TODAY! Fena Pirate Princes, is an adventure anime produced by Production IG. It is written and
directed by Kazoto Nakazawa, who is probably most well known for his character designs
in Terror in Resonance and Samurai Champloo. The music for the series is being handled by
Yuki Kajiura of Madoka, Fate, and Demon Slayer fame and most importantly the series seems to be
looking at the age old question of which is best Pirate or Ninja. The answer is both. Both is good.
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So the first two episodes were released this past weekend and it’s a good thing two because despite
being two separate episodes they really are best viewed as just one long episode,
you know, to get a feel for how the premiere of the show is going to go. Fun fact Fena also
marks one of the few times that we in the English speaking world get an anime before
Japan does. I don’t think that has happened since Space Dandy? I could be wrong with that.
It makes sense though as major producers on the show include both Crunchyroll
and Adult Swim. Adult Swim was also one of the major drivers for space dandy. So
Is that all it takes? Put it on Toonami and North America gets it first! Suck it Netflix.
Ok so what is the show actually about. Well I joked about the
Pirate and Ninja aspects of the series but I think that was a bit
too vague. The Ninja’s are less traditional, and honestly in the cases of some of the characters,
Samurai tropes fit far better. Also throughout the first two episodes we haven’t yet seen much
of the pirate aspects in full force. Considering the word “Pirate” is in the title I’d like to
hope we wouldn't have to wait long for that to become far more of a thing but we’ll have to see.
The initial episode covers what is essentially a Jailbreak. But instead of a criminal being broken
out of Jail, our heroine Fena both attempts to escape being sold off to a rich nobleman for the
benefit of others, and is also aided by former allies of her family into actually escaping.
These allies include the stereotypical albeit older knights pledged to her father,
and a band of secretive ninjas who have apparently been watching her family for generations.
What I like about the setup so far is that for most of the characters it’s very easy to see
what their deal is while also acknowledging how much we just don’t know. Fena herself is like a
somewhat brash firecracker constantly coming up with plans of escaping her fenced in life,
but also she's a bit of an airhead, so most of her plans don’t have a snowball’s
chance in hell of working. Or are so barely thought out that it only takes
a minor hitch to send the whole plan out of control. I like that a lot about her!
But so much of her character is still kind of left open to interpretation at this point. She seemed
to be orphaned as a child due to a shipwreck and her only value has been what others have
seen in her beauty and her rather unique white hair. But we haven’t really seen why
she’s become this self-assured scatterbrain compared to other characters we’ve seen
in similar situations from other media. Princess Garnet from FF9 comes to mind.
Actually hold up a second, it just dawned on me that I could tired this video the
FF9 adaptation that we absolutely deserve and get away with it, because
barring the fact that the show has been putting main character enfasis on Fena unlike what FF9
did with Garnet, which focused on that games lead Zidane, there are quite a few parallels.
Both characters have a mysterious backstory involving getting lost at sea
where they lose their family, only to be raised in an aristocratic society
away from everything they had ever known. They both get “rescued” from that situation
despite their own plans of escape, with help from a variety of adventurers either hired
or directed to do so from other family ties. And part of the initial start act
for their characters sees them both cutting their hair as a symbolic gesture of change.
It also helps that both characters' now carry a relic of their past
family that is some kind of clear crystal that may or may not be a massive plot macguffin
to be used later. Yeah there are a lot of parallels here!
If you think of me making any of these comparisons in a bad way, if you think this
is a slight on the show then you are sorely mistaken. FF9 is my favorite of the Classic
FF’s from that era and honestly the amount of comparisons whether intentional or not still
gives me great hopes that the writing might end up going in a similar direction. Or at
least in a direction that will be equally as satisfying. Which is kind of all that I want.
Fena isn't trying to misdirect you into thinking it’s cooler than it actually is. I feel like it’s
very genuine with the adventure it’s trying to set up even if parts of it
we’ve seen done before in other ways.
Fena, despite being an orphan for the last bunch of years, completely separated from her family,
gets wrapped up in a far grander story than what her life had been as of late.
I could scream that it's just a cookie cutter “Chosen One” kind of story,
and I’m not trying to argue that it’s not, BUT I feel like the narrative, at least
so far, is trying to own that part of it. It’s trying to be like, yes Fena is certainly
a special person with her pure white hair and mysterious family lineage, but it’s not
so serious that it doesn’t know when to poke fun and have things go wrong for comedy’s sake.
The comedy itself isn't really there for laughs either, which I appreciate. It’s not a gag
series or written in a way that is specifically trying to be funny. The comedy here is like
what Fullmetal Alchemist was famous for, where the comedy is never the focus but it’s there
to provide some levity. Now in FMA’s case that very much helped the narrative by balancing out
other aspects of it’s story that were far darker then average, and I have a feeling and a large
hope that Fena never intends to go THAT dark, but the format is the same. That’s my point.
We’ve seen some clips from upcoming episodes in the promotional material,
which thankfully does actually alleviate my worries about a show with Pirate in
the title but very little pirating in the initial episodes. I’m not expecting One Peice or anything,
heck just have a loyal crew and at minimum a BOAT and I’m good.
But the footage also seems to add to my feeling that Fena might end up having
a lighter tone overall. Which in and of itself isn't a problem,
But comparing that with the highly epic feeling of the initial trailers, it makes it hard to get a
feel for what the tone of the series as a whole is going to actually be. We just have to kind
of hope and pray that things continue to be good as they have been going forward.
Production IG has kinda been stealthy existing in the background the last several years.
I can talk about how Joker Game from 2016 was a dark horse that year or that Psycho-Pass 3 was
actually pretty good, but considering how little both of those shows were talked about even while
they were airing it’s not entirely wrong for me to admit that they didn’t gerner much attention,
at least here overseas. With luck Fena change that, IG has always been one of my favorite
producers of anime, even though I think this style of show is a bit out of their comfort zone.
Then again when talking about the company that produced Cromartie High School, I could even argue
that they might not even have a comfort zone anymore, so hopefully that works out for them.
Really though, seeing IG’s name attached to it actually makes me feel like what’s
going to happen with Fena is that it will be a great series that I personally end
up enjoying because it somehow magically lines up with a bunch of my tastes, but
then I’ll be disappointed in how little other people actually talk about it.
Granted that is of course before considering
how much marketing this series is going to get and how many eyeballs get dragged to it.
At the end of the day, if you are wanting a well polished action adventure series by
a group of creatives that seem to know what they want to do and how to do it then Fena
doesn’t look like it will disappoint. Having Adult Swim on board with the knowledge that
it’ll eventually be broadcast on Toonami makes a lot of sense to me since the series
so far has been a ringer for the kind of show that does well on that block.
If you’ve been a fan of the kind of anime that has been known to do well on Toonami you’ll like Fena.
So unless it decides to absolutely drop the ball later, I’m looking at it as a series
that is standing out in a season with a bunch of decent but not outstanding shows.
The last few seasons of anime have been absolutely stellar,
so having a down season isn’t all that bad but I’m still glad that we have
something like Fena in this genre that I can honestly look forward to week after week.
As usual there will be a link in the description
to watch the series on Crunchyroll, who were nice enough to sponsor this video.
A very special thank you to our patrons who support the work I do here and allow me to
keep doing what I do in the way that I want to do it. And for that I am eternally thankful.
Specifically I’d like to thank SGT_Nemo1, Ryefan Boneapart, Siri Yamiko, Wago 221,
Calhoonboy, Hector Montemayor, and Omar Shoman for being especially awesome.
Until next time, ladies, gentlemen and others stay frosty.