The hero Toto is strong but very shy and has trouble finding companions because he comes off as frightening to everyone around him. One day, three beautiful girls named Ciel, Anemone and Gore approach Toto to form a party. However, their secret goal is to assassinate him.

While most of this premiere left me a little cold, one moment did precisely the opposite: When Anemone, the assassin disguised as a priestess, stopped when she noticed a little girl being sold into slavery and kicked the slave trader's ass. And she even waited until she'd rescued the little girl, handed her a purse full of money and told her to run away before killing the guy, because she feels a child that young shouldn't have to see something like that. Not only did that cement Anemone as one of my favourites, it also felt like a well-deserved slap in the face to one of the most unpleasant popular tropes in recent fantasy anime.

Anemone's actions may be a sign that The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses is going to be a better series than this rather bland first episode lets on. Ostensibly a comedy, the plot involves three dangerous girls separately being hired or assigned to murder the hero Toto, and they all infiltrate his party to do so. Well, not so much "infiltrate" as "offer to be the only ones willing to work with him", because Toto has crippling social anxiety that, when coupled with his large form, make him seem scary rather than scared. He's also remarkably easy to render unconscious so the girls can discuss their plans--all they have to do is act sweet or sexy (or just look like what they are, sexy girls) and he drops like a stone.

There's a fine line between something being enjoyably stupid and irritatingly stupid. This anime mostly falls into the former category, because it's aware of exactly the sort of dumb trash it's aspiring to be. Sure, the art can be janky and the animation is inconsistent, but I dunno, they kinda added to the raggedy charm of the whole production.

I think something the show does genuinely well is give us characters that are worth a damn. Now, to be clear, I'm not arguing that they're exceptionally deep or artful protagonists. They're all clearly ridiculous idiots, and the show doesn't take them seriously for more than a few seconds. As the main quartet of a comedy riff on fantasy anime cliches, however, they each possess identifiable personalities and are performed with enough gusto to keep scenes interesting. More important is the fact that our three assassins play off of each other with a friendly murderous rivalry that can be well and truly charming. Sure, anyone that lacks patience for silly sex comedy antics will likely find someone like Goa pretty tiresome, but we've got two whole other princesses to rely on for other gags once her routine with our titular shy hero is done with, so it's not like she's able to drag things down completely.

It's also worth noting that the show is actually capable of producing some decent cuts of animation, even if the art and character designs consistently give off "bargain DVD you might find in some obscure bin tucked away in the back of a grocery store" vibes. The fight between Anemone and the decapitated zombie monster isn't half bad. This isn't the kind of anime that'll ever produce YouTube supercuts of all its impressive setpieces, but The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses might surprise you with its competence if you can look past its more glaring and obvious shortcomings. The same goes for its jokes and its main characters. This anime won't be setting the world on fire anytime soon, but I could see it making for decent watchlist filler. I just hope we find out soon why everyone wants Toto dead so badly, because that's a glaring plot hole that isn't helping.