9: Ruler's Crown

While helping out at an anime convention to promote his city, high school student Kakeru Niimi is caught up in a sudden earthquake. During the emergency, he ends up entering a shrine where he sees a peculiar relic shatter. The very next day, his classmate Miyako Kujou, who was cosplaying at the event, worries that she has been cursed as a result of the earthquake, but Niimi brushes her suspicions off.

However, Niimi's mind changes when he discovers that various people have gained supernatural powers in the city—and that some have started using them for nefarious purposes. Fortunately, Niimi is not alone: he is joined by Miyako, his sister Sora, and a cold girl named Noa Yuuki, who have all awakened to their own abilities. If the group wants to keep their hometown safe, they must strive to prevent any future incidents while unraveling the mystery behind it all.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Niimi, Sora Main

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Yuuki, Noa Main

Fujita, Akane Japanese

Kujou, Miyako Main

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Kousaka, Haruka Main

Yamaoka, Yuri Japanese

Niimi, Kakeru Main

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Fukazawa, Yoichi Supporting

Yamamoto, Kazutomi Japanese

Takamine, Renya Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Ghost Supporting

Takamori, Natsumi Japanese

Sophitia Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Naruse, Satsuki Supporting

Takeda, Hana Japanese

Fukura, Kei Producer

Nakagawa, Shinobu Producer

Fukuba, Kazuyoshi Producer

Kondou, Maki Producer, Planning

Reviews

Jul 24, 2025

Palad1um

Recommended

Informative

Preliminary (4/13 eps)

I will preface this for anyone who hasn't read the Visual Novel (VN) series:
[WARNING: DON'T WATCH THE OP AS IT CONTAINS A HUGE SPOILER]

I read the VN series and really enjoyed the way the linear, non-linear story plays out.
If you like a solid mystery, that picks up the pace and turns into a thriller by the end of it with a great payoff, this has the potential to tick those boxes, while providing a great cast of characters and decent animation quality.

Only 13 episodes is a tight timeline, but I've been impressed so far by how they've managed to fit the important story points in ... without diverting from the original intent of the characters and their development as of Episode 4.

With the current pacing and setup along with clever use of the way each of the 4 VNs share a common beginning, and intertwining events unique to each characters route to be happening simultaneously I can see this anime succeeding as an adaptation in the same vein as an Anthology movie.

So far, this has been different to an adaptation like the first half of Rewrite, where 9 -Nine- has kept the story changes and original timeline to a minimum which really benefits this story as it is fundamentally a straight line with a single playing/reading order.

The voice cast is absolutely stellar, with Sora's VA in particular giving one of the most memorable character performances I know in the VN, so I'm looking forward to hearing her really let loose when Sora has some more screen time.

If done well, each of the heroines has a great character arc, with a buildup and payoff that chips away at the mystery of the Evil Eye User. This mystery and payoff is potentially ruined by the opening animation, and as such I would highly recommend to not watch it until the later episodes, despite the catchy theme and otherwise well curated animation.

Overall, I highly recommend this anime to anyone who enjoys a mystery, with a fun cast of characters and a pretty huge payoff in the end.

But this all depends pretty heavily on how the adaptation is handled, so I will update this review disappointed and bemoaning what could have been, or triumphantly gloating about the success of a solid visual novel adaptation.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 28, 2025

AngeVNs

Mixed Feelings

The 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown anime is a compelling adaptation of a visual novel. If you watch it standalone, you might think the original visual novel was just a Steins;Gate-like time travel story with urban fantasy magic action. While that’s technically true, what you may not know is that the original visual novel was episodic, with four episodes focusing on the main character romancing each of the four main heroines—yes, including his little sister.

In a way, that’s both the best and worst thing about the 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown anime, especially compared to the visual novel. If you only care about plot reveals, cool magic action, and ... an all-killer, no-filler approach to building characters—just enough for you to care about them before diving into the plot—then 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown does that best. The world of artifacts is a way for the main characters, main villains, and some side characters to have secret magic powers tied to a TV show.

The story starts with Kakeru Niimi, the main character, a seemingly normal, slightly snarky but nice guy, wanting to get closer to his classmate Miyako Kujou, an attractive, kind, and feminine girl who works at a small coffee shop. His goal of getting closer to her ends up dragging him into a huge plot revolving around the city they live in.

