The Show:
The third volume of Scrapped Princess wraps up the first
half of the story, and the show becomes even more interesting. In
this volume we find out just what Pacifica's power is, and why some people
want her dead before she can use it. A tightly plotted series, it
just keeps getting better and better.
Series Synopsis:
Fifteen years ago the revelation of St. Grendel predicted that a princess
had been born who would destroy the world when she reached 16 years of
age. "She will be give rise to mountains of corpses and rivers of
blood...she will be the poison that will destroy this world." St. Grendel's
predictions had always come true, so her parents, the king and queen, ordered
her put to death. The only problem is that she wasn't. Like
Snow White, the person who was supposed to kill her took pity on the baby
and let her live.
Now Pacifica Cassul is 15, and running for her life. She is the
person that everyone thinks is the 'Scrapped Princess' of the prophecy.
Living out of a horse drawn wagon, Pacifica travels from place to place
with her adopted brother, Shannon, her sister, Raquel, and Leo a young
knight wanna-be, trying to stay one step ahead of those who are trying
to kill her. The only problem is, everyone is trying to kill her.
And even if she lives, what will happen when she has her next birthday?
Will she destroy the world?
This volume:
The disc starts up with a good two part story. Pacifica and her
brother and sister are forced to travel on foot after they sold their cart
in the last volume. Traveling through the mountains they stumble
into an inn to warm up and start talking to an Inquisitor for the Church
of Mouser. As the trio travels with their new friend, they discover
that he no longer wants to go around punishing heretics. His new
mission is the find the Scrapped Princess.
Soon the group stumbles upon a hidden city. This city doesn't
worship Mouser, they worship their ruler, a blond girl with blue eyes who
they claim is the Scrapped Princess. Something odd is going on in
this village though. There are no magic users in the town, and some
people are acting oddly. As they continue exploring the city, they
discover something sinister is going on and it's up to Pacifica and her
family to stop it.
The next pair of shows has the group showing up in the city of Giat.
Here lives the princess Senes Lur Giat, also known as the Beast Princess.
This princess captures Pacifica but not to kill her, she actually wants
to get her brother Shannon to join her cause: world domination. She
knows that Shannon is a D-Knight, and she want him to use his power to
aid her. In order to persuade him, Senes explains some things about
the way the world functions, who the Peacemakers are, and why they want
to kill Pacifica.
Before he can really decide, the Peacemakers attack. Shannon jumps
into battle to save his sister, but even using his Dragoon powers, he isn't
a match for the leader of the Peacemakers.
This continues to be a great series. The first half of the disc
contained a good story, but the second half really moved the plot along.
We find out what Pacifica's power actually is, and why it is so dangerous
to some people. They don't answer all of the questions though, so
there's still a lot to learn. How Pacifica, Shannon, and Rachael
are going to use this information is something that I'm wondering about
too.
The DVD:
Audio:
This disc has the original Japanese track and an English dub both in
stereo. There wasn't a lot of directionality to the mix, but being
a dialog based show, I wasn't expecting many stereo effects. Both
tracks sounded adequate, with the background music being clear and clean.
Video:
The full frame video image looked good. The image had a good amount
of definition and detail, and the colors were accurately reproduced.
There was some minor digital defects, some shimmering lines in the background
and a little aliasing, mainly. A few areas had bad color gradients,
where the colors didn't transfer smoothly from one shade to the next.
These weren't major problems though. An adequate looking transfer.
Extras:
This disc didn't have any extras aside from some trailers.
Final Thoughts:
This series continues to impress me. Not only has it managed to
avoid all of the clichés that fantasy based anime often have, (there are
no cute pets following the group around) but it has also made some interesting
characters and a richly textured story. A fun show that can have
some dramatic moments, this would be a great program to show to someone
who doesn't like fantasy anime. It just might change their mind.
Highly Recommended.
Buy: