The story of the My Happy Marriage anime started life on the Japanese version of Wattpad and then got published as a light novel. A light novel is an illustrated novella meant for the young adult market. It got turned into a very successful manga and then anime. There’s even a live-action version of it out in the wild somewhere. The production values on this one were decent, and that is becoming rare with anime.
Also, the show takes place in the Taisho period, which helped draw me in despite myself.
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This era, running from 1912 – 1926, has always intrigued me. Emperor Taisho ruled over a time of relative progressivism in Japan. As an example, when the Japanese captured some Germans in WWI, the POWs were not only treated humanely but so much so that they stayed on after the war and founded Japan’s beer industry.
The Taisho era was a time when automobiles, electric lights, and western business suits could end at the edge of a neighborhood and you’d be walking in a world that was unchanged since the 1300s. It was a time when the ultra-modern was constantly rubbing shoulders with the ancient beyond measure. But this was still a place where honor meant more than life. Japan was trying to invent a new place for itself in the world, and for that matter, its people were all having to find new places for themselves.
Everyone from the Samurai to the criminal underworld was having to come up with a new way to be Japanese. Things couldn’t keep going the way they’d been, but they didn’t want to let go of what they had been. There were old men who had living memories of the Tokugawa Shogunate. These people wanted to move forward but still had their feet planted firmly on the earth.
This is an alternative world where Emperor Meiji is still alive if only just, and Taisho is still the crown prince. There are other differences that took me by surprise. More on those in a moment.
This is kind of a Japanese Cinderella story.
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Miyo Saimori is the eldest daughter of the Saimori family. She is of impeccable breeding; however, when her mother dies, her father marries his concubine, and her younger half-sister, Kaya, becomes his spoiled favorite. He discards Miyo. Kaya’s mother was NOT noble born and gave Miyo the evil stepmother treatment at every opportunity. Kaya, for her part, is much worse. There is fundamental insecurity in play because Miyo is high-born on both sides. Kaya’s birth was illegitimate, and her mother was born.
Miyo is treated as a despised servant and reminded of her inadequacy several times a day by her stepmother and sister. Miyo tries to survive by being as mousey as possible, hoping to simply avoid their vicious interest in her whenever possible.
Miyo’s only hope for a better life is the escape of marriage. There is a local boy of the comparative social station named Kouji who clearly has a crush on her. Miyo isn’t really in love with him, but he is a nice boy and is pretty much her only source of kindness apart from the servants, or, perhaps I should say, the other servants.
One day she gets called in for a meeting by her profoundly negligent father and informed that Kouji will be marrying her younger sister. On top of this absolutely crushing news, her vile sister informs her, sneeringly, that Miyo has now been engaged to Commander Kiyoka Kudou. A man with a reputation for vast cruelty who has run off three other fiances.
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Resigned to her fate, she goes to the home of her cruel husband-to-be. Here, things take a turn for the better for Miyo. For a start, the new man in her life is astoundingly handsome, and for another, her modest room is lavishly luxurious by the standards of a girl who’d been sleeping in a closet with a dirt floor that was too small for her to stretch out in.
After some initial misunderstandings, it becomes clear that the ultra-highborn Kudou isn’t cruel at all, just cold and reserved (in the best of Bronte Sisters’ fashion). It’s as if he’s been waiting for the perfect girl to melt his cold heart. His other fiances were only interested in him for the status a marriage to him would bring. Whereas Miyo is genuinely fond of him just for showing her a bare minimum of common courtesy and decent treatment.
Miyo, having been a servant, is a very effective housewife and proceeds to turn the Kudou house into the Kudou home. After an appropriate length of time, Koudo’s heart begins to melt.
And then he has to go fight demons.
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Koudo is the commander of an elite corps of counter-supernatural wizards. Yeah, this is the part that took me by surprise. Up until now, this had just been a historic Cinderella romance suitable for the young adult market.
It turns out the reason that Miyo’s father cast her aside was that despite her mother’s bloodline of super-powerful wizard persons, Miyo had no talent at all.
However, she still had her bloodline. Kouji, the boy from next door’s evil father, wanted Miyo as a concubine/breeding stock. The problem is she needs to be disgraced first, and being kicked out of Commander Kudou’s house was supposed to fit the bill.
Except it’s looking increasingly likely that Kudou isn’t going to do that. Her sister is furious about Miyo getting a mega-hot, high-status Sigma Male husband instead of a life in the gutter. Also, it turns out that Miyo’s lost, aristocratic maternal family hasn’t written her off at all and wants her back. It appears she may not be so depowered after all.
This is good news because something very powerful and unbelievably destructive is coming for Japan.
If you’re a guy, it’s a date night fair made tolerable by the demon fighting. If you’re a girl, you’ve got the whole Japanese Cinderella meets a Bronte Sisters love interest.
Either way…
The Dark Herald Recommends with Confidence (4/5)
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This one was pretty good.