The Price of Smiles Episode 6 Review
There’s a price for everything and a consequence for all actions and The Price of Smiles seems determined to hammer that point home like a blunt instrument by continuing to emotionally throttle Princess Yuuki. The fact that it is obvious what the anime is doing isn’t actually a problem because it is doing it very well and because we occasionally perspective jump to Stella and her squad on the other side of the war, it doesn’t feel like we’re constantly getting beaten down as so far they’ve been pretty successful at their missions. It has been nicely executed even if heavy handed.
Episode 6 is pretty much all about Yuuki. She’s assisted the military in evacuating her people out of the capital by delivering a heart rending speech and she’s watching the final operation and keeping her eyes open without looking away. She feels the full weight and responsibility for her people being in this position even though there was literally nothing she could have done to change anything prior to this point. Twelve years old and she is watching the Kingdom her parents lead fall apart around her as the enemy comes for the power source that was supposed to bring everyone peace. It is all kinds of tragic and yet she continues to try to hold on.
The one bright spot in an episode that seems designed entirely to make you feel like this is completely hopeless, is when Yuuki orders a retreat of her forces and detonates all the mines left on the field. It is actually a pretty solid tactic and one that throws us back to episode one where we saw Yuuki directing Joshua with great success. For all that Yuuki has been kept in the dark about a lot of things, she’s a solid tactician when the occasion calls for it and her decision here possibly saved a lot of lives.
Soon after though she declares that she is going to surrender and this is where things get dicey again. While everyone around her claims to follow her and respect her, they’ve conspired to keep her in the dark about the threat to her kingdom and now they trick her and remove her from the city before the surrender. It makes you wonder whether she’ll ever be a Princess in anything more than name. Meanwhile, the guy who stays behind to surrender (and who will probably die) had his pregnant wife and kid introduced this episode just to twist that knife a bit further (and why didn’t one of the older military guys stay instead).
The Price of Smiles is definitely a flawed show and one that is relying heavily on tearing at its audience emotionally through the age and inexperience of Yuuki as well as the subject matter in general, but despite that it manages to be an interesting watch and so far seems to be holding its own quite well. I’m still wondering if Yuuki and Stella will ever actually interact but otherwise I’m pretty happy just to watch and see where this one wants to take me.
Or, use one of my product affiliate links.
NENDOROID NO. 1082 BANANA FISH: EIJI OKUMURA
- 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.
“It makes you wonder whether she’ll ever be a Princess in anything more than name.”
A dang good question indeed… And why was Stella’s squad looking so pensive there at the very end when everyone else was cheering?
I’m wondering if the injured guy died or maybe they’ve already been assigned some new and horrible mission. I don’t know but I trust this anime will let us know because so far it has been surprisingly entertaining.