Scrapped Princess

The end of the world. An impending catastrophe usually foretold by fringe soothsayers and fanatical fundamentalists for generations, but whose warnings usually go unseen by society as a whole. However, when the holy oracle of the Mauser faith, the world’s dominate religious order, foretells of such a calamity should a young girl be allowed to reach her 16th birthday, the entire world bands together to try and prevent the coming apocalypse from happening.

This is where Pacifica Cassul enters the picture. Branded as the poison that will bring about the world’s destruction, Pacifica has been hunted relentlessly by the followers of the Mauser faith, who desperately seek to eliminate her and prevent the coming calamity foretold by the great oracle. Believing in their sister’s innocence, Pacifica’s brother and sister use their talents in swordsmanship and sorcery to protect their sister from harm as they travel the countryside in a laborious effort to keep Pacifica safe from those who wish to see this “Scrapped Princess” dead.

lifted from the official site

Despite its ridiculous title, Scrapped Princess is actually a pretty good series. The reason she’s called the “Scrapped Princess” was because at birth, her biological parents ordered her to be discarded/killed… “scrapped” as it were.

The setting is an “Earth” similar to medieval times - but as the story progresses you’ll find out that there’s more than meets the eye with regards to this “world” and its inhabitants. That’s about as far as I can go because anything else would give the story away.

Suffice to say that the anime seems to have healthy doses of comedy, action, drama, magic, etc. but what’s interesting is how they were able to put in so many important moral themes into it - wether it be with regards to chivalry, family, morality, violence, etc. Basically it’s loaded with “life-lessons.”

In no way do these make the story any “deeper” - and it’s doubtful that that the creators wanted to make socio-political statements in the first place with these “sub-plots.” Still, it makes the series very interesting and enjoyable.

The animation is no-slouch as well, as it was animated by Studio Bones, which brought you other hits such as Fullmetal Alchemist¹. Having pointed out all these facts, I guess it’s an easy choice to recommend this series to anyone.

post updated on July 31, 2008 @ 11:07AM