The Will To Keep A Smile Shining

The Price of Smiles Episode 2 Review

The Price of Smiles plunges us headfirst into the war this week. While learning that Joshua has been deliberately keeping the Princess in the dark we also see the lengths he will go to in order to see her smile. And yet…

There just seems to be a small hole in the whole plan here. Given the military are currently losing the war against the empire you would think sooner or later the Princess is going to notice pieces of her kingdom getting overrun. Not to mention the costs associated with maintaining all those units and the death and injury of the soldiers. Joshua is just a little misguided and what worries me more is that everyone else in the entire Kingdom seems to be playing along with it.

Though, because of this, the end of the episode didn’t hit with anywhere near the impact it should have. It seemed obvious this set up was flawed and couldn’t be maintained and if you thought about how the cruellest way would be to make the Princess aware of the situation you could probably nail the end of this episode. It still works and it still sets up a dramatic turning point, but emotionally you were more waiting for it to happen rather than shocked by it.

That said, we do get a brief moment at the very end where the second character who is dancing about the opening sequence finally shows up. It will be interesting to see where this story chooses to go next week now that we’ve thoroughly broken the Princess’ smile. Or will she just bravely soldier on with her usual cheeriness because people expect it of her? So many possibilities and we might just cut to the other group altogether.

I’m honestly not hugely into this show and yet at the same time I am intrigued by the possibilities so they’ve managed to get me very interested even if the execution and characters have so far been just okay (there really isn’t much to criticise it just doesn’t really grab me either).

Or, use one of my product affiliate links.
TO ARU MAJUTSU NO INDEX III 1/7 SCALE PRE-PAINTED FIGURE: MIKOTO MISAKA

• Episode 1: Smile and the World Smiles With You – Maybe Not
• Episode 2: The Will To Keep a Smile Shining
• Episode 3: You Mean There’s People on the Other Side of a War?
• Episode 4: Rare Case When Naive Heroism Doesn’t Win The Day
• Episode 5: The Desperation of Both Sides in a War
• Episode 6: Where Will Yuuki Find Her Smile Now?
• Episodes 7 – 9: You Can Only Smile For So Long
• Episodes 10 – 11: Not About Who is Right, Only Who Is Left
• Episode 12: Bringing Back Smiles Through Over-Simplification
• Images from: Egao no Daika. Dir. T Suzuki. Tatsunoko Production. 2019.