[Winter 2022] The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt Discussion Thread

[Buckeye]

天才王子の赤字国家再生術

A fantasy show about a prince who is willing to commit treason for the sake of bailing out his kingdom that is extremely deep in the red.

Airs: Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Studio: Yokohama Animation Lab

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It ain't easy being a genius...

Prince Wein is ready to commit treason. And who can blame him? Faced with the impossible task of ruling his pathetic little kingdom, this poor guy just can't catch a break! But with his brilliant idea of auctioning off his country, this lazy prince should be able to retire once and for all. Or that was the plan...until his treasonous schemes lead to disastrous consequences—namely, accidental victories and the favor of his people!

Notes
As usual, please try to follow these two easy forum courtesy habits when replying:
1) If you're the first person to post about an episode in any given week, please indicate in the first line which episode you're posting about.
2) If someone has already posted about an episode before you, please quote that post (or a relevant reply to that post), or include the episode title in the first line. ("Re: Episode 1") Just make sure the episode is indicated.

For more guidelines please refer to this thread.

[Buckeye]

Episode 1

If only winning battles were this easy.

And thus, it begins with Wein put in charge of turning around the fortunes of his kingdom Natra whose location is about as undesirable as it could with long winters, terrain that isolates them, and it's being run by people who don't know what they are doing. First order of business is to defend the kingdom from the invading Marden army, and while Natra's soldiers are outnumbered while the guys are lacking in experience, Marden is so poorly organized, and once the enemy general took the bait to chase Wein into the mountain pass, it was over as the army was quickly decimated by the archers stationed up high, while Ninym goes in for the kill. A rather comical way that was to resolve this conflict as this battle goes to show what not to do on the battlefield. So far, it's off to a decent start as Wein's genius tactics are pretty amusing, though the treason part in the show's subtitle part carries lots of intrigue. For a no-name studio, the animation quality is pretty solid, but that's something to keep in mind as well.

As always, I'm putting this through the usual trial period process.

[Buckeye]

Episode 2

Falling right into his trap.

Drawood thinks he has the advantage there figuring out that there's a secret passage through the mines that will lead them directly into the kingdom. But that's exactly what Wein wanted him to think as they follow the men and get trapped seeing that it's hard to move around while wearing armor. And that gave Wein an opening to disguise himself as a Marden soldier to take out Drawood. Not to mention, his right hand man Logan put up quite a terrible performance in the negotiation as asking for what amounts to an unconditional surrender just won't cut it. And it's no wonder why Wein is such an expert tactician as he learned the tricks of the battle tactician's trade at a military academy. Another fun episode that was, but not as great as the first, and I'm certainly hoping that it will get into more serious stuff soon.

[Buckeye]

Episode 3

Who wants to marry a troublemaking princess?

Here comes Lowa, the princess of the neighboring Earthworld Empire that rules over the entire eastern half of the continent, and Lowa is somebody who Wein knows from his days in military school. Lowa is quite a troublemaker, and here she is wanting to tie the knot with Wein realizing that her brothers are fighting for the throne. While that's going on, weapons are being smuggled into Natra, while Wein's sister is up to something. As it turns out, Lowa is set to marry Gerard, who is the son of a tyrannical marquess, and wants nothing to do with him. Things are getting extremely tricky here as marrying Lowa would have dire consequences and things are already chaotic as is.

[Buckeye]

Episode 4

It takes to for a rebellion to go right.

That was quite a diabolical scheme there as the nations conquered by the empire are rebelling. While they are busy fighting each other, Lowel seizes the opportunity to try get Wein to lend Natra's army to end Grenache's rebellion that started way too soon for it to be successful, using Lowa's engagement with Wein as leverage. But asking Gerard to do anything was quite a big mistake as Wein saw through all that. However, Gerard was just so incompetent that he fell to his death after boozing up. Not exactly what Wein had intended as he had no intention of getting his army involved, but thanks to Gerard being so scatterbrained that unless he can somehow expose the rebellion, war is inevitable.

So with that, trial period is up and I am liking what I see so far, so in it goes.

[Buckeye]

Episode 5

Conspiracies abound.

Just like with his idiotic son, Grenache is just as gullible as he was played for a fool. Little did he realize that Wein had him all figured out as guys from the west made him do their dirty work for the sake of rebellion. It would have succeeded had Wein not been one step ahead of them this whole time. Now that the jig is up and Grenache got exposed, the engagement is off, though that doesn't mean Lowa hasn't given up on Wein. Wein had quite a lot of options as Grenache was so easy to read, but this way Lowa can keep a leash on him in the future. Wein sure is something else there as his mind is quite a sight to behold.

[General Hentai]

Re: Episodes 1-5

This show is a gem and great fun to watch. Always eager for next week.

[Buckeye]

Episode 6

Read his lips: Natra will fall.

Wein ends up making the trip to Cavarin for a holiday festival as the future of Natra depends on forming an alliance with Cavarin. Along the way, they pass by a Mardenian army and end up becoming allies with their leader Zeno, who is out to get revenge on the traitor who killed the king Holonyeh. And then there's Levert and some guy they recognize because of that wound in his right arm as he is one of the bandits that attacked him. So with all that, Ninym reads Levert's lips and finds out that he's conspiring to burn Natra to the ground and kill Wein. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Wein finds out that Caldmellia is allied with the enemy. Lots of trouble brewing as there is so much going against Wein as he's now being targeted.

