English Dub Review: Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle “The Princess and Furious Fluff”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Princess Syalis is still in the captivity of the Demon King, and she’s still just as relaxed as ever. From finding more ways to get a comfortable night’s sleep to making her own bug-repelling bed tents, she’s determined not to let being a captive get into her head.

Meanwhile, Dawner the Hero fights against perilous obstacles and monstrous dragons in order to try and reach the princess to perform a rescue operation. But humans are just so much weaker than demons, so he still has a long ways to go.

Our Take:

The first episode of Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle was a lot like reading a series of gags in a manga. After watching this second episode, I think it’s safe to say that this is all the show has going for it: a lot of the same joke repeated over and over in hopes that some of them will land.

Princess Syalis is up to the exact same thing she’s always up to: exploiting the lax attitude that these demons have about prisoner rules and regulations so that she can sneak around the Demon Castle and obtain items that make it easier to get a good night’s rest.

During the first half of The Princess and Furious Fluff, she has her sights set on a way to stop bug bites from happening by constructing a mosquito net over her mattress. By the second half of the episode, the show has seemingly already run out of specific sleep-related things to search for, relegating her quest to merely finding ‘something to aid in getting a good night’s rest’.

Luckily, there are a few new twists to keep things fresh even if shaking up Syalis’s routine isn’t one of them. There’s a new head guard type character who actually seems to be a bit less indulgent of the princess’s whims than every other demon supposedly guarding the prisoner. He’s able to confiscate all of her stolen goods (which means we might get the pleasure of watching her hunt for the same items all over again?) and put her back in her proper place — at least until she starts sleeping on his beard somehow.

The best parts of the episode for me were the brief glimpses we got of Dawner as he and his party journey to the Demon Castle so they can perform the valiant rescue that they’re so obviously destined to do. The only problem is that, well, they can’t get past the traps and troublesome demons that are guarding the way. (Maybe the Demon King needs to recruit some of these fellows to keep an eye on his catch!) From watching them navigate through a never-ending maze to hearing them complain about how a surprise boss was so unexpected, these scenes felt like breathes of fresh air.

Hopefully the series can keep finding ways to inject a bit more life into the proceedings down the road, because the Demon King and I can only put up with the hostage accidentally killing herself so many times before we reach our breaking points.