Scrapped Princess
Oct. 4th, 2012 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
type_wildI know that I bought this one because it was somehow mentioned in the same sentence as Digimon Tamers over at TVtropes. And lo: We got Jeri, Ryo and Lopmon in fairly central parts, and Henry as a periphery character that was at least important enough to be followed even when the plot strictly speaking was happening everywhere but around him. And Yamaki, and Janyuu as a one-episode wonder! And Kouichi as central as central gets without being the actual title character. I feel that that should count even though he's from Frontier.
We also got Yuri in almost every episode, with Wolfram and Günter as Ryo's loyal teammates. And Anissina, Adalbert, Conrad and Celie.
The sad part is how that for most of the minor parts among these, I mentally kept referring to them by their voices. Seriously. Every time the bard showed his face, I was all "Hi Conrad!"
It could've been worse. It could've been "Hi TK!"
Pacifica Casull is the "scrapped princess" who according to a prophecy will bring about the destruction of the world when she turns sixteen, though why this will happen and more importantly, how, remain unclear. With the day nearing, she is on the run from the church and the state with brother Shannon and sister Raquel. Watch them walk the earth, make friends, fight bad guys, and something about aliens until the point when there's nowhere left to run.
Scrapped Princess is a 24 episode anime from 2003. You don't often hear it talked about, and I'm guessing that it is a combination of being a) kind of generic, b) from light novels rather than manga, and c) not belonging to any famous franchise. I, as mentioned, got it because I had some money and because some unknown person on the internet compared it to one of my favourite anime ever, though whoever knows why - the only thing they have in common is a lot of the English voice talent and some plot point about artificial worlds. Scrapped Princess is mostly just your normal sword and sorcery adventure, but with the possibly interesting twist that the main characters aren't out on a mission to save the world: they're trying to save their own hides from people who accuse them of bringing abound the Götterdämmerung. And for all they know, the people hunting them might have it right.
(To this: I've seen reviewers go on about the philosophical depth of the questions this anime supposedly raises. I disagree. It poses some unavoidable questions about the ethical thing to do if Pacifica turns out to destroy the world by existing, but it never sheds much light on it beyond "well I'm doing what feels right for me because she's the goddman title character and this anime is about as deep as Naruto")
There was a total of one part of Scrapped Princess that honestly surprised me, and that was the stuff that episode 23 is made of. Predictability shouldn't really be an issue for me - oh god, is it a spoiler that Misaki reunites with her mum, fights and defeats her to become the reigning champion at a game she started playing four months ago? but I want to mention it because it struck me, then, that this one was kind of lacking in that department. It's fantasy anime and it plays its tropes straight. You know most of what you'll get just from looking at the cover, and it delivers it well: the plot runs smoothly, the animation is good, the voice acting is good, the squabbling between Pacifica and Shannon is funny.
So what is lacking, then, except for plot twists of Clampish proportions? I'm not sure that many other people would count it as a flaw, but this anime involves a lot of factions with an interest in the scrapped princess, and it seems like a lot of thought has gone into creating the background for their members - but then it just never comes. Take Chris, for example: I expected to know a lot more about Chris by the end of episode 24, but I knew all I'd ever knew about him by episode five-ish. There is a lot of personalities appearing in his squad, but the only thing any of them ever do is listening to his political pondering and swinging swords. Ditto Senes and Eirote. Same with Winia, who hangs around for a good 2/3 of the series, yet the only new thing we learn about her after her first episode is that she likes a guy. Same with Raquel. Bloody hell, same with Pacifica. The only character who truly changes his looks on the world and who has to make truly fateful decisions is Pacifica's twin brother, and much as I love poor Forsythe, I would never claim that he is anything more than a periphery part of the story. Among the main characters, real development happens in limited degrees to Shannon and Leo, and a bit more notably to Zephyris. Pacifica, Raquel, Winia and Chris are exactly the same persons in episode 1 and episode 24.
It isn't that these are flat or shallow characters, because they're not: they have their motivations, their worries, their reasons for feeling and acting as they do. I wonder if it might be because it is fifteen novels adapted into twelve hours of film, because it feels like there is a lot of stories behind these characters that the anime just doesn't have the time to tell. Like Senes, and I'm not even counting this as a spoiler because we learn it in her first episode: Senes' brothers used to beat her up, so Senes is obsessed with proving her strength and holding her own, while she secretly envies Pacifica. This information is relevant for... oh, nothing. Senes is crass towards everyone and when she warms up to Pacifica, it must have happened off-screen because nothing that the audience sees seems to suggest that her feelings would change.
The result of this is that I find it hard to care as much for these characters as I'd like - I'm left with feeling that a character present for some three or four episodes was one of the best of them all, because in that little time we did at least get to see how his mind and his heart works, and how his decisions in light of the story ends up changing his life. The rest of them are mostly just doing whatever the plot demands that they do. They're all likable at it, but I've come to expect more than that from anime.
