The Fated Magical Princess: Who Made Me a Princess – Episodes 1-3

Content warning: brief scenes of child neglect

What’s it about? Ever since she was a baby, Princess Athanasia has had prophetic dreams in which her father banishes her for the crime of using dark magic. She sets out to try and change her fate, intent on avoiding her father at all costs… only to accidentally cross paths with him. But to Athy’s surprise, the cruel emperor from her visions reaches out and shows an interest in trying to raise his young daughter. Can she change their relationship and avoid a tragic future for both of them?

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So, Crunchyroll’s blurb for this series frames it as a reincarnation isekai, pitching a story about a woman who wakes up as the ill-fated princess from a novel, and who must use her knowledge of the book to avoid her own grisly demise. However, so far the portal fantasy framing is curiously absent, or at least so subtle it essentially vanishes. Athy’s dreams are framed through the visual device of fairy tale illustrations and turning pages, but there’s no indication that the audience should take these literally—she’s also surrounded by the metaphorical chains of fate and clockwork gears to show that she’s running out of time, after all, so the book may just be another bit of symbolism.

From my admittedly very limited knowledge of the source material, I understand that the web novels and manhwa rest more heavily on the isekai aspect, so if this is an adaptational change it’s one I find very interesting (fans of the series, let me know your thoughts in the comments!). The fact that the reincarnation aspect can be so seamlessly removed while keeping the core story intact is also interesting, and does helpfully illustrate—and sidestep—an issue I often have with this “reborn in a piece of fiction” subgenre. Often the real-world protagonist’s own personhood vanishes so thoroughly into the character they’re inhabiting that their past life is hardly relevant, beyond the fact that they’ve played the game or read the book that they’ve been zapped into. It’s not always a story-breaker, but it bugs me, personally, as it often dilutes both the (usually dead, and often suspiciously lacking in backstory) real-world protagonist and the existing archetypal character they end up wearing as a shell.

You can build a villainess story with the same plot progression and sense of conflict, it turns out, by simply giving your protagonist visions of a dark possible future rather than making her a reincarnated gamer. It cuts out the middleman, effectively, and lets your heroine exist as her own person. Athy knows what might happen to her, and she’s reckoning with the existential dread of her impending death while fighting for her own autonomy—in other words, you get all the interesting and fun bits of this subgenre without the added contrivance of isekai body-hopping.

And The Fated Magical Princess is, for the most part, fun and interesting! It’s definitely cooking with familiar ingredients, but the dish it serves up is pretty tasty in its own right. Athy is a sweet and compelling protagonist, dealing with the horrors of her predicted future through the lens of a precocious child, striking a surprisingly effective balance between being little-kid twee and being wily and conniving. I found myself more and more endeared to her as the episodes progressed (this is a whopping triple premiere, though the episodes are a little shorter than typical TV anime length) and we got less “big-headed goo-goo anime baby” and more “scheming grade schooler” with a healthy dose of goofy reaction shots and expressive animation. She’s clever and savvy, but not to the point of being selfish and nasty: she’s already used her foresight to change events and save her caretaker’s life (a “save the maid” rather than a “save the cat” moment, perhaps), so her motivations are clearly more nuanced than simply avoiding her own tragic ending.

It’s genuinely quite tense and intriguing watching her navigate her relationship with her father, doing her best to turn on the charm while not letting her fear and suspicion for the man show. It would be tricky enough, meeting your imposing, imperial dad for the first time as a five-year-old—let alone if you’d been having eerie prophetic dreams about him since before you could walk! I like that the emotional core of this story seems to be a fractured familial relationship rather than, say, a broken-off engagement, which is much more common in the villainess pantheon. I don’t doubt there’s going to be a romance at some point, but right now it’s all about the tangled emotions and broken ties between a girl and her dad, and that’s novel enough in the anime fantasy space that it’s honestly really compelling.

I also like that the emperor is a looming presence, but that the audience is fed just enough tidbits to infer that he’s got his own stuff going on. He’s not being shady on purpose, he likely just has no idea how to relate to a small child, and is dealing badly with his unresolved grief for Athy’s mother. And by “dealing badly” I mean that the show opens with baby Athy being abandoned and left to starve while palace staff focus on destroying every possible reminder of the Empress Consort. You’re going to have to do a lot of parenting to make up for that royal decree, buddy.

This is, however, enough of a dramatic hook that I’m interested in seeing what happens next. Again, many of the elements of this show are familiar, but there are enough innovative spins to carry it onwards and elevate it—not to mention how fun Athy is as a leading lady. I can only hope and assume this will get even livelier and more interesting as Athy grows up, which the credits promise she will. I can’t say how the pacing of that will pan out, or where we’ll go from here, but as of this combo premiere review and three-episode check-in, things are looking pretty positive.