As some anime fans grow older, they may decide to get married and/or procreate. But once those little bundles of joy start asking questions about what they’re watching, it’s time to censor what anime you watch. This problem plagues anime fans daily; what’s an anime you can watch that’s still entertaining and safe for all ages? To all of you out there with this dilemma, allow me to introduce you to Petite Princess Yucie.
Airing in Japan from late 2002 to early 2003, this series is a joint production between Gainax and AIC. An original project, Petite Princess Yucie borrows elements from the Princess Maker video game series as its base. However, it tells a fresh, non-traditional magical girl story.
Introducing Petite Princess Yucie!
The star of the show is a 17-year-old girl named Yucie. For whatever reason, she’s trapped in the body of a 10-year-old. In the first episode, a strange light guides Yucie toward a tower in the castle. Drawn in by the light, Yucie sneaks in and finds the Eternal Tiara. Before she can touch it, Queen Ercell finds her. She declares Yucie to be a candidate to become a platinum princess said to be born once every thousand years. Throughout 26 episodes, Yucie will meet the four other candidates, all 17-year-old girls who have stopped growing at age 10. Their adventures will take them all over the map on a quest to obtain five crystal flowers from five different realms. They’ll have lots of fun along the way.
When I was younger, I adored the Princess Maker game series. So when I heard that this anime was loosely based on that game, I jumped onto it as soon as the DVDs started dropping and never let go. While I have loved this series for years, this most recent rewatch was the first in many years and I was worried that all the things I loved about the show had aged poorly. So, how does this series from over twenty years ago stack up?
The Story of the Five Princesses
I can rarely use the word “wholesome” to describe a series and genuinely mean it. Sometimes you want to describe an entire series as wholesome, but then there’s that one questionable scene, and you wonder if you can still truly use the word. Here, the entire story is about five young princesses who all share the same wish (to become adults) learning about friendship and teamwork along the way.
At no point in this series are the characters put into a sexually suggestive or compromising situation that you would have to fast forward through or explain away quickly (OK, Yucie gets kissed once if you want to count that against it). Additionally, I’m hard-pressed to think of a single instance in this series where a character utters any curse word (at least in the English dub). Wholesome is the word for this series.
Straightforward Side Stories With a Hint of Romance?
The story itself is pretty straightforward from the beginning. While the primary MacGuffin of the series is the crystal flowers and the mystery surrounding them, there are plenty of different tasks for the main characters to do to become worthy of seeking out these items. Much like in the Princess Maker games, the characters have to work different jobs throughout the series to gain experience and enrich their hearts. This allows the series to tell many side stories that always end on a cheerful note. These stories also serve as a vehicle for the series to move the side story along, which is a romantic angle between Yucie and a mysterious rogue named Arc.
The story in Petite Princess Yucie is solid and will entertain adults and children alike. However, that does come with a tiny asterisk. Adults going into this series will probably find it fairly predictable. While there are certainly some fun twists thrown in along the way, for the most part, the next episode trailers at the end of each episode tell you much of what you need to know about the subsequent episode. That certainly is not to say that the story isn’t worth sitting through, especially when you get to the powerful climax episodes. But many of the side stories end exactly how you’d expect them to.
Who Are The Girls of Petite Princess Yucie?
The characters that make up the primary cast of Yucie all fit different molds, which I appreciate. Yucie is a kind-hearted every girl who always tries to have a smile on her face even when faced with difficulties. Next to her is her best friend Cocoloo, who is quiet, shy, afraid to speak up about even being a candidate, and has little to no presence at first. Contrasting against them is Glenda, the demon world princess who is loud and brash at all times, Elmina from the angel world who has a dominating father who expects perfection from her at all times, and finally, Beth from the fairy world who is a rough and tumble tomboy.
As mentioned, these girls fit a different mold and had no overlap. Additionally, the problems that they faced were all relatable in one way or another. Even though Glenda appears brash for no reason, it soon becomes apparent that she is still upset over her parents’ divorce. Glenda often brings up her mother leaving despite her father, the king of demons, being overly devoted and loving. On the other side of the coin, it’s almost ironic to see that the king of heaven is kind of a prick towards his daughter and rarely even makes time for her.
How’s It Looking?
All of that said, it’s time to talk about the animation. There’s no getting around or sugarcoating this; this is an early 2000s series. That means the eyes on these characters are monstrously huge. If big anime eyes with small mouths bother you, this is going to be a problem series for you. If you’re willing to ignore this and chalk it up to the times, you have a perfectly pretty series to look at. While you’ll always be able to hit pause to find janky pieces of in-between animation, this series would’ve looked fantastic in the ’90s and looks more than passable in the 2000s.
The Good News and the Bad News
Finally, we come to the accessibility of this series, which is when I have to deliver the bad news. Petite Princess Yucie never got a legal streaming release. Ever. When ADV Films released Yucie, they recorded it at the “B studio” of ADV Films (Monster Island was the studio’s name, for the history nerds out there). Worse, the DVDs were a bare-bones home release. Even back then, if you weren’t already in the know, it was easy to overlook this series.
Fast forward to the present and we still have no legal stream of Petite Princess Yucie anywhere. Fortunately, if you want to watch this series (which by this point in the feature, I hope you do), you can find copies of the box set floating around on second-hand auction sites for not-so-reasonable amounts (typically around USD 150).
Three Shiny Foreheads Out of Five
Petite Princess Yucie is a gem lost to the sands of time that only a select few still know about. However, if you’re willing to dig into the depths, you’ll be able to partake in this hidden treasure before it gets lost completely.
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