Summary: >

Hiro received a letter from his sister who is now employed as a maid in a new town. The plan was to move there so they could stay together but this gets put on hold when a steel support beam at a construction site falls and kills him. Lucky for Hiro he also happened to save a princess of the underworld, and she decides to resurrect him and make him her immortal servant.

Being a servant of Hime doesn't seem to have many advantages as he is now left to the whims of a princess, and on top of that keeps getting killed by the many monsters that attack her. As it turns out Hime's family is currently fighting over succession of the underworld king, and Hime is one of many targets among her siblings. Not the best time to have chosen an underworld princesses' minion as a career path, but what can you do?

Thoughts: >

Another example of an anime which mostly misses the point of what a series was supposed to be about: Princess Resurrection is not a story intended to be scary (for anyone over 5), nor is it even very well written. Instead it takes the western monster mythos and builds a gory violent fun adventure out of it. Honestly it's not even that gory, but it does involve a decent amount of blood, which oddly enough is completely absent in the anime. The anime is heavily sanitized and thus loses much of what Princess Resurrection is about. Wait, what is it about again? It's basically a wacky romp using monsters to provide a situation where Hime can strike a conspicuously cool pose, along with an odd macabre sense of humor. Gimping the violence when that was the main feature creates a big void to fill for this one, and I think why this one didn't do very well.

The characters aren't poorly developed, but aren't they deep either. The problem is that Princess Resurrection introduces them, but doesn't flesh any of them out for a very long time. This gives the impression that they're shallow, but if you hang in there, they do become something better. I should mention that most of the cast is female, but this isn't a harem anime as most of them are uninterested in Hiro. Two of these girls provide a good contrast: the tomboy werewolf girl Liza who is expectantly loud and rambunctious, and her opposite - the feminine elegant Reiri who is a vampire (seriously love her voice actress). Vampires and Werewolves are mortal enemies and while these two never get along, their story of cooperation eventually turns into one of the better points of the show.

Hiro appears to be the main character, but I'm not sure he even is. It's true that he provides the perspective for most of it, but his presence is rarely required to progress the story. Even worse is that he's essentially worthless for the entire duration of the anime, and at times really stupid. Who tries to fight werewolves with a freaking broom? Despite Hime being attacked EVERY EPISODE this kid never manages to devise a plan or carries any anti-monster munitions. Hime always manages to find her chainsaw just fine, but Hiro always seems surprised (perhaps it's genetic considering how dumb his sister is).

Last but not least is Hime. At first I wasn't sure what to make of her, but I ultimately I found her to be a very good character: strongest in the series by far. The trouble with Hime is that her defining feature is remaining composed at all times no matter how dire the situation. This means it takes time to get to know her since she appears very distant. Hime doesn't directly acknowledge things which are below her stature, but her actions tend to betray her good will even if she only shows indifference. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I think that Hime's character is completely consistent with being royalty. Which is pretty cool.

The story is the biggest failing here. Much of it is simply boring and monotonous. Dividing this into a release on 4 DVDs, the first three have maybe one decent episode per, and it's not until the last DVD (episodes 20+) that managed to emerge as something better. The highlight was episode 24 when Hime FINALLY confronts one of her siblings. If you want the abridged version of this anime, skipping the first 3 DVDs (20 episodes) I think is a reasonable strategy. You'll miss a few details, but nothing you couldn't figure out yourself - and those parts would probably fair better in your imagination anyway.

While I blasted Princess Resurrection for much of this review, I was surprised I didn't hate it in the least, although it possibly deserves it. There's a LOT of room for improvement, and I so wish it had done a lot of things better but it wasn't totally hopeless. It's a very inconsistent title on all levels. Most of the animation was poorly done, but it had it's moments. Likewise the soundtrack was drab at times, but some of the music was quite inspired. The way this added up, I decided I couldn't rate this as average as so much of it was boring, and felt like it was simply going through the motions. If you're intent on watching Princess Resurrection, I guess it's your call to either wait for it to get better, or just skip a bunch of the beginning stuff. I have the feeling if this series had been made into an OVA during the 80s, it would have been incredible, but with the censorship / paranoia climate battering the anime/manga market right now, that probably wouldn't be possible, and may have been a contributing factor to this anime being gimped. It's a fair title at best, but might be a fun watch to get you into the mood for Halloween.