Okay, in the opener, Could It Be Him?: The Encounter Comes Without Notice, Yucie and Glenda were introduced to a mysterious stranger on the run from the law named Arc. He later becomes a bigger player in the series but at this point, he is discovered to also be looking for the tiara. He and Yucie don't exactly hit it off at first but a growing affection between them is evident. The next episode, The Evil World is Full of Cats, had the two gals going to Glenda's home in order to fight a mysterious cat that has taken over her father's realm and retrieve a crystal rose. These episodes were followed by Sparkle, The Me Within Myself, Perfection? Enter the Princess of Heaven, and Is It Destiny? The Library Re-encounter, where Elmina joins the cast, Arc's motives become more clear, and Cocolo has a bit of a chance to reflect on her own self worth when a painter selects her for an important painting.

Interestingly enough, as I see more of the earlier parts of the characters, I actually liked them more this time but I'd still suggest this DVD as a Rent It unless you've seen the volumes in order. It was cute, had some nice replay value, and the themes were actually pretty solid even if they were understated a bit in order to increase their appeal to an older audience. If I get a hold of the first volume, I'll watch them all in order from the beginning but I can see why some people were upset at my original review, given the manner in which the characters do appear to grow with time.

Picture: Petite Princess Yucie 2: Encounters 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 2: Encounters managed to open my mind up to the possibilities that the series is more than just childish fluff although I still have my reservations about the matter. The quest of the cast to retrieve the tiara but also fit in with the others managed to balance out pretty well this time, helped substantially by the fleshing out of the characters and their motives. If you have a female child in your home between the ages of 5 and 15, this might appeal to them even more than I originally believed but fans of this style of anime will also have something worth glancing at.

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