I just finished watching this anime, and damn am I sad that it's over. What a great three days of action, fantasy, drama and romance! It had everything I love in an anime! Great characters, an excellent storyline and some magic!
The story centres around Pacifica Cassul (the scrapped princess) and her older brother and sister, Shannon and Raquel Cassul. At the time of Pacifica's birth, a divine prophecy predicts that she is destined to destroy the world on her 16th birthday, as a result an order is issued by the ruling Church (the Church of Mauser) and the King himself to kill the child. The plot thickens when we learn that Pacifica is in-fact Shannon and Raquels adopted sister and in reality she is the biological daughter of the King. Her mother, the Queen, arranged for her to be saved from death and given into the care of the Cassuls.
We join our protagonists, at a point in time, when they are on the run. People, including the imperial assassins are on the hunt to kill the princess in a bid to rid the world of it's 'poison'! However, Raquel's magic and Shannon's swordsmanship mean the trio are no easy prey. The two older siblings are fiercely protective of their younger sister and are prepared to go against anything, even providence, in order to protect her!
The three siblings!
The sci-fi elements are introduced subtly, as initially it seems the world we are observing is a medieval one. One full of knights, princesses, and dragons. However, things get more complicated. There are 'divine' beings, emissaries of the 'God' who 'protect' and 'oversee' the world. The plot thickens when it comes to light that it is these beings, known as the 'peacemakers', who under the orders of Mauser, want the scrapped princess dead. Strange right? Why would an omnipotent being (if that's the right word) want a potentially dangerous girl dead? Why not kill her yourself? or cease her existence..? Well it get's more complicated. It turns out that the scrapped princess is in fact the only human on earth that can go against the peacemakers and essentially neutralize or rather dissipate their hold on humanity and it is because of this, her potential to cause humanity to go against the peace makers and take control of their own destiny, that the peacemakers want her dead. Sounds like modern day democracy! What's more is that the world was once very advanced even more so than it is now in life (like way in the future). However, and I'll be honest here...I didn't quite follow the entire storyline, sometimes it went on a bit and just seemed to try a little hard...it was awkward and even cringe-worthy, so I kind of just listened to the bits I wanted to ... Anyway as I was saying humanity were very advanced but their 'stupidity' led them to constantly war among themselves. And so they created these crazy mad fantastical weapons with human-like personalities. Somewhere along the line these 'weapons' with personalities of their own decided that in order to preserve humanity and to prevent it from destroying itself, it would revert humanity back to the middle ages and essentially allow it to live under tightly controlled conditions.......Yeah as if that was going to work.
Truth be told, this amine has a few minor drawbacks for me. The story line was somewhat strained and trying too hard to be complicated (or am I just thick?)... The whole peacemaker thing sounded a bit...hmm for want of a more choice word, cheesy. Like 'we are protectors of man, but we must cull him and eliminate his free will for his own good' and then there's the big question that hovers throughout... is a utilitarian approach to living the right one for man? Can we really say that we are living if our free will is curbed? Is mankind the source of his own destruction? What of religion? The church? And the monarchy/ government? Are these all channels of evil that seek to herd mankind as a means to their own end? These questions were a bit beyond the scope of the anime, I felt. I know they're beyond me too, but really they were too big for this particular anime. But with that said, they did try. However, I do like stories that attempt to create/ explore moral questions that give their audiences something to think about. Not that I even dwelt on any such question while watching the show though. But mind thoughts did flit through my mind here and there,,, good effort nonetheless.
Another drawback was the actual drawings. I like the drawing style but I personally didn't like the forms of the peacemakers in battle mode...they looked like overgrown bugs or random shapes...whatever they were they just didn't look graceful or fluid in battle and made the battles a little less interesting to watch. I liked the dragon though...more fluid and with greater motion in battle. I'm no manga or anime expert but I'm saying these things just in terms of my own personal taste.
What did I love? Mainly the characters and the relationship between the three siblings, The bratty, spoilt but sweet and playful character of Pacifica drew me to her instantly. I liked that she didn't' seem to give a shit about being of royal descent or that her real parents were alive somewhere. I liked it. It highlighted the importance of the people who raised her and the good life they gave her. Also I love her relationship with Raquel and Shannon. Her respect, admiration and love for Raquel is evident but her greatest love is obviously her brother Shannon (is it just me or does he have a girl's name?). The way the two dote on one another and the intensity of the love between them almost verges on going beyond that of a brother and sister (that's the Japanese for you...any opportunity to through in a bit of incest!). Still I loved it. It was sincere and beautiful. Shannon's dedication to his sister, his innate need to protect her and in the process make the world his enemy is probably my favourite aspect of this anime. I won't lie, I have a crush on him, just like Zeferis does (of course she does). He's the embodiment (I know not the appropriate word), of manliness and beauty. But his relationship with Cin bugged me...actually it really pissed me off. I won't go off on one here..but I could. What spoiled it for me was finding out that Shannon had the 'guardian gene'....it put the relationships of the three siblings in a new light. Personally I didn't like it. I like to think what they had was really 'real' something that developed naturally.
Also, I felt bad for Raquel's character, she had the potential to be lot cooler and a lot more powerful than she was. A lot of the time, her character had to take a back seat to Pasifica and Shannon's. I mean even in the damn end, she's the one who's bawling all over Pacifca and clutching at her..but it's Shannon who 'brings her back'. It's probably the fact that her magic waxes and wanes throughout the story that really stunts her development. If she just kept developing she could have been so much more!
Shannon Cassul.... Dreamy...
Also I would have liked to have seen a bit more character development for Chris, Winia, Leo and some others. On that note, what the heck was up with throwing Furet in there for a couple of episodes? Why build him up just to break him down? How can they do us like that?
(Rest assured, I was secretly rooting for Leo)
If I were to compare it to other anime, I'd say it reminds me of shows like Cowboy Bepop, Farytail and Spice and Wolf. Obvious comparisons, because of the elements of fantasy and Sci-Fi.
Despite the drawbacks, I really loved this show overall. It was adventurous, entertaining, funny and even quite sad at some points. Usually the duration of time I take to watch a show is inversely proportional the the degree I love it, I watched this in three days,,,. Enough said!
*Disclaimer: None of the pictures above are mine, the links that indicate their origin are located below the pics. Thanks.
