Majestic Prince Episode 18
What They Say:
After Suruga missed Klein, he has to wait for his cannon to recharge. But how much longer can Izuru, Asagi and Tamaki hold their own? On the Wulgaru base, conflict between the royal family and the Military Commanders are made clearer.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the show shifted into battle mode more firmly towards the end of the previous episode, the teases for it were certainly worthwhile as the show continues to excel when it comes to this aspect of it. This episode thankfully just throws us right into the action as we get the main group going all over the place trying to deal with the array of Wulgaru forces that are there causing trouble while Izuru gets to fight against his opponent further away all while Suruga is trying to get the cannon charged so he can take another shot at things. With all of it being about the defense of the academy, it works nicely, especially as we see the intensity of the Wulgaru at this point in both eliminating the enemy and trying to take their genes in order to advance their own cause.
The intensity of the battle works really well in the first half, especially since there is such a build up towards the events of the cannon firing and what’s involved there as well as the battle on the ground. So much so that when it does fire, they do multiple visuals of the destruction it causes, a fairly rare event when it comes to anime series. That works well all by itself, but we also get the way the battle unfolds before that where it feels like some of the team are starting to go a bit off the rails with just how intense they’re fighting and taking down the enemy, but it’s also war and to a good degree, anything goes in an effort to survive against overwhelming odds and forces.
While Team Rabbits did in the end save the academy, there was also a lot of collateral damage and that does earn them some reprimand from their commander when you get down to it. The post battle epilogue, which dominates most of the second half, plays out in an unusual manner considering the first half since it’s so light and comical for a lot of it. There’s some bonds of friendships that are starting to come out more here and that’s fairly welcome to see. The episode also spends some time with the Wulgaru as they deal with the fallout from the battle and try to understand what happened and why humanity seems able to do things that makes no sense to them, including a whole lot of self-sacrifice. Some of what goes on there is certainly interesting, but with the Wulgaru characters being introduced so late, it lacks a certain resonance even as they clean house a touch.
In Summary:
Another week, another episode where the highlight is the action and the drudge time is all the character and plot material. Unfortunately, Majestic Prince is all about the inertia now with what it’s doing for me as I’m just drawn to the look and the action sequences for it as it’s jumbled and poorly executed so much of the actual story and character material. This episode is no exception as the first half is exciting and engaging and it then goes off a cliff once the action is done and we’re left with empty characters being silly or the mysterious enemy that we only go introduced to thoroughly a bit ago dealing with figuring out why humanity is proving to be so hard to deal with. It’s simply not engaging when it gets to this stuff unfortunately, and it’s mostly through the lackluster execution and a lot of early goofiness that just didn’t click well.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.