cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/55293080

When it comes to Mecha in the mid-2010’s (an age that wasn’t the best for the genre), there’s a handful that’s either pretty underrated or just straight up bad. But then, there’s the middle point where it was a fun watch, but nothing more. And that’s kinda where Majestic Prince kinda lands, it’s a really fun watch with amazing action, but doesn’t offer anything more. I don’t think this show is bad or anything, it’s just that it’s not like a popular hit like Iron Blooded Orphans or an underrated gem like Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. MJP is a simple mecha that has great animation, cool mecha designs, and even fun characters. But it just doesn’t feel like it’s doing more with its story. That’s the obligatory TL;DR, but I can go into more detail. Also, I know there’s an OVA and a movie, but I’ll talk about it in conjunction with the main series

Plot:

An alien race called Wulguru attacks the human race, with the military unable to stop them. Leading to 5 teenage misfits to be chosen to fight the extraterrestrial threat with their state of art mecha called AHSMB units. However, throughout the fighting, we learn about the truth of the Wulguru and even the teens themselves. Some thing I noticed about a handful of the mecha anime of the 2010’s is that the majority of them often involves humanity vs aliens; Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer, Aldnoah.Zero, Knights of Sidonia, Kuromukuro, the aforementioned Gargantia, and so on. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it’s just pretty noticeable. With that in mind, the show pretty much handles this concept reasonably well. The reasoning on why the Wulguru can plow through the military & why the AHSMBs are needed are explained pretty well. This establishes the stakes well enough and the pacing is pretty decent.

However, without going into the characters, I wished they explored certain parts of the story. For example, while the military plays an important role, they don’t really explore the political conflicts of the military. There’s also the fact that there’s an academy that trains students to fight in space. However, they don’t discuss the moral implications of breeding children into fighting a war. The characters do discuss it a bit, but it’s never really expanded on. And I get it, not every story needs to have anything deep. At the same time, that’s kind of the reason why it doesn’t stick with you. So overall, while the story is competent, it also isn’t doing anything interesting. Fine for the people who like “Hype moments & Aura”, but pretty lacking for anyone who likes their mecha with something interesting to say. But the characters can fix that, right?

Characters:

While the characters are fun to watch and have certain quirks that make them stand out, I can’t really say that they’re compelling characters. That’s mainly because of how stagnant they are. How they started the show is how they ended. There are some slight exceptions, but to explain, I’ll start with Team Rabbits. I think among the team and even the whole show, Izuru Hitachi was easily my favorite character. While not the most deep character, I just like how much he aspires to be a hero. He essentially becomes the team leader and grows into it as time goes on. I know it’s pretty simple, but seeing him grow into the role and having an undying desire to protect the people he loves just always gets me. He also has the cute quirk of being a mangika who’s great at drawing them, but is terrible at writing them. My only issue is how the story treats him in the last few episodes, but…I’ll talk about that later.

As for the rest of the rabbits, I think they are charming in their own ways, but they don’t develop that much. Kei Kuguimiya is the brains of the group and has an affinity for sweets. But she kind of remains the same throughout the show. Hell, there seems to be a subplot where Kei developed feelings for Izuru, but the show doesn’t expand on that.

Ataru Sugura was pretty funny and had an autism for guns, while being an ogling goober towards women (especially towards that cafeteria lady). But since he’s a comedic relief, he doesn’t really need an arc. Tamaki Irie is the same thing, comedic relief except thirsting for every man she sees and being the girly girl of the group.

But the one that I wish they did more with was Toshikazu Asagi, since he seems like a character who would’ve benefited with some character depth. In the anime, he’s the 2nd in command to Izuru, where he is just as competent as him, but in a more mature way. But that’s about it, other than having a stomach problem & taking care of a kid. However, none of those aspects are expanded upon, since his little tummy ache is just treated as a quirk and the child he’s taking care of is an annoying little shit. The former seems like wasted potential, it’s later revealed that he & the rest of the Rabbits were genetically engineered. So it would’ve been a nice attention to detail that those stomach arches were genetic defects of that, but the anime doesn’t really expand on it that much. He and Izuru are also biological brothers, but the anime also doesn’t do much with that detail either.

And then they eventually get another character who’s basically the “6th Ranger” of the group, Ange Kuroki. They (it’s never confirmed if they’re a boy or girl) have the same issue as Asagi, but to a worse extent. They may come off as a calm person when they’re around Team Rabbits, but they can snap in actual combat. My issue is the latter, because Ange never learns that their aggressive fighting style has consequences and even the show itself doesn’t allow them to learn that. If anything, it rewards their violent behavior since it’s effective against the Wulguru. If you’re rewarding your character for shitty behavior, then that’s an instant sign of bad writing.

Along with Team Rabbits, we also have Team Doberman; Randy Maxwell, Patrick Hoyle, & Rakesh Chandrasekhar. There’s not really much I can comment on them, as they’re just the upperclassmen of Team Rabbits. All I can say is that Randy looks like a chad version of Reiji from Build Fighters who watches porn (I feel unclean saying that), while giving Izuru advice on being a “better leader”. Patrick has a crush on Tamaki, but dies before confessing. He also has a busty sister that shows up in the movie. And Rakesh is an Indian man with an arranged marriage. There’s not much I can say, because they don’t have importance as Team Rabbits. Both Randy & Patrick get killed off halfway through the anime, but it doesn’t really feel as impactful.

The final pilots show up in the OVA episode, and they’re called Team Fawn; Sei Yuzuhara, Ahn Medikum, Yui Magalanes, and Chris Solfelino. But they show up in a random OVA, they really don’t have much time to show their personality off. And when they show up in movies, they only really serve as cannon fodder. So they’re inclusion feels unnecessary.

Now that covers the AHSMB pilots, how about the rest of the crew. For starters, we have Rin Suzukaze, the typical commander character of Team Rabbits. She comes off as really strict at first, with her doubting the skills of Team Rabbits. But eventually, you can see that she just genuinely cares about them and genuinely wants them to not to deal with the burden of fighting an all powerful threat. There are times when she does go a little too far, like forbidding Izuru from telling his team about the Wulguru or benching him, but she cares about their well being. Also, she likes lollipops, which is funny. Next is the stereotypical mechanic character, Reiko Saionji. Except, it appears the character designers has equipped her with ballistics too. In all seriousness though, she’s kinda like Rin where they both care about the Rabbit’s well-being, except she’s just a lot more easy going. Plus, she is an alcoholic too.

While we’re on the subject of mechanics, I might as well speedrun through the rest of the pit crew, as they’re more stereotypical and share the same personality;

• Blue 1: Family of a father, his father, and his daughter (who’s a little hellspawn)

• Purple 2: group of hot girls

• Rose 3: Otaku weebs

• Gold 4: Jocks

• and Red 5: a normal group, plus Reiko.

The pit crew are fun characters, but don’t expect to remember anything about them, let alone their names.

Then there’s Simon Gatou, who’s the head of the operation. While he looks cool, I think he suffers the same issue as Asagi, where there’s no depth to him as a character, where he seems to be a character who definitely needs it. There are hints of it, like being the DNA donor of Izuru & Asagi, or giving us a hint of where the name “Juria” comes from (where I’ll talk about later). But again, the anime never really expands on that.

Outside of those 3, I can’t really say much about the characters from Earth, as they mainly serve as side characters at most. Like, there’s the military personnel like Amame & Dai, but they don’t add anything outside of showing us the side of the politics of Earth that not many people in the audience would be interested in.

I guess now I can talk about Wulguru. Starting for the ones who are on the side of Earth, it’s mainly just Teoria and her butler who I have next to nothing about. Teoria sided with Earth after defecting from the Wulguru, after viewing their actions as repulsive. I kinda like Teoria, as she’s pretty emphatic towards people and views Izuru (her biological son) as her hero, which is pretty cute. I also like how when her clone from the movie is cursing out the humans, she has a hard time translating it for how vulgar it is. That was just funny.

As for the Wulguru as antagonists, same thing with Efidorg from Kuromukuro, they’re just generically evil. Which is both a benefit, since they’re easier to route against, but also makes them pretty unremarkable as characters themselves since they have the same personality; hunting humans down for sport. The only ones who are distinct from one another are Prince Jiart & Lutiel. Jiart is the brother of Teoria, and has a dual personality. One minute, he’s cold & cunning, the next thing he’s desiring a good fight. That last part is why he’s so hellbent on fighting Izuru. But that’s all I can say about him. Hell, his rivalry with Izuru doesn’t have much depth to it. Lutiel is the standard Seductress, which is more than I can say about the other Wulguru. Again, it’s fine since they’re the antagonists. They’re just not going to leave much of a lasting impact.

The last 2 things I want to talk about involving the characters are the character designer & the English Dub. For starters, the character designs. If you’re familiar with both Gundam Seed & Code Geass, then you’ll recognize that Majestic Prince has the same character designer, Hisashi Hirai. The reason why I bring this up is because I often get SEED vibes from the show (even weirder that I watched MJP WAY before watching Gundam SEED). I guess it’s just in the character designs, which looks great BTW.

I can’t really say the same about the voice acting. This was done by the Sentai Filmworks and this is one of their weaker works. Like, it’s still watchable, it’s just that most of the characters don’t sound the best. Mainly the male cast, like Houston Hayes & Corey Hartzog were pretty weak choices for Izuru & Asagi. However, the best actors are oddly the female cast. Genevieve Simmons fits Kei’s isolated nature, Monica Rial adds the perfect amount of bubbly energy to Tamaki, Shelley Calene-Black perfectly matches Rin’s strict & mature demeanor, Molly Searcy makes Reika’s dialogue more fun, and Maggie Flecknoe captures Teoria’s docile nature really well. So the voice acting isn’t Build Fighters level of unwatchable, it’s just really easy to tell who has the weakest voice.

Overall, these characters are pretty hot & cold. They’re really fun to watch and add life to some scenes, but not all of them feel fleshed out or feel kinda one note. Characters like Izuru, Kei, Rin, & Teoria are fun characters because we can see the gears turning their heads. Then we have Asagi & Simmon who would’ve been interesting characters if the anime gave them more depth. Otherwise, not bad but could be better

World Building:

When it comes to the world of Majestic Prince, they did a pretty good job at making this world feel lived in. From the Earth to Space, we get to see what kind of lives these characters live. However, not all of it is that in-depth. Let’s start with life on Earth. We don’t spend too long on Earth, as we only really see the school Team Rabbits go to for a couple episodes and some parts of the military at times. Like I mentioned before, the military aspect is rarely explored in a political sense. We did get a scene where some politicians express desire to communicate peacefully with the Wulguru, but they should know that they clearly desire nothing more than to hunt down humans like deer. So this idea is pretty dumb.

Same thing goes with the Military Junior Pre Academy (MJP for short), where that’s where Team Rabbits, Team Doberman, & Team Fawn train. We barely spend time there, so when the Rabbits graduate to fight the Wulguru, it feels rushed when they have to say their goodbyes to their classmates (who hate them & call them the Fail Five). We also learned that their genetically enhanced children who were raised to survive in Space (sound familiar). Sounds cool in concept, but they don’t really expand upon it or ask any ethical questions. Like, the Rabbits never talk about the fact that their basically lab babies outside of a brief discussion.

But I don’t want to sound like I hate this show, as there are some pieces of lore I actually do like. For starters, I just like Star Rose. This massive colony hovering above Earth, that’s shaped like, you guessed it, a rose. While we don’t see the colony all that much, we see enough to see the things you can do; go to a waterpark with a resort, go to a couple restaurants, go shopping, etc. I also like some details about Star Rose, like how they raise their fish or explaining the water between the walls. I also like the moments where we see the gang relaxing with each other. Like there’s an episode where both Tamaki & Kei go to Earth for some PR. It lets us see the kind of people they are through weird shenanigans. There’s also an episode where Teoria takes Izuru & Asagi out to eat Okonomiyaki. It’s small, but I think it’s cute seeing those 2 hangout with their biological mother.

