Scrapped Princess

[Dracos]

This was the best anime I saw around Katsucon.  The best.  Which of course was odd as I watched it before going.  But it had a kind of spark that really caught the eye.

Scrapped Princess is the tale of a young princess traveling around with her adopted older brother and older sister.  Who, from ep 1, has everyone trying to kill her due to her being prophecized.  Pacifica, the scrapped princess, is a bratty yet caring normal type girl that just wants to live a normal life.  Her older brother is a tactiturn, super sword fighter named Shannon, and is the primary 'hero' character of the show.  Her older sister is a super mage who acts like some cross between Kasumi and a battle hardened warrior.  Both are pretty amusing.  There's also a fairly elaborate cast of background characters I'm way too lazy to list all of.  What's more important is that the show really thrives on the interactions between the characters.  Sure, there's a fairly clever and detailed plot containing quite a few twists for what looks like a medieval fantasy at first and turns into out to be more sci-fi, but the show really thrives on the interactions and interweavings of the characters, all surrounding this small family unit trying to stay together and survive with the world religion of Mauser seeking them dead.  On this level, the show really shines and provides a nicely presented series.

Of course, if you want, there's a lot of symbolism, an underlying plot of human free well versus divine providence, good and evil, the nature of faith and a bunch of other classic points.  But who cares about those anyway ;P?  They're there for those who thrive on them.

Something to note is that this show really isn't an action show.  There are brief points of it and a good deal of hinting that it would be, but they're minor in my opinion.  The show also gets a bit rushed towards the end, giving me the overall feeling that it would've been a truly uncriticizable thirty ep series.  Anyhow, it was quite nice to watch and while not perfect, was a damned good show.

One amusing sidepoint I feel I should mention is that the artist is very generous with his female proportions.

Dracos

[Carthrat]

One amusing sidepoint I feel I should mention is that the artist is very generous with his female proportions.  

Yeah, Drac, him and everyone else who writes this stuff. ^^

[Brian]

Hmm.  I could have sworn that ... oh well.  Guess we just forgot to review this one earlier.

Scrapped Princess is an awesome anime, and one of its greatest strengths is the pacing.  The story is set up so that while you (the viewer) don't understand everything at first, you very quickly learn not to care about what you don't know.  Instead of holding up deliberately misleading clues to confuse you right up until the amazing plot twist, they make everything completely known from the beginning.

This allows you to skip the stereotypical save-the-world quest you'd find in your average fantasy anime, and the stereotypical save-the-universe quest you'd find in your average sci fi anime.  What you're left with is a crew of complete, well rounded, and fascinating characters.

Scrapped Princess is, without a doubt, one of the truly great anime.

[Kwokinator]

One amusing sidepoint I feel I should mention is that the artist is very generous with his female proportions.

Sounds promising ^_^

[Caliban]

This series is great fun, but is there any other series it didn't rip off? :D. It plays like someone took the best parts of a bunch of other good series & stuck them in a blender.

The main three characters are good fun ( although Raquel is a little underused ), but I did get more than a little annoyed by the secondaries. Maybe it's the fact that they never stick around that long, but I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the other cast.

Not great, but definitely good.

[DB]

Finally finished this one up as well. My take on it: superb. As was mentioned before, the plot, pacing, and character interactions were all on the ball. There is a rather large cast of secondary characters, and some of them aren't really all that useful (Winnia leaps first and foremost to my mind), and as Caliban mentioned, they do tend to come and go with regularity, but there was enough air time given to them that I liked them. I wouldn't say there were no surprises or plot twists. The episode where Styre's fate occurs, and the sudden appearance of Mauser, threw me a bit.

As to the originality bit someone complained about, there are no original stories left. The only thing that matters now is how the tale is executed. In this case, it's done extremely well. Heck, I didn't even find any of the characters irritating, a rarity in most shows for me anymore. I always consider that a bonus.

All things considered, I give it a 7 out of 10. It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread, or sliced bread #2 for that matter, and while I wouldn't term it a classic, it's well worth buying and watching.