(25ish episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a fantasy shojo manga series.
Characters
Yona, the titular 16-year-old spoiled little princess. About a third of her dialogue involves fussing over her (admittedly unusually bright red) hair. Daddy the King has covered her in presents and attention ever since his wife’s death, and the only point he’s being a bit strict on is who she’ll marry.
Soo-won, her cousin and childhood friend, is especially verbotten. He’s grown to be a handsome man and Yona has definitely noticed, but Daddy says no. It’s not really clear why, although his talk of the attackers killing Mommy has convinced Yona that it’s being in the royal family that’s dangerous, and thus Daddy is trying to protect Soo-won. I’m pretty sure something else is going on here.
Hak, young general and friend to both of them youngsters, agrees with me and smells a rat. He doubles the guards around the palace and leaves Yona to Soo-won, because he’s not blind and knows his place.
… Maybe he should have been even more paranoid, as Yona soon stumbles on Soo-won slicing through Daddy with his sword. What. The. Heck ? Hak arrives just in time to protect her, but we’ll have to wait until the next episode at least for an explanation.
The OP & ED sequences show Yona on the run with Hak and a few more attendants, so I guess that’s the direction the story will go with.
Production Values
Quite nice. And all the dudes are handsome because shojo, of course.
Overall Impression
Well, I’m a bit intrigued, but I suspect the answer to this is quite pedestrian (naked power grab by an idiot who should just have waited a few months to get to the throne painlessly), and there’s something vaguely unpleasant in the atmosphere here. It doesn’t help that Yona herself is more than a bit annoying at this early stage of her character arc.
I’ll pass, as I just don’t see myself watching 25ish episodes of this.
