|
|
Home
|
R1 DVD Reviews
|
|
Written by maehara
|
|
Thursday, 05 July 2007 17:00 |
 Glenda has a run-in with the Frog Prince, Yucie gets a holiday at the beach, and the fifth candidate for Plantinum Princess makes herself known - all just in time for the girls to be tested to see if they're made of the Right Stuff™ inside. Not that any of that will get them out of their endless routine of part-time jobs. I wonder how much they're getting paid for all that work..?
11 - Thoughts Will Get There: The Girl I Met at the Beach
Between studying at the Princess Academy and all the work she's had to put into her part-time jobs, poor Yucie's beginning to feel the strain, so her father arranges for her to take a little holiday to the beach, with Cocoloo, Glenda and Elmina all tagging along for the trip. Elmina's not hugely impressed by her first trip to the sea and soon disappears off to do her own thing, but the others quickly get down to enjoying themselves. The first sign of something strange, though, is when Yucie sees a young girl standing by the sea - a young girl that apparently only she can see, and who disappears as quickly as she appeared. It's a mystery she wants to get to the bottom of - although Glenda and Cocoloo aren't half as interested in the mysterious girl as they are in hearing about what Yucie's been up to with Arc...
12 - Challenge! Heaven Triathlon
The girls are assigned to retrieve the third crystal flower - and this mission's going to involve a trip to heaven, which doesn't impress either Glenda (who's worried what going to such a place will do for her image) or Elmina (who's not overly keen on the idea of going home). Elmina's father, the King of Heaven, is happy enough to hand over the crystal flower, but there a number of tests the girls will have to work their way through to get to it - and they're not easy...
13 - Romance! The Magic of Love Arrives Without Notice
Their latest part-time job sees Glenda, Cocoloo and Yucie working in a magical goods store - which suits Glenda just fine, as she gets to help brew up some potions, although the other two aren't sure what to make of all the strange ingredients around the place. Glenda's day gets even better when a handsome young man, Amphi, comes in and asks for her help in selecting a few potions - it's love at first sight, and she's only too pleased to help. Or do anything that allows her to spend time with Amphi, to be honest. It seems Amphi may be accounted for, though - he's looking for a potion that will break a curse on a young girl he's been visiting frequently (she's in a coma and won't wake up), so the logical conclusion is that they must be an item, right..? When Yucie and the others find out about Amphi's other woman, they're left wondering how to break the news to Glenda, who's clearly completely lost in love...
14 - One Mystery After Another! The Fairy World Princess
Once again the girls are summoned to the principal's office - although this time it's not about the crystal flowers. Instead, it's about a test that all Platinum Princess candidates are required to go through, the Scene of Light, which will determine if each of the girls is a worthy candidate or not. Fail the test, and it's the end of your candidacy. The test takes place on a deserted island near the school - but when Yucie and the others arrive on the island, they soon find they're not alone. Along with the fifth Platinum Princess candidate - Beth, from the Fairy Kingdom - someone (or something) else is on the island, and seems set on hampering their quest...
All those part-time jobs are beginning to wear thin - there are only so many lessons you can hope to learn from slaving for others, and I think that little plot device has just about run its course. Hopefully the series doesn't throw too many more of them my way, or I may just go nuts myself. That said, Glenda's run-in with Amphi (finish that word to see where the story is going) is good for a laugh, so it's not a total bust.
There's some good humour also provided by the visit to Heaven and the appearance of Beth. The Heaven story is a bit double-edged, as it's clear that Elmina has no desire to see her father again, while he's hardly pleased to see her either. The end result is that, while the tests the girls are put through to see if they're worthy to retrieve the Crystal Flower are fun enough to watch, there's a darker undercurrent to the story that stops it from becoming a laugh riot and leaves you to just think a little while watching it.
Beth, on the other hand, is just trouble. I suppose fairies have always had the image of being mischievous little creatures, and Beth certainly lives up to the stereotype. She's also determined to become the Platinum Princess, by fair means or foul - a determination that Glenda should probably be proud of. How she ever passed any of the preliminaries to becoming a Candidate I'll never know, although I'm sure that'll become clear later on.
Or at least, it had better become clear. My biggest gripe about Petite Princess Yucie so far is that, while it's probably going somewhere, it's going there at such a slow rate that it's hard to really get into it. There are some laughs along the way and it's all competently presented, but I just keep wanting them to get away from the job or Crystal Flower stories, and get on to the real stuff - Arc, presumably, and the process of actually choosing the Platinum Princess. We're only half-way through the series so there's still plenty of time for the story to build to a proper climax - I just wish they'd get on with it. Petite Princess Yucie is fun as far as it goes, but at the moment it's not nearly living up to its potential.
|
|
