"Princess Sara" is, according to a list someone posted to Reddit, the least popular top 1000 rated anime on My Anime List. It is a 46-episode 1980s shoujo without any adventure themes, and much of the content concerns the depressing mistreatment of the protagonist, who falls from wealth and into the hands of a cruel boarding school headmistress. It's no accident that this anime isn't very popular with modern audiences, but its ranking is actually a bit lower than I think it deserves, and I think many modern viewers might enjoy this. The biggest complaints from the reviews seem to be that the protagonist is tooperfect, and that the anime is painstakingly slow and uninteresting. I definitely hear both complaints, and at times Sara does seem to be annoyingly good at everything, and yet she is definitely given a human portrayal, we really see how much she is struggling at times in her ordeal. It is not easy at all for her to be so perfect, or later on for her not be broken by experiences, and she does have a specific motivation and logic to why she behaves as she does.

As for the length and tedium, I felt like the individual episodes all had some sort of story to tell, and most were pretty entertaining by themselves. They really worked well though because they were clearly all building toward the conclusion, the viewer can't help but become emotionally vested in the story because of the strong portrayals of what Sara goes through. Those slow, unpleasant episodes all get you more and more amped up for Sara's eventual revenge, which you will probably wish would be something out of a Tarantino movie, but as this is an upbeat children's story at its core, that just couldn't have happened. In fact it is remarkable that the anime makes you feel so emotionally connected to Sara's plight even though none of her abuse is over-the-top violence, most of it is just unpleasant and emotionally degrading. I'll put it this way, and this shouldn't be a real spoiler, but there's a scene about halfway through where one of Sara's tormentors unexpectedly gets a small but delicious taste of what she deserves... I shouted and cheered with real emotion, and I think anyone paying attention would do the same. This anime really will make you care, if you let it.

So, who will actually like this show? If you like shoujo at all, I think you probably will. It has a lot of the classic shoujo elements - the good girl protagonist and her struggles, the hapless best friend, the evil social enemy girl, etc. I'd also consider this a masterpiece of what people call the "slice of life" genre as most of the episodes just concern a day or two in Sara's life, usually with nothing of great importance happening, and yet by the end it feels like you've experienced quite a sweeping story. Finally I think people who just enjoy good anime drama in general might like this, sure it's slow and plodding, but if you can bare it for 43 episodes, it really does deliver the payoff you've been longing for.