Review of Fena: Pirate Princess
Fena Pirate Princess is extremely mediocre. It has some positive attributes, such as its good animation and short watch time, but is dragged down by (mostly) awful characters and a (mostly) predictable story. Animation- 8 The animation of this show is very smooth. I enjoyed the vibrant colors and the backgrounds were beautiful. There isn’t too much to say other than it is very good. It doesn’t stand out as one of the best, but it is very respectable and helped make the show more fun to watch. Characters- 3.5 To me, the most important part of any show is the characters, and unfortunately, Fena: Pirate Princess fallsway short.
First I want to talk about Abel, who was my favorite character by far. The show was at its best when he was on screen, and he was given a complete side story, which was pretty good overall. Sure his obsession was a little weird, but he was a serious character which alone makes him better than the rest of the cast. Unfortunately for Abel, he is the only good character in this show.
Then we have the “pirate” crew. I can group Tsubaki, The twins, Karin, and Makaba together. This is because they all have 3 things in common. They are extremely generic (and fill very common tropes). They are all extremely OP and would never lose a fight vs any “normal” trained soldier (which is also generic). The last thing is that they are all (mostly) used for comic relief, which consists of them being very loud, crying a lot, and overreacting to every little thing (which is once again very generic). If you enjoy this type of humor, you will probably enjoy this show more than I did, because I did not like it all.
Next we have Yukimaru and Shitan. Unlike the rest of the crew, I didn’t dislike these characters. I actually sorta liked Shitan and I would rank him as the 2nd best character of the show. He actually showed a little growth, had some backstory, and wasn’t used for comic relief. Then there’s Yukimaru who had potential but was really poorly written. Basically, the only thing he does is save Fena. Without him, Fena would be long dead so they had to add a character that would protect her constantly. He actually had some potential I think, but was just not a very enjoyable character.
Finally, there is the main character, Fena. Fena is good at 2 things, putting herself in danger, and getting saved by others. The only reason she is alive is because of plot armor. If you can’t tell, I really didn’t enjoy Fena. She had a lot of potential but instead, she was arguably the worst character in the show.
I didn’t even mention Grace O’Malley and her crew because they did very little for the story. I can’t even say anything about them, because we know nothing about them other than their crew is annoying and I’m glad they didn’t get more screen time.
Story- 4.5
The story wasn’t bad, but it was (mostly) extremely predictable and allowed for (mostly) no consequences to be suffered. It forced the characters to act unnaturally to progress and felt very forced. That being said the twist was fine, the ending was alright and it could have been a lot worse. Overall the story felt fairly average.
Also (minor spoilers), what happened to Kai (or whatever his name was). He doesn’t even have his name listed under characters, but the show set it up like he would have a big impact, and then never mentioned him again. That was odd…
Music- 4.5
A lot like the story, the music was fine. I didn’t like the intro and outro and the music used during important scenes was mostly alright. Some were pretty good, some were pretty bad but overall it was very mediocre.
Enjoyment- 5
I ended up watching it on 1.25x speed which definitely helped my enjoyment. It wasn’t very good, but it had some good moments, and Abel helped my enjoyment a lot.
Overall- 5
This show was fine. Honestly, if the type of comic relief I mentioned above is something you enjoy, I’d recommend this show as you will probably enjoy it. Otherwise, I’d say it’s something I’d only watch if I was extremely bored or had a lot of free time, however, I would recommend watching on 1.25x speed.