Kasumi: Back to anime!

Aquila: Indeed!  And I liked this one a lot.

K: It really is a wonderful “Beauty and the Beast” type of story.  Some good chemistry between the main characters, and some very nice worldbuilding.

A: And you’ve got to feel sorry for poor Sariphi.  She gets raised to be a nothing more than a sacrifice, has nowhere to go other than to be eaten, and it’s only by sheer luck that the King of the Beasts falls in love with her and she manages to become a queen instead of a lunch.

K: Yeah.  And the politics do make them work for their happy ending.  The court really doesn’t like the King marrying a human.

A: I blame the Kingdom of the Beasts for that.  It really is their fault.

K: I see merit in that argument.

A: After all, they’re terrible negotiators.

K: ...sorry, what?

A: Absolutely terrible.  Quite incompetent, really.

K: I’m not sure I’m following you.

A: Think of it, Kasumi!  You’ve got the human kingdoms on the ropes, to the point that they’ll give you anything – they’ll even let you eat their royalty.  And what do you do?  You put it in the hands of the negotiator with an eating princesses fetish.

K: You may be missing the point of the worldbuilding here.  The idea is that it’s a symbolic thing to demonstrate beast supremacy.

A: And it’s a terrible way to do it!  And if you’re eating a princess every year, it’s not long before they run out and start handing you counterfeit princesses...like Sariphi.  It devalues the entire thing.

K: I don’t think the title of ‘princess’ is meant to be quite that literal...

A: And besides, they could have done so much better.  They could have been thinking strategically!  Secure a food source, demand help clearing up the miasma, or better yet...get the human kingdoms to give them all of their coffee!

K: Their coffee?

A: Exactly!  It would be total strategic domination!  The Beast Kingdom would be the only one with any caffeine!  If a war started, they’d be awake and alert earlier in the day, and the humans would always have trouble waking up.  It’s a perfect plan!

K: For a certain definition of “perfect,” I guess...and “plan”...

A: And it’s all dashed because one negotiator just had to go all-in on eating royalty.

K: ...moving on, let’s talk about the characters.  The half-human side of the King of Beasts is quite interesting.

A: It raises questions, doesn’t it?

K: It really does – who is his mother?  Was she another sacrificial princess who ended up like Sariphi?

A: I think you’re missing the point...I’m talking about biology.

K: What do you mean?

A: The Beasts won’t accept a human as their queen at the beginning of the story, right?  So, that means that whoever the King’s mother was, she had to have been living in secret.

K: I think I’m following you...

A: And the king has to have been born in public.  So, there’s only one way that the heir to the throne of Beasts could be born from a human and a beast...

K: Um...

A: ...which is that in the Beast kingdom, the men give birth!  It’s the only way a half-human Beast King ascending the throne makes sense.

K: Okay...

A: If you think about it, it’s a big win for Sariphi.  She can just sit back and let the King do all the work!  No pregnancy, no labour...it’s like she gets all the biological benefits of being a human male while being a woman!

K: And on that...odd...note, let’s wrap up.  Who’s your candidate for best girl?

A: Cy.

K: What, the giant eyeball with legs?

A: It’s a really nice eye.

K: Okay, then...to sum up, we liked Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, and you apparently shouldn’t hand peace negotiations over to somebody who wants to eat royalty.