The Winter 2023 Anime Preview Guide

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess

Despite her supposed ineptitude with regular magic, Princess Anisphia defies the aristocracy's expectations by developing “magicology,” a unique magical theory based on memories from her past life. One day, she witnesses the brilliant noblewoman Euphyllia unjustly stripped of her title as the kingdom's next monarch. That's when Anisphia concocts a plan to help Euphyllia regain her good name—which somehow involves them living together and researching magic. Little do these two ladies know, however, that their chance encounter will alter not only their futures but those of the kingdom...and the entire world.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess is based on Piero Karasu's light novel series and streams on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.

Richard Eisenbeis
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As you may know, I love villainess stories—and this one is no exception. The creative twist in The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady is that the reincarnator is not the villainess but rather her sister-in-law-to-be, the kingdom's princess. But more than just the setup, this first episode is about introducing us to our three main characters.

The first is Anisphia, a girl from our world reincarnated as a princess in a fantasy land of knights and magic. The problem is that despite her being obsessed with magic, she has no talent. This has driven her to become obsessed with using her real-world knowledge to create magic-based technology. It also makes her an oddity within the nobility—a princess who doesn't act like one but has revolutionary ideas that can't be ignored.

The second character is Euphyllia. The stereotypical “otome game villainess,” she is serious, extremely talented, highly motivated, and has spent all her life preparing to be the next queen. Of course, as these stories go, Prince Algard (Anisphia's younger brother) has been neglecting her in favor of a talented, kind, former commoner girl at the academy they attend—and is frankly no longer interested in being Euphyllia's fiancé. This, expectedly, brings Euphyllia's world crashing down.

Our final main character is Prince Algard himself. While he doesn't speak much, there's a lot of excellent visual storytelling in this episode when it comes to him. He has a severe inferiority complex when it comes to his sister. He tries to act as a prince should, but his eccentric sister breaks all the rules and continuously steals the spotlight—even when he studies, works hard, and goes through the motions to court a girl he doesn't love (or even respect). Is it any wonder he also rebels by exposing his “evil” fiancé and choosing the love he truly wants instead of the one forced upon him?

Of course, the thing is that she isn't evil—and while he may believe himself to be mature, the fact remains that he never cared enough to ask her for her side of the story. And as karma would have it, it is at this point his sister shows up and overshadows him again. After all, if Algard is stupid enough to throw away his fiancé, Anisphia is more than happy to take in a magical genius to help her with her work.

This first episode excellently lays out not only the setting but also our three main characters—the way they think, what drives them, and the conflicts they have with each other. As silly as this episode can be at times, it's also wonderfully nuanced in its drama. On its most basic level, this is a story about three teens on the cusp of adulthood who each have some serious growing up to do before they're ready to lead anything—much less a kingdom.

Nicholas Dupree
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Despite the overlong title, I was looking forward to this premiere. I've read the first volume of the manga adaptation and found it to be an enjoyable fantasy romp that combined the appeal of your typical isekai fare and the noble life perils of many “villainess” stories with an entertaining lead heroine. What I got with this anime premiere was all that, but greatly expanded to flesh out our central duo and the forces that make their fates collide. The result is a nicely animated and intriguing introduction and basically the exact kind of character-driven storytelling that gets me invested in a show for the long run.

Much of that comes down to Princess Anisphia, who, despite the “reincarnated” descriptor in the title, is far from your typical isekai melvin. For one, her ties to her previous life amount to a handful of memories and impressions that allow her a different perspective on the magical mechanics of her world but don't have her making constant meta-textual asides about manga or video games. She's also just a hoot, a classically rambunctious princess who inadvertently wreaks havoc on royal decorum, possessed by a childlike love of the magic around her that baffles the stuffed shirt nobles. There's an infectious energy to her that makes you want to root for her but also tells you why even the more open-minded royalty around her would chafe at her antics.

Her chaos has real consequences for others, putting a ton of pressure on her brother as the new heir apparent and stirring political unease among the King's retainers, which I like. If this show is about an actual revolution, magical or otherwise, there must be some believable pushback from those in power. That said, turmoil ends up spilling over into deuteragonist Euphylia's arranged marriage to the prince, which makes the whole thing more interesting. It makes both the larger world and conflict feel organic. The prince is an asshole, for sure, but you can tell why he's an asshole and that there are reasons behind his actions beyond the story needing an inciting incident. Euphylia herself is much more reserved than Anis but has a personality and priorities that make her compelling in her own way. While the pair only meet for real at the very end, both are well-realized enough that you can immediately imagine how their personalities might complement and clash.

Visually, the premiere honestly looks better than I could have hoped. Diomedia isn't a studio known for breathtaking visuals, but there's a lot of solid direction here that gives us a clear understanding of the cast's emotions while keeping up a general polish. There's even some nice, fluid action in the opening minutes as Anis uses her lightsaber swords to cut down dire wolves. Character designs are simple but expressive and with distinct silhouettes. In sum, it makes for a solid, appealing watch that emphasizes the strongest aspects of the writing and makes this an easy recommendation.

