PRINCESS RESURRECTION (2007)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

While rambling through an online site of translated manga I chanced upon Yasunori Mitsunaga's 2017-21 PRINCESS RESURRECTION NIGHTMARE, which I soon learned was a sequel to a 2005-13 manga series, simply PRINCESS RESURRECTION. I liked the design of the characters but not so much the episodic stories, though what I read made me curious as to whether there had been an anime adaptation. There was.

The principal trope governing RESURRECTION in all its forms is: "an ordinary human is forced to live on the same premises as a bunch of monstrous humanoids, some or all of whom are sexy girls." This informs such popular manga/anime efforts as ROSARIO + VAMPIRE and MONSTER MUSUME, and indeed all of the monsters with whom the viewpoint character, middle-schooler Hiro, must mingle are indeed sexy girls. But compared to the cited manga, there seems to be a different aesthetic at work here. The 26-episode teleseries doesn't adapt many of the early manga-installments, but the show seems to match the original RESURRECTION in terms of being very episodic and low on character-development.

From what little information the anime-setup gives, Hiro and his older sister Sawawa are apparently alone in the world. Sawawa gets a job as a live-in maid for a mansion in Sasanaki Village, and so Hiro follows her to her new home to take up residence at the selfsame mansion. Though Hiro fails to find anyone at the mansion, he wanders about and by chance sees a queenly young woman about to be killed by falling construction girders. Hiro pushes the woman out of the way, but he himself is slain by the girders. However, the woman happens to be Hime, Sawawa's new employer as well as the Princess-ruler of the Monster-Realm. Hime possesses the power to bring back the dead-- though only if the resurrected beings serve her, for the energies of resurrection must be perpetually bestowed by her agency. She brings Hiro back to life, but the boy is semi-aghast to learn that he's expected to serve her forever, alongside her only other guardian, a child-android named Flandre who possesses immense strength. So Hiro moves into the mansion under rather different circumstances, though his dimbulb sister is selectively blind to all the weird things that happen there-- particularly the sight of Hime winning a fatal sword-duel with a mammoth werewolf.

Though Hime talks about wanting to have more servants, the better to administer her duties as Monster-Mistress, she seems to attract only persons who have some contentious feelings toward her-- though possibly this was a strategy adopted to show just how wonderfully charismatic Hime is. 

Riza, sister of the werewolf Hime killed, initially wants to slay Hime in turn, but is forced to become Hime's ally in order to find out who manipulated her brother into rebellion. 

Reiri is a stylish lady vampire who wants to sample Hime's royal blood and who also goes to Hiro's school (she even wears a sailor-suit uniform, the large collar of which expands like a pair of wings when she flies.)

Hime's sister Sherwood, who looks like a grade-schooler and who also has a single android as a guardian, moves to the village and initially quarrels with Hime. 

All of these characters, despite their quarrels with the resurrection princess, become drawn into Hime's orbit because she's so damn competent-- though as later episodes establish, she's actually something of a princess-in-exile, whose royal relatives continually send assassins to kill her. Most of the episodic action of the series deals with Hime repulsing various monster-attacks with the help of her reluctant entourage.

This "heavy lies the head that wears the crown" trope is rather superficial compared to an advanced work on that theme like DANCE IN THE VAMPIRE BUND-- though to be sure, there aren't many manga as sophisticated as BUND. Surprisingly, though, RESURRECTION looks like a harem-manga from the standpoint of having one male surrounded by four or more sexy females. Yet going solely by the anime, almost none of the women are warm for Hiro's form.

To be sure, a lot of harem-anime present the viewpoint character as a simple stand-up fellow with no special abilities. But Hiro is even more of a blank slate than most such figures. Aside from his being related to Sawawa, all one knows is that he doesn't mix well with the students at his new school, and he gets bullied when other kids force him to carry their bags. Some of his ill fortune is caused by his classmate Reiri, since all the guys are crazy for her and thus hate Hiro when Reiri pretends to like him. But there's no real sense that the vampiress really desires Hiro. The same is true for the tough werewolf-girl Riza. She occasionally shows a protective feeling for Hiro, as if she shared Sawawa's sibling-relationship to the boy. The loli-looking Sherwood makes a show of wanting Hiro to become her boyfriend, but this may be nothing but a desire to steal her sister's things. Hime's attitude toward Hiro is unfailingly patrician. She will exert herself to save his life from monsters if she must, but seems to ignore his doglike devotion to her. The bumpers for the opening and closing theme songs are replete with sadomasochistic imagery, my favorite being a two-part scene in which Hiro is tied to a chair near a dinner-table while Reiri, Riza and Hime all bang their utensils in eagerness to devour him. But in the episodes proper, none of the women even have much interest in Hiro except as an occasional toy to be played with. 

Was Mitsunaga trying to undercut all the harem-manga in which some ordinary guy is ceaselessly pursued by a bunch of hot girls? Without reading all of the manga episodes, I can't rule this out. But that is certainly the effect of the anime series; that Hiro is relegated to looking but not touching-- which might indeed be congruent with the original paradigm of masochism as elaborated by its namesake, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. In conclusion, though, RESURRECTION does offer good looking babes and a few visceral cartoon battles, so it's worth a look.