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Princess Rouge
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Title Info
- seen: 1-2 of 2
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- Other elements of this title:
- This title appears to be an unsuccessful pilot.
- form: sub
- made: unknown
- Review created: Sun Jul 8 02:51:19 EST 2001
- mod: none
The weather in Japan at the moment? Same as usual, bright sunny shoujo days, occasional dramatic storms and localized precipitation of mysterious beautiful women. Damn, wish I lived in Japan.
Synopsis
In this case your non average Japanese high school youth is biking to school. Since it is raining, and he's late, he decides to take the mountain shortcut. On the way he's clunked in the head by a falling bracelet, and then a couple of seconds later by the rather beautiful owner. As she falls from the sky he realizes she's whispering something and just in time he understands her message, which is "watch out". The two of them wake up in river, she unconscious, so naturally enough he takes her home and gets her clothes off.
Because they're wet you hentai. Actually he's the typical anime good hearted guy with the normal poor ability to express his feelings but a bit more perception than normal. As for her, well, she can't remember anything but the occasional disturbing dream, so no help there. And while they are happy, and drawn to one another, all anime watchers know that whenever a women falls from a sky her family, and the problems they bring, cannot be far behind. And in this case the family is rather dramatic and involved in some impressively large scale trouble.
Review
Okay, the first thing that must be mentioned is that it doesn't end. Either this was a pilot, a release of a sample for a longer series, or most likely an exercise for animators to cut their teeth on. The credits sort of supporting the last. In any case the tape I found has two 25 minute episodes and that's your lot. Both the plot, and the characters, never reach any conclusion. The show simply stopping dead in mid-flight...which sort of restricts how much you can value the show.
As for the plot, well...the basis is certainly familiar enough. It does have the advantage that it allows the story to develop pretty fast though. And to be honest they make a cute couple. Rouge is very pretty, in a Belldandy (from Oh My Goddess) sort of way but a little more innocent. Although the underlying suggestion is that she's got lots of power and a rather interesting heritage. Yusuke, the guy, also has a bit more depth. He's an orphan living a relatively hard life, yet he's quite tough and perceptive in his own way. He also knows that when rouge regains her memory their relationship will definitely change and probably end. It gives a nice sense of tension and complexity on top of the romantic mood.
And when rouge's non-amnesiac, and rather powerful, sisters show up we get to move onto the action. It seems they are innately powerful but there's an even more powerful enemy, and his henchmen, that wants something from them. And he doesn't mind breaking or killing them in the process. For a semi-romantic anime the mood can get quite dark and dangerous at times. There's even a fair amount of blood and a couple of fatalities to show they're not kidding. It's also all done using swords and magic, classical fantasy models, which is traditional but still makes a nice contrast to the modern world in which the action takes place.
There really are some nice scenes and moments in this anime. Even worse there's all sorts of good characters, such as yusuke's school friends, we barely get to meet. The plot, setting and characters all have such promise that you feel sort of betrayed when it suddenly ends. This fact, and the rather derivative nature of the foundation, means that while this is an interesting anime there's no point being too positive about it.
The production, for what seems to be a test case, is better than you might expect. Some lovely and detailed backgrounds (I especially like seeing yusuke's unusually simple house) with good use of atmospheric effects. The character art is good and the ability to express emotion and mood is surprisingly skilled. The design for equipment is a touch less impressive and the magic and action is limited and quite un-imaginative. Thus it does work better as a fantasy romance than an action title. The dialogue is solid, the voices are excellent and the music didn't call itself to my attention.
Other Reviews
- THEM review THEM got the tape simply because they'd never heard of the title and lost hope when they saw the awfully familiar set-up. However it looks like the show caught their attention enough, with the character work, to make them quite unhappy at their being no conclusion (3/5).
- Akemi's AnimeWorld review A great review which comments on the familiar plot and annoying lack of conclusion. It also doesn't find the characters, barring some minor exceptions, interesting enough to rescue it from mediocrity leading to a quite low mark (1.5/5).
- Lord Carnage review It's a complex review from Lord Carnage, although the general tone is pretty negative, although Herself the Elf is a touch more positive. Effectively he's seen it too many times before and there wasn't enough special here to rescue it (2.5/5).
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:23 WST 2009