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Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle / 魔王城でおやすみ

A Good night in the Demon King's castle is all that Syalis, the eponymous princess, wishes for after the Demon king had kidnapped her. Just that it's soon no longer clear who's running the show in Demon Castle... Syalis or the Demon king. However, certainly not the noble, but not overly bright hero that her father sends to rescue her.

It all starts out with the Twilight Demon King upsetting the status quo by teleporting into the kingdom human Goodreste (Bonrepos in the French translation and カイミーン国 — pleasant sleep (快眠 / かいみん) country — in Japanese) to abduct the country's crown princess Syalis (スヤリス姫), later on normally just addressed as Hime (姫 / princess). She would only be released if humankind submitted to demon rule.

With this dark scene starts this lighthearted anime. The poor princess may well be imprisoned in the Demon King's darkest dungeons, she's not cowed in the least. If there's anything shocking her, it's not the demons — it's the lousy quality of her bed, pillow and sheets included. So, she sets out on her first quest — get a better pillow worthy of her royal head. Not even five minutes into the first episode she has already bribed the ultra-sweet teddy-demons into handing her the keys of her cell. She happily goes out to fashion her ultimate pillow, stuffed with the teddy demons' fluffy brushed-out hair. Not eight minutes into the episode, she has already succeeded in her quest.

The Demon King is dumbfounded — the princess should be trembling, insane with fear in her prison cell. However, she's doing nothing of the sort. If anybody is trembling, it's soon the demons.

The rest of the series continues the same pattern: somebody sets a target, then starts out on a quest to realise it. Typically, it is the princess who goes on a quest for some item to improve her sleep — initially the pillow, then a hairband, warm underwear, and later in the show even a full waterbed. To do so nothing, not even death itself, can stop her (no fear — each time she falls into some lethal trap, the castle's demon priest reliably revives her). And most of the time she succeeds — the speaker announces the successful completion of the quest — “good work”.

Over time, the princess and her captors grow ever closer. She gets to appreciate the "monsters" that surround her, and in turn they start to care for her.

At the same time her fiancé, the hero, slowly slowly approaches the Demon Castle to save Syalis. Just that she neither wants nor needs him. In a standing joke, she regularly even forgets his name, and when he thinks of her, she suffers from nightmares. And from episode one onward she shows that she could escape the Demon Castle at any moment if she chose to.

While all episodes basically follow the same quest pattern and the crew of characters only slowly expands, each of the quests is still fun to see. The episodes are perfectly bracketed on one side by Inori Minase's opening song and ORESAMA's closing song. Inori Minase, who's also the Princess Japanese voice actor, sings on sleep with the princess as the singer.

In summary, this is the perfect show to see with kids... about princesses who don't need anybody to save them.

Mid-term impressions from this spring session's anime series

Official website of the anime (in Japanese)

Official website of the manga (in English)

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