The Spring 2022 Manga Guide

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady

What's It About? 

Despite her supposed ineptitude with regular magic, Princess Annisphia defies the aristocracy's expectations by developing “magicology,” a unique magical theory based on memories from her past life. One day, she witnesses the brilliant noblewoman Euphilia unjustly stripped of her title as the kingdom's next monarch. That's when Annisphia concocts a plan to help Euphilia regain her good name—which somehow involves them living together and researching magic! Little do these two ladies know, however, that their chance encounter will alter not only their own futures but those of the kingdom...and the entire world!

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady is based on the light novel by Piero Karasu. The manga is drawn by Yuri Kisaragi with English translation by Alexandra McCullough-Garcia. Yen Press will release its first volume both digitally and physically for $8.99 and $15.00 respectively.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

The adaptation isn't always even on par with the source material, never mind better than it, but that's precisely where we are with The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady. Piero Karasu's original novel version of the story struggles to achieve the right balance between world-building and plot, to say nothing of several first-person narrative voices that all sound way too much the same, but these issues are largely absent from Harustugu Nadaka's manga version. In part this is simply because the manga format, with its use of speech and thought bubbles, negates the need for the confusing narration found in the book – we know precisely who's saying what at what time. Add to that the fact that the amount of text is greatly reduced and you've got a story that is forced to trim the fat if it's going to function.

This allows for the humor of the piece to really shine through, as well as some of the underlying implications and emotions. Princess Anisphia's sudden awakening to her past life memories in modern Japan completely eclipses the personality she had pre-awakening, which adds a bit of concern to her father's and maid Ilia's interpretation of all of her actions – they can't understand them because all of a sudden Anis is acting in a manner that's pretty literally out of their world. Meanwhile the scene Anis breaks into by crashing her flying broom through a window is one that she notes is all-too-familiar from the popular media of her old world – her brother is busy setting up his fiancée Euphilia as the villainess in a classic otome game isekai plot. That it's Anis and not Euphie who's the isekai'd character is a nice twist, as is the fact that Anis' younger brother and his cronies are clearly making the whole thing up as they go along.

This is, as you can more or less guess from the cover and the back copy, a yuri fantasy romance, and I'm very glad to say that Anis is not a member of the predatory lesbian trope. She's a bit more on that side here than in the novel, mostly because of the addition of a fanservice scene (with some suspect anatomy), but she's shown to just be a generally physical person with everyone, not just Euphie. She really does want Euphie's help in her magicology research and to help the other girl, and watching Euphie come to understand that she's allowed to be her own person and to be happy is a slow but sweet part of the book. Both versions of the story have potential, but I think I'd suggest going with this one over the light novel – it's better paced and put together, and that makes a lot of difference.