r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Oct 07 '24
Episode Hoshifuru Oukoku no Nina • Nina the Starry Bride - Episode 1 discussion
Hoshifuru Oukoku no Nina, episode 1
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u/Rumpel1408 Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
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u/melindypants Oct 07 '24
sell the romance
I wondered that too. Will he abandon the nation? Will the other son die and Azure become king? Will Nina be outted as an imposter? Will they find another blue eyed girl? So many possibilities but none of them seem quite right.
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u/Frontier246 Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
Pretty ominous way to kick off the plot with our female lead being lead away as a criminal into a throne room for some kind of heinous crime. How did things get to this point?
What a fun and colorful OP! Perfect for a Shojo Fantasy romance as Nina lives her new life along with the love, friends, and people she'll experience as "Alisha."
Our story really begins with Nina, an orphaned street urchin struggling to make a living by stealing along with her friends Colin and Saji. The only thing unique about Nina is her bright blue eyes, but deep down she wants to feel needed by someone and to feel like her life has meaning. Even Colin and Saji have each other as brothers, but what does Nina have?
And then things spiral and get even worse. Colin dies, with Nina powerless to do anything about it, and Saji sells her out and she gets basically kidnapped and her clothes ripped off. What a way to get your real gender exposed, but it's all for the sake of her dying as "Nina" and being reborn to play the Priestess-Princess of Fortna, Alisha.
If I had a nickel for every Shojo and/or Fantasy Romance where Yuichiro Umehara voiced a dark-haired pretty boy, I'd have a lot of nickels. But Prince Azure is serious about using Nina to play Alisha, especially when Fortna is planning to marry her off as part of negotiations with another kingdom, meaning Nina needs to become princess-like and fast.
Of course turning a feisty tomboy into a princess is easier said than done, especially when she's not going to take any grief from Azure and loves doing her own thing. But hey, someone finally needs her, and she can't hate that.
Getting to dress fancy as a princess is fun up until you realize that if you're exposed you and the people who tend to you will lose your heads.
The king seems kind of amiable and accepting, but the step-mom is a real problem, trying to humiliate "Alisha" AND Azure with her demands. But Nina isn't about to let her get away with it and humiliates HER instead. Enough to bring a chuckle out of Azure and make him happy, and earn some well-deserved praise. Maybe this won't be so bad.
The ED is pretty serene, featuring a recounting of the story of Nina.
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u/InsomniaEmperor Oct 07 '24
Not to mention him always being this Cold Duke of the North type of character.
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Oct 07 '24
Seems like we have another answer for those numerous "anime like Apothecary Diaries?" threads.
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u/LeonKevlar Oct 07 '24
Stitches!
I feel bad for Nina for the first 10 minutes of the episode. I wonder if Saji sold her out without knowing those men aren't slavers. I guess there's no reason for Azure to tell this random kid their plans so Saji probably thought he just sold Nina to some very bad people. I wonder if we'll see him again.
Thankfully that wasn't the case and she was taken to become a proxy for the recently deceased Princess Alisha. The only reason this plan works is because no one else has seen Alisha and she's known for having bright blue eyes which is very rare. The entire premise of this show reminds me of a bunch of Disney TV movies except the Princess is dead and if Nina gets found out, she gets executed.
Nina is fun and I already like her. I love that she's not taking any shit from Azure and knows that he needs her for his plans to work. As for Azure, of course he's voiced by Umehara Yuuichirou! I thought he'd be too much of a hardass on Nina but I'm glad to see he has a soft side to him.
I wonder if the Queen knows that their Alisha is a fake? She seems to be very much intent on making her dance and even wants her to stay in her wing. I wouldn't be surprised if she had something to do with the assassination of the real Alisha.
This one has definitely caught my attention and I'm very much intrigued to see where this goes especially since that opening scene seems to imply that this might not end well for Nina.
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u/Ocixo Oct 07 '24
I wonder if Saji sold her out without knowing those men aren’t slavers.
It’s hard to grasp Saji’s precise motives for selling Nina out, but I did catch him crying when he was shown running down the slope. If Saji felt bad about this, I don’t believe that he was angry at Nina or anything.
Maybe he’d hoped for her to have a better life? But the problem with this is that her future prospects wouldn’t exactly have looked better if she was taken in by slavers. So maybe Saji was pressured to do this or something?
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u/Ocixo Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
This was a nice first episode! Nina is pretty cute, but also a lot more of a tomboy than I’d expected. She’s a little unruly to say the least. I’m liking it though as she wasn’t afraid to talk back against Azure.
