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Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (TV).




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Tony K.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:12 pm Reply with quote


Season 01: Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (TV)
Season 02: Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (TV 2)

Source: Light Novel (completed @ 19 Volumes, written by Miri Mikawa, illustrated by aki)

Demographic: Shoujo

Animation Studio: J.C. Staff

Genres: adventure, fantasy, romance

Themes: fairies

Plot Summary: Anne Halford is a candy crafter determined to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a Silver Sugar Master, a title bestowed only by royalty. In order to travel to the capital and realize her dream, she purchases Challe, a handsome but foul-mouthed fairy, as her bodyguard. Anne wishes to befriend her new companion, but in this kingdom where fairies are treated as property, Challe wants nothing to do with humans.

Air Date & Platform:
Season 1: January 6, 2023 (Friday)
Available on: Crunchyroll

Season 2: July 7, 2023 (Friday)
Available on: Crunchyroll

Episode Count / Runtime:
Season 1: 12 episodes
Season 2: 12 episodes

Total: 12 episodes


Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:20 pm; edited 3 times in total
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23779
PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:36 am Reply with quote
Episode 3

I'm kind of surprised I'm the first person to post a reply in this thread. Pretty Boy gruff guy / adorable gal set-up. Works for me. After this episodes blading, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's show.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15464
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 2:12 am Reply with quote
Season 1, Episode 12 (season finale)

It is a season finale, because we certainly need another season to fix the current situation of Challe sacrificing his freedom to prove Anne's innocence of not using her own sugar. Although I kind of thought that maybe he could just lie and Bridget would believe it. It was otherwise good news that Anne could reached the goal she was aiming for.

I would like to believe there would have been some consequences to the school that evidently messed with two year of the competition, trying to sabotage the would be winner of both. Including counts of attempted murder, not informing her, harassment, attempted assault, not following up on such account, and kicking her out of the premises that was meant to be open to all the artisans.

Plus all the sexism. The show seems like it has a large amount of focus on misogyny, yet almost at the same time kind of looks like it is afraid of being too hard on showing it as unfair, because Anne still meets plenty of guys that will still stick up for. Nor perhaps a focus that there is more of a systematic problem, of perhaps more like Anne but cannot succeed. Anne otherwise is just that much better than everyone else. These themes kind of by in a subtle way in the first arc that has Jonas as a maybe ally, where a lot of his advances do come across as pretty creepy, right to when Jonas goes full incel. We had references to religious myth, that sort of sound a bit like Christian one, with it apparently revised into a misogynist version that cast a woman as the villain in being tempted.

I might even go so far as to say there is an implied touch of the effects of misogyny in Bridget's character, being the one who traded Anne's innocence for the freedom of the pretty boy she fancies into her slave. Perhaps not a lot of explanation, and we probably won't want to feel sympathy for the kind of bad end, but my kind of sad take that was the despite being a person of privilege, she has been brought up to only see value in herself for the man she was with. Her villainous parts in the final arc were parts of being frustrated in thinking her man is good enough, and jealousy in thinking that Anne has the better man, and despite that sees value in herself outside of that system. If I were to write it myself in such a way that would resolve Bridget in a way different from irredeemable Jonas, it might be her realising that she doesn't need to define herself by her partner, and could have her own thing.

But again I am not really sure how tough this series would want to be on things like systematic sexism, and perhaps could be just happy with cases of a just a couple of bad apples that could spoil the sugar around it. rather than say the entire processing method system has problems spread out the problem as unavoidable. If I was really pushing it, I probably could read that sort of narrative into the whole sugar mass production bit, but pretty sure it would all be incidental.

