Review of Fena: Pirate Princess

Finding Eh-den. I don't think I was the only one who thought "A new pirates v ninjas anime? Awesome!", when Crunchyroll announced Fena: Pirate Princess as their backed original. Pirates are cool, ninjas are cool, what could possibly go wrong? If you ask me, there's not a lot wrong with Pirate Princess. It's a fun, adventure story about a squad of pirate ninjas lead by a ganki princess with no memories of who she is sailing the high seas to find "Eden" whilst avoiding the British Empire and I enjoyed my time watching it... but yikes... does it fall apart at the end... Production I.G isobviously very good at anime and the amount of animation flexes you can observe from just the first episode is jaw dropping. The world is thoughtfully created with detailed backgrounds and locations that captures the tone of a historical, bygone age and those locations are packed full of moving background characters wearing historically accurate clothing that make the word feel alive. It's not all historical accurate obviously the ninjas have a steam punk submarine and theres some supernatural elements, but y'know, anime. Get over it.
The Sword fights look fantastic as they should considering the topic. Sword swings feel weighty as they slice through and clash with opponents though, blood splatter effects tend to distract from action because of the strange choice of red they chose to colour the drops. It's almost like some higher up asked to censor it to make it more child friendly, but the was some push back so they met half way. It's strange.

What isn't strange are the excellent sound effects and the score that goes with fighting. In fact the sound design is just fantastic overall. Both the sub and the dub are very enjoyable and the dialogue manages to fit the lip flaps in languages.

I really liked Fena and her ninja crew. They all have their quirks which lead to interesting interactions when you mix and match between them and Fena's ganki/slightly reckless personality is a good match with Yukimaru who is definitely a tsundere. The crew of lady pirates who are sent to fight them are also a delight. Abel Bluefield the Captain of pursing British Empire ship started out as an interesting villain, but very quickly became a one note "wants to bang your mum" guy who is another victim/culprit of the unsatisfying ending along with some other characters who I won't go into for spoiler reasons.

I really struggled to rate this one. I think that should give you a sense of how unsatisfying the ending actually is. There are so many good ideas and plot points which felt like thy could've been expanded on if the season was longer. I liken this to the 2003 Full Metal Alchemist as it gets to a point where it feels like the story that was set up just doesn't feel like the story unfolding in front of you. It felt like there should be a second season, but instead they rushed an ending out.
I read a review on here by someone who said "Fena: Pirate Princess is a story about nothing", and I half agree. It's a story about the journey rather than the destination... because the destination was very forced, very unsatisfying and amounts to nothing.
Ending aside I did enjoy it. Could've been anime of the year but instead it's an okay pirates and ninja's flick.

6/10 It's Okay *Thumbs Up*