Anime Review: "Bibliophile Princess"
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.
The prince makes it pretty clear, early on, plainly, in front of everyone in the court, that he's in love with the heroine. Nobody has a shot with him. But, they continue their worthless schemes, struggling away, even though they’ve been utterly defeated by little miss bookworm.
Every episode I wanted to scream at the screen. “For fucks sake, Stop! Fucking 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 damn 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.
