Majestic Prince is an incredibly tough sell, on the surface it's nothing more than your generic mecha series. At the start it's a dull, generic, predictable, incredibly by the numbers show with literally nothing new to put on the table. It's riddled with clichès, one look at the synopsis will tell you right away that this series has been done lots of times before, the plot twists used throughout have nearly all been done to death, and you will see them coming from miles away.
All of the above are reasons that, understandably, would likely put many people off the show - frankly, the only reason I gave this series a chance was because I, unlike so many, actually like Hisashi Hirai's art and was interested in seeing a series which involved his trademark character designs until Fafner Exodus came out (which sadly, didn't happen). Indeed, it's safe to say that, back in the Spring 2013 season, Majestic Prince was one of the worst shows airing at the time, as well as one of my lowest priorities.
The funny thing is, by the time the show had finished, it had become one of the best shows of the year.
That statement might sound unbelievable to you, but through a mixture of what becomes an excellent, well rounded, likeable cast of characters, stunning combat sequences and its usage of typical mecha tropes, Majestic Prince has ended up becoming what is probably the sleeper hit of the year. Despite its severe underdog status, one of the largest ironies with Majestic Prince is that, its heavy reliance on incredibly overused mecha clichés - its one huge weakness - is also its greatest strength.
I'll cover that more later on, but first, let me start off by pointing out that (if you haven't guessed already), Majestic Prince is full of well known, overdone, predictable tropes that, at the start anyway, do nothing to help it. I was often left wondering at times how the writers could possibly expect a series that was so predictable to actually do well - it's clear that the series was trying, it definitely wanted to do something different, but it was going about it in such a mechanical way that any attempts at plot revelations had me saying to myself "Yep, saw that coming" and "Well that was obvious". You could literally lose count of the amount of overdone clichés that are so present in Majestic Prince.
Story execution too, is lacking. The major issue with being able to actually predict the plot twists before they happen is that, by the time they do, you've probably pieced together most of the information yourself - or at least gathered enough information to be able to form your own theory on it, which you're probably right about on most accounts. The mechanical approach to the way these twists are implemented doesn't help, it makes them slow and boring, as well as very yawn-worthy and often, the question isn't "What's going to happen next?" but "I wonder if they're going to include this trope?".
Majestic Prince isn't helped by its cast either, like the story, they are dull and predictable - one look at them is all it takes to figure out their character archeype; naivé idealist, weapon freak, ditzy girl, level-headed responsible girl with possible interest in main character, arrogant pilot who isn't really used to working together with his team, they're all present and accounted for. And every single one of them acts as you'd expect them to act. There's nothing new about these characters, they've been done a thousand times before and better too, they're all somewhat one-dimensional - they certainly could have more personality to them than meets the eye, but it's not showing. I wasn't surprised by anything that these characters had to offer, and I could see elements of their character coming into play later on in the series - again, before it happened and again, I was right.
But that's only the first half, once the second half begins, something...changes.
At around the halfway point, Majestic Prince suddenly jams the brakes on its story for about four episodes, it stops and decides to take a breather, the story doesn't matter right now - it's got a direction that you know it's heading in, but what matters during these four episodes is the characters and their lives.
Suddenly, all that reliance on overused tropes makes sense, it wasn't to surprise the viewer with unexpected plot twists or interesting variations on already known ones with its story, it was so that, when it actually developed its characters their development would be the most surprising thing.
It pays off excellently, over the course of these episodes, the cast of Majestic Prince goes from being the most predictable group of mecha anime characters you could probably ever think of, to being three dimensional, realistic characters whose lives actually matter.
One thing the show doesn't do is just develop these characters for plot convenience, any time these characters go through something it's not just a character developing a new resolve to fight or a character having an ideal they held dear to them shattered and being forced to re-evaluate it. Majestic Prince isn't interested in that; superficial developments such as those aren't even remotely touched upon in the series, instead, what we see is the daily lives of the characters, what they do when they aren't out on missions - their cool-off time. One of the standout moments of the series is an episode in which one of the main characters, Asagi, ends up spending his day shopping with one of the members of his mechanic crew, at first glance, you'd think this is filler when in fact it's quite the opposite, it shows another side to his character - one that you definitely wouldn't see if the show spent all of its time fighting, a side that humanises him and shows that he has a life outside of fighting, interests and things to do that make him a normal person - a real person.
Coupled with this is the fact that, rather intriguingly, the characters aren't really sure what to do with their free time - as tropes dictate, they're all genetically engineered so that they can fight, so they haven't had a chance to actually act like a normal person before. It's interesting watching moments such as when Izuru ponders what his life is for, his whole life has revolved around two things: being trained to fight the Wulgaru and trying to become a hero, it's somewhat poignant hearing him wonder about what will happen to him after the war is over, and if he'll ever be allowed to meet the parents who contributed their genes to create him - and if he'll ever be able to write a manga good enough to get published. It's not forced development, which is the important thing, it all feels natural - even the romantic sub-plot feels natural, and that is, in part, due to the fact that you could see it happening before it did, but when it actually does start to kick in, thanks to well placed foreshadowing and your own personal knowledge, it hasn't come out of nowhere - it was there the whole time, it was just waiting to emerge naturally.
