The Spring 2024 Anime Preview Guide

I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince

Prince Lloyd wasn't always a prince...in fact, his previous life is one he remembers perfectly: he was a sorcerer, of sorts. So when he was forced to reincarnate, he decided to continue his studies, prince of the realm or not. But his new life has its own sets of challenges...including being a 10-year-old.

I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince So I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability is based on a light novel series written by Kenkyo na Circle and illustrated by Meru. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

Can we just be honest, here? We're all adults, after all. Or, at least, I am an adult, and I don't have any patience for beating around the bush when it comes to the craven matters of commerce and capitalism. Let's all just be real with each other and admit the core truth of I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince: You don't make an anime about a tiny cartoon boy dressed in obscenely short shorts with conspicuously glistening thighs who gets smothered by a dozen bountiful, bouncing breasts in the bath if you aren't at least partially motivated by Weird Sex Stuff. And look, I'm no prude! If the creators and viewers of I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince are down to clown with a tiny cartoon boy dressed in obscenely short shorts with conspicuously glistening thighs who gets smothered by a dozen bountiful, bouncing breasts in the bath—well, more power to all parties involved. It ain't my thing but nobody is getting hurt—and any kinks that can refrain from crossing that most important of lines stays between the pervert and the deities of their choosing, so far I'm concerned.

That said, the road goes in both directions. If we're all going to be sensible and mature in recognizing that a not-insignificant percentage of the content in 7th Prince is the result of some dang-ass freaks getting their hands on some pens and animation cells, then we'll also need to acknowledge that this severely limits its appeal as, you know, a television show to be watched by anyone who isn't in the same dang-ass-freak taxonomy as its creators and core fanbase. This is because, even if Prince Lloyd wasn't the obvious object of fetishization that he so clearly is—and even if he wasn't surrounded by a cadre of women with extremely dubious definitions of appropriate adult-child boundaries—7th Prince was still never going to be a “good” show. Just look at the title! It's the same nonsensical mush of generic fantasy tropes and overpowered cliches that get mindlessly rearranged in every third or fourth anime that comes out each season. The one silver lining I could find here was the kinda-sorta cute relationship between Lloyd and the spooky demon dog-thing that he finds trapped in the magic book—but it's not enough to free 7th Prince from the shackles of its mediocrity.

The only thing that separates this show from any number of its other inbred cousins is the tiny tyke in the booty shorts—and it should go without saying that such a variable is not going to broaden this story's appeal in any meaningful way. Like, imagine if you had been eating nothing but greasy, cheap, conveyer-belt cheeseburgers for weeks. No matter how much you like junk food burgers, eventually, the novelty is going to wear off and you're going to start getting sick. I cannot imagine that most people are going to suddenly change their minds and jump for joy if someone hands them a virtually identical burger, still sopping wet with flavorless grease, except this one has a suspiciously well-drawn picture of a half-naked preteen boy's ass etched onto the bun.

I'll say this for the I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince So I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability, it completely understands the tone it wants to set. There is no more perfect introduction to our main character than his being excited about being burned alive with magic. This tells us everything we need to know about him: that he is a magic fanatic and that he puts experiencing magic above everything else—even his own life.

There is no mission for revenge—no lamenting over how unfair the world is for commoners like he used to be. Instead, he is as he always has been: focused on magic. Of course, now that he has a royal bloodline, that means his fanatical passion for magic bares much more fruit. So what we get is the constant joke of him doing anything to learn/experience new magic while being completely overpowered in the process.

If you take a step back, there's very little novel about this anime. I mean it's got an overpowered protagonist, a harem of busty women obsessed with him (despite his lack of interest and prepubescent state), and a cookie-cutter fantasy setting. However, this anime proves that presentation can elevate even the most cliché story. The sword fight scene is amazing in both choreography and direction—and the magic fight at the end is nothing to sneeze at. Add to that some clever use of magic to keep things interesting intellectually and you have a more than watchable show.

