Tearmoon Empire

Tearmoon Empire - Simply put, Princess Mia Luna Tearmoon is a supporting MVP, and her VA, Sumire Uesaka, is a riot who guillotines the show with absolute precision! I have heard of novelist Nozomu Mochitsuki's Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari a.k.a Tearmoon Empire, but like with all things related to real life, I just didn't get the time proper to actually sit down and read the LN, much less the manga adaptation of it. That is, until Silver Link's adaptation this year came around this season, which gave me the perfect chance to experience the LN/manga in anime form, and I have to say that despite the clashof similar themed works, it delivered on so many levels, that this is hands down one of the best non-attention-grabbing low-key shows of Fall 2023. The one thing that you should be aware of about Tearmoon Empire is that it's very inspired by the French Revolution and medieval Europe, on top of the already near-guillotine-executing "I must reverse time and undo all my mistakes!" premise that combines so many genres to a near-flawless execution, being a time-travelling fantasy comedy with a villainess MC that likes to get into the political drama, all in a venture to restore that which is lost: the reputation of the Tearmoon Empire and its proclaimed princess: Mia Luna Tearmoon. Having already driven her empire to the ground, a revolution sees the 20-year-old being captured and tortured by the servants that the selfish princess once belittled, as time counts down till her public execution. And when that time came, there was no hope for Mia to ever see the light of her day...that is, until said execution mysteriously brought her 8 years back to her 12-year-old self. Free from the constraints of the execution, along with the "Death Note" diary that logs each and every account of her misdemeanors towards the people close to her that leads to the execution, Mia hopes to resettle her empire by restoring her relations with her offenders with her "Mia First" policy, on top of her already selfish nature that turns people's heads towards her, giving her a precious second chance to make things right...by turning things into the 3rd person perspective, along with the narrator to play with her expressions. If you understand the expression "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," then you'll understand Mia to a T. Mia's role as the frenemy — it's not an easy task trying to recruit those whom she simply shrugged off to one side in her previous life. Mia constantly has to weigh her options and act against those specified in the diary that could lead to her downfall, the simplest actions of which would determine her distance to the fated guillotine (who always likes to play with Mia if she is on the cusp of doing something wrong to cheer her to it, that's a hilarious recurring gag). Besides, given Mia's previous epitaph as "The Selfish Princess who Ruined Tearmoon," which is eventually replaced as "The Great Sage of the Empire," they couldn't be more different from each other, being one and the same at her very core, with her hilarity point being the delusions surrounding an arrogant, cowardly, and slightly selfish persona that hides a lovable idiot even further below, despite her flaws that she tries to hide to the best of her abilities. Over the course of her renewed tenure, Mia wins and gains her once-frenemies, and here are a few examples: - Mia's personal maid-in-waiting, Anne Littstein, who previously served her as one of her most loyal subjects during her execution phase, was thankful for her loyalty. Alongside her sick and frail sister Eris to complete her self-written novel and serve as the official author of her documented biography; - Mia's finance head, Ludwig Hewitt, who once worked as a government official trying to resolve the old Tearmoon Empire's economic collapse, being thankful that he spared her life; - Mia's friends of princes Abel Remno and Sion Sol Sunkland, and the lesser noble Tiona Rudolvon. Speaking of Abel first, his former life was not so great, being a playboy and gambler, one who always hides in the shadows of his brother Gain. But in the new timeline, after meeting Mia, he humbles his heart and gets his act together to have a relationship with her. As for Sion, he's linked with Tiona; both were the leaders of the revolution that took Mia down, and with the subtlety changes, he now protects Mia as one of their beloved friends. Tiona especially, since Mia's time at Saint Noel Academy wasn't the best, and she would become the princess's best ally. - Mia's BIGGEST enemy is Rafina Orca Belluga, the daughter of Duke Belluga, which is where Saint Noel Academy is located. Rafina's functionally princess position basically equals and rivals that of Mia, since she helped both Sion and Tiona bring the old Mia down, and she remains the threat that the new Mia must avoid...though with some misinterpretations, Rafina begins to clear things up, which solidifies their friendship. Of all of the frenemies that Mia reconciled, Rafina is definitely the most unkempt friendship sequence, considering her reputation and power enough that Mia could edge closer to the guilotine. But still, you've gotta do what you've gotta do, and the Tearmoon princess eventually did her forgiving deed, all in the plight to run away from the knife's edge as far as possible. That said, the story itself has a few timelines, so if that rouses your interest, have fun