Lady Jewelpet
Season: Spring 2024
Type: Buddy Base Contract
Contractor: @pinkbutter
Episodes: 52/52
Score: 9/10
Introduction
Now here is an anime that’s up my alley. Would I say this is a must see for everyone? No. Does it truly deserve a 9/10? Idk, probably not, it’s probably more a 7/10 in overall quality. But I ENJOYED it like a 9/10 so THAT’S WHAT I’M GOING WITH
LADY? GO!
Opening/Ending Themes
I gotta give it credit, I have never heard an anime opening quite like this one. It reminded me of like… a kid friendly Ke$ha song? I also totally thought it was saying “I wanna get drunk drunk drunk on your love love love” at first and would’ve continued to think that without the subs telling me it was “chance, chance, chance”
The ending theme kinda reminded me of the Chirstian pop songs I would hear growing up. The dance was fun and simple and I definitely danced along after a while. It was really cute that the entire cast sang along to the last ED.
Backgrounds
I feel like I can't not give a shout out to the backgrounds in this anime.
Where…. ARE they?
The dorm rooms of each character are so bizarre… Fitting, but bizarre…
Lillian’s room, complete with dramatic spotlight. She sleeps in that spotlight, not in a bed.
Imagine the jellybeans breaking out and being suffocated in the night by jellybean-pocalypse. It was super cute in Ep 50 when she and Cayenne go on a date in the real world and they get jellybeans from a container just like the ones in her room.
Mizuki’s room has SAND FLOORS??? The madlad.
It’s all smut for her “research”.
Characters
PACA PACA
Angela is legit my favorite. Look at her. She also is the head of security? Marvelous. Stupendous. PACA PACA PACA
She has very little to do with the story. She’s just very cute and needs a translator because she just says PAAAA PACA PACA PACAAAAA
If “No thoughts, only vibes” was a duo.
Ruby really didn't grow as a character, they mentioned as much towards the end. She remains equally thick-headed at the end as she did at the beginning. And honestly that's what makes her great. I love how she was too dumb to notice Luea was bullying her and even at the end was like “I like you because you're so nice to me,” making Luea feel just a little bit shittier. It was also exceedingly funny to me that Ruby ALSO got tricked instantly by Joker via Luea. She and Luea both have half a brain cell and therefore cannot be separated.
On the other hand, Momona did have some growth and maturity. She was the only one to try and think through the issue with the monsters instead of just shooting them like everyone else did. She had an excellent scene during the action climax that actually reminded me a LOT of the themes around the finale of Go! Princess Pretty Cure. I considered making another spoiler Docs link to go into the ways this anime reminded me of GoPri, but maybe later. It’s a good theme. Both of these are good anime. Go watch them if you haven’t.
My favorite Ruby/Momona scene was when Momona was doing a Big Think about being protected and protecting others and what her role was in it all and Ruby’s response was “ok but have you eaten these ROYAL PALACE CAKES, THOUGH?” Truly, a power duo if there ever was one.
I also like how Momona’s entire arc was centered around “any girl can be a lady”.
Oh my GOD was Lillian tragic and was Luea frustratingly villainous.
Luea really did just continue to hide behind “but I was sad once” for her entire villain arc and really didn't get much resolution than “maybe I shouldn't bully the dumb nice girl.”
Lillian’s themes of existence and worth are so good. Her development into her kind self and personal meaning is exactly what I’m looking for in this type of show. She was perhaps too forgiving of Luea, considering just how much Luea kept fucking up. I also got legit sad when she turned into Miura’s AI smartphone girlfriend for a bit. Don’t worry, she got better. AND became Lady Jewel.
Honestly I think Charon was my favorite, even though she wasn't around much in arc 4. I love the theme of trying what you're interested in but maybe not completely comfortable with changing into I tried it and it wasn't for me.
She also canonically writes smut.
Sapphie is really cute and sweet and there's not much else to her. She's a good support to Charon's plotline and I like how she stated that Charon made the most growth at the end because it's TRUE.
Mizuki is another really strong angle to the “how be lady?” themes. I like how she did the challenges the way she wanted to, whether it worked out or not. She’s going to princess carry YOU.
Garnet seemed like a weird match for her. I liked her straightforwardness, though.
Due to entering the story so late, I feel Elena didn't get much play in the story. They kinda set up how she's a Grade A Bad Bitch who gets things done (taking that archetype from Lillian after her existential crisis) and that maybe Top Lady needs to not be quite so bitchy.
Rosa seemed the most competent of the Jewelpets but like Elena, she didn't have much time to develop.
While I'm not the biggest fan of the haters-to-lovers archetype, I think it was done well enough with Cayenne. He is just genuinely good at what he does and was focused on that W. He needed someone dumb in his life to help him slow down and smell the hotdogs. I also really liked the message he gave about who your family is (memories/emotions vs blood relation) with Lillian.
