a show 90% this and 10% substance.

Plotwise, given the interests of the main characters is to get together and be married in a royal setting, if there was any threat to that, the first 2-3 episodes were enough to clear up the misunderstanding about the female lead being a convenient stand-in fiancee. Yes, there is a girl who wants to be princess and Elianna is in the way. Yes, this is typical. I can forgive this tropey setup given the setting if it was just this. Problem is, throughout the show, the conflict is basically just mostly this on some kind of repeat -- some other noblewoman wants to be princess and does things and MC is too helpless to deal with it and just cries until her prince saves her.

Characterization-wise, the show tries to sell Elianna's booksmarts as some sort of strength and don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being knowledgeable. However, this is basically her only redeeming quality as a main character. As a main character, she has nearly no agency, is barely a heroine of her own story, and can be summed up as a Cinderella who had a loving and supportive family with a love of books. Throughout the near-loop tier repetition of plotting noble girls who get in her way, she exhibits nearly no growth of character and remains as frail and helpless from beginning to end. The prince and support cast is no better.

To sum this up [aka tldr]:
This show is the ultimate escape princess fantasy for women who want to live in a world where they are hot and rich, have a hot and rich and powerful boyfriend who is blindly loyal to them, be loved by literally everyone with any ability to influence their life and all the other good stuff. The only thing missing now is magic powers and sparkling fairy friends.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with liking this show. However, it would be a travesty to consider this an objectively good anime. 3/10

All around terrible.

The setting had some promising aspects. However, it was ruined by terrible characterizations and overuse of cliches. It ended up being flat, boring and trashy.

Let's start with the characterizations. We have a Mary-Sue protagonist who everybody 'loves' for no damn reason. She's boring, she's flat. Her defining characteristic is loving to read books, which plays little to no role in furthering the plot. Oh, wait it does. Only, it is shown in the most boring and least impactful way. I believe that in order to make character traits more believable, the writer should strive to show, not tell. The writer of this show ... chooses the complete opposite of telling the achievements of the protagonist instead of showing it. How disappointing. Again, Mary-Sue.

The beginning of a good story is a good protagonist. They must be someone viewers can relate to or at the very least, interested in. Mushikaburi-hime is not a good protagonist.

Next, let's talk about plotlines and cliches.

Normally, I enjoy my share of cliches (ngl they are my guilty pleasures). I also enjoy a good share of escapism. This show executes it terribly. It is full of trashy dramatic cliches in the most annoying way. I have to skip and fast forward through the first few episodes just to get through it.

This was one of my most awaited shows for the season and I am so disappointed at how terrible it was. I really wanted it to be good too.

All i want to say that this anime is something that irritating and same soothing my mind at the same time,

The most irritating side was the MC was shown as 19-23 years girl,but she has no brain at all other than reading the books and gain knowledge from that books,it is useful for kingdom only but not for her own,cuz everytime a person talk to elianna with hately manners she will be turned into a 3 years old girl,not even know how to talk back to others,it iwas so irritating for me to endure in some middle episodes,

well i didn't blame the story and title ... it is written and played alongside the title of the anime.

Then the soothing part,
A series that has normal romance in the kingdom theme,the prince and princess are mate for each other i love them,it was very soothing cuz they use more pastel colors(pale colors) to show the series with a white based coating,the MC character devolopment was super, script is something but it is encouraging for me, from normal harem like theme,or some which character have big(O-O)contest like other animes,this anime is something else which is stand aside from echhi type,and some more romance scenes included animes and i like this show because of the simplicity of the anime.

please watch this anime i would recommend it completely to all,but please endure the pain for (not talkback hime) cuz she is a over kind to everyone,but the ending is go smoothly don't worry.

It wasn’t a bad show, but the relentless miscommunication trope drove me insane. It’s definitely a light and airy watch and a good love story between the two leads, despite the drama. The artwork is beautiful and the premise is unique. Give it a watch but just be patient with the constant miscommunication. There were side characters that had potential of filling screen time that might have not been played out to their full potential.

If there was a second season, and a lot less miscommunication drama, I would absolutely watch it. The FL is known to be an over thinker which causes a lot ... of the miscommunication but the ML is just as to blame. Overall, still worth the watch.

I’ve been expanding into a variety of new anime genres recently, and the premise of ‘Bibliophile Princess’ sounded like something I’d like. It *sounded* like it’d have all the elements of a nice cozy series about a girl who loves to read. For me, that’s an easy hook. She loves books. I love to books. We have so much in common. Wham! Easily relatable protagonist. But, ultimately, I found myself just as annoyed with this series as the heroine constantly seemed to be. All she wanted was to be left to her books to read. That’s all I wanted for her too! And yet. And ... yet… our heroine, a hopeless bookwork, gets continuously distracted by the various episodic problems created by the multitude of other women fighting for the prince’s affection despite the fact that none of them have even the slightest chance with him. He makes this pretty clear, early on, plainly, in front of everyone in the court, but they continue their worthless schemes, struggling away, even though they’ve been utterly defeated by miss bookworm. Every episode I wanted to scream at the screen. “Stop! Just stop! Let the poor girl read!!” I would have watched an entire series with just the main heroine reading her books and reporting to the prince about the various things she learns. They’d flirt over tea (or coffee). It would have made for an adorable shojo romance. Unfortunately what we’re left with is a series that’s basically a ‘monster of the week’ type thing, but the monsters are just other ladies of the court. Sadly, this left me pretty disappointed. The chemistry between the prince and the princess was genuinely good, but we barely got any screen time with them together. I have very mixed feelings about this show. I want to recommend ‘Bibliophile Princess’, but when it comes down to it, it feels like it has too much wasted potential.