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, 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 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.

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 ^^

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.

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*

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

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.

This anime went downhill pretty quickly. I enjoyed the first 3-5 episodes and the rest was skipped because its just full of yapping and repetitive plotlines. She is supposed to be brainy but honestly nothing shows as such. Some people will enjoy it but it was frustrating to watch for me.

The story is quite predictable in a sense where one event happens and you can guess what the result / solution would be. Nothing smart seems to have happened.

There were some nice romance moments but it definitely is not enough to balance out the yappiness of things that does not add depth to the story.

Animation: 5/10
Romance: 8/10
Characters: 6/10
Story: 5/10

Now, let’s break down this anime.

If you're looking for a light romance to pass the time, this is a great option. But remember, nothing memorable—just a nice way to kill some time.

Let’s get into the flaws: the characters are one-dimensional. They are exactly what they appear to be and nothing more—no layers, no depth. The whole concept of the anime revolves around misunderstandings. Elianna misunderstands something, gets upset, gives up on everything, only to find out she was wrong. This pattern repeats itself and gets tiring.
...
The main characters don’t experience any growth throughout the anime. Elianna is the best example of this—she starts and ends the anime naive, believing whatever people tell her. Their romance could have progressed more, but instead, the time is wasted on misunderstandings. They could have focused on something more meaningful.

That said, let’s talk about the good: the romance itself is enjoyable because it doesn’t take long to happen, although there’s little development after that. The characters, especially the main ones, are beautiful, and the setting is pleasant.

In conclusion, this is an anime just to pass the time and enjoy Elianna’s cuteness and how pretty she is.

Solid 6/10.




Vamos ao superficial

Animação: 5/10
Romance: 8/10
Personagens: 6/10
Historia: 5/10

Bom agora vamos ao que foi esse anime

Para você que busca um romance para passar o tempo, este é uma ótima opção, mas lembre, nada memorável, apenas um passa tempo legal.

Vamos ao joio, os personagens são unilaterais, ou seja, todos são o que são e nada mais, não possuem camadas ou facetas diferentes, todos eles são exatamente o que aparentam e se resumem a isso.
O conceito do anime gira em torno de mal entendidos, Elianna entende algo errado, faz drama, desiste de tudo so para descobrir que não era bem assim, isso se torna repetitivo e começa a cansar.
A os personagens principais não tem evolução alguma durante o anime, Elianna é o melhor exemplo disso, começa e termina o anime ingênua e acreditando em tudo que falam.
O romance deles poderia ter tido mais avanços, no lugar de tanto mal entendido, poderiam ter usado esse tempo para algo mais proveitoso.

Dito tudo isso, vamos ao trigo, a parte mais agradável é o romance em si, porque não enrola muito para acontecer, embora tenha pouca evolução.
Os personagens principalmente os protagonistas são lindos.
A ambientação é agradável.

Com isso chegamos a conclusão, que é um anime meramente para passar tempo e se divertir com a fofura da Elianna e o quão linda ela é.

6 cravado

My score: 5/10.

Overall Opinion: It's a decent shoujo anime series, nothing spectacular or awesome thing was shown. It was a plain romance story, but this time our MC is a great fan and loving fan for reading books. This was really an interesting concept especially the female MC, but she solves every problem with the help of her vast and resourceful knowledge. The art style and animation was decent, but it was well made for this series. It may be loved by shoujo romance fans. It was overall an OK series for me. The story was a lot of times unpredictable and sometimes predictable, this ... was due to our female MC

This show started off good in a drama sort of way, with a few "gotha!" moments that made me want to get the popcorn. But as the show continued i noticed there was a lot less action being taken by the characters and more talking about politics that are honestly kind of hard to follow. And after the first snob got their comeuppance, it got a little old when it happened again and again where Eli needed her prince to come save her. And im not sneezing at the princess in distress trope, some people really get off on that kind of thing, but a ... better story would have the character its happening to learn from it and grow in interesting ways, Eli was just sort of...bland and indifferent to things that happened around her apart from feeling like the victim again. The prince was just a handsome prince thats devoted to his crush on her. he doesnt do too much to stand out as a character or anything. The other side characters are forgettable too, but at least this anime wasnt trying too hard, which in my opinion, is way worse. Like when an anime character HAS to come onto the scene declaring themselves as quirky or important trying to force the watcher to remember them, Shonin have a bad habit of that, where in Shojo its given to be more of a subtle nudge to establish a character and their importance. this show just sort of dums it down so bad I dont really care about any other characters and what they have to say, it took a lot of effort to care about what the mains had to say it was so bland.
But im not going to lie and pretend the first few episodes didnt have me excited about watching the next episode, the tea spillage was just too indulgent. The setting of the palace is pretty too and the art is nice.
Anyhoo, if your interested, watch it, but dont worry if you lose interest after a few episodes, your not missing anything.

