天下制覇

At least he isn't secretly a lion demon… again.

Impressions:

It's tempting to blast this for being yet another one of these goddamned stories a vulnerable, abused, enslaved girl being 'saved' by being forcibly sold into marriage. The problem isn't the slavery part, it's not having a good owner. I don't know why we've suddenly had to have 2-3 of these a season recently. But despite the title of this show, that would be getting ahead of the entire episode, as it's just twenty minutes of straight misery. Her mom died, her stepmother is comically wicked in a way that would make even Cinderella's stepmother blush, and she is a broken, depressed girl without anybody in the world. Except the boy who comes by every day to attend to her. And the servants who are always looking out for and taking care of her. But other than that, nobody and nothing at all. 

That's the whole episode. Everybody outside her immediate family is supportive and empathic to her plight, but her family is abusive past Disney villain levels just out of pure spite, so she's married off to the prettiest boy in the village who has a reputation. Not one that you're going to see this week. We're not moving that fast. Oh, no siree. What we're going to end with is her narrating how pretty he is with the only even half animated shot of the entire episode, a zoom out of him reflected in her eyes, his luxurious hair swaying in the breeze. Well, if he's pretty, then everything will work out just great.