Scrapped Princess

Genre: Drama

Format: 24 Episodes

Allegiance: Studio Bones

Director: Masui Soichi

Vintage: 2003

Intelligence Agency Report by: Lady Sage

Pacifica Casull, at a glance, appears to be an ordinary fifteen-year-old girl, but she is anything but. After all, ordinary 15-year-olds don’t have millions of people after their lives. When she was born, it was prophesized that she would destroy the world on her 16th birthday. She was rescued from death in infancy, but as her birthday nears, the attempts on her life intensify. Can she and her foster siblings survive the time until her birthday and find a way to avert disaster?

Field Agent Report by: Lady Sage

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio

8.75
8.25
9.25
9.50
8.50

Overall

8.75

(not an average)

Serious fantasy is hard to find in anime. Most of the time, fantasy anime are comedic parodies like Slayers or Dragon Half. Series, like Record of Lodoss War, which build believable and rich fantasy worlds, are almost unheard of. Fortunately for fans of the genre, Scrapped Princess has entered the foray as a serious, plot-driven fantasy/science fiction series.

If there is one thing to say about Studio Bones, it is that they don’t mess around when it comes to production values. The animation is simply gorgeous with very attractive character designs, the action scenes are nothing short of thrilling, and the world the characters inhabit is a thing of beauty.

Despite the bright animation, the plot of Scrapped Princess is quite dark, with the heroine in constant peril. Comedic moments are rare, but they work well when they do come up. The characters all play well off one another, and Pacifica is a particularly believable and likable 15-year-old girl. She and her foster-sibling behave as real siblings do, squabbling frequently but always with an undercurrent of affection. They are joined by an excellent supporting cast, with nobody that is truly evil. Yes, there are people that want Pacifica dead, but that’s just because they want to prevent the coming apocalypse. However, there is a lack of actual background – many of the characters have external factors figuring into their motivations, but we are never privy to them. With the plot so firmly set on the present, the characters’ pasts are never examined.

Scrapped Princess could have been truly great, but with some minor failings in the character development and a jarring shift to a science fiction theme midway through it falls just short. Nonetheless, it’s quite a worthwhile watch, especially for fans of dark fantasy.

Field Agent Report by: Tremolo

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio

7.00
7.00
6.00
9.50
7.25

Overall

7.50

(not an average)

Anime has tackled the fantasy genre countless times to with varying degrees of success, yet a fantasy anime that isn't mostly generic and derivative is often the exception rather the rule. And as such, despite the presence of the fan favorite Studio Bones, I wasn't expecting a great deal from Scrapped Princess.

But yet the first half of the series seemed intent on proving my expectations very wrong. Episode after episode is genuinely involving and enormously fun to watch, with the tried-and-tested "journey" aspect of the plot device allowing a detailed exploration of the world the characters inhabit. As expected of a Bones series, Scrapped Princess looks absolutely wonderful. The art and animation is beautifully crisp, clean and detailed – truly a joy to behold. The only real letdown in the visual stakes is the character designs, which whilst relatively nice to look at, come across as somewhat bland and cookie-cutter. Despite this, the series boasts an appealing mix of comedy, action and drama, and the interaction between the characters, be it Shannon and Pacifica's squabbling, or bumbling Leo's antics, are nothing less than extremely good fun.

Perhaps saying, "and then it all went wrong" is somewhat melodramatic, but in this case I feel that it applies to the much-debated twist that takes place about halfway through. As a result of such a shift in premise, the series loses the momentum that was building up nicely beforehand and it never really picks up again to such that extent. The science-fiction elements that are suddenly introduced are handled relatively well, but things become increasingly bogged down due an interminable couple of episodes where the characters spend most of their time wandering around a lot of dull corridors. The pacing becomes increasingly erratic in the second half as a few episodes are inexplicably devoted to very little happening at all, which serves to merely make the finale seem rather rushed. It's certainly not a bad ending by any means, but it could have been so much more. The same can be said of the supporting characters, as the lack of development and background for them becomes glaringly obvious when potentially interesting characters fail to live up to their earlier promise, whilst some are just simply discarded.

Ultimately, Scrapped Princess is an anime that succeeds in some areas but can't help but disappoint the viewer in others. It's a series that comes off as being something of a curate's egg and one that is worth your time as long as you don't expect too much.