Sacrificial Princess and The King of Beasts

Whether you grew up loving Beauty and The Beast without being able to explain why, whether all your DnD or Skyrim characters are beasts like Tabaxi or Argonians, whether you're a furry or just think they're neat, or if you just think it would be hot to fuck a monster, Sacrificial Princess and The King of Beasts is an anime that is tailor made for you. Hell, even if you're none of these things, I would strongly recommend at least checking it out, as it has undoubtedly been one of my favorite anime titles of 2023.

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. YES!

The story is an old classic: two kingdoms - humans and beasts - have kept themselves distant after a long and gruesome war. As part of a peace treaty signed by old monarchs, humans send a sacrifice to the beasts once a year to keep them placated. What the humans eventually forget is that the beasts aren't simply mindless creatures bent on human destruction. Rather, they're just a different type of people, living in a different type of land, under a different type of monarch, and even then they really aren't that different in practice. Sound familiar?

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme. Doesn't make it any less beautiful though.

Anyway, the real story begins with a girl named Sariphi. Unbeknownst to her, she's been raised by a pair of somewhat cold parents as the next village sacrifice; a decoy child to sacrifice instead of their "real child". And when the time comes, she is discreetly ushered off to the beast realm as the annual offering, only to discover that something is up with the Beast King, and he has not actually been devouring the sacrifices as expected, but slyly allowing them to escape.

It takes real guts to make a flower crown for a king that could tear you limb from limb in a heartbeat.

Now Sariphi, having resigned herself to be as good as dead anyway since her so-called parents clearly didn't want her and wouldn't welcome her back if she did escape back to the Human Realm, decides she's not afraid of the Beast King. After all, she's seen the worst of what people can be in the dead eyes of her parents on the night she found out she was a decoy child, and she doesn't see any of that in the King's eyes at all. Sparks fly, and the King decides he will allow her to roam his castle freely and eventually take her as his Queen.

Now that's what I call living the dream.

Naturally, the Beast people are shocked. None moreso than the King's advisor, Anubis. And while he generally plays the role of stuffy, suspicious, combative chancellor who always seems to be trying to get Sariphi deported or killed, the show deftly avoids the old trope of making him into some kind of devious betrayer or usurper. While Anubis can't bring himself to approve of a Human Queen, he can't bring himself to deny his King either. It's a nice change of pace from the typical one-dimensional Disney-esque antagonists I'm so used to seeing. In fact, the whole running theme of the show is very much about subverting stereotypes and confronting prejudice.

If you were worried there wouldn't be any action, this is still a show about furries with claws and sharp teeth. And blep faces.

Every character we encounter is somehow not what they appear to be, and the show loves to mess with your expectations. For a story that hinges on predictable and often trite concepts like royalty, humanoid monsters, and fantasy racism, it sure is more nuanced than it initially appears. The characters learn far more than just "maybe not all ___s are bad after all", as they are forced to confront their preconceived notions and hangups whenever Sariphi calls them out on it. It isn't just about combating various -isms, it's about acknowledging where they come from, discussing what can be done to move past them, and preventing them from happening again in the future.

You're right not to trust anyone on this show, but not always for the reasons you think.

And it doesn't stop at "Us vs Them" type prejudices. Monsters and humans alike have their own share of internal bigotry against their own kind. Old traditions clash with new progressive thinking. The King himself struggles with self-hatred due to his accursed and possibly illegitimate mixed heritage. Overcoming these inherited inhibitions, unlearning to expect the worst from people, and loving the unlovable is the show's bread and butter, and I found it invigorating to watch something so earnestly good-hearted and willing to untangle these issues in a more nuanced way than all those old After School Special type shows I grew up with in the 90s.

If you told me beforehand that the episode about loving the unlovable bratty child would make me cry, I wouldn't have believed you. But yeah, I cried.

With that, I feel like I've made my point here. Hot monsters of every variety, engaging characters and stories, a fantasy anime in 2023 that doesn't focus on kids training at the academy just like in your favorite Fire Emblem and isn't set in a fucking video game world for once...did I mention the hot monsters? Why aren't you watching this show? Go check it out already!

If you've already seen it, or want something else like it, my best recommendation is the light-hearted emotional rollercoaster that is Somali and The Forest Spirit. If you're in it for the furries, you might like BNA (Brand New Animal) or OddTaxi, but you'll lose the high fantasy aspect in favor of modern society and more of a sci-fi flavor. But for more fantasy shows of a similar vibe that may or may not contain monsters, I would recommend older classics like Escaflowne or The Slayers.

At the end of the day, women only want one thing: seeing two muscular beasts beat the shit out of each other.