Scrapped Princess: Series Review
I checked this out over the weekend since it was pointed out that Chaika was from the same author, and both are done by BONES.
The Premise:
The show is set in a fantasy world where magic and magical creatures exist, but later on there are hints of more.The premise of the show deals with the prophecy by a religious figure about how the world will end when a certain princess turns 16. So she has to be killed, and while most people thought she had been in reality she was thrown away from the royal family as one would do to scraps. A Scrapped Princess. And now people are trying to kill her as her two adoptive siblings (and others) protect her. But there is more to this tale than what meets the eye. Just like Transformers. Not the movies, as those are pretty easy to grasp on an elementary school level.
The Characters:
The characters of the show were by far the highlight and the reason to watch it. I'll first be discussing the leads. Starting off let's go with our titular character, Pacifica. Her character basically revolves around hypocrisy, but the good kind. Throughout the show she sees all of the actions and events centered around her and what people must go through, which causes her to consider whether the world would be a happier place if she died. Her character was interesting, but it seems that she wasn't the focus of the trio throughout the majority of the show. Second we have Raquel, the older sister type. That's literally who she is. Her character is the least developed of the three. She's basically a badass combat mage with a lot of power, but she doesn't use her power all that much throughout the show and she takes a backset in development in favor of Pacifica and Shannon.
Which having mentioned him I now need to discuss my favorite character, Shannon. He's the 'middle child' of the family, but his role throughout the show is to be the swordmaster protecting Pacifica, and the older brother. His role as a character, outside of being a badass with a sword, really did focus on his love his little sister. While he doesn't outwardly show it as anime would lead you to believe older brothers are, he loves his sisters more than anything else in the world and would die for them. This shows on his resolution to protect the 'evil that will destroy the world' besides everybody telling him what her being alive means. The two characters with the most interaction and the most feelings towards one another are him and Pacifica. I've mentioned it in the episode comments, but I'm glad that an anime was able to show a relationship between older and younger sibling that didn't turn creepy or incesty. Obvious hints were here and there that Pacifica had feelings for her brother outside of older brother attachment, but they never really expanded on them.
As to the side characters, there's a plethora of them. The most prominent one is by far Leo, the lovable goofball. He starts out as a man who meets the main cast by coincidence and hangs out with them for a while. His mission? To become a royal knight and learn what chivalry and justice is. He goes through inner turmoil and development to the point he almost has as much as one of the main cast. There are other characters that were prominent enough, but none of them went through enough development besides the dragon spirit lady. I won't mention them here but know that most characters, even the villain, have a sense of duty and honor to the point you can't really dislike them.
The Art:
This is an early 2000's BONES show, which meant it has the dreaded vertical black bars. DAT ASPECT RATIO. Besides that, it was very well done. Which is expected of bones. While there weren't enough sword battle scenes, which left me a bit disappointed, I didn't really see a drop in quality. The colors are bright and the character designs are distinctive, as are their wardrobes. The villages and cities never really gave me a sense of wonder as they didn't really focus on them. It was enjoyable enough, but fairly standard quality BONES animation and art style was good just not mind blowing.
Over-all Enjoyment:
I had been looking for an old school fantasy show since I finished Lodoss, and this delivered for the most part. It had a sense of adventure and wonder, and more importantly it had heart. Having said that, I feel the show would've been better if it had been a 13 episode anime, as the second half outside of the last batch of episodes dragged it down a bit. I won't spoil it, but in the second half the setting switches a bit from the fantasy one I was enjoying and attempts to mix stuff from other genres, which for me it didn't really work.
Scrapped Princess is by no means perfect, but the main characters, specifically Shannon and Pacifica, drive the show forward. It could've used less 'random episodic episode where you won't ever really meet these characters again' and more continuous episodes with sweet action scenes, but I won't cry too much about it.
Scrapped Princess gets a 7.5/10
