A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics

 A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics (変人のサラダボウル) is a 12 episode slice of life comedy based on the light novel series of the same name by Hirasaka Yomi.  The series originally aired during the 2024 Spring season.

    Sara is the youngest princess in a kingdom that is collapsing through revolt.  In a last ditch effort to protect her line, the girl escapes through a mystical portal with a loyal swords woman, Livia and they find themselves in modern day Gifu.  Travel through the portal split them up and Sara lands on a young private detective named Sosuke.  After blatantly showing off her magical abilities, Sosuke brings her back to his apartment where he can figure things out in peace.  Livia, unsure what happened with her young ward, quickly settles into the life of an unhoused person living on the bank of a river, following the benevolent guidance of an older gentleman named Suzuki.

    Convinced about the strange girls origins, Sosuke decides to let her stay with him for the foreseeable future while she adjusts to life in a new world.  The bright young girl quickly adapts to 21st century Earth life but becomes frustrated that no one else can use magic and they she has to hide her real identity, for fear of arrest by the authorities.  Meanwhile Livia, naive to many things but strong of will and body, does what she can to survive in the harsh new world, without complaint.  Unfortunately her naivety leads her to being exploited from less than scrupulous individuals as she begins to cycle through a series of legally gray jobs while trying to adjust to her new life.  Quickly she crosses paths with her charge but is unsuited to work for Sosuke at his detective agency and is shown the door almost as soon as she gets a roof over her head.  These two lost weirdos take their on paths to adjust to their new and potentially permanent life, far away from the royal courts in the fantasy like home land.

    This series is not unlike the fantastically amusing Hinamatsuri.  Instead of the emotionless and overtly powerful orphan in Hinamatsuri, we get the tale of a weirdly confident magic wielding ex-princess.  Sosuke isn't a push over but for some reason he has a soft spot for Sarah even though everyone else around him could die for all he really cares.  For a brief time Livia was under his employ, out of empathy for Sarah's retainer.  Once she proves to be a burden on him, regardless of how earnest she is, he kicks her back out on the street.  Sarah, being raised as proper royalty, also shows little regard for the woman's' well being, confident she can figure things out on her own.

    The series overall was quite satisfying even with the semi-frequent fan-service around Livia, but this never really seemed out of place.  The artwork is fine enough given this being a slice of life comedy, the real meat of the story is in the characters and their interactions with each other...enhanced by the crazy situations some of them end up in.  I may have to track down the original light novels as the end of the last episode suggests there was/is way more story than they used in the anime, including some characters I don't remember showing up in the show.  While its similar to Hinamatsuri, Salad Bowl was less eccentric even with the crazy cast of characters.  But that doesn't detract from the story or ones enjoyment of it.  Definitely a solid choice to waste some time on.

The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll.