After blogging about anime and Japan for 25+ years, I’ve developed some tools to help me with my work. I use Yandex.com and Trace.moe for reverse lookup of images, and EZGif.com to join and optimize GIFs. Add in Grammarly for editing, and a useful Mac tool called Keyboard Maestro for automating any repetitive task. I also like to follow Anime Trending, a website that tracks the most popular anime series each week, as voted on by the site’s members. This week I noticed that the top-ranked anime was Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei, aka The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, a choice that I approve of 100%. Let’s explore the yuri-tastic world of this anime!
Why Is Tensei Oujo the Top Anime This Week?
I love the way anime can tell hundreds of different stories, all while staying close to established tropes. Want an isekai anime about a character who gets teleported to another world where he learns about the joy of farming? How about stories involving high school student councils that are more powerful than most governments? Or slice-of-life shows where cute characters run a coffee shop and enjoy lives with zero stress? These are all established genres.
Then there are stories that don’t fit inside these neat little boxes, like Tensei Oujo. In a fantasy world where royalty can use magic, young Anisphia (Anis to her friends) uses mysterious “magic tools” to hunt monsters instead. She was able to create these tools thanks to memories of technology from before she was reincarnated into this world, which she calls the science of “Magicology.” For example, remembering a flying broom from stories in our world, she’s able to develop magic brooms that let her fly in the sky.
When crown prince Algard, her brother suddenly breaks off his engagement with the lovely Euphyllia Magenta in favor of the former commoner Lainie Cyan, Anis crashes the party and makes the situation awkward. Shocked at her brother’s cold actions, Anis steals Euphyllia away, asking her father to allow the girl (who is a genius at using magic) to become her assistant…or her lover?
The Yuri Hit of the Current Anime Season
From Gundam: The Witch of Mercury to Lycoris Recoil to Wataten: An Angel Flew Down to Me, fans love a good story involving yuri, or girls’ love, which tell stories about the drama that’s created when two girls fall in love in violation of society’s rules. These stories offer the perfect blend of likable characters which fans want to cheer for romantically, coupled with comedic situations when the characters have different goals. The boke and tsukkomi relationship that Anis and Euphie develop is lots of fun to watch.
(As an anime retailer, I’m also a fan of the current popularity of yuri doujinshi, which J-List sells. It’s win-win! That means both sides come out on top, so everybody’s smiling!)
I’m convinced that yuri is the pinnacle of human culture because it does the impossible, uniting both female and male fans, allowing both groups to be on exactly the same level for once. With all other kinds of sexual or romantic themes involving two people, there are differences — often hard-wired into our brains biologically — about what men and women will respond to. But we can all get behind two girls fumbling through life together, finding romance and more. The only other thing that managed to bring male and female fans together so perfectly is Sailor Moon.
The anime is based on a light novel series written by Piero Karasu and illustrated by Yuri Kisaragi, which started out as a web novel on the Shosetsuka ni Narou website. The animation is gorgeous, done by Studio Diomedia, which brought us such hits as My Mental Multiple-Choice Power Is Completely Ruining My School Romantic Comedy, Aho Girl, and Kodomo no Jikan. That’s quite a back catalog!
Thanks for reading this blog post about the Tensei Oujo anime. Why do you enjoy the show, if you’re a fan? Tell us below!
J-List loves to find super sexy anime figures to add to the site for you, and we’ve been working extra hard lately! Browse all the popular figures on the site here!
