I decided to watch this anime because usually it is rare for a romance to have close to an 80% rating unless it is really good, but this show really disappointed me. The art style is beautiful, and I thought the plot was intriguing that being centered around a psychic woman who has to marry a Prince for her family. This is the typical and ideal fantasy for those of us who watch romance; girl marries "cold" prince, and he actually ends up being kind natured and loving and romance blossoms. Perfect.
Well, this show is the exact opposite. I'm a sucker for the mean guy turns nice cliche, but the lead male MC - Prince Ye, is actually so heartless and rude it turned me off completely. I had to constantly remind myself that this show is set in a historical time period where women basically didn't have rights and men in positions of power were assholes who got whatever they wanted. But the whole point of this being a shoujo romance with fantasy elements, you would think it would be a fun romantic watch OR at least grow into that. But Prince Ye was rude, abusive, forceful and borderline narcissistic to the point where I didn't even want the lead girl to end up with him. Not to mention, the show mentions multiple times how the men, especially the princes, have mistresses and other women so it makes the romance feel flat. The show also plays at harem themes for the lead lady which I didn't prefer either for this plot, going into this show I thought the primary focus would be on the lead lady and male, regardless of if it was historical or not.
Qian Yunxi was a decent lead. I liked how she was not a "woman of the times" and actually would stick up for herself. But other than that, the show doesn't delve too deep into her abilities like I would have hoped. She honestly had no personality outside of fighting and talking back - I feel like the creators would sometimes force this "I'm not a pushover" type of personality too much to make a point, but by them doing this over and over it makes you realize how crappy all the male characters are. Regardless she was my favorite character.
The plot seemed to drag and drag, 11 episodes (out of a mere 16) in and the romance between the two leads is basically nonexistent. All you have are instances of Ye abusing Qian (making her sleep in a raggedy palace, making her sleep in a wood cabin, having his mistresses' maids abuse her, believing his mistress over her, etc.) and the princes discussing this upcoming tension between them and the west, but it is so vague you don't know what is going on until the show is practically over. It feels like majority of the show is just you watching Qian get into trouble and get abused. The other characters really aren't worth mentioning, I didn't like any of them. The only character I liked was Prince Yu (Ye's brother) he was actually sympathetic and funny at times. I found myself rooting for him to be with Qian, honestly.
The show is alright. I think the harshness of the lead male MC turned me off a lot, the plot at certain points was very slow and wasn't interesting enough to really allow me to invest in the show, and the jokes fell most of the time - it just felt boring. This is nice as a quick watch, something to pass the time - but this isn't one of those romances that you need to see.