Speaking of which, now let’s talk about the Wulguru. I was kind of surprised that we actually see their life on their planet. Not into detail, but at least we tried. We also learned that they’re basically the precursors for humanity, which kind of explains why humanity has a different text than what we’re used to. However, I have 2 issues; lack of Wulguru who want to help humanity & what they look like being classified towards Team Rabbits. The former is understandable, since they’re supposed to be villains. I just wished there were at least another member or two who thought what the Wulguru were doing was wrong. It would’ve added a level of humanity to them and added some depth to them. But since they’re the antagonists, I can at least understand. What is really dumb however, is forcing Izuru to keep a piece of information about Wulguru from the team. When Izuru finds out that they look like humans, Rin orders him to keep that information secret. Why tho? Learning what they look like won’t change much, since they’re clearly the bad guys. None of that matters, since Simmon & Teoria break silence and tell the Rabbits everything. So having the leader of the team keeping a minor piece of information was pretty stupid.

Overall, the lore of the show is both the best & weakest part (kinda of a contradiction, but here me out). On one hand, it makes the world feel lived in and adds some fun moments with the characters. But the problem is that it’s kind of lacking in certain details, like in the world’s politics or the moral dilemma of genetic engineering. And like I said before, the series doesn’t need to have depth to it. But like I’ll talk about towards the end, that lack of depth will be the show’s undoing.

Mecha: Alright, now we’re onto the thing that people really praise this show, the mecha. Credit where credit is due, this show had really amazing fight scenes with its 3D animation. 3D in anime has always been shunned, but shows like this proves that 3D can be great if implemented well. As for the designs, while they’re good overall, I have some notes that might down play them a little.

But before we start, we might as well talk about the AHSMB (which stands for Advanced High Standard Muti-purpose Battle Device). They were made from Wulguru data provided by Teoria, along with a system called “the Juria System”. This system basically uses the pilot’s fight or flight survival instincts and increases the machine’s maneuverability and reaction speed to match that of a human. Hence why there are times when they won’t move or when they’ll go all out in a fight, as it’s reacting to the pilot’s emotions. They can also swap out weapons on the fly, with the pit crew sending them equipment straight from the ship. The AHSMB also have a “base form” where they don’t have the armor, but can still use certain weapons. Finally, each of them have an “Awaken mode”, which unlocks their AHSMB’s full potential when the pilot is pushed to their absolute limit. That’s the basic gist you need to know about these machines. Now we can talk about the machines individually.

Starting with Team Rabbits’ AHSMB units. We have Blue 1 (Asagi), Purple 2 (Kei), Rose 3 (Tamaki), Gold 4 (Sugura), and Red 5 (Izuru).

• Blue 1 is a close combat type with a wakizashi, a gun that can turn into a halibred, a missile launcher with a beam blade, some laser cannons, and shields that can turn into swords. So it’s basically the close combat type of the team with a handful of range capabilities. As for its awaken mode, it can release these beam ribbons to interlock its enemies & increase its melee capabilities. I really like the feudal look of it, as it adds to its melee role. And the yellow & red highlights are a good touch to its primarily blue armor.
• Purple 2 is the scouting & information unit that sends orders & intel to individual teammates. It’s a cool design with the curvy look, but the fact that it lacks weapons brings it down for me. More so with the fact that it doesn’t have arms or legs (but those just for show, am I right). It does have a shield & some blasters, but that’s about it. Even in its awaken mode, all it does is share massive amounts of data to Asagi in the final battle. Not much usage outside of that one moment in the final battle. Side Tangant: I honestly wish that most info units like Purple 2 would take more cues from Gundam’s EWAC units, where they still have some weapons of some kind, like the EWAC Hizack still uses a machine gun and the EWAC Jegan had a missile rack. It adds a level of versatility to these machines.
• Rose 3’s main gimmick is that it’s big & fast. It doesn’t even have that many weapons, as it only has a missile pod & a shield. Its awakened state does give it lasers though, so better late than never. There’s not too much I can say, since all it does is fly around, shoot, & sometimes act like a massive missile.
• Speaking of shooting, Gold 4 is a pretty good sniping machine. I like how its head slides onto its arm cannon, that’s a cool gimmick we don’t see that often. As for its weapons, this thing is LOADED. The aforementioned arm cannon, the top gun turret, the shoulder missile pods, shoulder beam cannons, 3 warhead missiles, explosive mines, 3 different arm cannons that can swap out with his regular arm cannon, and he can even guide the main ship’s FUCKING CANNON towards whatever he’s aimming at. His awakened state even upgrades his cannon and increases his accuracy. There’s mecha loaded to the teeth, and then there’s Gold 4.
• Finally there’s Red 5, which is my personal favorite of the AHSMBs from Team Rabbits. It’s basically a combination of both Blue 1’s CQC and Gold 4’s arsenal. It has 2x arm blades, 2x hip CIWS guns, a beam rifle, a cannon (that quadruples as an assault rifle, long range cannon, mine launcher, and a FUCKING BEAM CHAINSAW), a bazooka, great sword, shoulder cannons, and 2x retractable shields. This thing is packed in both the melee & ranged department. Hell, its awakened state is just increasing the strength of the machine.