navigating through the many events surrounding each timeline. Out of all the roles that the fan favourite VA Sumire Uesaka has performed this year, she continues to dominate the VA anime scene with returning favourites like Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san, Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. and ToniKawa, to new favourites like 100 Girlfriends' with Hahari Hanazono, and now with this show serving as Mia's VA, which she aced perfectly. Needless to say, if you're not stoked for the anime adaptation of RoshiDere coming Spring next year with the titular main girl, Alisa Mikhailovna Kujo (because Sumipe actually learned the Russian language enough to score the role), then I don't know what to say as a convincing measure. For Silver Link, 2023 has been somewhat of a mediocre year, from subpar sequel follow-ups to last season's Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha a.k.a Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero, which is a decent chunk of change. However, this Fall, this show, and Ragna Crimson, apart from being directed by people who've been trained in assistant roles to be promoted to full-on directorialship, certainly looked like Silver Link was taking a rather long rest while waiting for their Fall shows to come out guns blazing. For his debut directorial role, Yushi Ibe might not have come out strong, but the quality of his staff team has been kept very consistent, so well done. And for the sum of the entire show as a whole, the studio finally delivered with great production and vibrant colours, definitely A+++ quality. For the music, Sumipe's OP song is great. It's full of Mia's infused personalities and idiosyncrasies that make for a bopping song. KanoeRana's ED song, on the other hand, is decently mellow but by no means bad. I've really enjoyed Tearmoon Empire for what it is and its themes, which work so well together, and it should emit the same level of magical energy to you for its brilliance. Wonderful.

If the Tearmoon Kingdom novel series is a 10/10, then I'd give the anime adaption a 5/10, thus the score. Seriously, I haven't seen such a bad adaptation that tries to adapt faithfully to the novels. Indeed, the anime only covers two volumes, and it covers every single story point. However--and I am absolutely shocked--the anime still just sucks so much. If I had to describe one thing about this show, it'd be cheap. It's not just the obvious telltale signs too, but down to the roots of the show. First of all, is the art. The art is extremely generic. I won't really go into SilverLink, the studio that animated this, but damn does this show's art style look like the most generic and boring isekai anime ever. But it's not just generic, it's also terrible. Each character looks the same, aside from Mia of course. Every person's facial structure and expression are so similar that the only thing separating them from each other is their hairstyle and clothing. Of course, this is just because each character is copy-pasted with minimal facial expressions being animated. This really takes away from the show. A great example of this is Dion, a battle-weary captain in the novel, but in the anime, he just looks like a generic salaryman. His tone and inflection are supposed to be more rough, a bit rugged, like a commoner's. Because he obviously is one. He's supposed to be more wary of Mia at the beginning, trusting, and finally loyal. In this show, none of those stages are expressed in either character development, art, or facial expressions. In contrast, look at Mia's facial expressions in comedic moments. It feels vibrant because Mia is constantly changing her expression to match her mood and feelings. When she's put in the spotlight, the anime highlights that in her face. Now look at other characters. Even when they're fighting to the death, they have the most generic stoic facial expressions like they're talking about the weather. Their voice acting, again, is just absolutely terrible. Only Mia's is fine, but all of the other characters have such lacking ranges of emotion in their voices it's pathetic. It's like they were instructed to talk in a monotone or something. This genericness and cheapness extend to the focus on character development as well. While Mia gets adequate monologues in the anime, the other characters are sorely lacking. The novel does focus on Mia a large portion of the time and she IS the main character, but the novel also does a lot of character development and world-building from the perspective of other characters. This is cut out completely. The reason why the novel series is fun is because the misunderstanding is between a well-developed character and Mia, but in this show, it's basically like some generic archetypal character that you barely know about engaging with Mia. Even with Mia's love interests, like Sion and Abel, they are completely lacking any sort of actual character in the anime compared to the novel. The main charm point of the novel becomes completely neglected in the anime. I feel like I'm watching some generic Otome game reincarnation anime since I see characters that barely get introduced influencing the story. Then comes the misunderstandings themselves. First and foremost, Tearmoon Kingdom is a comedic misunderstanding novel. This gets expanded upon of course, but misunderstandings are what the novel excels at creating. And this anime butchers it. You can see it even in the storyboarding