Athanasia has blue jeweled eyes from her father and a bold name and dying blessing from her mother. She also has only one person in the whole world who loves and cares for her, her mom’s best friend, Lily; that is, until Lily manages to replace all the horrible maids with nice ones during one of the time skips in this triple episode premiere. But what really makes Athanasia’s life difficult is not neglect, but rather attention, and specifically, the attention of one particular golden-haired man who has a penchant for wearing Romanesque bathrobes that gape open to the navel. That’s right, it’s her father, the Emperor. He’s a problem not only for his questionable fashion sense (especially considering that everyone else is dressed straight out of Edwardian England), but because, when Athy is fourteen years old, he’s going to curse and banish her from the kingdom, resulting in a Bad Ending. Fortunately, Athy has prophetic dreams and an uncanny ability to recall narrative and think in complete sentences even when aged a mere few months old, and over her five years of life, has put together a picture book of her Bad Ending storyline for her own reference. She is now using said picture book to help her protect those she loves (i.e. Lily) and avoid those who spell her doom (i.e. daddy dearest). Until one day, when the emotionless exhibitionist finds her in his pavilion of golden statues, biting them to see if they’re genuine. Will this encounter spell an early beginning to Athy’s end? Or can the savvy chibi charm her way to safety?
You know what? This is fine. The animation is quite pleasing, with robust backgrounds (I don’t know how else to describe it…), nice, if familiar, character designs, and good motion (no wonky in-betweens here). Nothing stands out either negatively or positively; it gets the job done. Where it gets a little more interesting, is in its provenance. This is actually a donghua, not an anime, being produced by Chinese studio Colored Pencil Animation, using Japanese 2D stylistics and techniques. The original dub is in Mandarin, and comparing it to the Japanese dub is quite instructive: the Chinese VAs tend to sound a bit more adult, somehow. Both casts do a nice job. The episodes are also a little shorter than usual, at 20 minutes apiece, while there are 16 episodes to the season, which no doubt helps to explain the triple episode premiere. The three episodes don’t form an arc of any kind, but the second and third ones do take the story in a slightly different direction from the first. I’m not sure the story has found its feet yet, even after three installments, to be honest, as all the intrigue dished out in the final couple minutes of the third episode highjack the story away from Athy per se, onto her father. Which is just as well, because her story is a bit more…slice-of-life, and for anyone who’s frequented Webtoon or Tapas for any length of time, a little too familiar and mundane, as far as stories of doomed princesses with sudden second chances go. Mind you, Athy does demonstrate an appealing dash of ingenuity and spunk, in squirreling away a small fortune in jewels and other treasures picked up from throughout the palace in readiness for her escape. She’s a clever kiddo! So, if you’re looking for something light and comfy featuring cute princesses and a surfeit of resplendent castle halls, gardens, and statuaries, with occasional bursts of excitement in the imperious Imperial father storyline, this might just be your jam. For my part, three servings were enough for me to say, thank you for the tea and cakes, but I really do need to be going now.
The Fated Magical Princess is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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