This should already be fairly obvious, but I qualify as a “furry.” No, I don’t have a fursona, nor do I understand the appeal of fur-suits. There’s no denying that furry culture is pretty cringe. The reason I consider myself a furry is that I love artwork featuring anthropomorphized beast characters. There are hilarious and amazing furry comics and images out there. That includes the occasional NSFW art. Yes, anthro-animals can be attractive to me.

The Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts is primarily a shoujo anime, but I also think it’s in the tiny subgenre of “furry anime.” Regardless of how you feel about furries, I hope you can enjoy my most recent episode reviews for this unusual and romantic series.

---

Episode 4: The Feline and Reptile Princesses

Princesses from states all across the beast world have come to the palace to try to win the king’s heart. But the king, who didn’t approve of this in the first place, at first refuses to see any of them. Sariphi feels bad for the princesses, and is aware any of them would make a better queen long term. So, she asks the king to at least see the princesses. The king is angry when he hears this, causing Sariphi to leave the room to get some space. When she comes back to the royal chambers, she sees Vivian, the Feline Princess, on top of the king in the bed. Sariphi quickly runs away.

In reality, the king did nothing with Vivian. She came onto him and he turned her down angrily. However, he does agree to hold a banquet with all the princesses to humor the nobility. Sariphi meets the reptile princess, Amit, and becomes her friend. Amit knows she can’t win over the king, and doesn’t even want to. She actually came to the palace to be near the Captain of the Guard, a handsome reptilian named Jormugand. Long ago, the dashing Captain gave young Amit a scarf to cover her scraped hand. Amit fell in love.

At the banquet, things go well for Amit. She is able to give the scarf back to Jormungand, who recognizes her. Amit got her moment with her crush. However, things don’t go well for Sariphi. Princess Vivian gave the human a liquor so strong she passed out. When she woke up in the hallway, Sariphi was bullied and told to back down by Vivian. When Sariphi refuses to ever leave the king, Vivian attacks. Amit appears and helps defend Sariphi until the king gets there. He saves Sariphi from the angry cat Princess.

I enjoyed this episode as usual. I liked Amit, although I found it a bit strange that she was treated as “ugly” when they’re all beasts and it’s completely subjective. Amit was allowed to stay at the palace as Sariphi’s friend, which means she’s probably going to be a regular character. Jormugand was hot, so I hope we see him again, too. Princess Vivian was not a very interesting character to me, but she served her purpose in the plot as a temporary antagonist to Sariphi.

All throughout the episode, Sariphi was acting like she doesn’t understand her own feelings. It’s extremely obvious that she’s in love with the king. But for some reason, Sariphi can’t admit it, and refuses to name the feelings. I don’t quite understand this side of Sariphi. I think she should enjoy her love story with the king as much as she can. There’s no use pretending you’re not smitten. Still, I’m very happy with Sariphi as a main character. She’s adorable, thoughtful and caring. In her own way, she’s also quite bold and impertinent, which are traits I admire in female characters.

---

Episode 5: The Holy Beast of Immortality and Rebirth

Anubis tries to make Sariphi sign a contract to become more accomplished. The contract requires her to summon a holy beast and be its master. Since Sariphi has no magic, the king shoots down Anubis’ idea. However, Sariphi signs the contract the next day regardless. She is sick of not being able to do anything and being the only one protected all the time. So, using her lifeforce energy in place of magic, Sariphi will summon a holy beast.

The summoning spell is extremely difficult, and at first, it seems like Sariphi is doomed to fail. But after a talk with the king, she gains more confidence and finally succeeds. A holy beast is indeed summoned, but it’s an extremely weakened and pathetic state. It’s apparently a phoenix, but it resembles a fat baby chick. The creature used to be regal and huge, but has grown weak. However, by the end of the episode, the phoenix is able to regain his power and take his rightful form once again. It’s all thanks to Sariphi, who believed in him when nobody else did.

The phoenix is extremely annoying, in my opinion. I didn’t find anything about him or his character concept amusing. The anime failed to make this little twist funny. In addition, everything in the plot is becoming easily predictable. I knew the phoenix would regain his power, so there was nothing to surprise me. I knew Sariphi would eventually succeed in the summoning, so there wasn’t much suspense for me when she was trying and failing. This episode really wasn’t great as far as I’m concerned.

There wasn’t really any explanation of this world’s magic systems, despite the importance this episode places on summoning circles. Since this anime is going to be 24 episodes, I would hope that it explains more about magic at some point. Despite my criticisms of this episode, I still enjoy this anime and maintain hope that some episodes will be significantly better than others.

---

Episode 6: A Boy and the King of Beasts

A human boy is caught by the beasts after attacking and threatening the palace guards. It turns out the boy is Sariphi’s childhood friend, a young warrior by the name of Ilya. Sariphi convinces the king to let Ilya go free, but he’s extremely exhausted, so he is permitted to rest one day in the palace. That day, Sariphi brought Ilya food, but the boy refused to eat. He was also extremely rude to Amit when she tried to bring him sweet desserts. At one point, Ilya pins Sariphi against the wall and demands that she come back home with him. Sariphi refuses.

The reason Ilya is so hateful is that his village was destroyed by wandering beasts long ago. Hence, he cannot forgive them. Ilya decides to ignore Sariphi’s will. When she comes to bring him dinner, he knocks her unconscious and carries her out of the palace. Anubis is delighted by the chaos, thinking they will finally be rid of the troublesome human. But the king decides to pursue Ilya and Sariphi on his holy beast. He leaves Jormungand in charge of the palace in his absence. To be continued!

I don’t have many thoughts to share on this episode besides the obvious ones. Ilya treated Sariphi badly and I don’t like him at all. Based on the visuals in the opening song, Ilya is going to be a regular character after this point. I’m not looking forward to that. Then again, maybe he will become less aggressive in time. On a completely unrelated and trivial note, I appreciate Amit in more ways than one. She’s so sweet and genuine. Also, she may have a crocodile face, but she sure has a nice rack, too. XD

---

Thank you for reading~