The Oblivious Saint Can’t Contain Her Power – Episode 1

What’s it about? Lady Carolina is the most unaccomplished member of her prestigious family and is made fun of by everyone, including her older sister, Lady Flora.  Even though she resigned herself to live a quiet life under her sister’s shadow, she’s suddenly offered a marriage proposal from a neighboring kingdom in order to keep peace between their nations.  Lady Carolina agrees, and sets out to marry a man known as the “Bloodthirsty Prince.”  

I got a huge chuckle the minute I heard the surnames “Sanchez” and “Martinez” in this obviously European fantasy setting.  I often wonder how authors decide on naming their characters, but I suppose as long as a name sounds “unique” or “exotic” enough, it’ll make their main characters stand out.  All jokes aside, it’s nice to see more women lead stories being adapted into anime.  While this premiere isn’t going to shake anybody’s world, I think it’s a nice B-tier story about a girl who finds love and support through her fiancé after suffering emotional abuse from her family — specifically her older sister.

I’m not usually a fan of the trope where everybody hates on the female lead because they either aren’t talented and/or killed their mother at childbirth, but thankfully, this show isn’t egregiously over the top as it could’ve been.  Lady Flora being the root cause of Lady Carolina’s emotional abuse feels like a plot point that needed to be checked off rather than having any deep emotional weight.  While I don’t want to minimize the trauma inflicted on Lady Carolina, it’s just not clicking for me in the way that it should.  I find myself thinking about My Happy Marriage and how that show did a fantastic job examining Miyo’s psychological trauma while also moving the plot forward.  If anything, the energy of this show feels like The Too-Perfect Saint, which will probably be a good indicator if whether or not our readers want to continue watching this show. 

The Too-Perfect Saint wasn’t a bad show, but it wasn’t the most exciting one either.  Fortunately, what this premiere and that show have in common is that both Lady Carolina and Philia have a family member that deeply cares about them.  While nothing can justify the father neglecting his household affairs in favor of focusing more on his royal duties, at least he tries to be a decent father to Lady Carolina, which is more than I can say for most other families seen in this genre.  Other than that, all the major characters don’t really stand out as much and mostly just perpetuate their usual archetypes.  The animation isn’t memorable and the character designs seem off model in various pivotal scenes. It would be nice to see more sympathetic female characters outside of Lady Carolina in future episodes, too.

I wish there was more I could say about Carolina, herself, but she doesn’t stand out too much in her own show.  I’m sure this will develop into a cozy little story about her learning to become more confident and creating a chosen family, but beyond that, it’s kind of a boring premiere.  Overall, it’s a harmless show and if any of our readers are looking for a show that’s easy to watch, then I can definitely suggest you check out this premiere.