AustinDR

In the Kingdom of Palettia, we follow an odd princess named Anisiphia. Ever since she was a child, she loved magic, but she was unable to use it herself. However, thanks to her memories of her past life, she uses her knowledge to create several devices with the hopes of achieving her lifelong dream: to fly.

During one of her test runs, she accidentally crashes her broomstick and witnesses her brother Algard publicly renouncing his arranged marriage to Euphyllia choosing a commoner over her. With her reputation in flames, Anis interferes and decides to "take Euphyllia away."

Thus begins the story of The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady which was based on a series of light novels. So, my thoughts?

Positives:

The animation is pretty good. As are the OP and ED themes.

While I will get into more of the problems with the characters, found a good bunch of them likable.

Voice work is good especially when it goes into making a character sound emotionally wrecked.

The Negatives:

Worldbuilding is weak. For instance, there comes a point where there was a way for Anisiphia to avoid inheriting the throne which, naturally throws her into conflict with Euphyllia. A lot of this does come from the result of truncating for time or omitting moments from the light novels. Oftentimes, scenes get boring likely because of all the political talk on who inherits the throne and all.

The characters are static and ultimately are back in the places where they were introduced. Anisiphia, while she makes up several of the comedic moments of the anime, is an example. With her, we know that her main motivation is to "fly" and that she loves magic due to her memories of her past life. Beyond that, she never really gets into conflict that would seriously make her reconsider.

In the penultimate episode, we have Anisiphia truly being in a dilemma: due to a convoluted series of events, she is once more in line to be queen. This could have been a chance for Anisiphia to grow as a character. She is in a position where she has a heavy weight on her shoulders and thinks becoming queen would be her atonement for the mistakes she had done. This would mean that she would have to grapple with whether that meant ending her research something that gave her joy, but perhaps it was in the kingdom's best interest for her to stop living in her fantasies. Or what if she made it to where she could implement her research in her rule?

Euphyllia was established as being someone who was molded to be "perfect" as in doing what was expected of her instead of making her own choices and we see the conflict of that once her reputation was tarnished. She is even asked this directly by Tilly. So...my issue?

In the end, she does not become her own person. The show may make an attempt to show that her decision was her own, but she is instead only doing it at the behest of someone else. She lives for someone else rather than doing things of her own volition. And how can she possibly think that Anis would willingly agree with that kind of sacrifice especially when she learned the extent of what would happen?

The other characters are hit-or-miss, but mostly "hits." Ilia is a deadpan snarker of a maid who tends to get annoyed with Anisiphia's antics. Laine, the girl that Algard chose over Euphyllia, and Tilly, who is probably the best one. She is the vitriolic best friend of Anisiphia and her polar opposite: while Anisiphia loves magic, Tilly sees it as a curse. She is also likely the only one who truly understands her.

The anime can also have times where the emotions are contrived though I did find myself pitying some of the characters despite that.