Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!
Girl meets prince – this is a common theme in romance. But how often does a prince kidnap a girl he has never seen?
This is the situation Shirayuki finds herself in when a royal guard tells her that she should come to the palace to become the lover of prince Raji. The reason? He heard that there is a girl with bright red hair and he thinks that would suit him.
Maid-chan is angry! There is always some spoiled brat in an important position thinking he is the greatest and everything is his, right? Maid-chan wants to put those to a 100’000 Volt punishment!
Shirayuki may be a bit shy, but definitely not weak-minded. She decides to leave the town, but only after she finished the medicines for her customers. Maid-chan applauds this sense of acquittal!
Yes, Shirayuki is an apothecary. Not the usual occupation for a romance-anime girl, right?
As Shirayuki has to gather herbs in the wild in this profession, she does not fear the forest. She leaves her home country for the neighboring kingdom and arriving there, suspecting pursuers, turns to the woods.
After a while she comes to a house that looks deserted. Empty as it seems, Shirayuki does not break in and instead decides to rest in a wind-protecting corner. But she has no time to sleep, since at that moment a young man jumps the wall.
In the following mutual surprise, he falls hard on the ground and hurts himself at the arm. Seeing this, Shirayuki rushes to help him with her medicines, but he harshly refuses her offer, saying that it may be poison.
Maid-chan would be really pissed off by this and just go away, but Shirayuki is more forgiving. She does not like the boy’s behavior, but still sees his injure as the most important thing. To prove that she does not poison people, she smashes her own arm and then puts on the medicine.
This recklessness is a big surprise for the boy, and Shirayuki earns his trust (if not more) with this action.
Would Shirayuki have done the same if she had known that the boy, which is called “Zen” by his two comrades, is actually the second prince of the country Clarines? Maid-chan thinks yes. Both the prince and Shirayuki have in common that they sometimes rush things.
Zen is accompanied by his two aides and close friends Mitsuhide and Kiki, who loyally and warmly watch over Zen, whatever may happen.
While Mitsuhide seems carefree, Kiki is always reserved and watching in the background. But don’t underestimate her! If she is angry, Kiki uses her cold eyes like a sword, slashing and piercing you to pieces! Even Maid-chan had shivers seeing those eyes!
Things happen, and Shirayuki decides to follow Zen to the castle of Clarines. There she aspires to become an apprentice to the royal apothecary. Learning hard she succeeds. From now on she learns from the head apothecary Garack and her mentor Ryuu, who is a 12-year old savant.
With her open attitude she quickly wins the heart of the people-shy Ryuu and both form a superb team.
With time the feelings of Zen and Shirayuki to each other grow. There are many hardships and opposition to Shirayuki as various people in the castle get to know of the new girl and see her close relation to the prince as an obstacle. More then one time Shirayuki is out of power, both physical and mentally.
But in the end her resolve is stronger then before, and with her resolve also grows the realization that it is more then friendship that connects her and Zen. Finally there comes the time when they both open up and share their feelings.
For fans of action-romance animes, this one is a must watch! It is soooo cute to see Zen and Shirayuki embarrassed when they end up close to each other. Even Maid-chan had to laugh seeing it!
Art style and music are a wonderful match to the fire-haired Shirayuki. The dramaturgy follows the usual pattern, but it is convincingly woven and part of the fun of a romance anime is that you know where it ends, right?
The only “bad” thing is that the secondary characters could be fleshed out a bit more (maybe they are in the manga, which goes on longer than the anime’s 24 episodes).
Still, thanks to the interesting setting of Shirayuki being an apothecary, this anime gets a 9/10 on the totally objective Maid-chan scale.
Ah! For Maid-chan there is no one except her master, but watching this anime made even Maid-chan dreaming of a prince...
See you next time!
