"Princess Nine" (Anime)

[pkristen]

26 Episode TV Series. Originally reviewed December 26, 2002

5 of 26 eps. Temporary comments written on 11/13/01.

Summary
A prestigious girls school forms a female baseball team with the intent of competing and winning against the other boy teams, including the one from their ‘brother’ school for boys. The series starts with the focus on Ryo, a girl with an incredible gift for pitching, as her recruitment is just the first step to pulling together a tournament winning team.

Review
Since this series only started being released in the U.S., my comments are naturally on the first volume only (5 episodes.)

Well, if you want a girl empowerment series, look no further. It seems far more genuine and sincere about its subject than even the occasionally “jiggle-focused” series “Battle Athletes” does.

Unfortunately, along with that, it’s very much a formula series. I’ve personally not found anything particularly rave-worthy about it except for the “unique” approach to the classic underdogs story. Characters are pretty two-dimensional, the episode stories are predictable and the animation is from okay to (really) bad.

But I will still support it, and it’s only the first five episodes out of a twenty-six. I’ve watched other series who have shown remarkable improvement in less time.

Temporary Lesbian Analysis
It’s about a girl’s baseball team, so teenage issues run rampant. I’ve seen signs of future fights over boys, and the one girl who dressed as a boy may still have a “heterosexual” opportunity by the end, so I’m not holding my breath too hard for now. We’ll see…

Review Part 2
Eps 6 thru 9 of 26, Review written 1/14/02

Because I was so disappointed in the first volume, I felt like I had to give priority to viewing the second volume instead of waiting for the rest of the series to be released, which is my usual method. And I think my willingness also stems from the fact that I’m a former softball dyke so enjoying the show’s subject matter was a little important to me.

I’m very glad to report that my opinion of the series has changed dramatically for the better — although you still have to get through the first five eps to get here! I realized the biggest difference in this set of episodes is that we get to see more of the girls on the team, whereas the first volume focused a little too much on the interactions of the adults and the “fight over the boy” love triangle. The team member’s personalities flesh out a bit more, and we see some chemistry in their interactions, which results in some rather humorous moments.

Part of my change in attitude for the story also happened because the “final straw” in the confrontation between Izumi the star tennis player and Ryo the pitcher WASN’T over the boy Hiroki, as I was dreading the opposite would happen. And Izumi’s strained relationship with her mother Keiko, the sponsor of the team, proved interesting and is actually one of the main drama points that I’m curious to see how it resolves itself.

It’s still a feel good, shoujo series, but at least I’m enjoying it now.

And for the record, my favorite character so far is Yuki the Left Fielder. They always say “Watch out for the quiet ones”…

Final Part of the Review: The Rest of the Series.
Review written 12/26/02

Okayyy…. I finally got through the entire series and frankly spent most of it enjoying the baseball moments and dreading the love triangle thing (which reminded me of the similarly torturous moments in the “Fushigi Yuugi” epic.) The series bounces back and forth between cheesy, cliché melodrama and refreshing, original moments. I felt like I had mental whiplash by the end of the series.

In fact, I wanted a sequel if for no other reason that I would hope that they would progress the series into being truly original story-telling instead of having the cheesy love triangle being such a central storyline.

However, I know I’m a jaded old fart so other people may not have the same reactions to those moments.

So go buy/rent it, already!!!

Final Lesbian Analysis
Only one suspiciously inconclusive character trigger my radar, and it would be the girl who used to parade around as a boy. But otherwise, the cast seems firmly heterosexual or inconclusive (without the “suspicious”.)