Note that this review also includes the second season, Molders-hen, as both seasons form the full story. Emma: A Victorian Romance is a 2005 anime and the name sums it up well.
Emma does an extraordinary job of pacing itself, it manages to make 24 episodes feel like a lifteime. The "I watch anime at 2x speed" crowd would grumble at this, but when it comes to romances I like to feel as though things aren't being rushed. Despite this, I feel like Emma as a character is not explored nearly enough to justify naming the show after her. I think "William: A Victorian Romance" would have been far more appropriate; he is simply a far more interesting and complex character. I was somewhat disappointed when they wheeled out the age old backstory of going to live with the mean auntie for Emma, it had absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever nor how her character turned out. In some way, I also think it distracts from criticising the British/capitalist class system; it wasn't tragic enough that Emma is a member of the downtrodden working class apparently. This is assuming that criticising class divide is what Emma is even trying to do, which I think it is, given that it drops just enough hints such as a scene where Emma asks Hans if the same class divide exists in Germany. The end of the first season with William chasing the train was also incredibly stale, it's as though they were trying to cram in as many tropes as possible in those last two episodes. Again, the end of the second season crammed in a rather contrived subplot for William to win back his father's approval, despite him digging himself into a hole in the first place.
I took issue with the way the aristocracy were largely depicted as being benevolent, with their worst sin merely being a bit of gossiping. I wasn't expecting Rose of Versailles levels of villainization, but there is almost no sense of class struggle in Emma beyond the wealthy not approving of an aristocrat and a commoner being wed. One is shown the petty squabbles amongst the nobles and aristocrats, but the conditions of the working-class are not explored at all beyond one scene which takes place in a poor neighbourhood. The story concludes with Emma leaving her working-class friends behind and joining the aristocracy, which is hardly inspiring. William's dilemma between marrying Emma and upholding tradition and putting money, status, above all else was really interesting, which is why I felt like the contrived financial recovery subplot of the final episodes was disappointing.
Hakim and Hans as rival love interests were not at all convincing, I am still not even sure if Hakim was seriously interested in Emma or whether he just pretended to be, as a way of motivating William. Hans was the better of the two, and could have been convincing had he not been a case of too little, too late. Eleanor is a great character and, unlike those aforementioned, actually posed a threat to William and Emma's relationship; I have no criticisms in the way she was handled, I genuinely felt sorry for her but also felt the sense of entitlement at times.
As a history enthusiast I thought they did a decent job with the setting. There were one or two very minor slip ups, such as a photograph taken at a time when plates were used instead being shown to be on paper. I really appreciated the effort that was put into not just having a generic, vaguely Victorian setting, with real locations featuring prominently. The producers of Moriarty the Patriot should have taken notes from this.
I have little to say about the animation, it was fine. Likewise, I have nothing to say about the background music, I don't think there was much of it which was refreshing to be honest. The ending themes of Emma are astonishingly beautiful, and the lyricless openings and endings are a welcome change from the bombardment of pop music in other anime.
Despite my criticisms, I think this anime is still possibly worth checking out. If you aren't a Marxist who overthinks any piece of media dealing with class, you will get a lot more enjoyment out of it than I did. Also, considering how much I feel as though I could talk about Emma for hours, I probably did enjoy it more than I would like to admit.
I really liked this line and it came from the character I expected least, William's father, to Viscount Campbell: "If this society touts people like you as gentlemen, it's probably destined to disappear someday".
My rating: 6/10
21/08/2024