Saiunkoku Monogatari - Dropped
I watched this for 13 episodes. It's strange how the show keeps giving mixed signals as to what it is promising to the audience.
The narrated intro in the first episode talks about how the world was overrun by demons until one young man rose up to fight them, and gained the favor of 8 spirits. Eventually he rid the land of the demons and built the kingdom. So it seems like the show is setting up a fantasy adventure story about how the kingdom is going to be in decline and the demons are going to come back and the heroes are going to have to seek out the eight spirits to save the kingdom?
But then you watch the show and it is... a rom-com? I found the early episodes that focused on the romance to be entertaining. The characters are pleasant enough, the English dub had some charming jokes, you want to see the heroine and the king get together, and the music is immersive (same composer who did Twelve Kingdoms and Yona of the Dawn).
But then as the show goes on, the heroine separates from the king and becomes a bureaucrat at the palace, and the show becomes about boring administration. The show can't seem to decide what it wants to be.
The Princess and the Pilot - 4/10 (Bad)
It starts off okay. It's a fantasy Pacific WW2 setting between not-Italy and not-Japan. Then half an hour into the movie the princess is being flown across the ocean for the rest of the movie. About half way in, she begins trying to seduce the pilot. WTF? Lady, you've known the prince for how many years? And you've been engaged to him for at least two and have been writing letters to him every day since? How on earth do you throw that all away and betray him for some guy you just met two days ago? Yes, he saved your life but that was that. I feel sorry for the prince that his woman turned out to be so fickle.
The generals at the end were petty evil for no reason. Also, crappy 3D CGI planes.