I also thought at the VERY beginning they were going to push a weird brother/sister love thing with him and Lillian since they both wanted to become king/queen and it was implied they’d do it together. Luckily, they completely veered away from that set up when they revealed their sibling relationship. PHEW.
Legit was a sleeper hit for me. Was not expecting the genki shota archetype to be the best boy and yet here we are. His genuine love for Charon is so sweet and I love how they started with Charon being kinda dense and not interested into him just continuing to be genuinely nice to her and supporting her as she needed.
He needs to put on some pants, though. Cover up those knees, boy.
Though not as good as Levin, Soarer is an absolute bro. He has exquisite taste in women and loves him a good tomboy. Mizuki is well on her way to sporting a Contra uniform any day now. Good on you, Soarer.
Holy moly is Romeo the worst one by far. He's not all that bad, he's just BORING. Poor guy is always second best as a character. He also rebounded after Momona’s rejection and hopped to Erena so quick like wow. We kinda suspected him for a while not gonna lie. But nah, he was just fated to be the boring one.
Shout out to that one time when he punched the shit outta Miura after like two sentences of taunting. I know it was supposed to show that Miura is a shit-starter who starts shit, but it really just made Romeo look like a hella quick fuse.
Oh boy, Miura. As I mentioned in the Overall Story section, Miura started out rough. I fortunately have some tolerance for this brand of anime bullshit, though (the bad boy trope) so once we got past the more intense bad boy stuff and into his motivations and development, I was okay with him. I did think he had a bit of a tragic story with Lillian and I’m happy it worked out.
Hell ya.
I think her name is supposed to be a pun for “director”- lay-director. But also rector meaning, like, leader. I don’t know, it’s weird. I honestly thought this was her title like Lady Jewel is a title and then they just call her “Rector” and I'm like wow what an unfortunate name. I enjoyed her reveal as the villain and getting a bit into her backstory. Her relationship with Larimar was also very sad. This Jewelpet death thing sure is wild.
I wish they got a bit more into the Masked Lady plot but that’s ok. I don’t know why she’s suited up for war other than fashion but hey.
I don’t have much to say about these two as they were more just drivers for the story rather than characters. I found their relationship and history interesting where Diana is plainly just the better one (seen in how quickly she recovered after being the key vs Lady Jewel).
Overall Plot:
There's a lot of “don't worry about it” kinda plot points. The biggest being their ages. What age are they supposed to be? Why are they all getting engaged? How old are they at the end when Momona and Cayenne get married and her mom is congratulating her? The answer is “don't worry about it”. I am personally able to shrug these off easily so it didn’t impact my overall score TOO much.
I felt the alignment of the theme “how to be a lady” with the petite ladies was well done. They all had their own angles on the theme such as “Can I be a lady if….”
Momona: “...I'm a dunce”
Charon: “...I'm shy and uncertain”
Mizuki: “...I'm a tomboy”
Lillian: “...I'm not even human”
Erena: “...I'm perfect in every way but kinda a bitch”
The answer from the beginning, which is restated at the end is YES. Any girl can be a lady if she puts her mind to it. Hell ya.
So I’ll give some deeper thoughts by arc:
The first 14 episodes are a pretty standard cycle of reporting to Lady Jewel, getting a challenge of some sort, completing the challenge, and then everyone gets their results. Sometimes it’s a pass/fail, sometimes they choose a specific winner. I watched this part mostly on my travels so I wasn’t able to pay too close attention often, but the structure was standard enough that I don’t think I missed much. It was very cozy. Here’s a list of some of the challenges:
-dining etiquette
-acting in a Romeo and Juliet scene
-being princess carried
-have a romantic vacation
-obtaining a fallen star
-writing a romantic email
-designing a dress
-being a good conversationalist
-holding a parasol
-having a job (like a police officer, museum curator, etc)
-taking care of a child
-making afternoon tea
-taking a selfie
Alongside the weekly stories, there were character and relationship developments here and there. Not much to say other than they did a good job setting everything up and giving this heavily routine structure early on so that the later episodes really felt like the status quo was being messed up.
Cayenne is just so good he gets recruited first to the Royal Palace. In his place we get borderline sex offender bad boy Miura with the sketchiest introduction I've seen in a hot minute.
First of all, someone let Dumb and Dumber wander off into an alleyway, where some other dude tries to scout her into sketchy modeling. Then, Miura shows up to punch the guy and “save” her. Except before he does that, he puts his own hands on Momona’s face? It was not the best introduction, for sure.
From here, there’s more challenges but Cayenne swapped out for Miura, who keeps BEING HANDSY WITH THE GIRLS. The challenges become a bit more abstract and varied from here. This goes until about ep 25-26
-being graceful in a haunted house
-creating a photo album
-cherish a lifetime moment about someone
-packing a suitcase for a vacation
-making a picnic
-gracefully saying no
I wrote this title when the main point was figuring out why Momona was here and thinking she was Lady X. Then the whole reveal of Lillian being Lady X because she's not even a goddamn HUMAN hit and I went huh…. Still strangely a fitting title for this arc. It was around this time where I 1) intended to stop and write my review to complete just the basic challenge and get it out of the way and 2) got way too invested and ended up blasting through episodes daily so HERE WE ARE.
