Tuesday, 1 August 2017

Princess Principal Episode 4 Review

Better late than never
(This review contains spoilers!)

          After a disappointing third episode (and a longer than usual wait for this one for who knows why), Princess Principal returned to its quality standards this week, creating yet another delightful episode with all the trappings that made the first two so special.

          The whole team is back in action again this week instead of last week’s disastrous Ange and Beatrice pairing, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The writers do a fantastic job at making each characters set of abilities feel unique and tied specifically to them, leaving none of them, even Beatrice, feel like unnecessary baggage. Similarly to Episode 2 this one saw them infiltrating a party, and while it didn’t quite match the stress levels that episode reached, it’s still a completely delightful episode with a lot of fun moments.

          One thing that I’ve been finding interesting is that it doesn’t seem like these episodes are being set chronologically. From what I can tell, this episode is set before Episode 1, but after Episodes 2 and 3. I’m also guessing that there’s going to be another few set before this one to establish the ninja character a bit more, as she just kind of reappeared out of nowhere after spending the last couple of weeks absent.

          This episode definitely featured a lot of the stuff I thought last week was lacking in, including great interactions between the characters, the warm colour palette, and a lot of awesome action sequences. I loved how the entire episode was more or less set around the girls trying to come up with a team name. I love seeing them all debate and banter with each other, which really is a testament to how well they’re all written. Beatrice was handled significantly better this week, and was the source of some of the funniest moments in the entire show thus far.

          A lot of the spy gadgets and stuff was at its best this week as well. I adore Ange’s gravity shifting device, but I still think it hasn’t quite been used to its full potential yet. Maybe it’s just the Inception fan in me saying this, but I really want one of their enemies to get one for themselves so we can have a crazy zero gravity fight. The car chase towards the end of the episode was equally frantic and hilarious, and really did a great job in showing off how great this show’s visual style is.

          With Re:Creators kind of stuck in padding limbo for the majority of summer, Princess Principal has emerged as the one to fill the Little Witch Academia-shaped hole in my anime life. This week’s episode alleviated the worries I had after Episode 3 bombed, returning to the delightful and spectacular spy show I’d come to love over just the first two weeks. Even the characters I thought I’d dislike have their moments in this one, and the spy work is just as enthralling as ever. If I had one complaint it’d be that the writing wasn’t quite as brilliantly subtle as the first two episodes were, but that’s just a nitpick on an overall brilliant episode.

FINAL SCORE
9/10

Amazing

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