Love Through a Prism is a slow-burn romance anime about art and loss

'Love Through a Prism' delivers 20 stunning episodes about love, loss, and art

At first glance, Netflix’s new anime series Love Through a Prism looks like comfort viewing: a lush period romance bathed in warm light, gentle but confident performances, and sweeping vistas that feel almost indulgent. Like many prestige romances, it emphasizes restraint and yearning rather than grand declarations. Though the anime is set about a century later, Love Through a Prism is reminiscent of Bridgerton as a romance that investigates social classes and the English aristocracy.

Lili Ichijoin is a sprightly 20-year-old Japanese girl who ventures to London to attend a world-renowned art school. Her overbearing mother has given her six months to become the top student at Saint Thomas Art Academy or else Lili must return to Yokohama to work in the family’s kimono business.

Enter the brilliant, bright-eyed blonde Kit Church, the first person Lili meets in London as he’s sketching by the side of the Thames River. She’s immediately enchanted by his art skills, but repulsed when he offers her a piece of bread blackened by charcoal. That’s their dynamic in a nutshell. Though he looks like Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen and has a similar kind of dazzling brilliance to him, Kit is withdrawn and more comfortable expressing himself through his canvas rather than conversation. Their dynamic in the early episodes should feel instantly recognizable to romance anime fans, recalling shows like My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999, which pairs a tenacious and affable heroine with a male lead who fans have read as neurodivergent.

Their dynamic is further complicated by the fact that Kit is the undisputed top student at Saint Thomas, making him Lili’s chief competition. If she doesn’t beat him, then her art career is over. But that’s just the first story arc in the 20-episode series, which delivers some kind of twist or wrinkle to the story every five episodes or so. Without spoiling anything, Love Through a Prism evolves into something a lot more compelling than a mere coming-of-age school romance as we learn more about Kit and what’s happening in the world. At times, it’ll shock you. At other times, it’ll break your heart.

Art and beauty — and how these characters appreciate both — are at the focus of the story, but also in how it’s delivered. The animation is stunning, lingering on wide shots of gardens, estates, and the cityscape of London. It’s truly a feast for the eyes as we’re able to see the world through the eyes of world class artists. Beauty itself begins to feel like emotional oxygen, and when that’s taken away, life doesn’t just become sad. It becomes colorless.

Love Through a Prism was created by Yoko Kamio, the author of Boys Over Flowers, and produced by Wit Studio with an ongoing manga adaptation illustrated by Maki Minami. The storytelling shows incredible restraint. There’s very little melodrama in the first half as quiet mutual affection builds in the fleeting glances and mutual admiration Lili and Kit have for each others’ art. The English dub deserves a lot of credit with Leader Looi as Lili and Christopher Bonwell as Kit. There’s a feeling of earnest tenderness in their performances that make the characters feel real.

London itself also feels like a character with its own arc. Set just before World War I, the series is keenly aware that its beautiful, idealized world is living on borrowed time. Art and beauty are everywhere as the future quietly closes in, and that tension becomes the show’s emotional backbone as the drama unfolds.

Love Through a Prism is for viewers who enjoy slow-burn romance and historical settings. Many anime romances can get silly — for as much as I adore My Dress Up Darling, it can get a little too outrageous at times. Even though this one’s far more serious in tone, it still has enough levity and charm to balance things out. Love Through a Prism doesn’t portray love as something that people find easily, instead opting for a more mature perspective rooted in resolve and the importance of staying true to oneself as the most important thing a person can do.

It’s a beautiful series. It’s also a painful one. And by the end, you realize that was always the point. Because that’s life, isn’t it?