Imagine that, following your death, you reincarnate into a world with real magic. You would think yourself quite fortunate – that is, until you realized that you were some kind of anomaly incapable of using standard magic. What terrible luck. This would make most people discouraged and bitter – but Princess Anisphia Wynn Palettia is not like most people. She accepted the challenge and began to revolutionize magic itself. Her goal? To be the first magic user to fly freely through the skies.
TenTen Kakumei is the fan nickname for the light novel and anime titled Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei. In English, this translates to The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady. Since nobody wants to say such an absurdly long title, I will refer to this series as TenTen Kakumei.
The anime was released in Winter 2023, based on the light novel series by made by a collaboration of authors – namely, Karasu, Piero Kisaragi, and Yuri. The story follows Anisphia, AKA Anis, the eccentric princess of the kingdom of Palettia. Her fate becomes intertwined with that of Euphyllia, a young lady who excels at using magic. The main genres are Fantasy, Girl’s Love, and Isekai/Reincarnation.
As far as I know, I’ve removed any spoilers from this article. Hopefully, you can get a feel for the anime’s strengths and weaknesses without being spoiled for the whole story. The only “spoiler” I will give is that Anisphia and Euphyllia are the two female love interests for each other. That’s kind of the premise, since this is a Girl’s Love anime. Now, without further rambling, I present my series review for this lovely little show.
Visuals: 7/10 Good/Fine
The visual style of Tenten Kakumei is cute, colorful, and expressive. It looks a lot like a magical girl anime, where characters have large heads, small hands, and brightly colored eyes and hair. The outfits are of the girls are very fanciful. Anisphia’s princely outfit with pink skirt is probably a reference to Revolutionary Girl Utena. Compared to my ideal, the art style is a bit unoriginal, but it still looks fine.
The character designs, detail level, and color pallet are all good. The face expressions are on-point. I also like the way each character gives off a dinstinct “vibe” – rouguish tomboy vibes from Anis, for example, or dangerous goth bad-girl from Tilty.
Some of the backgrounds and sets are simplistic and unimpressive, such as the castle inhabited by Anis’ family. Lighting and shading, especially on the faces of the characters, is always excellent. Though the still-shots are usually superb, the smoothness and creativity of movement during action scenes is not. If the battles looked more dynamic and the style a little more original, I would give the visual category a higher score – but 7/10 seems fair.
Story Elements: 8/10 Excellent
TenTen Kakumei is a fantasy isekai anime. The story concept is great because it takes these overused anime genres and reuses them in creative ways. Many of the annoying isekai tropes and tendencies of mainstream anime are omitted. Others are just spun in a new way. For example, it’s quite rare for the reincarnated character to be a girl. (I only know of two others with this element.)
An isekai is usually either a) dark and edgy for its own sake, or b) highly sexual and focused on male wish fulfillment. In contrast, TenTen Kakumei is a wholesome love story between two young women. It’s truly a breath of fresh air.
It’s clear that this anime has a promising and creative starting concept. The plot, while not thrilling, is more than entertaining enough as the characters go through their personal struggles and come to know each other better. It stays entertaining and doesn’t drag.
The world-building isn’t perfect, but the magic systems and the way Anisphia manipulates them are interesting. TenTen Kakumei also has a good balance of content, with some of it being humorous and other parts serious, romantic, or intense.
Some viewers may have some complaints about the series conclusion. Without giving spoilers, in a way, it’s only a short-term solution that the girls find. The problem that comes up in the last few episodes will continue to be an issue. The lack of permanent resolution did throw me off a bit, but I think the short-term answer is executed well enough. Besides, it leaves plenty of room for the story to continue into the future.
Themes are important parts of the story category. TenTen Kakumei succeeded in impressing me with its highly progressive themes, such as positive change, challenging the status quo, and maintaining an open mind. Other ideas include empowerment for female characters, innovation, and self-expression. And of course, another salient theme is love. With its progressive stances and LGBT+ romance, TenTen Kakumei is a rare gem in Japanese anime.
Audio: 7/10 Good/Fine
The audio components are good, but not the best or most memorable in my personal opinion. The opening song is “Arc-en-ciel” by Hanatan. The ending song is “Only for You” by Sayaka Senbogi and Manaka Iwami (the seiyuus who play Anis and Euphy, respectively). Both songs are fine, but ultimately forgettable to me. Of the two, I think I slightly prefer “Only for You,” since the chorus is really nice. The composer for TenTen Kakumei was Moe Hyuuga, and the OST she composed was pleasant but generic.
As I mentioned, Anisphia is voiced by Sayaka Senbogi and Euphyllia is played by Manaka Iwami. Both are talented seiyuus. I tend to enjoy voices more like Senbogi’s, which are tomboyish and energetic. But Manaka Iwami is also amazing because of her range of pitch and tone. Let me give an example.
Iwami played Tohru in Fruits Basket (2019), a clumsy and ditzy girl with a distinctly high-pitched voice. Now look at her character in TenTen Kakumei. She’s the graceful and reserved Euphyllia, who speaks with a deeper and much more mature voice. It doesn’t even sound like the same actress. Amazing, right?
Besides the two main seiyuus, there weren’t many others that I know about. However, I do want to quickly mention Yuu Sasahara, who played Tilty Claret. She did a great job expanding her range of character in this series. Before, I heard her as bubbly, ditzy protagonist girls with endless optimism (like Emilico from Shadows House). But as Tilty, this voice actress played a very moody, brooding character with emo-like qualities. Yuu Sasahara is impressive for sure.
Characters: 7/10 Good/Fine
TenTen Kakumei features entertaining characters with good starting concepts. Consider Princess Anisphia, a rambunctious and adventurous girl who likes other girls. She is also a reincarnation who remembers bits of her previous life from a world much like ours. Besides Anis, a few other characters also have interesting concepts. For example, Ilia is Anisphia’s faithful maid. She has a kind but stern way of taking care of the erratic princess.
Whether characters are likeable is ultimately subjective. The same goes with relatability. Speaking for myself, I found the characters in TenTen Kakumei to be both likeable and relatable. It was easy to root for Anis with her free spirit and funny quirks. I also liked Euphy and could relate to her depression early in the series. Both main characters had decent ongoing character development, culminating in their love for each another.
There were some weaknesses to the way this anime handled characters. First, although the character growth was acceptable, it never reached a profound level like what you see in an anime with truly great character development. (An example could be Revolutionary Girl Utena.) Secondly, although it’s wonderful to see so many good female characters, there were few good or relatable male characters. For instance, for me, Prince Algard wasn’t very likeable.
I did like Euphy’s father, Lord Magenta, but his depth and screen-time were both severely limited. So, although I love Anisphia, Euphyllia, and the other young ladies, I think 7/10 is the best I can give for the character category overall.
Personal Enjoyment: 9/10 Outstanding
The personal enjoyment section is hard to fill out if one is avoiding spoilers. On a good day, this section is also rather redundant, since the things I enjoy in any anime fall into the other four categories by necessity. For example, I loved Euphy’s aesthetic with her beauitful rapier and silver hair – this falls into the visual category. I loved Tilty’s personality and how she was coded as a neurodivergent character – this falls into the character category. Etc. Etc.
The important thing is that I enjoyed TenTen Kakumei immensely. I have only insignificant complaints. I will say that the three things I enjoyed most were: 1) The Sapphic romance, 2) the personality of Anisphia, and 3) the colorful and creative magic. I’ll also mention that the reason I love the Sapphic romance so much is that I am in the LGBT+ community myself (nonbinary-feminine and pansexual). That will have to suffice for the enjoyment category.
Overall Score: 7.6 / 10.0 Good
The overall score is the average of the scores for the five categories I explored above. For me personally, the most important category is my own enjoyment level, but the overall score is useful because it typically gives a much more balanced number.
My scale ranges from 1-10 with 1 being impossibly horrendous and 10 being perfect. Most anime series that I enjoy fall on the scale of high 6s to high 8s, with a few in the 9s. As you can see, TenTen Kakumei fell higher on the 7s scale, making it a solidly good anime by this measurement. I highly recommend TenTen Kakumei if you like Girl’s Love and/or series with decent LGBT+ representation; or if you want a truly unusual isekai anime.
~Thanks for reading~
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