These are cool designs, but I have an issue, these machines feel either interchangeable or redundant. Both Red 5 and Blue 1 have similar roles; general purpose machines succeeding in both close and long range combat, Purple 2’s role could easily be given to Gold 4, and Rose 4’s role is pretty useless outside of some minor occasions. This kind makes the team feel all over the place and unorganized. Then again, it’s kind of fitting with how dysfunctional Team Rabbits are. And usually that’s where I would end my mecha section here, but I got more mecha to talk about in this show.

Next we have Black 6, my 2nd favorite AHSMB in the show. It’s a simple black machine; 2x guns with bayonets (something I’m a sucker for), 4x hip cannons, 2x shoulder cannons w/ missiles, and 2x missile racks on its legs. Ange may be a weak character with an annoying knack to go berserk, but their AHSMB is at least cool looking.

Now we have Team Fawn, and I’m just going to speed through them, since the series doesn’t do much with them;

• Orange 7: 2x Katanas
• Silver 8; launchable saws, missiles, & a head rail gun
• Green 9 is just Purple 2 again, but with balls
• And Magenta 10 that’s just a transformer.

All of these AHSMBs were based on the original AHSMB, White 0. A machine so hard to use, that Kei needed to transfer all of the data from Team Rabbits into this thing. All it has is 2x arm cannons. For the original AHSMB, that’s a little disappointing. They eventually made an AHSMB that’s usable by regular soldiers called the Rhinos. They can use a railgun, finger lasers, a claymore, and missiles. These are pretty decent machines, but they don’t show up that often. And that’s all of the mecha from Earth. They’re pretty well designed, but some of them have roles that kind of feel a little undercompensating. Like, you can take some of these out of the story, and not much will change.

I’m not going to bother with Wulguru’s “mecha”, since they all function the same: big guys with big arms. That’s about it. There are some exceptions however; Jiart’s unit has 2x swords, Gundam Bael style. Lutiel’s unit is fast and has wings. And Dionara’s unit is super stretchy, like Elastic Girl. That’s about it really. TL;DR for the mecha section, cool looking mecha. Okay, now let’s talk about the ending

Ending:

The ending episodes of the show are really good. Really good fight scenes, good build up, and everything wrapped together like a bow. However, they made one fatal mistake, they made my man Izuru dirty by benching. I’m not joking when I say the way they prevented Izuru from joining the fight before the last few episodes brought this ending down from 8/10 to 7 or even a 6.

You may ask, what did they do to him that made you hate it that much? To understand, I have to explain the context behind the final few episodes. So after finding out that the Wulguru is using a warp gate to invade Earth and getting the needed support from the world leaders, the Military gets prepared for an all out final assault. Meanwhile, Izuru suddenly faints after drawing his manga and is put into a sick bay. We then learn that constant use of Red 5’s awakened state destabilized his cells and is basically threatening his life. So they forbid him from fighting for 2 episodes, while everyone is preparing to fight the final fight.