When the story does actually get going again, things have changed again, suddenly the stakes are raised - you actually care about these characters and what they experience, they're definitely not the cast of one-dimensional archetypes that they were right at the start of the series. Their lives matter, both during combat and outside of combat, it's at this point that Majestic Prince really does come into its own, suddenly, the clichéd story doesn't matter at all, in fact, what were once just overused tropes suddenly carry new meaning - they have an effect on the characters that they didn't do before, they suddenly get to them in different ways than what would be expected. There's one twist in particular towards the end of the series, that is actually unexpected, humourous and rather poignant that has an effect on the characters involved in it in two very different, rather realistic ways. That's the beauty of watching the final third of Majestic Prince, the characters have developed to a point that you can no longer predict what they'll say or do, how they'll think or feel and suddenly, the question changes once more from "I wonder if they're going to include this trope?" to "I wonder how this will affect the characters?".
Animation wise, Majestic Prince is a true site to behold - when it comes to the battle scenes anyway, which I will cover in a bit. When the series isn't showing action scenes it looks - for the first half anyway - rather weird, and not really in a good way, I mean, I'm a fan of Hisashi Hirai's art and even I didn't find the art all that great, there was something about the character designs that just didn't sit right with me - perhaps it's due to me not seeing his designs in HD, I'm not sure. Over time though, that problem definitely went away and the characters look a lot nicer than they did at the start of the series.
It's clear though that the majority of the budget was saved for the battles - and my lord, what a site to see. Up until the halfway point, the main reason why I stuck with Majestic Prince was to actually see the battle scenes; fantastically animated, stunningly choreographed, the battle scenes in Majestic Prince have an incredibly fast paced, visceral nature to them which is sometimes hard to keep up with - although it's hard to pay attention to anything else when two characters are going at it one-on-one. The fight scenes between Izuru and Jiart in particular, have to be seen to be believed and are the true highlight of the series various combat sequences. If the mech battles had been handled by anything other than CGI, I doubt I would have stuck with the series as long as I did. Next to the characters, the animation is by far the best thing about Majestic Prince.
The soundtrack in Majestic Prince is rather good, both opening themes sang by Chiaki Ishikawa sound fantastic and really help to set the mood for the series, and the multiple ending themes are all varied and are each appropriate for different points in the series, with my favourite one being "Arigatou. Tadaima." sang by Yuka Iguchi (who, for all the flak I give her for playing Index, has a fantastic singing voice) and Yoko Hikasa - it's a very nice, moving piece for the show.
The rest of the soundtrack consists mostly of orchestral tracks, with one track in particular standing out due to being played a lot during most of the intense moments of the battle scenes, so that would probably be my favourite track.
Voice acting is rather solid, with the standout performance going to Live action Prince of Tennis Musical star and relatively new voice actor Hiroki Aiba being my favourite in the show, although it's hard to decide who really is the best voice actor in the show, Akeno Watanabe for instance, is fantastic as Ange, being able to switch between psychopathic and incredibly timid at the drop of a hat. Miyuki Sawashiro plays a role much different to characters I'm used to hearing her as, showing she's got very good range. Yoko Hikasa is also very good as Kei, Yuka Iguchi, for all the criticism I give her, shows that she's actually able to do more than just play annoying characters and is actually rather funny. Shintaro Asanuma and Junya Ikeda both do very well as Asagi and Suruga respectively...it's difficult to say which voice actor does better than the other in this case.
By this point in the review, I've talked about the characters so much that there's really not much left for me to cover, although I will say that, even though it has a fantastic cast, apart from Jiart and Rumes, none of the villains end up being anything more than rather clichéd, almost pantomime villains who you know are bad - you're never really given a chance to root for them or understand them. Don't get me wrong, the Wulgaru are clearly the villains and there is no doubt that, even if you were to go into more detail about them, they would still definitely be the clear villains with absolutely no chance of them ever showing signs of being good, but it would have been nice to understand them a bit more than the few scenes we're privy to - even Jiart, the most well developed of the villains, is really nothing more than just a Char Aznable clone, although a far more dastardly one at that.
Although, with that being said the fact that the main cast are so well developed definitely does redeem this problem somewhat.
So that's Majestic Prince. I certainly had an interesting ride with it, watching this show evolve from being one of the worst to one of the best - it definitely became something far more than what it originally started off as, one of the shows I was looking forward to every week, up there with To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S and Uchouten Kazoku. It's a mixture of stunning mech battles, fantastic character development and a usage of clichés that, by the end, have turned the series into, yet another irony, a unique experience that is far better than what it originally started off as. To those of you who were deterred from watching this by the first few episodes, I'm not sure if the rest of the series will change your mind but it definitely changed my mind about it, and even if Fafner Exodus doesn't end up coming out this year, I won't mind (alright I will seeing as I was promised Fall 2013, but still) seeing as I got to see what is definitely one of the biggest surprises of the year and what is probably one of the best mech shows in recent memory.
Now if only I could become a hero like Izuru...