There's something irrepressible about Princess Anis, and I suspect you will find that delightful or profoundly irritating. I'm leaning more on the side of delightful myself, and yes, most of that is because of the way that she rescues poor Euphyllia from her moment of undeserved shame. As is required by isekai law, Euphyllia has been cast in the role of the villainess, even though there is zero indication that the reincarnated character (Anis) believes this world to be based on any game. But no one told her jerk brother all that, and he makes the indefensible decision to humiliate his fiancée Euphyllia in front of everyone at a graduation party. When Anis mutters after she bursts in on the scene, “stuff like this really happens?” it feels like a tacit acknowledgment of how oversaturated isekai and all its subgenres have become. That does not, however, stop her from saving the moment and the girl.

If we're being picky, there is little in this show that necessarily sets it apart from most others. Even the fact that the source novels are yuri is hardly revolutionary, as I can think of at least three titles off the top of my head. But what makes this fun in terms of a first episode is that irrepressibility about Anis. The minute she remembered reading stories of witches flying on brooms in her past life at about age five, she knew what she wanted to do with her life, and she isn't going to let a silly little thing like not having any innate magical ability stop her. She reminds me of the time when I was about eight, and I jumped off the roof of the woodshed with an umbrella to see if maybe it would have an effect on my falling; unlike Anis, I did not think to tie a rope around my waist or have a nervous maid watching over me. I also gave up after spraining my ankle, where nothing will stop the Marauder Princess - and as we see her demonstrate throughout the episode, failure is not a word in her vocabulary.

This is also a case where the adaptation is a bit superior to the source material. I'm happy about this because the author of the original light novels does not do an excellent job of differentiating character voices, making it difficult to know whose thoughts we are currently experiencing. Voice acting takes that problem away, and the result is that we can better appreciate who each of the characters is. It is early days yet; we have a pretty solid grasp of Ilia, Euphyllia, Anis, and Al, which I found challenging in the novel. Anis could get annoying as the story goes on, and the fact that she's already given up her right to the throne seems like something that could come back to haunt the storyline later. But this is off to a fun and promising start.

James Beckett
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Well, wasn't that just the cutest thing? I guess, finally, these shows are starting to crack the code. As it turns out the secret to getting me to completely ignore my reservations about isekai light novel adaptations with ridiculously long titles that feature the word “reincarnated” is to have a main character with an actual (likeable) personality and interesting goals, not to mention a solid cast of supporting characters to play off of. Parallel World Pharmacy proved that point last year, and now we have The Magical Revolution of the Princess and the Young Lady. Plus, the show is set to earn some bonus points for pairing its leading lady, Anisphia, with the equally interesting Euphyllia. Will the show prove itself to be truly worthy of our admiration and allow these gals to date each other like they very obviously should be? Only time will tell, but we can already see that they'll make for a fun team, regardless.

Even better than the solid story and fun characters, Magical Revolution is just plain really nice to look at. Not only does it feature the kind of lush colors and pleasing background art that make somewhat generic fantasy worlds like this stand out amidst a sea of competition, but its character animation game is strong as hell. That's really important when the entire show basically lives and dies based on whether it can get its audience to fall in love with its protagonists. If I wasn't already sold by the princess' delightfully rascally and vivacious personality, then Magical Revolution definitely won me over when it had Anis literally crash into Euphyllia's breakup-in-progress to sweep her off her feet and carry her far away from the wrath of Prince Whatshisname.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the show can keep this level of production up for the whole season, but first impressions count for a hell of a lot, and Magical Revolution came flying out of the gate with a killer introduction. You can bet I'll be sticking around this winter to see what the princess and her new companion get up to now that they've found each other.

Caitlin Moore
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The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, henceforth known as MagiRevo because lol at the idea of typing out that whole thing more than once ever, marks the third series in two seasons where a female character becomes perceived as villainous because she's hard-working and talented. Is it a coincidence or a trend? Because I can get on board with this one… until I get tired of it and declare myself over it.

Out of the three series – I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss; Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don't Believe in Humanity Will Save the World, and this one – MagiRevo looks to be the clear winner in both quality and title length. It's an all-in-one: solid production quality, engaging character writing, a promising story, and very little bullshit. I won't talk about the bullshit, though, because I'm trying a new thing where instead of focusing on something not doing things I dislike, I focus on them doing things I do like.

MagiRevo is the kind of solidly-written premiere that makes it pretty tricky to tease out specific things to call out because it's so uniformly solid, and there's very little negative in itself to contrast against. I liked Anis from the moment she jumped on her broomstick and started knifing wolficorns with brutal, well-animated efficiency. I loved her from the moment she plopped one's head on her own like a hat and wandered off into the sunrise. Anis goes about everything with the effortless, goofy charm of a single-minded nutty professor, clearly brilliant and determined but also kind of a clumsy doofus. The story has already set out some of the implications of her efforts: the nobles disapprove of her pursuit of “magicology,” which means putting power into the hands of the unwashed commoners, and her younger brother has been forced to accept responsibility for the country and a political engagement, and he resents her for it.

Well, except that the political marriage quickly goes south when he accuses his fiancée, Euphyllia, of bullying a former commoner he likes in a very public scene that is nearly word-for-word identical to the other series I mentioned previously. If I had a nickel for every time this came up, I'd have three nickels, which is not a lot, but it's weird that it happened thrice. Euphyllia is interesting as someone who has always tried to live according to what's expected of her, including going along with a political marriage but still faces cruelty for it. That is until Anis literally swoops in to save her from a life of quiet desperation and compulsory heterosexuality. The two don't interact much, so it's hard to gauge their chemistry at this point, but they're both so likable as individuals that I'm eager to see what's to come.