Rating: 76/100So...this show just randomly came out of nowhere. Love Through a Prism is a historical shoujo anime by Wit Studio, directed by Kazuto Nakazawa and with scripts by one Yoko Kamio, who shoujo manga fans will know as the mangaka behind Boys Over Flowers, or Hana Yori Dango. I've never read the manga or watched the anime myself, and from what I hear, there's a lot about it that really hasn't aged well and comes under quite a bit of scrutiny nowadays. That said, when I saw that first trailer for Love Through a Prism on Twitter...not gonna lie, I went "Hell yeah!!" Seriously, everything about this just screamed tailor made for me. After years of literal scraps, we're getting an original historical shoujo anime, whose premise involves a girl going to art school and finding love. How could I not be excited about it? Now, to be fair, I know Kazuto Nakazawa as a director can be pretty hit or miss. Fena Pirate Princess was definitely not one of his better works, but with Love Through a Prism being a more down-to-earth project, having more episodes, and written by someone with years of experience in the shoujo genre, it has more room to flesh out its characters and story. So what's my verdict after seeing it? Well...it tried. Love Through a Prism is definitely a breath of fresh air in an era saturated with bad isekai and hype machines, and it's a good show, but it doesn't really rise beyond good IMHO.In the year 1914, 21-year-old Lili Ichijoin travels from her native Japan to London, England to attend the prestigious St. Thomas Art Academy to major in oil painting. She has loved painting since she was a kid, but her strict mother would much rather she give up on painting and take up the kimono business. That said, her mother does allow her to attend St. Thomas under one condition: Become the number one student at school within six months. Should she fail, she must return to Japan, get married off, and take over the family kimono business. Lili's time in London proves quite fruitful, meeting all manner of people, such as the eccentric top student Kit Church, to her flighty but well meaning new friend Dorothy Brown, but becoming top student at St. Thomas isn't going to be an easy task, and Lili is more than willing to take up the challenge.Okay, I need to get this out of my system now, because I encountered a startling amount of people who think this, and I want to set the record straight. Reading this premise, you're probably thinking "Wait, isn't this just an anime version of Emily In Paris?" To that I say: What in the world gave you that idea? This and Emily In Paris are absolutely nothing alike, other than the very base premise of a woman going to a different country and that both are streaming on Netflix. That is where any and all comparisons end, and to claim Love Through a Prism is just an anime version of Emily In Paris mandated by Netflix is doing the show and the people that created it an extremely gross disservice. For one thing, Love Through a Prism actually has likeable characters and doesn't constantly indulge in offensive stereotypes about different countries every chance it gets. Furthermore, Love Through a Prism isn't even the only anime/manga/game with the premise of a character going to a foreign country and getting to know the people and culture around her. Remember Ikoku Meiro no Croisee?Alright, now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's talk about the show. From an animation standpoint, Wit Studio really brought their A-game here. Backgrounds are nicely detailed and richly painted, character motion is upbeat and dynamic, and what little CGI is used thankfully doesn't stand out too much a lot of the time. I will say, it was pretty ballsy of Kamio-san, a mangaka who usually writes stories about high school kids in Japan, to go out of her comfort zone and have a story take place in early 20th century London. Now, I can't comment on whether her portrayal of it and its people are accurate, as I'm not British and I don't have much knowledge of British history. I have heard that some hair styles and fashions used are a bit inaccurate from other sources, but again, I can't comment on their accuracy myself. Hey, I'll applaud Kamio-san and the team working on this anime for at least trying, and from what I can see, they succeeded in at least bringing London to life on an artistic level. I do have less to say on the soundtrack. It's nice, but not very memorable, and I did find the ending song to be a bit grating.I will admit, I am very conflicted on the characters. What do I mean? They're not bad or poorly written or anything, far from it, even if they do still adhere to your typical archetypes like the tomboyish girl, the brooding loner, the supportive best friend, the comic relief, and so on. Lili definitely carries the whole show on her shoulders with her boisterous, take-no-crap personality, and she has the kind of 90s shoujo anime lead zest that's quite refreshing in this day and age...even if the anime indulges in one trope that I really hate, and that's having the girl be given myriad opportunities to tell the guy she likes how she feels, with many characters flat out SCREAMING IN HER FACE to do so...only for her to squander it every single time. Kit as the lead boy is...fine. Nothing you haven't seen before, though if you're familiar with Boys Over Flowers and know how much of a repugnant piece of shit the main guy in that was, Kit is a massive improvement. However, I do feel one of my biggest issues with the show is that it focuses quite a lot on Lili and Kit at the expense of other characters. Peter, Joffrey, and especially Sakura get hit hard with this, as while Lili's friends are all decently likeable characters, they don't get much time in the spotlight, nor do they really have their own character arcs that allow them to grow and change over the series. Sakura, being mute for most of the series, is literally nothing but walking background scenery, and we never get to see how she overcomes her muteness. The show teases Peter having