What They Say:
Earth year 2110. Having expanded into space and secured many asteroids abundant in natural resources, it seemed mankind’s prosperous future was assured. However, Earth is now being invaded by Urgal, a mysterious galactic empire from Jupiter. Just as mankind is facing certain destruction, the secret military agency MJP undertakes a gene manipulation project to create humans who can adapt to life in space. The result is Team Rabbits, a group of children who are given combat devices called “Ash” and sent to the front line as shields for the Global Defense Force (GDF).
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With some down time out of the way, and a week off from the show due to some broadcast changes in Japan with what normally aired, we’re back into Majestic Prince and hoping that things start to move forward again. The gang has had a bit of time to allow us to get to know them better, but we’re still not feeling the characters in general since they’ve been so poorly defined for so long and spend so much of their time in spacesuits that hide who they are. So what better thing to do than to introduce a new member that will join Team Rabbits with a seemingly shy young man named Ange.
And since we’ve got a new member, and the girls are intrigued by him since he’s potentially a new young man they can chase after, they want to throw a welcoming party for him. That reveals a bit about each of their personalities as they talk about it and what they want to do, but more things really start to come out when Izuru goes to talk to him about things. Ange’s personality is just laid clear as he wants to have a mock battle with each of them so they can see how he’ll fit into things with the others, but there’s also a sense that he’s just trying to suss out their abilities as well so he knows what he’s getting into. But it’s all done with a very deferential attitude, at least until Ange gets behind the machine itself and he gets completely serious and hugely intense.
Once we see Ange in this light, it’s pretty amusing since he’s super critical of his opponents and makes it clear what their weaknesses are. While this makes for some fun in the first half, things turn more serious in the second half with an actual mission that takes place which brings in several pilots to deal with it, including Ange. The action for it is pretty good and it works well because it starts quiet rather than with a full on attack by both sides, and that leads into something a bit more intense considering the kind of enemies that they’re up against. Not that we really get to know the Wulgaru attackers all that well, though there is a bit of insanity to be had with it, It does give us a look at how the team acts when it comes to having Ange a part of it but also just a look at the Wulgaru in a different light than we’ve had in most instances before.
In Summary:
When Majestic Prince focuses on the characters, I can’t bring myself to care too much at this point as they’ve done such a poor job of making them interesting or accessible. Adding more doesn’t really do any harm, even for a short period of time, as there’s not much definition to the core cast as is. Where the show manages to hold my attention though is with the action as that continues to be well choreographed and full of fluid and exciting animation as it unfolds. What we get here is mostly action after the meager character bits and it’s a lot of fun seeing how Ange fits into things when it comes to combat and interactions with others, especially as he goes seemingly psychotic towards the end of the battle in a way that believes his initial appearances.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