itself. Comedic pacing is extremely important, and the show just does not have that level of finesse when adapting comedic scenes. Monologues are done lazily in frozen frames where the person talking has a spotlight on them and everyone is idle. Sometimes, the monologuing is cut completely. There doesn't seem to be any flow of conversation despite there being one because of these awkward freeze-frame cuts. There isn't any pacing. The characters just force their monologues into a conversation and that's about it. It doesn't feel like things are moving in real-time, and as a result, almost all of the comedy is just gotten rid of. It's not just the comedic pacing and delivery that's awful, though, it's just the storyboarding themselves. Manga adaptations are so much easier to animate since they already have a storyboard readily made for animators. For novels, studios have to create their own from scratch. And it's painfully made aware here, where Silver Link decides to create the most cheap storyboards possible. First of all, there's a lack of spatial awareness. Each character stands still. Everyone stands still, or they're standing really far away and talking, or nothing is happening on screen. This is, of course, to reduce animation costs. People just "wait" on the screen for someone to make their move or talk. There's a lack of tension in scenes that have fighting. Scenes that should have much more impact are trivialized and made a mockery in the anime. Pride, rage, embarrassment, guilt, and spite are all shown in the anime, but rarely are these emotions actually transmitted to the viewer due to the extremely lacking pacing, scenes, and storyboard. Let's not even talk about fights. They might as well not exist for how poorly they are all animated. If I had to make a closing remark, this show is the opposite of shows like Konosuba or to be the Power in the Shadows, where they completely elevate the novel by making full use of the animation medium. Konosuba has vibrant tsukkomi through their brilliant comedic pacing, simple but good animation, and large ranges of facial expressions and interactions. To be the Power in the Shadows makes full use of its storyboarding capabilities by adding atmostphere to serious scenes despite the novel being full of comedic monologue.

Summary: recommended only if you have not read novel. It was one of my highly expected show this season, after Frieren, Apothecary, and Shangfron. Unlike other time slip stories, MC does not try to be good but behaves selfish to avoid beheading. However it is perfectly misunderstood by other characters to bring the best result. Narration and personified guillotine (from comicalized one) gives more fun to those situations. The show itself is funny enough, above average. However referring to original novel, animated part is only beginning and more chapters are coming. Animation rushed too much to finish it within one cour, so we're missing more serious storiesbehind the curtain. Also some of heroine's selfish thoughts and actions were omitted. So if you want to see the full story, I strongly recommend original novel. (Comics is slower than animation now.)

There have been a lot of these lately, usually the plot is reincarnated into an Otome Game as the villainess and trying to avoid the doom ending using the knowledge of the game, here however the twist is that the 'villainess' reincarnates back into herself six years before she meets her own doom with nothing but her memories and her diary of the intervening years to help her avoid her fate. I will say that because this current trope hasn't been overdone, I do find myself enjoying these types of series, the only issue I've had with most of them is that in most cases, theystart strong, but then tend to lose their way, usually ending with you feeling unsatisfied with how it ended. This is in my opinion one of the better entries in the genre, while it doesn't do too much special and certain things are easily predictable, it's strengths lie with its consistency. It takes what is the standard formula and executes it well. Even though the story may feel 'standard' and you can predict certain aspects, it actually sets up those plot points in the story, which probably aids in the audience predicting where things will go, there is no random ass-pull or deus ex moment, we're not throwing in a random amnesia plotline, or putting in literal gods for a shocking twist, and characters actually follow an internal logic that actually makes sense. The series is well paced, and also doesn't have any obvious plot holes, Which brings me to the characters, which is the strong point of this series, the characters are actually given depth, they get to grow. The characters, like real people have well preconceived ideas, and they all have reasons for having those ideas, after all preconceived ideas often don't come out of no where, but when those ideas are challenged, they have to slowly change their way of thinking. Of cause Mia takes the biggest journey and undergoes the biggest change without realising it, but she's had more time to reflect on things. However it is satisfying to see see Sion's growth, because it wasn't just something that happened at the end, but because we had Mia challenging his notions of justice for a while. If you like the genre then you can't go far wrong with this entry, for me it sets a standard baseline that the genre should be looking to achieve. Hamefura is still the GOAT though.