But the lengthy tangent about character development aside: Scrapped Princess is a solid story that does most things right that it needs to get right. I liked it, but it won't be the first thing I pop into the DVD player to watch again.
We also got Yuri in almost every episode, with Wolfram and Günter as Ryo's loyal teammates. And Anissina, Adalbert, Conrad and Celie.
The sad part is how that for most of the minor parts among these, I mentally kept referring to them by their voices. Seriously. Every time the bard showed his face, I was all "Hi Conrad!"
It could've been worse. It could've been "Hi TK!"
Pacifica Casull is the "scrapped princess" who according to a prophecy will bring about the destruction of the world when she turns sixteen, though why this will happen and more importantly, how, remain unclear. With the day nearing, she is on the run from the church and the state with brother Shannon and sister Raquel. Watch them walk the earth, make friends, fight bad guys, and something about aliens until the point when there's nowhere left to run.
Scrapped Princess is a 24 episode anime from 2003. You don't often hear it talked about, and I'm guessing that it is a combination of being a) kind of generic, b) from light novels rather than manga, and c) not belonging to any famous franchise. I, as mentioned, got it because I had some money and because some unknown person on the internet compared it to one of my favourite anime ever, though whoever knows why - the only thing they have in common is a lot of the English voice talent and some plot point about artificial worlds. Scrapped Princess is mostly just your normal sword and sorcery adventure, but with the possibly interesting twist that the main characters aren't out on a mission to save the world: they're trying to save their own hides from people who accuse them of bringing abound the Götterdämmerung. And for all they know, the people hunting them might have it right.
(To this: I've seen reviewers go on about the philosophical depth of the questions this anime supposedly raises. I disagree. It poses some unavoidable questions about the ethical thing to do if Pacifica turns out to destroy the world by existing, but it never sheds much light on it beyond "well I'm doing what feels right for me because she's the goddman title character and this anime is about as deep as Naruto")
There was a total of one part of Scrapped Princess that honestly surprised me, and that was the stuff that episode 23 is made of. Predictability shouldn't really be an issue for me - oh god, is it a spoiler that Misaki reunites with her mum, fights and defeats her to become the reigning champion at a game she started playing four months ago? but I want to mention it because it struck me, then, that this one was kind of lacking in that department. It's fantasy anime and it plays its tropes straight. You know most of what you'll get just from looking at the cover, and it delivers it well: the plot runs smoothly, the animation is good, the voice acting is good, the squabbling between Pacifica and Shannon is funny.
So what is lacking, then, except for plot twists of Clampish proportions? I'm not sure that many other people would count it as a flaw, but this anime involves a lot of factions with an interest in the scrapped princess, and it seems like a lot of thought has gone into creating the background for their members - but then it just never comes. Take Chris, for example: I expected to know a lot more about Chris by the end of episode 24, but I knew all I'd ever knew about him by episode five-ish. There is a lot of personalities appearing in his squad, but the only thing any of them ever do is listening to his political pondering and swinging swords. Ditto Senes and Eirote. Same with Winia, who hangs around for a good 2/3 of the series, yet the only new thing we learn about her after her first episode is that she likes a guy. Same with Raquel. Bloody hell, same with Pacifica. The only character who truly changes his looks on the world and who has to make truly fateful decisions is Pacifica's twin brother, and much as I love poor Forsythe, I would never claim that he is anything more than a periphery part of the story. Among the main characters, real development happens in limited degrees to Shannon and Leo, and a bit more notably to Zephyris. Pacifica, Raquel, Winia and Chris are exactly the same persons in episode 1 and episode 24.
It isn't that these are flat or shallow characters, because they're not: they have their motivations, their worries, their reasons for feeling and acting as they do. I wonder if it might be because it is fifteen novels adapted into twelve hours of film, because it feels like there is a lot of stories behind these characters that the anime just doesn't have the time to tell. Like Senes, and I'm not even counting this as a spoiler because we learn it in her first episode: Senes' brothers used to beat her up, so Senes is obsessed with proving her strength and holding her own, while she secretly envies Pacifica. This information is relevant for... oh, nothing. Senes is crass towards everyone and when she warms up to Pacifica, it must have happened off-screen because nothing that the audience sees seems to suggest that her feelings would change.
The result of this is that I find it hard to care as much for these characters as I'd like - I'm left with feeling that a character present for some three or four episodes was one of the best of them all, because in that little time we did at least get to see how his mind and his heart works, and how his decisions in light of the story ends up changing his life. The rest of them are mostly just doing whatever the plot demands that they do. They're all likable at it, but I've come to expect more than that from anime.
But the lengthy tangent about character development aside: Scrapped Princess is a solid story that does most things right that it needs to get right. I liked it, but it won't be the first thing I pop into the DVD player to watch again.
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