Murder on the Anime Express
(This review contains
spoilers!)
Before I start this review, I’d like
to take a moment to say that the fact that Re:Creators
has been in an extreme slump lately isn’t being helped by the fact that
they seem to be taking every other week off. I dunno what’s happening over
there, but in all my years of watching anime I’ve never seen one scheduled this
poorly.
But anyways, onto Princess Principal. Once again this show blew me away this week, utilizing
Chise’s introduction to create an awesome train chase centerpiece while at the
same time giving us a way to both learn more about her character while still
furthering the relationship between Ange and Princess.
A Japanese dignitary is visiting the
country, and the girls have been enlisted in protecting him from a murderous
samurai who’s closing in on him. Alongside him is Chise, the ninja girl who,
until now, hasn’t done a lot in the show. She’s after the samurai because he
killed her father, and she needs closure.
Easily the highlight of the episode is
the animation. A lot of this episode is spent using the unique train setting to
all of its potential, with great fight sequences from beginning to end. The
choreography of the fights in this episode is easily One Punch Man levels of quality, and that’s saying a lot. I also
liked the subtle touch that all the characters seemed to move with more weight
this week as most of the episode was set on a moving vehicle. Little touches
like that really make these shows come to life.
While this is clearly Chise’s episode,
Ange also plays a big part as usual, and there’s even a great little scene that
demonstrates how well she works together with Princess. We’ve only gotten
little hints of their close relationship here and there, and I honestly can’t
wait until we learn about their history later on.
This episode is honestly almost
perfect, even when compared to the previous episodes. But there’s one very
minor issue I have with it, and it comes right at the ending. After Chise kills
the evil samurai, he is buried outside of the train. Throughout the episode it
was hinted that he was her father, and her saying that her father was killed by
the samurai was an Obi-Wan Kenobi “certain point of view” explanation.
This is all fine and good, but I found
that Ange flat out stating that he was her father all along kind of softened
the blow. How cool would it have been if they didn’t explicitly spell out that
her father and the samurai were one and the same and we had to figure it out
for ourselves? We could’ve even kept the fantastic bit at the end where Chise
uses the spell to stop hurting that her father taught her, because earlier in
the episode she says that she needed to kill the samurai before she could cry
over her father. The fact that they flat out confirmed the secret instead of
leaving it up to assumption is a blemish on a fantastic episode.
But a fantastic episode is still a
fantastic episode, and Princess Principal
is continuing its near spotless track record. The train setting and all the
fun stuff that comes with it is just plain awesome, and if anything this
episode really showed off how much love and care and attention the showrunners
are giving this anime. Whereas I’m really starting to lose faith in Re:Creators, I get the feeling that Princess Principal is only gonna get
better from here.
FINAL SCORE
9/10
Amazing
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