The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady Vol. 1

I was introduced to this series through the anime, and it’s fascinating to see the adaptation choices against the original. The characters were just as charming, with strong dialogue that underscored each of their personalities. I enjoyed the roving first person perspective, which offered a lot of insight into each character’s motivations and makes their growth all the more satisfying to watch. We see Euphie’s thoughts as she lets go of the high expectations she placed on herself in favor of giving herself permission to be a little selfish once in a while. We see the cracks start to form in Anis’ perception that she’s only as good as her dream - if she can’t better the world through magic, then what good is she? Getting to look inside each character’s head underscores how good a match they are for each other, mutually inspiring each other be representing the kind of person that the other wishes that they could be. 

But despite the amazing character work, the novel still feels like it’s trying to find its direction. There’s little to no detail on the setting, aside from “magic is here” and there’s a bit of handwaving in the direction of isekai tropes. A lot of the scenes suffer from what I like to call “talking head void” where there are characters speaking to each other, but we have no idea where they are or what they’re doing. They’re just…existing. Somewhere. The dragon fight does a bit better in this regard, but it’s pretty obvious that the author had a strong idea for the main characters but nothing else. In the afterword they admit to as much, talking about how the illustrations were helpful in finally being able to visualize the world and that their editor worked hard with them to update the web novel version to its published state. If this is the cleaned up version, I’m a little scared of what the original version looked like. 

That said, the characters still carry the work. I hope that the author grew from this experience and that future novels will improve as a result. It’s still a fun read with a different take on the now well-worn villainess and reincarnation light novel tropes, and worth a look if you enjoy the genre.