My rating otherwise will be Decent (6/10). It is a nice and fluffy show, that can look pretty, a strong heroine, and maybe good politics, but I think that there is something holding it back. Perhaps it is that Anne is the only real female character, with none that really interact with her. All the other female characters are her dead mum, the queen that can't even talk for herself, the already dead fairy that acted as a muse she is trying to recreate, and Bridget. There is something a little disempowering for a story that looks like it is trying to push a feminist message, but we only really have our exceptional heroine, and every other female character feels like just a plot point. There are a lot of pretty boys though.
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Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:35 pm Reply with quote
As overused as the "plucky heroine who humanizes cold bastard's heart" trope is in romance shows, I kinda always go along with them and this show is no exception. It was fun watching Joyless Pretty Boy Fairy fall under Scarecrow's spell. Oh, and candy! A show can never go wrong with me when sweeties play a big role. I'm glad we're getting a second cours and I'm glad we don't have to wait long. However, at the end of the day, I can only bring myself to rate this as Decent. It would have needed something a little extra to get it over the into the Good category and whatever that is, it didn't seem to have it.
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zfunk



Joined: 05 Nov 2016
Posts: 248
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 9:31 am Reply with quote
Okay episode 13 again proves the only way to be well off in this world is to be a human male. If you are a fairy, or a woman, you are at the mercy of the men.

Which makes this show so frustrating, you have the only two women in this show against each other, you have one of the women hurting a fairy, they are all hurting each other, while non of them see the real enemy is the human men.

And am I the only one who kind of on Bridget's side, hurting Challe's wings that is not cool, that is over the line, and if it wasn't for that I would totally be team Bridget, she full filled her end of the bargain and now everyone is plotting to take back the agreed upon payment. Again if only the payment wasn't a living being, that is the only thing is getting in the way of her being in the right.

Let's say instead of Challe, it was a jewel box or a locket, and Anne still wants to take it all back, that would be totally different.

Bottom line, this is a male dominated, the women are trying to hurt each other to survive, instead of standing up to the men.

Did anyone see Jonas in the opening, maybe he is gone for good? One can only hope.
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minamikaze



Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 12:34 pm Reply with quote
zfunk wrote:
And am I the only one who kind of on Bridget's side, hurting Challe's wings that is not cool, that is over the line, and if it wasn't for that I would totally be team Bridget, she full filled her end of the bargain and now everyone is plotting to take back the agreed upon payment. Again if only the payment wasn't a living being, that is the only thing is getting in the way of her being in the right.

Let's say instead of Challe, it was a jewel box or a locket, and Anne still wants to take it all back, that would be totally different.

Well, aside from the fact as you mentioned that the payment that Bridget received was Challe giving up his freedom and becoming her slave, the service that she provided for that payment was to testify who stole Ann's sugar, instead of keeping quiet about it and letting the crime go unpunished and thus wrongfully forever depriving Ann of the opportunity of becoming a silver sugar master, an honor which Ann had rightfully earned.

I would have felt a lot better about Bridget had she not demanded an exorbitant payment for doing what was obviously the right thing to do from a moral and legal standpoint. A better person would have come forward and testified without needing to be prompted or demanding to be paid.

Also, if you notice, Ann never says that she wants Challe returned, she says that she wants him to get his freedom back: to free him from slavery. She does not want Challe's wing returned to her, she wants it given back to Challe. To Ann, Challe returning to her only has meaning if he does so by his own free will.
zfunk wrote:
Bottom line, this is a male dominated, the women are trying to hurt each other to survive, instead of standing up to the men.

I have not read the novels, but from Ann's reaction after learning about Bridget's desire to become a silver sugar artisan in this episode, I'm guessing that Ann will try and help Bridget in some way.
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zfunk



Joined: 05 Nov 2016
Posts: 248
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 6:36 pm Reply with quote
No one has worst status in this world than Celthy, or whatever the name of Jonas' fairy is, (besides being stuck with Jonas obviously) she has committed two sins, she is a fairy and she is female which in this world you are less than person. And she is even less than less than a person if you go by the rules of this world.

In this world it pays to be born a human male,even better if you are a human male of wealth.
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zfunk



Joined: 05 Nov 2016
Posts: 248
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 10:07 am Reply with quote
Oh no Jonas is missing. We got to do something. LOL
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