an arc focusing on his insecurities as an artist and jealousy over Kit's talent before finally coming to terms with his flaws and what he wants to do in life...but any development he does get, and the path to him actually having these revelations, all happen entirely off-screen. We only see the aftermath, not the journey to get there, so it feels like the show is skipping out on fleshing out its side characters in favor of focusing on Lili and Kit's romance. The only character who I feel really got to develop and have a whole arc is Catherine, who starts out as the haughty alpha bitch who hates Lili, but has to look inward and realize her relationship with Kit is never going to go anywhere, and the show did a fantastic job bringing her to life and actually showing her changing and evolving over the course of the series. Which is way more than I can say for the rest of the cast besides Lili, Shin, and Kit.That said, for all my issues with the characters, I will say this: Yoko Kamio's writing for the male characters here is a massive improvement over Boys Over Flowers by a country mile. These days, one of the biggest criticisms people lobby against Boys Over Flowers is that the male love interests that the series expects you to like, root for, and care about often came off as extremely mean-spirited, cruel, and downright abusive a lot of the time. I know the manga pioneered and popularized a lot of tropes and cliches that other shoujo series would capitalize and improve upon over time, but if there's one trope that needs to die, it's the idea that a violent, rude, abusive boyfriend makes for an ideal partner. Thankfully, it seems like Kamio-san realized this as the years went on, and the male characters in Love Through a Prism are not only much more cordial and respectful, but whenever someone does do something they shouldn't, they always get called out at the very least, and Lili's reasons for falling in love with Kit make much more sense. Hey, at least none of the guys here are violent towards the girls or attempt to rape them, so here you actually have damn good reason to want to root for the characters and hope for them to get together. Kit's only problems are his devil-may-care attitude and not bothering to explain himself at crucial moments, which, while definitely frustrating at times, is much better than being a flat-out abusive piece of shit whose actions the show tries to bend over backwards to justify and romanticize.But improvements in some areas don't always stop Love Through a Prism from following other classic yet frustrating shoujo tropes, like the aforementioned miscommunications and misunderstandings during crucial moments, a group of bullies picking on the main girl because the main guy likes her and not them, the main girl not realizing people are actively being cruel to her until they flat-out tell her to her face that they are, and so on. The story doesn't have any twists or turns, and you can predict what'll happen from a mile away. I will say, the final few episodes are some of the best in the series, from deliberate artistic decisions that go against convention (You'll know what I'm talking about) to having the characters actually handling certain issues like actual adults and talking things out maturely. The series could have easily gone the cliche route with how two characters get together and eventually break up, but Love Through a Prism actually decided to take the smart route in a way that pushes the characters' development further and ends things on a surprisingly satisfying note.I do want to talk about one other thing before closing out this review: The English dub. Netflix apparently decided to go the extra mile for this dub and hire all British actors for it, which makes sense as the series takes place in London. But this isn't actually a common practice for English dubs, and the only anime that did get British VAs for their dubs were a smattering of OVAs that Manga Entertainment dubbed back in the 90s and early 2000s, and even those dubs were...of questionable quality at best. Other anime that did take place in England often just hired American VAs entirely. Video games have been hiring British VAs since the 2010s, like Xenoblade, Hundred Line, Dragon Quest, Metaphor ReFantazio, and so on. This does seem to be changing somewhat, as some anime have started hiring more British talent, and I'm glad to say that Love Through a Prism's dub is fairly good all things considered, the occasional off lip sync and stiff performance notwithstanding. I'm always down for learning about new talent like Leader Looi, Christopher Bonwell, Shaun Mendum, Alex Wingfield, Feliks Mathur, and so on. The only performance I thought was rather uneven was Catherine's VA, who sounds fine when she's talking normally, but sounds like a raspy old lady when she's screaming. Shame, because I know she's doing her best.In conclusion, Love Through a Prism is a nice little historical shoujo anime that isn't going to bring the house down anytime soon. But in an era where the anime industry is still at the mercy of the glut of bad isekai that get churned out every season, it's quite a breath of fresh air. There are plenty of shows like this that I do find are better, like Ashita no Nadja and everything in the World Masterpiece Theater, but that's not to discount everything Love Through a Prism managed to do. Honestly, it's infinitely better than how Nakazawa's last attempt at directing a show, Fena Pirate Princess, turned out. He definitely hit a home run with this one, though I wonder if that's because he had Yoko Kamio help him out. Still, if you want a nice, breezy shoujo anime that looks good, feel free to give this a shot. Netflix certainly isn't going to make much attempt to promote it, and from what I hear, another movie with a somewhat similar premise, Paris ni Saku Etoile, just came out in Japan and might overshadow it. I'm curious to see how that one is compared to Love Through a Prism.
Feb 24, 2026 • Subscribe
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