Mixed Feelings
As a child, I’ve always held a fascination with spies. This is most likely due to the fact that I grew up in a family that exposed me to James Bond at a young age. Cool, suave, and sophisticated, capable of carrying off any mission or any feat, James Bond was the type of guy I always wanted to be as a kid, and, as I grew older and into adolescence, Bond’s luck with women only enhanced this idea. Of course, much to the dismay of my eight-year-old self, I grew up to be anything but sophisticated and cool and instead decides to write reviewson anime. So, when I had learned of the content surrounding the recently aired Princess Principal, visions of my childhood flashed in my mind, and I was genuinely excited for the show, as it seemed to be essentially James Bond, but with all the characters being replaced by lolis. Yes, a dumb idea, but anime has frequently surprised me in the past with its use of strange narratives and concepts to make genuinely good shows. However, PeePee (yes, it’s immature to refer to the show as such, but I’m going to be doing it from here on out) is perhaps the biggest disappointment I’ve had all year with anime. I really wanted to love this show, I really did, especially since it has so much going for it in regards to what appeals to me personally from a visual standpoint. The great character designs, wonderful setting, and world as well as the smooth soundtrack. Unfortunately, PeePee is bogged down by an ultimately weak cast of characters, an aimless narrative, and, for the most part, a lot of wasted potentials.
PeePee’s narrative is set in a fictional 19th-century steampunk London in which the West and the East are separated by a massive wall (insert overused Donald Trump joke here), in which five young girls from a prestigious academy are actually spies! The series follows these girls on various spy missions in an episodic narrative structure, as we learn more about their pasts and their relationships with each other, and that’s pretty much it as a whole. On paper, this mode of storytelling doesn’t sound bad, but the main problem I have with PeePee’s narrative is just how aimless it is. The story feels as if it doesn’t really know what it wants to do in regards to its story and characters, and instead just relies on ultimately inconsequential episodic spy missions that feel more like they exist solely for padding out the run time of the series. It proves frustrating to watch since I constantly kept expecting the story to do something, or to go somewhere, and I would be more forgiving of the show if its episodic nature actually had any bearing on the world as a whole, or if they were more engaging. This is made worse since the narrative is nonlinear and it often undercuts its own episodes by carving out any semblance of pacing.
Nowhere is this idea more evident than in episodes nine and seven of the show, in which we don’t learn anything about any of the characters or the world we’re presented with. Episode seven is essentially an episode in which the girls join laundry cleaners, as they have to find a specific uniform to identify someone in the army who has been using mustard gas. As they work in this place, they eventually transform and rebuild the work system, so everyone can work more efficiently and earn more money, and eventually apprehend the villain of the episode; that’s it. While there is some commentary about the working class of the people living in the Victorian era in London during the 1800s, it’s an ultimately pointless episode and even has many jarring moments that simply make no sense or just feel...odd. Like when all the men happily throw off their clothes to give to some cute underage girls for them to clean, or a scene where one of the spies, whom is fighting off against the villain of the episode, defeats him, and drops a knife to the floor, whereupon another lady who notices it, and walks away, which, I’m guessing, is in shame…? Or maybe she is scared? Does she want to turn her back in respect for the privacy of the spy girl? I don’t know! The anime doesn’t make it clear and the lady’s actions doesn’t make any sense and feels more so jarring than anything else, resulting in one of the many examples in the show where the in-the-moment logic is shoehorned in to create forced and unneeded drama in situations where it doesn’t make any sense. When the lady walks away it clearly hurts little miss loli spy, and it feels unnatural that the woman would do so, considering that the loli spy has just apprehended a man with a knife, whom could have killed one of your workers! This may seem like a redundant thing to talk about, but little things like this that drag me out of the narrative and prove to be distracting, and there are plenty of examples of this.
The other pointless episode, even more so than the one I just described, is episode nine, in which we see Chise, a Japanese girl trying to adapt to British society, as she recaps her time spent as a spy and basically tells us her relationships and thoughts of the other girls. This is pointless as we already understand at this point the dynamics between each of our characters and repeating it so, is redundant. Not only that, but the episode is also a good case study into another problem with the show and that is that each villain, or any person who belongs to any higher social class, is a complete asshole, one dimensional prick! In this case, we have a rich guy who kills a butterfly, just because he is so EVIL! This forced dynamic between the higher upper-class as being horrible people, while the lower-class is presented as being kind and considerate, having to work hard to prosper in life is representative of the context of the society in which the show is based on, sure, but people are not this black and white, and it feels silly to present this as such. It doesn’t help either when the show takes to victimisation in a cheap and pathetic attempt to make us feel bad for the characters, with each adult, again, being represented as one dimensional pricks, beating down on our cute and innocent little girls. It’s the same problem I had with Elfen Lied, which also used similar cheap writing to evoke this emotion from us through manipulation, and while PeePee is nowhere near as bad as that show, it still feels lazy. While I do appreciate that the show does attempt to show us the character’s backstories, which does add some more depth onto them, it’s not something you haven’t seen before, nor is it really that effective since the characters are rather dry and boring. It’s hard to care for them on any emotional level and are more akin to cardboard cutouts.
There is an attempt here at introducing a plot twist into the narrative, but I feel as if it is introduced far too late to do anything substantial with this idea, and not only that, it also felt incredibly predictable too boot. The show constantly hints at greater things in the narrative, but then utilizes the most bare-bones and predictable storytelling to deliver upon these hints, making the entire show feel incredibly uninspired. There are a few attempts at theme exploration, and politics, all of which is never given enough time to breath or develop, and feels more so as afterthought, rather than an intrical part of the story and world. Every theme presented feels like a child’s interpretation of a morally gray world. The show also utilises exposition as well in order to communicate to the audience the state of the world, such as in the first episode where the narrator essentially just tells us everything instead of letting the audience be immersed into the world and setting ourselves, especially since the information we do learn, regarding a wall that divides the East and West, is not really explored all too much in the show, aside from the finale, but, even then, it’s nothing too remarkable. While on the topic of the finale, while I would say it is more engaging than the rest of the show, since things of actual significance and consequence are occurring, it ultimately feels rather anti-climatic and just ends abruptly!
To be perfectly fair, there was a couple of things in the show’s narrative that I kind of liked. For starters, there is a variety of different missions, which helps to break up the monotony of the story, and various locations and settings which helped to expand the world and make it feel grander. I also liked some of the spy training stuff too, and helped add on this layer of realism to the setting and the world, from seeing the girls learning how to unpick locks, or them performing practices involving tailing someone without their presence being known. Some of the technology used in the show too was pretty fun to see as well, such as a ball that allows the holder to fly, which allowed for more creative scenarios to ensue. In addition, there was a few episodes that could actually be fun, or somewhat emotional in a few places. The best example of this is an episode devoted to Dorothy, and her backstory, and while it too does utilise victimisation too, the episode is fairly emotional, mainly because Dorothy was the only character I found to be somewhat likeable, being that she was easily the most relatable, and her world outlook on life just seemed to be the most admirable amongst the cast. The one thing that ruins the episode however, is that Dorothy’s father, whom after learning does actually care for his daughter, is killed off and is never mentioned ever again! Not even a single passing remark or comment!
As for the rest of the cast, they’re pretty mediocre character archetypes. Chise’s involvement in the narrative is pretty minimal, and while we do understand her reason for coming to London, all the way from Japan, in a fight between her and her father which carried some narrative weight and emotion, she doesn’t really change or grow much throughout the narrative and her relationships that form between her and the other girls just feels superficial, as if the only reason they exist was because the script dictated it so. She had some charming scenes however, most notably her lack of knowledge surrounding western customs, although some moments felt rather trite, especially the one with the lady in the laundry house I mentioned before. Beatrice also doesn’t have much involvement in the plot either and serves little purpose as a whole. I’m guessing her role is the straight man, in the sense that she is the most normal of the group, having been trained very little in the art of spies, so I guess we’re supposed to latch onto her, but I found her more so annoying than anything else. Undoubtedly the crux of the show, and what most of the emotional weight depends on, is the relationship between Ange, a spy who has essentially cut off all her emotions for her job, and the Princess. Their relationship does actually feel genuine and sweet at times, especially since Ange actually exhibits emotions around her, giving her character some more depth and personality than what we were lead to believe at first, suggesting some personal history and connection between the two. While this relationship is still nothing remarkable, and is as cookie-cutter as they come, the scenes in which they fight, actually have some emotional weight behind it. While I won’t get too much into the plot twist between their relationship (even though it is obvious that even Stevie Wonder could see this coming!) the struggles behind the Princess's life was actually kind of interesting, and one of the few moments I cared for any of these characters.
Now, one positive thing I can say about the characters is that they all have good chemistry between them, and their back-and-fourths as they complete missions can actually be pretty funny and charming sometimes too, especially the scenes in which they are driving in their car, as Beatrice freaks out and screams hysterically, Ange turns off her voice changer (which was installed onto her by her evil father because every adult in this is a one dimmensional ass-hat) and is a clever way of adding some comedy into the show. While the character interactions are good in many regards, it is not enough to salvage the show unfortunately.
In regards to animation and music, PeePee, handles this the best. The opening is fantastic, and I can’t get enough of it! It captures the spirit the show is aiming for perfectly, and the same thing can be said for the design of the world and the character designs too. The city is mechanic, lifeless, and bleak, and each character design is pretty good, albeit it can be kind of silly looking at times. The soundtrack is also comprised of smooth jazz, adding some suave to the show, and the animation, for the most part, is pretty consistent with some cool looking action sequences. However, CGI is used in some parts of the show, with a jarring use of it in the second episode, where a group of people are dancing with the same posture and fluidity of two robots trying to emulate human movement; it feels really jarring, and many of the backgrounds in the show are comprised of CG models that never fail to look awful and drag me out of the scene.
In conclusion, PeePee was just a mediocre show with no remarkable attributes and it felt like the writers were holding back and, as I said, kept playing it safe with predictable and tireing stories that have been done a thousands times before to much better effect. It’s a show that is more interested in cinematography and action then it is in having actual characters the audience can feel for, and the strange pacing, as well as the narrative structure makes the show frustrating to watch since it feels as if it is going nowhere and just remaining stagnant. On some level, yes, I did enjoy myself during some moments of the show, but much of that was overpowered by a strong, unyielding feeling of boredom which makes it incredibly hard to recommend as there are so many other shows that are actually worth your time. Don’t bother with this show. Like someone you passed on the street today, you’ll forget the memory of them as soon as you take your eyes away...
