Sometimes, I enjoy trashy shows that don’t appear to have much redeeming value; In fact, I may be the only person who enjoyed Astralotte’s Toy who is not on some kind of government watchlist. Because of this, I decided to give Duke’s Daughter a try, even though from all appearances it’s…well…entertainment for men who like girls that are very young.
You could be harsh and call it “pedo-bait” or something, but I don’t like using terms like that because I don’t believe it’s accurate. A lot of people, mostly men but not always, enjoy watching the animated antics of girls who are cute. I don’t believe that necessarily translates to having inappropriate feelings toward actual children. I’m not going to assume something so incredibly damning on the basis of someone liking a cartoon. So I’ll just call these shows “loli” and that’s going far enough.
Of course, this show doesn’t help me by having main girl Tina sitting on the protagonist’s lap within the first five minutes of the episode. Oh boy, Anime Feminist is going to have a field day with this one.
So, our main guy Allen fails his court sorcerer exam, which seems very suspicious since he’s supposedly great at magic. It appears that the headmaster may have specifically had him fail so he could be recommended as a tutor for a noble’s daughter. Allen is invited into a northern realm where the posh folk dine with their servants (how refreshing!), and the Duke’s daughter cannot cast spells. She has magic power, but when she tries to cast a spell, everything just fizzles out. How will Allen help her?
The main appeal here is trying to figure out what’s going on with Tina and her magic, er, impotence. Since “great spells” that are no longer in use have been mentioned, I’m guessing Tina’s magic is more suited for great spells than little pissy beginner spells and that’s where she’s been going wrong all this time. It could also be that she’s been cursed, but I didn’t see any indication of that, so who knows.
Magic in this show looks pretty cool, by the way: they have actual magic circles and everything. I like me a good magic circle.
Production-wise, the show looked fine. I didn’t notice any moments of particularly great animation, but I didn’t see any scenes that really called for that either. No OP yet, so the quality there remains to be seen. I really didn’t notice the music at all, which is not surprising since I’m hard-of-hearing and I have to have the volume up pretty loud to notice BGM; I realize I’m going to have to start watching out for that going forward.
So far, the biggest problem with the show (without taking the unfortunate lap-sitting into account) is the fact that Allen just isn’t a very interesting character. He does mention that he has a lower than normal amount of mana, so at least he isn’t a ridiculously overpowered protagonist, because that’s boring– unless the show is really capitalizing on the power fantasy aspect. I also dislike the fact that he pats the maid, Ellie, on the head upon their first meeting: she’s a person, not a dog! Head pats can be cute, but only when the characters have the kind of intimacy where that’s appropriate. Doing that to someone you just met is insulting. Actually, the more I think about it, the less I like Allen.
I’m not sure if I’m going to continue with this show. The only part that really interests me is the “why can’t Tina cast magic?” question, and in a season packed with so many highly anticipated shows, that’s probably not enough. I think I will drop into episode two at least just to see if we find out what’s going on with Tina, but if the show doesn’t do something interesting by then, I’m dropping it.
Karen's Anime Blog 
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