Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon has a number of interesting (to me) elements to it.  It’s a shoujo historical romance, which we don’t tend to see absolutely tons of in anime these days.  It’s produced by Kinema Citrus, who don’t have a huge output but have proved with Made in Abyss that their best is as good as anybody in TV anime.  It’s also another Netflix series – good on them for continuing to greenlight non-standard fare – and released in the “normal” (non-dump) anime fashion.  It also placed very highly in the LiA poll and is among the leaders in social media following for this current season.

It ranked as low as it did (“Modestly Interested”) in my preview mainly because while it does have a manga, it originated as a light novel.  And like it or lump it, at this point I view any modern LN with a healthy dollop of skepticism.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twenty times?  I prefer not to be fooled at this point, but hey, occasionally a LN does slip through and surprise me.  This one and its manga incarnation seem to be reasonably if not effusively well-regarded, so it certainly gets an audition – most especially because Kinema Citrus chose to make it one of their rare works.

As you’d expect, this looked really nice.  Not MiA levels of quality, but more than just “anything looks good compared to GoHands” good.  It’s a very traditionally drawn and animated series, set in a meticulously crafted Meiji Japan.  For one episode at least it plays pretty much as a Japanese Cinderalla, with the heroine Saimori Miyo in that role.  Her mother died when she was very young and her wealthy father remarried.  The second wife and her daughter fill the wicked stepmother and sister shoes admirably, and Dad seems to have pretty well tuned out any residual feelings he had for Miyo (or her mother).

In short, her life is pretty miserable – she’s treated as a servant and never leaves the villa.  A lad named Kouji whose family is close with the Saimori is her only relief.  He treats her kindly and in fact is probably in love with her, but his own father promises him instead to younger sister Kaya (who Kouji seems to loathe, with good reason).  Miyo is pawned off on a notorious young noble named  Kudou Kiyoka, infamous for treating fiancées so cruelly that they flee him.  Kouji is horrified at this turn of events but for Miyo, even that prospect is better than being trapped in the loveless prison of her father’s estate.

If I’m being honest, this is all very broad and heavy-handed.  If Kaya and her mother had moustaches they’d twirl them, and Miyo is the picture of bleak resignation.  In short, if this were the canvas for the whole series I’d be very worried.  But it’s not, as Miyo and Kiyoka have already met by the end of the episode.  As such it’s basically impossible to make a call on Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon at this point, at least in narrative terms, as the real story basically hasn’t started yet.  That relationship is what the series will stand or fall on, and I have no idea what that means yet.

What I do know is that this series is very pretty, and overall rather quiet and dignified.  So I’m inclined to give it a fair bit of play on the line.  I mean, Kinema Citrus must have decided to work on it for a reason, and they don’t decide to work on much.  Good anime about married (or engaged) people are obviously pretty rare, so if Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon turns out to be one, it will certainly carve out a place on my schedule.