As stated, with 13 episodes, the anime builds up the five main characters well enough. In addition to Kakeru and Miyako, we have Sora, Kakeru’s gremlin-like little sister who’s cheeky but clearly cares for her big brother; Haruka, who seems to have multiple personalities, switching between a shy girl with social anxiety and someone confident and flirty; and Noa Yuuki, who seems extremely aloof, blunt, and edgy but knows a lot about the situation and may have the powers to deal with it.

For the most part, the characters are introduced well. You get a sense of their general personalities, and they’re pretty likable. As the story progresses, you meet more characters like Kakeru’s best friend Yoichi; Renya, a chuuni redhead; a mysterious blonde woman; and a mysterious talking plushie, Sophie.

By blending genres like mystery, action, slice-of-life, comedy, and romance, 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown creates an interesting world and characters. It’s not the best in terms of characters or plot and can feel derivative at times, but the way it blends urban fantasy with a Steins;Gate-like time travel story is well-executed. There are cool twists and drama once the plot gets going around episodes three or four.

Sadly, while the plot is generally well done, the character interactions and development are more of a mixed bag.

The main character, Kakeru, is mostly well done. However, because the anime adapted the plot by eliminating most of the slice-of-life romance and comedy, it feels jarring that his so-called crush on Miyako Kujou fades into the background extremely quickly after the first few episodes, until the way end of the show.

Similarly, while there’s some teasing about Sora’s feelings for her brother, it’s barely addressed outside one or two scenes toward the middle of the anime and is quickly forgotten.

Haruka has great moments about wanting to overcome her shyness, but her arc feels fragmented, mostly occurring toward the middle and end of the show. There’s also an implied romantic crush on Kakeru, clearly based on the visual novel, but it lacks buildup since her slice-of-life episode from the visual novel was cut.

Noa Yuuki probably has the best overall character development, as her story ties heavily into resolving the increasingly complex plot. My issue is that her warming up to the main crew feels a bit jarring due to the lack of slice-of-life moments, making her transition from cold to fitting in with the group feel abrupt.

I’d comment on Miyako, but I think she was intentionally written as the least deep character, which isn’t necessarily bad. She’s a shy but nice, deredere character with just enough depth in wanting to help people.

There are also some personal nitpicks I have, like how Kakeru’s best friend, Yoichi, is kept a bit too conveniently annoying personality-wise, or how the redhead, Renya, never makes his love of flat-chested girls rants from the visual novel. I also think that, even though Sora seems to be the most popular heroine from the original VN fanbase, I always thought she was fairly annoying.

While the animation is mostly serviceable, there are moments where the animators clearly used lazy stills—when characters are zoomed out or in the background, they often have funny-looking eyes or shadows over their faces so the animators didn’t have to draw them in detail.

Overall, 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown is an enjoyable but inconsistent experience. It excels at drawing you into the plot and delivering crazy reveals about the magic, the main villains, and the time travel aspect. While there are likable characters and decent comedy, not all of them shine in the character development department, and their supposedly close bonds don’t feel as strong as they should.

I’d recommend 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown with a cautious positive recommendation. Watch it if you’re interested in eventually reading the visual novel, if you really want to see something that emulates a Steins;Gate-like time travel story, or if you enjoy urban fantasy magic action.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 29, 2025

Squeekencats

Not Recommended

I can't recommend watching this anime if you have not played or watched someone play the visual novels first. I was really excited to watch this because the story of the visual novels is quite good and has a nice gimmick. It feels like the anime takes the best parts and tosses them in a blender and skips everything else, with Sora being the best example. While I understand that fitting around 40 hours into 13 episodes is a challenge, it does not mean that you need to sacrifice character development and story. The animation is mid for the most part. The story makes me ... sad, knowing how good it could have been, as it is losing a lot of the emotion that the VN has. The character development is bad, with some characters like Sophitia having almost none. The only good things about the anime are that it has the same VAs as the visual novels.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: 9: Ruler's Crown Episode 7 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 9, 2025	8 replies	by booyah10 »» Dec 29, 2025 9:17 PM
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