Ive never written a review before. My god is this show bad. I gave up after episode 2 and feel compelled to write a review entirely because of how bad it is at this point. I probably should watch the rest first but Ive read episode synopses and the discussion posts and now I know its completely unnecessary. Ive seen some bad anime before and this is probably not the worst but man does it try to be. So let me start by saying that I understand in the shows setting our main character Leticia is a Europeanstyle noble by animes standards and so would traditionally have little if any choice in who she ultimately gets to be with. I get that whatever. Regardless this is the worst portrayal of that I have seen. Im getting ahead of myself lets set the stage. Im gonna try to avoid spoilers but lets be real I dont think you should be watching this anyway so nothing is really a spoiler. Also I only really know the plot in earnest through episode 2. Episode 1 Leticia has been told at the tender age of 7 that she is to leave her family pet dog John and little village behind to become betrothed to this kingdoms prince. She must leave now to begin lessons on etiquette and royal behavior among other things. Except none of thats true because nobody tells her FKING ANYTHING. Maybe shes given a better explanation in the source material but shes just told by her excited mother Be happy your future is decided Youre going to the castle No we cant go with you. Your dog cant either. See you sometime Like WTF? Do you not care about your child at all? What kind of terrible parents are you? At least show some sympathy for the kid and explain whats going on. Yeah shes a kid but kids understand things way better then you think they do especially anime kids. ...anyway her brother who apparently hates her guts and sees her as nothing more as an object to get close to the royal family takes her to the castle and doesnt speak to her once. How can I be sure of all of that about her brother? Thats how he treats her with absolute disdain. He clearly hates being near her. When they get there she is sent directly into etiquette lessons where the teacher immediately begins abusing her for not being perfect in every possible way. And to be clear at this point she has still apparently been given no explanation as to why she is where she is. She somehow manages to only cry a little bit which she gets completely berated for and carries on with her stupid lessons. Then shes thrust by her demon brother into a random bedroom told if you try to escape itll just be worse for you and passed off to a completely emotionless and heartless maid. For 10 Fking years. Does she ever see her parents? Apparently not Does she ever see this evil prince? Not as far as we know Just abusive lesson after abusive lesson until the fateful day where this prince shes supposed to marry comes in with another girl and heavily implies this bits important that hes going to break off the engagement. Somehow despite being forced to suppress her emotions for 10 years and having her childhood completely stolen from her she manages to immediately break her royal faade and be super excited about everything heading out and going to enjoy her life in the countryside. Now if thats where the story picked up and we just got to see her enjoy herself in the countryside maybe while fighting off her brother or some other interesting guy comes around this could be a cute and fun show. But nope Episode two happens and its clear where things are going from here. Oh and if youre wondering why Leticia is the only character Im giving a name to its because all of the other characters are so godawful that I cant be arsed to remember their names. Leticia herself is a great character and only her. She cant carry the show on her own unfortunately. Anyway. Ill try to keep episode 2 short. Episode 2 So now that shes in the countryside she can go and hang out in nature to her hearts content. And who should run across her while shes fishing? Why the prince who broke off the engagement of course He follows her around like a stalker for some bizarre reason but makes clear that he still likes her and wants to marry her. Why did he break off the engagement in the first place? Well as he runs away back to the castle at the end we learn that he never broke off the engagement because he didnt explicitly say it Sure Leticia explicitly asked you if you were going to call it off and you said Im sorry strongly implying that you would but since you didnt say it yourself then its not actually off Oh why did he do it in the first place? She learns when talking to her brother that he was just trying to get her jealous. Like...what the absolute fk. Turns out the replacement girl who Im just gonna name replacement since I cant be bother to remember her real name is there and hates the abusive teacher just as much as Leticia did so replacement is trying to force Leticia to go back to the castle. Then her parents come and shame her for running away from a bad situation and try to force her back themselves. So Leticia does what I was screaming at the TV for her to do from the very beginning of the very first episode: Get out of Dodge now. As she tries to make her escape though replacement catches her. With some negotiating replacement lets her go but then shes caught not much longer by who else then the prince of course In the middle of the night. Outside of their residence. If this isnt stalker behavior I dont know what is. I started episode 3 at this point but it was all just gaslighting from her parents about how they get along well and they make a good couple while shes literally slung over the princes shoulder and desperately flailing and trying to run away. Her brother just ignores her and she did not punch him in the face like I yelled at the screen for her to. He was close enough and deserves it. The random maid says I wish you happiness and the replacement is trying to get her to go by saying they look good together and other BS which to the replacements credit is exactly what I would expect her to do. The amount of gaslighting was so bad after 5 minutes of the episode I turned it off. I read the episode 4 synopsis and the first sentence says Stuck behind bars in a new room Leticia... and that pretty much tells me all I need to know about that. My Take If my recap didnt make it clear I hate this show. This is supposed to be a romantic comedy but its actually a sad tragedy about a girl whose childhood was stolen from her whose parents hold no real parental love for her and who is constantly chased and tormented by a stalker that happens to be royalty. Reading through episode synopses it apparently results in Stockholm syndrome eventually setting in and the poor girl getting married to her stalker despite him literally imprisoning her. I recognize that Japan in particular has some issues with gender equality but this was clearly written by a misogynist who sees women as nothing more than playthings. Its absolutely abhorrent. Many most? anime do not portray women as equals to men but at least they tend to retain their autonomy and arent generally expected to fall in love with stalkers. This show almost reads like the author trying to convince women who watch it that they should let stalkers into their life and its kind of disgusting. Im hoping the original material wasnt nearly this offputting but Im not going to bother buying or reading it to find out. I might be reading too much into it though not every show needs to have a moral. Im gonna go watch something mindless and entertaining now and get this ragebait garbage out of my mouth. I should have paid closer attention to the score before starting. TLDR Terrible show about a little girl being taken away from her parents who are all for it and forced to marry a prince. She constantly tries to escape but is constantly thwarted by the princes stalker behavior. Stockholm syndrome in the end. Dont watch unless youre a misogynist or really really into noncon and gaslighting.