Forum - View topic(The) Warrior Princess and the Barbaric King (TV).
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Edjwald
 Posts: 3510 |
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(The) Warrior Princess and the Barbaric King (TV) Source: Manga (ongoing @ 10 volumes by Noriaki Kotoba) Demographic: Shounen Animation Studio: Jumondo Genres: comedy, fantasy, romance Themes: knights, medieval, royalty, sorcery Plot Summary: Serafina, the West’s fiercest knight, expected torture when captured by barbarians. Instead, she got a marriage proposal. Marrying her sworn enemy is a hard no. But after seeing her wedding captor’s culture and very pretty face, she may be tempted to swap her sword for a wedding veil. Air Date & Platform: April 09, 2026 (Thursday) Available on: Crunchyroll Episode Count / Runtime: Pending Trailer [EDIT: Fancy opener stuff edited. -TK] |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
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Episode 1
Despite having a different tone, I got some strong "T'is Time for Torture, Princess" vibes from chunks of this premiere. Anyway, I liked it on it own terms enough to check out some more. |
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Edjwald
Posts: 3510 |
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I was planning to wait and see how things proceeded with this one in episode 2 before commenting. How ecchi are things going to get considering the ending of the episode? And how much of a degrading sexist pig am I going to be if I admit to liking this anime okay so far?
But nooooooo, Blood had to do ahead and jump into the creek, and now I feel vaguely obligated to wade out there for some reason. Basically, my reactions are thus: The decision to turn the warrior princess' fear of being raped into a humorous scenario seems at least a little odd to me. On the other hand, it's clear that Serafina's society (It seems to be like a weird fusion of Ancient Rome with rifles on the battlefield and Victorian England on the homefront) has a highly prejudicial view of the barbarians and seems to be justifying conquering them with no real moral high ground, and they also have a much more sexist view of Serafina than the "Savage" barbarians. Serafina is a product of that society, and her questioning those assumptions seems to be on the menu. The whole weird, ironic, finding-more-freedom-through-captivity is probably going to set off all kinds of socially conscious landmines, but it's not unlike stories of colonial American women being "taken prisoner" by Native American tribes that were a rage for a while. So, I dunno. I liked it okay. I'm not sure about what's ahead. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3822 |
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Not a huge deal, but the whole "the only way to indicate one side is winning a battle is to make their entire side invulnerable, to the point that bullets bounce off them" thing was pretty obnoxious.
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Eilavel
Posts: 477 |
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I basically hate the romance so far, was far from amused by the "jokes" and I agree the combat was trying way to hard to "sell" the King rather than display any realism. I didn't really love episode 1.
Manga readers seem to indicate it moves more into being about cultural understanding, world building ect. I'll give it another episode on that basis, but doesn't really feel like this is for me. |
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smurky turkey
Posts: 4997 |
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I am not sure what to feel about the first episode. The jokes did not land for me at all but Serafina learning more about the supposedly beastly barbarians could be interesting. Seeing her slowly change her mind about the nature of the war and possibly set something in motion is not a bad premise.
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Thesarum
Subscriber Posts: 775 |
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I'm kinda on board just to see how well the show navigates the landmine field its set out for itself. It's invoked a lot of social issues in its first episode and so far it's handling of them has been... mixed let's say. |
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Gina Szanboti
 Posts: 12725 |
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Oddly my biggest issues so far are how does Sera have abs for days without developing any other muscles on her body? How do the male characters keep their glued-on facial hair in place under any circumstances? Who designed their stupid looking costumes?
On the plus side, how do you call your noble captive a cow without calling her a cow? Trim her nails with hoof nippers!  Barbarians 1 : Nobles 0.
The rest of its issues I'm not worried about, as I can't take what we've seen seriously enough to get fussed. |
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Eilavel
Posts: 477 |
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Well, I'm now comfortable it's not particularly problematic.
OTOH the romance and the humour isn't quite landing for me, and the cultural clash is very light and lacking... Mutuality? Like, the tone and direction just seems to be barbarians are best, which isn't a wrong choice per se but doesn't carry the show. |
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Edjwald
Posts: 3510 |
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Yah, I moved episode 2 to Saturday and I don't really have a problem with it per se.
It's not much on the feels so far. The anime is focusing more on a running joke that's kind of ham handed - I legitimately got more laughs from Claude the beastkin over on episode 3 of The Strongest Job is Apparently Not a Hero. The other attraction is apparently lots of shots of the male lead's abs, and I don't begrudge the people who into are it. |
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Eilavel
Posts: 477 |
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This episode was a little better, there was some actual meaningful cultural discussion. Different perspectives on death is a pretty valid one, although the Barbarians level of insouciance goes a little beyond the realistic and actually gets towards tropey...
Unfortunately, the romance remains totally flat- they show the attraction but they don't generate any chemistry; theres no space in the concept so far for casual interactions. One of those ones I keep giving one more episode until eventually I don't... |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15852 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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After episode 3, I am wondering what the chances are that the creator is a fan of Skyrim. The whole barbarian element of fantasy was one thing, and then at the end he appeared to do a dragon shout.
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Eilavel
Posts: 477 |
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Ah, I think I'm done with this one.
Its not that its awful or anything; indeed, the character stuff and the romance have probably improved. But, the cultural exchange I was here for is really so one sided. Its one thing that one side is always "right", but here our cultural foreigner may as well have been isekaied, its just too much ignorance. Combine that with the always right, more female inclusive cultures core feature being "lots of kidnapped brides" and I just don't trust its going to take me where I want it to. Thats might be on me for what I wanted to see though; I've watched worse shows. |
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Thesarum
Subscriber Posts: 775 |
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It's not featuring a whole lot of nuance is it? The enlightened east lives in harmony with nature and its neighbours (ha!) while the so-called civilised west suffers through it's prideful imperialist ignorance... it's not that I need the show to directly address the complex histories of it's real-world analogues, or even that the real-world West doesn't put out a whole lot of media that effectively does this in the opposite direction. But the lack of any depth or friction makes it all feel very superficial. And.. assuming a somewhat reliable narrator here, Sera is insanely naive to believe that the west is the way it is simply because nobody knows any better. That she'd be able to fundamentally change things simply by taking a couple of days worth of casual observations home. Surely, with the struggle and judgement we're to believe she'd suffered to get to be a knight commander she should be more aware than most that the entrenched beliefs and power structures aren't so easily challenged. Everyone in the enlightened east sure does like to pass comment on Sera's childbearing capacity, don't they? I'm not sure that joke is funny more than once. Is it an improvement on her worth being a viewed purely as a political tool through marriage as she is in the west?? I'm not convinced it is. At least they also value her as a warrior I suppose. So nothing really holds together from world- or character- building perspective. But it's a fun sort of stupid so far, so I'll hang out with it for a bit longer at least. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 12725 |
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Ep 7
I guess it was about time for the obligatory cold springs scene. In a way, I'm surprised, since this series has harkened back to the days of more creative ways to include nudity, like Sera's time in chains and Malcius' tentacle disrobement. Nowadays it seems like only bathing is the go-to excuse. Man, they replanted that forest like a Weyerhaeuser plantation. I'd expect something more naturally distributed from these folks. |
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