Autumn 2021 First Impressions – Taisho Otome Fairytale

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Tamahiko is the second son of a wealthy family, but when a car accident kills his mother and injures his dominant hand, his father and the rest of the children are all-too-willing to remove him from the family and abandon him to his own devices. Now a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist due to his circumstances, Tamahiko is more than a little surprised when a young lady named Yuzu shows up at his doorstep claiming to be the bride his father has arranged for him.

The situation turns out to be one of debts repaid and not necessarily one with Tamahiko or Yuzu’s romantic interests in mind, but Yuzu takes to her responsibilities in a diligent and kind way in spite of her new prospective husband’s poor spirits. Yuzu knows that this was all essentially a transaction between their parents, but in spite of that she wants to know the real Tamahiko and for them to fall in love with one-another eventually.

Impressions: Inside you are two wolves. One scoffs at the gender-essentialism of period romances, noting how obnoxiously they adhere to the idea that the single-minded purpose of women is to serve and prop up their husbands. The other can’t help but melt when cute things happen between two very innocent young people who have a long road to travel toward true love and/or a functional relationship. At least, that’s always been the inner conflict I’ve struggled with as someone who watches and enjoys anime romance but who also is well aware of the existence of toxic and harmful relationship dynamics and the power that fiction sometimes has to romanticize a time, place, or a situation that very clearly benefits one class of people over another.

Some years ago I watched and enjoyed the Heian-set story of Utakoi, which is sort of a fictionalized, somewhat comedic account of the development of the poetry making up the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. The story takes place during a time when there were very specific ways the sexes in upper-class families were segregated from one-another. Women specifically were kept cloistered and hidden from view (fun fact: if you read writing from this period and the narrative in translation indicates that a man “saw” a woman, that strongly implies that they actually had sexual intercourse). There are many aspects of that situation that are unappealing to me, especially as someone who values the freedom to come and go as I please, to speak how I want to, and to earn my own living. And yet… there were also many parts of that series that I found so impossibly romantic that my heart nearly beat out of my chest, in spite of however differently my logical brain may have felt about it.

I think it’s important to recognize and acknowledge these sorts of situations as they come up; it doesn’t make one a “bad feminist” to have complicated feelings about a piece of media that represents an unequal power dynamic between characters or romanticizes gender essentialist values. But I also feel a responsibility to point these things out, because I come from a place of believing that identifying them, discussing them fully, and acknowledging where they don’t or shouldn’t represent reality is a way of diminishing their power to do so.

So I’m not going to ignore the fact that Yuzu being taken out of school and away from her friends isn’t pretty screwed-up. She’s a young teen, for crying out loud (contextually I believe they said she’s under 15, yikes!). On the other hand, she’s kind and thoughtful and seems devoted to making the most of her situation. Her caretaking behavior has already started to soften the heart of a young man whose situation has left him with plenty of trauma. While I have thoughts about men who aren’t able to take care of themselves, I also understand the fantasy of being taken-care-of and can’t necessarily fault that for existing, either. In short, there’s probably a lot to discuss here, and that’s the realm of responsibility for my brain. But my heart kind of enjoyed the episode anyway.

Pros: I think the show is set in a really interesting historical time period and I’m fairly certain it’s by design – it’s modern enough that Yuzu’s very motherly/wifely behavior feels kind of like a throwback in-universe; her classmates even comment on her motherly behavior before she leaves them. It’s also far enough in the past that those who want to can sort of mentally excuse themselves from thinking too hard about the actual gender dynamics. As I mentioned that’s not really something I can personally do, but the option is there.

The dynamics between the characters are pretty wholesome. For those who are more used to messier romances this fact might not really be that appealing, but I tend to be drawn more toward pure love stories and this seems to skew much farther toward the fluffy/cute end of the romantic spectrum.

I also think that the Taisho era has some of the best fashion style, so it’s always fun to see a portrayal of clothing from that time period.

Cons: The “comedy” aspect of this romantic comedy is a bit basic, relying on silly misunderstandings related mostly to Yuzu’s youth and innocence. There’s a gag related to the two characters “sleeping together” – Tamahiko’s brain immediately assumes that when Yuzu asks to sleep with him she means “in order to participate in sexual activities,” when in actuality she simply wants to sleep in the same room with her (future) husband so that they can ring in the new year together. Yeah, it’s cute and dumb, but I’m not big on jokes related to sexual inexperience for various reasons.

Content Warnings: Extremely mild sexual jokes. PTSD/Trauma related to a car accident. Familial abandonment.

Would I Watch More? – I’m not really sure. I clearly have a lot of baggage when it comes to material like this, and while I do enjoy fluffy romances I also recognize that aspects of my personality make me unlikely to sit back and enjoy something like this, which relies very closely on old-fashioned ideas about gender roles, on its own merits. To head off outside criticisms, I still don’t consider this to be “wrong” in the sense that there’s a right or wrong way to interact with media. But in the end watching it in my particular frame of mind might just not be that much fun.