It's almost a given that with the current landscape that anime is today, certain things will just get left behind in time. Such is the genres of focus being cash cows for everyone involved, diving deep into the Shonen and Isekai genres, because let's be honest: Japan's surplus for works like these haven't stopped and will keep on coming like Truck-kun banging just right outside of everyone's doors. One such particular demographic that you don't see get targeted much is the Shoujo genre, that with shows like the recently completed re-adaptation of Fruits Basket and the currently ongoing Tokyo Mew Mew New, there isn't the ... time and resource justified to make new Shoujo anime anymore to appease the minority.

But still, when people try, we at least get something that stands out from the rest of the typical copy-paste blurb that we've seen of both the Shonen and Isekai genres, and that's how we get novelist Yui's Mushikaburi-hime a.k.a Bibilophile Princess. And this also being another Syosetu title, it's definitely surprising to find a fair few stories that isn't the Isekai Reincarnation kind.

As is with Shoujo anime, think of it as like the past glories of Kaichou wa Maid-sama! and the closest example being that of Ouran Koukou Host Club a.k.a Ouran High School Host Club, but with the show's premise being pretty much like Akatsuki no Yona a.k.a Yona of the Dawn or Akagami no Shirayuki-hime a.k.a Snow White with the Red Hair, only except that the female MC Elianna Bernstein, is like Honzuki's Myne in every regard. This is because Elianna is not just your typical girl: she is known as the Bibilophile Princess, coming from a family of bibilophiles and is a family heirloom of national treasures that benefit the Kingdom as the "brains of Sauslind", but choosing to be politically neutral in the sight of conflict. Being a bibilophile and a bookworm herself, after being engaged with Christopher Selkirk Ashelard, the crown prince of the kingdom, Elianna chooses to house herself in Sauslind's royal library just for the added perks of being able to access the royal archives and read all day long, which consequently earns the ire of many others in the kingdom's walls and labelling her as a phony fiancé: someone who completely ignores the happenings and proceedings, and most importantly, the crown prince Christopher himself to his own devices.

To be fair, I think that Christopher and Elianna's relationship is just about what you expect from a completely Shoujo work: the crown prince and his princess, there's so much uncertainty that's riding with the tumultuous commotion of the kingdom and going along with it, the not-yet husband-and-wife duo must act coordinated and soundly to ensure that their kingdom doesn't fall in pieces. And that is Elianna's Achilles Heel: with her presence almost being equal that of a wandering ghost trying to play catch-up with the kingdom's numerous political issues, whilst remaining close to her heart about the way that she would handle things. It's that tenacity where she feels like she's lost at times, though her comeback will vary since people MUST act like in a complete Shoujo environment of wavering feelings and decisions made that could affect her fiancee as well. And that always turn out to be that hit-and-miss feeling of lackuster aspects about the source material as well. The other characters of servitude, eh I can take or leave it being the fact that there's just way too many of them to even give us time to think about. Though I would say that the Ikemen that pretty much stuck with me is the butler character Alan Ferrera, he's the perfect embodient of a background character used as a running gag of a joke that to me, truly never gets old.

I'm just going to be frank: what's up with Madhouse being chosen to adapt very odd titles, outside of the ones that we expect them to have (i.e. Overlord), not to mention Winter's HakoZume a.k.a Police in a Pod (which that one I felt was within the acceptable range). Ironically, in the same vein, they have done shows like Ore Monogatari!! and YoriMoi before, so this should be a cakewalk...and as someone commented in a review, the strange white vignette that's used all the time as a filter, yelp. I mean, this is a relatively different Madhouse we're looking at now after all of the fiasco that the studio has undergone throughout the years, and is trying to find a groove for itself. Sadly, I don't think that this show ever fitted with Madhouse's abundance to begin with, but it just looks fine.

At least the OST fares somewhat better: DanMachi's Yuka Iguchi producing a really nice OP song, and Kashitarou Itou being the falsetto, perfect-pitch tenor guy with a unique vocal voice to boot. Music is generally enjoyable, but in the context of the show as a whole, it's not much.

I think I know the reason why we gravitiate less towards Shoujo shows: being the predictable premises that they are, it takes talent and creativity to spice all of the melodrama out of a series, and for novelist Yui, it would've been OK for the time had this show came out much earlier, but I digress that there's just nothing unique about it, aside from the tried-and-true Shoujo demographic hit points. Let's be real: the right for Shoujo anime to exist, is only if the writers and their source material have enough traction to go around, and this show didn't even generate any marketing about it other than the usual teaser and PVs to go around.

Is it a shame that there's no more Shoujo shows left to adapt? It depends honestly, but in the case of Mushikaburi-hime a.k.a Bibilophile Princess, it's a dud, a false perception of the Shoujo genre's comeback, even if miniscule. Only watch this if you feel very bored, you're not missing much.