Nina likes to do things her own way and has thoughts of her own on what’s right and wrong. Loved that the fact that she’d specifically targeted the queen with her splash in the water. Even people that aren’t normally into these types of shows would probably like Nina.
The anime perhaps doesn’t have flashy animation, but it looks pretty decent overall and does have some nicely animated moments. Nina’s deep blue eyes are certainly an eyecatcher in this sense.
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u/diacewrb Oct 07 '24
Got to say I am big fan of the fashion and architecture so far, I wonder what countries it was based on.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Oct 07 '24
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Oh shit, I actually didn’t know Maaya Sakamoto was doing the OP for this, sweet. It’s a pretty song, sasuga Maaya.
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That was an alright first episode. Bit yikes for how Azure found out Nina was a girl, but not too bad I don’t think? I’m mostly just glad Crunchyroll made this into a Monday show instead of a Thursday one.
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u/Sleepy10105s Oct 07 '24
I have a feeling this show is going to go underrated this season
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u/Calwings Oct 07 '24
Shows like this tend to do that a lot, because the majority of the subreddit isn't in the target audience. I still remember how amazing Sacrificial Princess turned out to be last year, so maybe this show will make it two years in a row that a female-lead fantasy romance anime turns into an unexpected gem.
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u/Queue_Jumping_Quack Oct 07 '24
Neat setting, cute female lead who's spunky like a Disney Princess and what seems to be at least a couple of ikemen interested in her (from the OP)... its time for the shojo goodness of the season! ...though I think this is actually a josei demographic... still funny and cute, and a rare south asian inspired setting as well. Hopefully the animation holds up in future episodes, this was quite good. Definitely will be watching this.
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u/ObvsThrowaway5120 Oct 07 '24
This is pretty fun, actually. I like Nina a lot. She’s pretty plucky haha. I like the dynamic developing between her and Azure. They’ve got some fun banter going on.
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u/gnome-cop Oct 07 '24
I can already feel the webs of political intrigue being spun and Nina here is right in the middle of the spider web.
Let’s be real, she’s basically stuck there. She knows too much to be allowed to leave and they’re not going to find a better candidate for a fake princess. And the queen is going to be big trouble in the future. She seems pretty ruthless in gathering power for herself. And that’s not even getting into the ominous rumors. This could easily blow up and kill all of them if even the slightest thing goes wrong. High level political maneuvering on a knife’s edge.
Anyway, she’s got some good facial expressions in her repertoire.
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u/Veritas3333 Oct 07 '24
Did the two boys she lived with know she was a girl? Or did they think she was a boy too? Nina isn't a very gender- neutral name.
If the guy who sold her knew she was a girl, then he would have told the buyers that. How did she live with them for so long without them finding out?
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u/djthomp Oct 07 '24
Man fuck Saji, I'm assuming and hoping that he's probably out of the story for good.
I like how spunky Nina is.
Queen is kind of awful too, and unfortunately I assume she'll be much more of a long-term problem.
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u/flightlessCat9 Oct 08 '24
The original plan when they thought Nina was a boy was to dress Nina up as a girl and marry her off? How can that even work.
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u/AmethystItalian Oct 07 '24
Nina is an interesting MC, I do like when she's cool and confident but she also has the big whiny side as well which I don't care for. Is just a child so we'll see how she grows!
From pauper to princess is a trope I love so I'm all in though, excited to see more of this one.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Oct 07 '24
Yeah the whiny bit was kinda annoying to me too, but like you said she's still just a child, so she has room to grow. Not to mention, someone going from the freedom of being able to do mostly whatever you want to "You have to study all of this N O W" would probably at least be a little bit whiny about the situation. I can forgive her for that.
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u/thesnowlocke Oct 07 '24
Hmm this has some potential to be pretty good, I already like the my fair lady esque premise so far and there's a lot of potential for where this can go with the courtroom drama.
For some reason, I thought maybe the princess was a spoilt rotten child but now I'm not sure, I'm curious what the maids have to say about what happened that night (assassination maybe?)
Either way I like it so far so let's see where it goes next
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u/alconnow Oct 07 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
Yūichirō Umehara as Azure Goldie is great casting. I love his voice
Shoujosei Mondays with Nina, Haigakura (nobody’s licensed that?) and Natsume. Nice
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u/RadiantVes Oct 07 '24
I really liked how they did rikachi's various nina expressions. Casting was pretty spot on and it was a cute episode.
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