The Fated Magical Princess: Who Made Me a Princess

Episode 16

Consider me officially baffled. Although I liked parts of this finale (?), I have a lot of questions about the adaptational choices made with this series. First of all, why excise the isekai only to turn the story into a time loop at the last second? It gives Diana a bit more of a role, I suppose, but what point does it serve? Second, why add in donghua-original material only to double back and cover the amnesia arc of the original story in the eleventh hour? With nary a sequel announcement in sight as of this writing, what is the point? It's like the writers were struggling with how much to adapt. They started out as if they were going to do the entire manhwa series, got worried, and then changed their minds again. It all feels remarkably haphazard.

That said, I do love a lot of the imagery for this episode. The use of butterflies is both aesthetically pleasing and a good metaphor for Athanasia's journey. She's been fighting to get free of the chrysalis of her dreams for the entire series, working towards earning and maintaining her father's love and using her magic. When she finally breaks out, it's a magical girl moment – suddenly a butterfly, she's able to embody her heritage as Diana's daughter and lead Claude out of his own darkness. Her father's lingering obsession with her mother becomes a tool she can use rather than a weight holding him down, at least in the moment.

It also shows Athy that her mother has always been there. She's the one who has been sending Athy the dreams and guiding her to take a different path. Diana is simultaneously the embodiment of the past and the hope for the future, working from the afterlife to help her husband and daughter find happiness and to cope with her absence. There's only so much she can do, being dead, but she's made Athy her proxy, encouraging her to find a way to heal Claude's heart, at least a little. Athy's not and never will be Diana, but she can be her own person and find happiness for herself and her dad nonetheless.

Or at least, she should be able to. We still don't really know who set the entire disaster in motion (or rather, we don't fully know who did) or why Duke Alpheus is involved. There are no real answers about Jennette or her role in this new time loop, or even who she is as a person. Ezekiel, too, has largely been left by the wayside, making him feel like an extraneous character, which is odd after he had several episodes devoted to his burgeoning relationship with Athanasia. Simply put, this cour is the equivalent of guests leaving without cleaning up after themselves. They're gone, the house is a mess, and you just might find a plastic bin of slugs under the guest bed two days later.*

So once again, I am baffled. For a series that started very strongly, The Fated Magical Princess: Who Made Me a Princess managed to deviate from its course in astonishingly little time. To be clear, I would have accepted an adaptation-only ending. I would have been sad that Ezekiel and Jennette were shortchanged, but it would have been fine. But this? This is not fine. It's a strange amalgamation of original and new that muddies the waters and leaves me, at least, unsatisfied. It's messy and feels like writers were given conflicting information about the possibility of a second season, forcing them to reverse course more than once. And that's a shame, because I love Athy as a character and the story as a whole. Both deserved better than this episode, but at least I can go back and reread the books. And who knows? Maybe we will get a second season, and all of these issues will be sent flying with the flap of a butterfly's wings.

*This is a real thing that happened when I was a kid. They were never invited back.

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The Fated Magical Princess: Who Made Me a Princess is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.