Opening Songs
OP 1 - Gentle Hope (Saori Hayami)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - Placing On Bonds (Eyelis)
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Episodes: 12
Anime has gotten itself a little bit more variety in these past couple of years. With a lot less fan service based shows, there are more shows catered towards different audiences showing up, like this one. "Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime" is most definitely not a show for everyone, if anything, its more aligned in the shojo genre than anything, but its still a good show. Its not flashy, its not about saving the world, its just simple love story about a country girl joining the ranks of royalty. I'll be completely honest and say that this show has nothing to do "Snow White" in terms of lore, its probably just a spin on the main protagonist's name. With that out of the way, if you're looking for a simple romance anime with a medieval setting and some pretty good characters, "Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime" might be right up your alley.
 |
| Everyone needs a little bit of a "cut and paste" romance in their lives. |
The opening theme is "Gentle Hope" by Saori Hayami, the seiyuu for the main protagonist. Honestly, she's been getting quite a bit of love recently, but that's kind of good, since she IS talented. Anyway, for an opening theme, I guess "Gentle Hope" does fit in with the theme of the show, but its not my cup of tea. The ending theme is "Placing On Bonds" by Eyelis. Nothing much to see here, just a basic, slow-tempo-ed ending theme.
Rating: 7.5/10
Its really hard to hate "Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime", simply because it doesn't do a whole lot of bad and while there aren't a lot of amazing, stand out moments within the show, its consistently good throughout. If you enjoy the show's early offerings, then the chances are that you'll be sticking with it throughout. The show is all about character development, with the cast of characters getting their own episodes to build up on their characters, while our main protagonists gets her own share along each and every episode. Because of this, there are a lot of characters to like, and honestly, I did enjoy seeing these characters interact. The main protagonist, Shirayuki, herself proves time and time again that she isn't some useless girl who sucks up to the prince to get what she wants, and that she's able to do things with her own 2 hands that most can't. Its a story about a girl constantly challenging herself to prove to the others that she's not just there because she's "flavor of the month". Along the way she simply meets a ton of bishonens....that each have their own story to prove. Well...its a show more catered to the female demographic, but its not to say that guys can't join in. If you're not all about swords, gun, boobs and bloodshed, then this might be okay for you.
 |
| And the crowd goes wild. |
Shirayuki is a regular, pretty young girl working at her country's local clinic as a herbalist. Having her own base of loyal customers and being well received by the townspeople, her life seemed like it was fully cut out for her. There was one problem though, she had red hair, an extremely rare trait in the world. Put that on a girl with a decent looking face, and you've got yourself a prized possession. The prince of the country, Raji, sought to claim Shirayuki for himself because of her hair. When she knew of this, Shirayuki cut her hair short to despise him, then fled the country. She meets with Zen, Mitsuhide and Kiki, 3 travelling friends from a neighboring kingdom. While they were getting to know one another, Raji appeared and threatened to retrieve Shirayuki with some poisoned apples. After some debate, it turned out that Zen was the prince of Clarines, a neighboring country. With him threatening Raji for attacking Shirayuki, Raji backed off, and Shirayuki moved into Clarines to start a new life. Little did she know, that she would be working closely with prince Zen multiple times.
"Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime" is a good romance show with potential to grow. With the 2nd season already done, I'll be happy to see the continuation between Shirayuki's romance. This first season is good, and though it isn't fantastic, the charm is that the show never suffers from many drops in qualities.
