Reviews

May 27, 2021
Mixed Feelings
A das Finale style staggered movie release, one VA change, plus several delays later, we are finally at the first part (out of six) of the sequel series to Princess Principal, four years after its initial release. So how exactly does Princess Principal das Finale part 1 fare? Does it fulfill its premise of "spies and lies"? Do the two turtledoves consummate their relationship in Casablanca? Does it meaningfully build upon its unique Victorian era Cold War London setting?

The answer to all of these is "No". But it's still a pretty fun CGDCT show.

It's effectively the first two episodes of a hypothetical season 2 to Pripri, with relatively low stakes and a simple enough thread to follow through the however many years this film series will take.

Plotwise it's pretty basic, but I'm a sucker for Twin Switches in plots and Part 1 certainly utilizes this aspect more than the original series did. It's nice to see the main cast back in action, though Beato was surprisingly absent for most of the runtime. The few action sequences in this were fun and accompanied by the same-ish score from Kajiura from S1. The shift to a feature length production doesn't result in necessarily better animated or directed action sequences compared to S1, but they're still fine.

So long as you temper your expectations and come into this knowing it's the first two episodes of a CGDCT series and not a spy thriller, you'll enjoy the film. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the film series will live up to the foreshadowing and the expectations set by part 1.

And let's hope it's a one/more films per year kind of deal and not a GuP-style one film per two years kind of thing.

6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice Nice0
Love it Love it0
Funny Funny0
Show all
It’s time to ditch the text file.
Keep track of your anime easily by creating your own list.
Sign Up Login