Let me start with the positives to this premiere. For one, there's a lot of really lively, ambitious animation throughout the episode. While the action sequences can sometimes get a little hard to follow, scenes like Lloyd's sword training or his battle with the demon are delivered with way more oomph than I'm used to seeing from shows with titles this long. Similarly, the opening scene depicting Lloyd's death in his previous life is rather well done, abstracting the emotions of his death at the hands of noble magicians before swerving into the punchline of him nerding out over the very magic that's burning him to death. In the same vein, I like Lloyd's weirdo personality, defining him as the kind of hyper-obsessive nerd who would devote two whole lives to his lifelong fixation.

Unfortunately, those strengths aren't enough to make this episode all that interesting. While not technically an isekai – Lloyd's seemingly been reincarnated into the same fantasy world as before – it carries many of the hallmarks that sap that subgenre of conflict. Lloyd is established to be so massively, unstoppably powerful compared to everyone else that there is no chance of any tension or conflict arising. That seems to be part of the joke, since the main fight turns into a comedy of escalation by the end, but it's not a particularly new or clever one, and only serves to make our hero less interesting. There is no journey for him to go on because he's already reached his destination, and the magic system itself isn't interesting enough to make studying it for its own sake an engaging story. Seeing more and more people freak out at how strong he is only going to get less funny the more it happens.

The real dealbreaker, though, is the weird sexual undertones surrounding Lloyd and his extremely childlike body. There's the predictable stuff, like his horde of doting maids just thinking he's ever-so-cute and bathing with him because hey, he's just a child – the same kind of thing you see in a lot of these shows about adult men inhabiting children's bodies. Then they start fighting over who he'll share a bed with and that subtext starts looking a lot more like text. Then we have the ED animation where at least two adult women are blushingly getting dressed up to go on a date with Lloyd. Combine all of that with the way the camera loves to pan over Lloyd's legs, rendered with the same blushing sheen and pigeon-toed posture given to girls in fanservice shows, and it leaves a slimy sheen over the whole show.

That's enough on its own to get me to skip this. Whatever positives are present in the production, and whatever comic appeal Lloyd's personality might offer, they're not enough to make this premiere worthwhile enough for a second viewing.

Let's start with the good part: I love how intellectually curious and devoted to reading and learning about magic Prince Lloyd is. I, too, would rush through a sword fighting lesson that felt pointless to get back to the library, and I can also really relate to him immediately finding the secret forbidden library the minute he learns about it. It also makes sense with his previous incarnation; he died because he couldn't use magic the way he hoped/wanted to, so now that he's got oodles of mana and talent, he's as happy as he possibly can be. I can really get behind all of that.

But (and you knew there was a “but”) there are some genuinely unsettling elements here that clash with the stronger pieces of the story. Chief among them is the very unpleasant implication that grown women are in love with, if not lusting after, this small child. The ending theme is the most obvious about that; it features three ladies getting all dressed up for what they assume to be a solo date with a six-year-old. And then there's the bath scene, which is also not great; even if we discount Sylpha blushing while holding Lloyd on her lap in the communal tub, there's also the argument between all the maids over who gets to invite Lloyd to sleep with them that night. It doesn't seem like they're keen to do anything but sleep, but it's still framed in such a way that you could spin it otherwise, and the clear imagery of Sylpha's breasts resting on Lloyd's shoulders is awkward given everything else.

The art also really, really loves Lloyd from the waist down. Apart from the fact that there's something really weird about the way his crotch is drawn (and I get it, that's a tough part of the body to draw well), the camera is just utterly in love with his thighs and knees in his little short shorts. It feels very sexualized, as if they weren't sure that Lloyd's enthusiasm for magic would be enough to keep people's attention. It's true that we don't know much about how the magic system works in the story's world, but we do get little bits and pieces that make me think that it will become clear as the series goes on, so the fetishization of a small child's body is even more unnecessary.

And even without those issues, the art makes it look like Lloyd is drawn by someone different than the rest of the characters. They have a much more realistic look to them (stupid belts on the maids' uniforms aside), while Lloyd looks disproportionate, as if they wanted to make him look silly and cute rather than to fit in with the rest of the art. It feels like the least of the episode's problems, which also include a very basic reincarnation plotline and fantasy setting, but it's just one more stick to add to the fire, which is perhaps too dynamic a way to describe this episode.