It’s around here where we get into the previous generation of Petite Ladies and the Story of Very Sad Luea (hunyaaaa). She will continue to be very sad for the rest of the story.
I love me a good legacy story, as I call it. Give me a story where you find out what happened in the previous generation and how that affects now, and I'm happy. If anyone knows the actual literary term for this, please let me know because I love this structure so much.
Arc 3 leading into arc 4 actually had a really interesting mystery to it. I legit wasn't sure what was going to happen or Joker was at all right up until the reveal (where I yelled “IT'S GOTTA BE RECTOR” and then it was wow I'm so smart).
The reveals of what Lady Jewel does (she sacrifices) and everyone getting smartphone brightness at max beams and magical bow/arrows to shoot really kickstarted the magical girl aspect of the show. A door that holds the world's sadness and anger? The end of the world if it opens?? The Jewelpet's commitment to sacrifice themselves to return to their gem forms so that can be used by the Ladies to fight back? Wowie zowie lookit these magical girl themes left and right.
A small aside: Self-sacrifice is such a big trope in these magical girl shows and I wish it wasn’t so. It frustrates me how so much shonen is about reaching your ultimate potential to be Big Strong and defeat the bad guy whereas on the flip side, a lot of young girl’s “battle-oriented” media is focused on self-sacrifice, often times with some sort of power of friendship to resurrect them. Dammit, just let the girls have the Big Strong. This is why I do love Pretty Cure so much since they do get Big Strong and don’t tend to self-sacrifice. I am speaking from a place of bias, since I honestly don’t know how often self-sacrifice is used in shounen, I just get the vibe that it’s more about getting the Big Punch in, so if I’m completely wrong, go ahead and let me know.
BUT YOU KNOW, IT IS WHAT IT IS. I still very much like the Lady Jewelpet ending a lot.
The climax of the show got a bit convoluted at points. Things just kinda started happening, the body count was rising and then falling as people came back to life. I swear, at one point the body count seemed to be like 5 or 6 and then in the end all but one was resurrected. After the defeat of Joker, there was an extra little arc where Miura was Extra Sad and Angry Boy and Momona still didn’t want to shoot the monsters so it just overextended it stay a TINY BIT.
HOWEVER. The climax of Momona’s showdown with the monster and the episodes after that were so good.
Episodes 50-52 were so so good. I was heartbroken watching Momona and Cayenne go through their “normal” lives with no recollection of what they did and achieved as Lady and Prince. I found it so sweet that they still fell in love and had that sense that they knew each other. I loved that the final Lady challenge for the others was to support their wedding and I really liked how they helped Momona and Cayenne remember what they did through sharing their stories (and magic). Momona’s choice to give up the position of Lady Jewel because she’s done her time and wants others to experience being protected and protecting was such a nice summary of her character arc. The final choice for Lady Jewel coming down to the bouquet that Momona threw was so sickly sweet and I’m very happy with how it all turned out. It truly was a happy ending.
Special Shout-Out Episodes/Moments
This is probably my favorite weekly structure episode. It’s where Charon accidentally sends the smut she’s working on to all her friends somehow and then it gets banned because it’s much too inappropriate for ladies.
I like how relatable it all is.
Charon, like the bad bitch she is, continues to write it while sneaking into the Jewel Palace with Levin to do… research… Lewd things such as being carried around and doing a skater lift and all such unspeakable acts to discover just what makes the kokoro go dokidoki and how to achieve the tokimeki. Just what is needed for the wakuwaku, truly. Anyway, Levin takes the blame and gets put in JAIL until Charon confesses it was actually her, also gets placed in JAIL and was given a talking to about whether she’s done such horrendous things like f-f-f-firsto kissuuuuu.
Lady Rector out here slut-shaming my girlie.
And then my girl FIGHTS BACK WITH LOGIC AND REASONING.
Meanwhile, Levin’s out here gunning for his degen girlfriend. We love to see it.
This was during the short monster of the week structure they did for a while. And the first one they went with was… a giant curry monster? And then everything turned into curry?
I also don’t know how I felt about this guy hahaha
How horrible!
Again, within this string of monster of the week episodes. I don’t know why samba but it gave us cute outfits and a giant Garnet float! And also a lot of puns in Japanese. The translators really did their best here.
We really out here getting engaged at like 14 years old. What a strange, beautiful thing. I won’t lie, Levin engaging legit was not expected, but I think it was partially because I just wasn’t thinking we were going there with teenagers. But again, whatever makes the 10 year olds happy. It also makes me happy. 🙂
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