[Buckeye]

Episode 7

Falling for the oldest trick in the book.

Knowing full well that Cavarin intends to conquer Marden and Natra that Wein has an audience with the king and Holonyeh with Zeno by his side. Of course, negotiations weren't going anywhere seeing that they remain a threat as long as they are alive, and seeing the king disowning his daughter just because she isn't a prodigy is all the convincing Wein needs. And thus, Wein kills the king while Zeno kills Holonyeh in making their declaration of war. They had this battle in the bag as thanks to some secret soldiers and a secret alliance with Marden that Levert and his troops easily fell into Wein's trap. So with Cavarin neutralized, Natra and Marden are now allies as it turns out Zeno is the princess of Marden. So while those guys were easy to deal with, it won't exactly be easy against Caldmellia as she's up to something, and what Wein did falls right into her plans.

[Buckeye]

Episode 8

From being useful to being used.

And now an episode that focuses on Wein's little sister Falanya as she is sent to the Earthwold Empire and deal with three brothers who all have shady characters. Falanya wanted to be useful for her brother seeing that he's so on top of things that by the time she notices, Wein made quick work of things. Knowing what to expect out of those guys, Falanya sure did approach them with caution. And then the oldest one Demetrio asks Falanya to marry him, and saying so in such a creepy manner. As it turns out Falanya wasn't just there because Wein couldn't make it. Nope, it was all part of his plan as he was following her the whole time and waited until the right moment to show himself. It will be interesting to see what Wein has up his sleeve this time realizing that this is his way of making Falanya useful.

[Buckeye]

Episode 9

It's her turn to step up.

As much of a genius Wein is, even he is not effective when he's exhausted as he took care of quite a lot of errands, and then rushed over to help out his sister. So it turns out the marriage might not be as farfetched as I thought it would, but in any case, it's another dire situation that Wein has walked into as Demetrio got poisoned after drinking some toxic tea that was prepared for Wein, and fully anticipating that it would be poisoned wanted the maid who prepared it to drink it instead before Demetrio took a sip. The prince is still barely clinging onto his life, but the situation has gotten quite problematic. Things could have been bad, but Falanya really stepped up there to keep the peace while Wein was taking a snooze as this is her time to shine, after all. So with that, Wein now meets up with Caldmellia and the king of Mealtars, a nation whose people hav been mistreated by the empire, and it's up to Wein to make things right again.

[Buckeye]

Episode 10

Putting the kingdom at risk.

And thus, the treason part of the title surfaces here as Wein is willing to sell out Natra to get what he wants. So Wein is suggesting that Mealtar
fight for themselves buying weapons from Levetia's army, and then he pins the blame on the failed summit on Demetrio, which is meant to avoid a war more than anything. While Wein and Zeno would make for a nice couple, even in a political sense, that isn't happening seeing that Zeno is unfit to be a queen, and thus the military garb goes back on. This episode goes to show Wein's tricky behavior as he has no issues throwing people under the bus to advance his grand ambitions.

[Buckeye]

Episode 11

Feasting on fools.

With the latest threat, Wein heads off to Soljest to form an alliance with them, as well as with Delunio. An alliance would certainly be a great thing seeing that Soljest is known for its exceptional cuisine as Wein would find out that it distracted him from his mission. And then he has a private conversation with the king to form a verbal agreement, but it's just that as Gruyere was playing him for a fool while he had a secret deal with Delunio's prime minister Sigris as conquest is on their minds. Wein was right to feel uneasy about this agreement seeing that Soljest declares war on Natra and Marden. While Wein has an amazing mind and all, there will be some battles he will lose, and this is one of them. One more episode left to go as Wein will have to think of something fast in order to squash this threat.

[Buckeye]

Episode 12 (Finale)

Deeper in the red.

With that, Soljest has declared war on Natra, but Wein is right on top of things once again as he went to Delunio and totally played Sigris for a fool there to get him to flip the Delunio army to his side. And just like that, the tables turned with Ninym delivering the decisive blow on Gruyere, and while it didn't kill him, he sheds quite a lot of pounds there as thanks to his unusual metabolism, he has slimmed down in size there. Even though Natra was victorious and that Wein intends to form a pact seeing that he didn't execute Gruyere after everything he has done, that war incurred quite a lot of debt there and he will have to sell out his kingdom even further to get by. This goes to show that as shrewd as Wein is, he has quite a long way to go if he is to bring Natra out of debt. It was kind of rushed, but it was a fitting way to end things.

Overall, this is a show that does a great job with strategically using humor, action, and drama to tell a story, while the show's focus on the characters and politics is a nice breath of fresh air seeing that fantasy shows tend to be hung up too much on the fighting side of things. Nevertheless, this show has a number of issues and in particular, the story writing that was rather predictable and rushed towards the end, the usage of cliches, and the animation quality that while better than a typical show done by this studio is still something left to be desired. In any case, this was an amusing show to watch that was worthwhile to watch.

MAL Rating: