English Dub Review: Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle “The Princess, Destruction, and a Short Journey”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Princess Syalis is still a prisoner in the Demon Castle, but she’s determined to make the most of her time as a captive. Her bathtub isn’t up to her royal standards, so she reroutes some water from the demons bath chamber and then blows up a rocket turtle to get his shell.

Later on, she commandeers some ice demons in order to make her dwellings more comfortable for the summer months and then tries to use a magical potion to shrink herself, which takes an unexpected turn.

Our Take:

The fourth episode of Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle sticks with the same tried and true tricks we’ve seen up until now for the most part, but The Princess, Destruction, and a Short Journey does have a few twists up its sleeves.

This week’s episode is divided roughly into three segments, each of which features Princess Syalis trying to obtain a new item or embark on a new quest. The first is the most typical one, as she decides she needs a bigger bathtub and sets about making that happen. It’s pretty straight forward and by the book, although her destruction of the rocket turtle is the most, er, explosive exploit she’s pulled off yet.

The next two are a little less traditional. The middle scenes are set in the summer and find Syalis absolutely miserable due to the castle’s lack of air conditioning. Of course, it makes sense that a demon’s castle would be fiery all year round, but there are ice demons, so what’s the deal? Turns out they’ve been relegated to a separate section of the area, so the Princess goes to infiltrate their ranks and bring back some ice. In the end, they mistake her for their leader and she cons them all into serving as her personal AC units by telling them she’s the new demon lord in training. It’s dumb, cruel, and pushes the boundaries of believability, but hey, at least it’s not the usual old setup.

The last segment of the episode might just be the biggest change-up yet, as it features Syalis NOT getting exactly what she’s after for once — although technically she still is able to get some comfortable sleep. It finds her shrinking down to a mini size and having to rely on help from the demons to get back to her abode. However, now that she can’t do everything herself, they actually get the better of her for once and end up fawning over how cute she is as a baby instead of doing her bidding.

It’s a little too late for this show to change how I feel about it, but it’s nice to see it try to branch out four weeks in, even if there’s still no substantial changes or anything anything by the time the credits roll around. I want the hero to make it to the castle already!