Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

Episode 9

There's been some mention of how Anne appears to be the only human woman in the world of Sugar Apple Fairy Tale. As is appropriate for Women's History Month, this week we find out why: there are virtually no female silver sugar artisans. Judging by the attitudes of the jerks at the Radcliffe Workshop—yes, where Jonas is—that's largely down to old-fashioned misogyny.

The real-world familiarity of this particular plot point aside, it really does tell us a lot about the story's world that hasn't been spelled out before. Because Anne is our point-of-view character and she's following in her mother's footsteps, it's easy to miss, especially when the people who have it in for her appear to have bigger issues than her gender in mind. Jonas is jealous of her skill, and the fact that she's a girl only really factors into the equation because he thinks that marrying her will put her skills under his control. That's still sexist, but not “no women need apply” sexist. Other people's disbelief could just as quickly be written off as being due to her youth; “girl” could be meant to represent her age rather than her gender. And if Anne spent her entire life watching her mother be lauded for her talents, there's no reason she would think that being a woman would be any barrier to getting a medal.

Sadly, as Challe hears in this episode, you can graduate someone from middle school, but you can't make them grow up, and the oh-so-lovely men of the Radcliffe Workshop drank so much of Jonas' Kool-Aid that they're pretty well green. He's done such a good job slandering her that he's essentially gotten Anne blackballed from the industry. According to Kieth (yes, that's how the subs consistently spell his name), they all believe her to be an uppity cheating bitch, and had circumstances of a lousy sugar apple harvest not become a factor, she never would have been able to get the apples she needed to make a new sculpture for the annual competition. As it stands, only Kieth's intervention as the son of the previous Silver Sugar Viscount got Anne in the door, and even if she demonstrates her remarkable talent, it's unlikely that any of the Radcliffe guys will acknowledge her.

However, one has to wonder where Hugh has been in all of this. Anne, Challe, and Mithril Lid Pod have been out roaming the countryside for nine months, and surely Hugh, who knows all the Jonas drama, would have realized that his workshop would need to tell Anne about the new rules in place. Is Hugh also bitter that Anne wouldn't join his workshop when he offered? Is he still salty over the whole Duke of Philax thing? Or is he just a twit who thinks anyone who can't make it on their own doesn't deserve success? I'm not sure, but it isn't making me doubt my initial impression of him. At this point, I'm not even sure Kieth can be trusted because human men are not coming across well in this series. With a possible new lady with an attraction to Challe coming in next week, I think we may be in for a bumpy ride to the eventual finale.

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Sugar Apple Fairy Tale is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.