On paper, it’s understandable, since Izuru will be putting his body at risk if he keeps using Red 5’s awakened state. HOWEVER, what they do to him is what made me rage quit. After locking Red 5, in order to keep an eye on him, they put in a maid costume w/ a leash and have him serve tea to the fucking crew. This moment ALONE soured my experience with the ending. I wouldn’t mind if they put him in stasis or just him in his room. But forcing him to serve tea while everyone is putting their lives on the line to finally defeat the Wulguru really left a sour taste in my mouth. But the one thing that absolutely grinded my gears was when that little shit child, who disobeyed her dad’s order to go to earth, tells him to behave like she is. Like, THAT FUCKING GIRL CAN PISS OFF ON TELLING IZURU WHAT TO DO.

But other than that, the final battle is really cool. Everyone is throwing everything & the kitchen sink at the Wulguru’s forces. The kitchen sink being Star Rose, as in order to destroy the warp gate. Even Commander Simmon is willing to sacrifice his life to ram Star Rose into the damn gate. But that final battle with Izuru & Jiart is easily the best part. That final fight is so well animated with how smoothly the mecha are moving, with a good mix of good choreography and music. As I said before, if Majestic Prince excels at anything, it’s really good mecha action. And I like towards the end, when Izuru wins the fight in his damaged Red 5, everyone is trying everything to find him. When they do, they’re just happy to save him from the wreckage, ending the show right there.

Nice way to go out, right? Indeed, but that wasn’t really the ending of the series. 3 years after the show was released, we got a movie to finally cap off the series. While I saw the show 3 or 4 times, I never actually saw the movie until recently. And it was alright. There’s not much to discuss, since all the movie is about fighting Wulguru remnants led by a girl whose only personality is to curse out humans and kill them. They use Team Fawn from the OVA, but only as cannon fodder and that’s about it. But what I want to talk about is how this movie starts & how it ends. For how it starts, it picks up immediately after the final battle with Izuru badly injured and in intensive care, so he doesn’t really show up for most of the movie. But I do like how everyone in the crew is giving him “get well” messages by writing on his healing pod. That was really cute and shows how much everyone cares about Izuru. But what I really want to talk about is the last half of the movie, where Izuru wakes up during the final battle on Earth, as it did what the main series did with him, but better. Instead of putting him in a stupid maid outfit, Rin demands him to come back after the battle. This little change is 10x better, as we see how dire the situation is and shows us how caring Rin is towards her pilots. He then gets his nifty new Red 5 that can transform into a jet & doesn’t have the awakened state and helps the team with the final battle. And…that’s about it. The fight scenes still look really good, especially Izuru teaming up with Asagi in the White 0 to defeat Dionara. But what’s weird is that they brought back Star Rose, which literally does nothing and the ending just has Izuru asking who drew an anime girl on his healing pod. That’s how the series ends BTW.

So should you end up on the show or the movie? Both have their pros & cons. The show’s ending feels more earned and satisfying, but has Izuru be treated like a cross dressing waitress towards the end. As for the Movie, Izuru is treated better and the final fight has all of Team Rabbits involved, but doesn’t do much before the final fight and has the most awkward ending of any movie I’ve ever seen. So my opinion is that, I just wished the series as a whole was a little better. Now lets go to the Conclusion.

Verdict:

I just reiterate that I DON’T HATE THIS SHOW. It’s a fine watch for what it offered; cool action and likeable characters. But the problem is that it didn’t do more with its premise or explore parts of it. To some, they don’t mind that one bit. However, if you consider what was released in 2013, then you’ll know that what it had wasn’t enough to compete with other shows releasing at the time. Shows like Attack on Titan & Kill la Kill were releasing at the time and people praise them for being serious stories that tackled serious topics. I mentioned this countless times, but the 2010’s were a bad time for mecha, and this show was an example for how much the genre struggled. That’s not to say that what this show had was inferior, it’s basically the Mecha version of Power Rangers (or just Power Rangers with just the Zords). But it still needed to offer something deeper to hook people and it just didn’t. It’s a perfect C-Tier show that offers enough to keep you entertained. But like many people said before, It really needed to do more to stand out.