Well, the episodes here didn't really go out of their way to tell what had happened prior to my watching them so whatever guesses I make about prior events are strictly that; guesses. The lead character is Yucie, a princess stuck in time, who has stopped aging and must win the prized tiara that grants wishes in order to restore herself to the natural process of aging. Unfortunately, she has some stiff competition in other gals seemingly in the same circumstance; all of whom want to win for their own reasons. One of the most interesting was the stoic Elmina, the princess of Heaven, who was downcast for imperfections, or the stereotypical Glenda, a princess from the demon world that shows greed, avarice, and all the qualities that make a gal fun (well, in my book at least).

One of the episodes dealt with a sort of supernatural triathlon (titled Challenge! Heaven Triathlon) that spend considerable time fleshing out Elmina's character and motivations, while Romance! The Magic of Love Arrives Without Notice had a few of the gals falling for some boy or another (a common theme in this type of show I've found) and the other two shows weren't much more than a means to introduce other characters; Thoughts Will Get The Girl I Met At The Beach and One Mystery After Another! The Fairy World Princess. For the most part, the episodes briefly mentioned the bigger picture sparingly but not having seen the previous volumes, this didn't help me much.

Okay, this is a tough one to rate since I had little to go on and the replay value was limited by a variety of factors (maybe it would work better for younger kids) including not having seen the first two volumes (I'm working on it). I'm going to rate it as a Rent It but only if you've seen the first couple of volumes in order to make sense of the story. It looked like the extracurricular threads played as much a part in the story as the "at school" stuff but that is a common theme in anime made for children and folks so inclined may find something extra to enjoy with it.

Picture: Petite Princess Yucie was presented in its original 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. I was surprised that it was a fairly recent series since it had an older "look" to it with some visual effects used to deaden an otherwise sharp presentation. There wasn't a lot of grain, the characters movement looked truncated (as though less frames were used to save money), and the backgrounds were relatively static; forcing almost all the movement by the immediate characters in most cases. It gave me the impression that it was made for a younger, less discerning audience, even though ADV Films rated it as a "12+" series.

Sound: The audio presentation was a bit better than the visual but also had some issues to contend with. The choices here were the original Japanese track, in a 2.0 Dolby Digital mix, or a full 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround English dub. The original track sounded flat with little separation and like little care was put into it but the vocal actors seemed right for the part. The English track had a lot more separation, particularly with the special effects during fighting sequences, a richer bass line, and beefed up music, but some of the vocal cast was not the best choices (they grated on my nerves as often as not). In all, I think ADV Films' staff did some solid work here overall with the audio (they have been getting increasingly better at enhancing audio tracks), making the dub well worth listening to.

Extras: There really weren't a lot of extras here with the usual set of trailers, a clean opening and closing, a limited amount of production sketches, and a double sided DVD cover that looked much like the both sides were copied from the same source.

Final Thoughts: Petite Princess Yucie 3: Love and Light was an okay series for me but lacking the predicate to truly see if the characters had grown, the story advanced any, or to know if it was going anywhere special, I couldn't really enjoy it all that much. Younger female audiences might find more to like than I did but even then I'm just guessing since the series seemed generic in a number of ways due to the stereotypical characters and situations, even though they were dressed up in fantasy trappings. It wasn't the worst I've seen from ADV Films but it was a long shot from being the best too so spend your money accordingly.

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVDTalk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003 and Best Of Anime 2004 article or regular column Anime Talk