Majestic Prince - Reviews

If you are looking for anime with great action scenes, excellent choreographed fights, then you’ve come to the right place. Even if you’re not into mecha’s I highly recommend, no I insist that you check this anime out. You will not be disappointed.

Although the basic premise has been done a few times already, (better in some other anime’s), this anime still holds its own against some of the other newer anime out there. At times it even feels as though they have just thrown in a few things just to make the plot go forward. There are no real surprises or shocking “OMG” moments in this, as far as the story is concerned. It’s your typical. ‘Earth has advanced tech but are still vastly out matched by some other alien race that has even more advanced tech, thus wiping the floor with earth. Until a breakthrough is made and an unlikely person or group is able to win for the first time, thus making them earths only hope.’

The only thing above and beyond this anime has is its action scenes, and animation. The rest is mediocre to above average. Even with all this it’s still a good fun anime to watch. There was never really a time where I felt the need to skip episodes, or cringe at the familiarity of this anime.

All in all I recommend this anime to anyone who likes Sci fi, Mechas, Space battles, Good action, large scale battles, and overcoming the odds. If you want a serious, dark, down to earth realistic type fights and story, I’d go elsewhere. 

So admittedly this Mecha Anime will surprise you; as it certainly did me. It starts off slow with all the typical traits and tropes of an early 2000's Mecha series. However by the end it will leave you on the edge of your seat surprisingly invested in the main character(s) that comprise of the Protagonist and his Team. Overall a pleasent treat for this older Anime Fan and one that all Mecha fans should put on their bucket lists.

With my overall view out of the way lets address a few things here that anyone going into this Anime should know before watching. I'll try not to spoil anything but as a long-time MEcha fanboy these are things I feel I must leave here now that I have finished the series. I'll break it down into 4 parts..............

1) Surprising Character Development - Most Mecha series follow the Mecha Godfather's, Yoshiyuki Tomino, classic GUNDAM archetype in one fashion or another with a "weak to strong" protagonist who rises to the top. They tend to sacrifice good character develop for emotional appeal, and flashy 'high power' moments. While Majestic Princes does at times fit this description it spends a surprisingly good amount of time on developing the main character, Izuru, and the group that surrounds him. At more than one point I found myself cheering for characters other than the Protagonist, and often wanting to know more about the backstory of those supporting characters (especially Tamaki; fucking spitfire she is!). Rarely do Mecha aAnime do this anymore; and it's refreshing to see this.

2) Excellent World Building - (While my spicy opinion) Most Mecha Anime, since 2004, have suffered a curse of terrible writers who have no idea how to devleop the world in which their story takes place. This often leads to incoherent/detrimental storytelling that bores viewers. However Majestic Princes takes an almost 'Expanse' style of approach in which it assumes the reader is smart enough to understand the Sol Solar System at large and then spends time explaining the backstory of how the invasion of the Antagonist (the Wulgaru Army) occured. It also slowly sets the stage; not giving everything away within the first 5 Episodes like so many Anime before it (I'm looking at you GUNDAM!). Through this the viewer is pleasently surprised as they slowly piece together the story around the setting; and admittedly are surprised at a few secrets that they are suddenly confronted with. Also, might I add, that the idea of a biological enemy that uses more advanced Mecha is a tad better than the 'high-tec' Antognist trope of Aldnoah.Zero or Code Geass. 

3) Poor Mech Designs - The one major flaw of Majestic Princes is the lack of creative mech design that permeates the series like a plague. The Protagnosit, Izuru, flies a mech similar to Kira Yamato's 'Strike Freedom' from GUNDAM SEED, the supporting cast all have mechs ripped right out of GUNDAM Zeta and/or Full Metal Panic, and even a supporting cast's mech looks not to disimilar to something from Broken Blade (for those of you as old as I am). The one redeeming trait is the design of the Wulgaru Army which, while stnadardized to fit the role of their faction within the setting, it quite unique. The idea of genetically-designed mecha that use anti-grav technology to allow pilots to fight in almost human-like power armor suits is intruging. Least until you realize that some seem straight out of other 'Super Robot' genre's.

4) Animation Style - Anyone as old as I am appriciates the classic style of animation within Anime; something that is slowly being forgotten in the age of digital design and AI-generated animation. Majestic Prince thankfully harkens back to the early 2000's era; a peak time for anime with a good mix of advanced, digitally design fight sequences and classically animated social settings. Similar to GUNDAM Seed or Fafner the teams at Studio Orange did a solid job on this animation (even if it appears they may very well have been the same Team that worked on the afore mentioned anime's themselves). If nothing else the final battle between Izuru and the Wulgaru Army ace pilot is a real treat to watch.      

This anime was fantastic! It was slow at the begining a little, but picked up quickly. Great action sequences and plot. Begining theme song was gorgeous. They changed it on the 13th episode, but came back for a major episode and you know something was gonna happen. Definitely recommend this anime to everyone, it was one I enjoyed watching.