Review of The World is Still Beautiful
The World Is Still Beautiful is a shoujo fantasy romantic comedy-drama set within a fictional land where a princess of the Rain Dukedom named Nike is arranged to be married to the Sun Kingdom's young ruler Livius in order for the Rain Dukedom to maintain its sovereignty. The series is mainly focused on the growing bond between Nike and Livius, exploring Livius' traumatic past and exploring the political hostilities that erupt among both factions in response to the marriage. The biggest strengths to this series come in the nice amount of exploration it offers up to with Nike and Livius' lives. In spite of its 12episode run, the series explores the types of rule that both the Rain Dukedom and Sun Kingdom fall under, characters within the series with varying levels of relationship to our two leads and hostilities with both sides that involve the marriage with our leads. Beyond a few shallow characters connected to the Sun Kingdom, many relevant characters within the series get enough fleshing out for you to understand their personal beliefs, connection to our leads and what desires they have for their marriage thus there isn't much in the way of black-and-white morality to this series except for the early episode arc of Nike trying to get her marriage to Livius approved by a crooked Sun Kingdom priest. The arc where Livius and Nike visit the Rain Dukedom offers the best developments in the series for me thanks to the credible and relatable concerns that members of Nike's family have with the marriage that lead them to cause the arc's main conflict in regard to Nike's power to manipulate rain.
Our main leads also get their developments as well with fleshing out of their characters and the gradual development of their relationship. Due to Livi's tragic past, he developed a cold outlook on life and found it difficult to trust others. The presence of Nike in his life leads our king to mellow out of his cynical mentality as he comes to gradually open up to her and settle hostilities he had with close acquaintances while still maintaining his cold facade. While "opposites attract" style romances are nothing new in anime, the one between Livius and Nike is a convincing one thanks to the two coming to understand and trust in one another throughout the show's run. Only low points with the storytelling are some hit and miss efforts with comedy coming from spats that our two leads get into and some unexplored elements of the series when one of Nike's family members voiced their concerns about the potential abuse that could arise with Nike's power.
Visually, the series is on the average side for a 2014 title. There is a good amount of detail and color shading put into scenery and character designs, but it is nowhere as rich and vast in detail as what titles like Nagi no Asukara and Terror in Resonance delivered that year. The animation is also a bit on the average end as well as there are noticeable shortcuts that are taken and the only notable high points with it came from Nike's use of her power to create rain.
Overall, The World is Still Beautiful offers an excellent exploration of the developments of Nike and Livius' relationship, as well as focusing on how others connected to them are affected by the relationship. If you're a fan of shoujo anime, this is one of the more better recent offerings for the demographic worth checking out.