Murder Princess

Genre: Action
Age Appropriate: Teen
Emotional Response: seriously, wtf
Notable Features: spiritual transmigration, princess, bounty hunters, evil cyborg little girls
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 6 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Not so much



Murder Princess is about a young woman, Princess Alita Forland, who must run from her castle as it is attacked by a traitorous scientist who feels he would be a better ruler. In the process of her escape, she ends up running through the woods until she meets a cliff, and a bounty hunter. In her fear, she falls of the cliff, bringing the bounty hunter, Falis, with her. While falling, they have managed to switch bodies in the supposed process of spiritual transmigration - which occurred when both women felt they were about to die and when their spirits realized this was not the case, they accidentally returned to the wrong bodies. After realizing their situation, with input from Falis' helpers - Peter and Dominicov - Alita begs Falis to take her place on the throne and protect her kingdom. Falis only helps for a price, in this case Alita has offered her everything that she is, to act as Falis' service until the kingdom is safe.

In the altercations with the evil scientist, and his android-girl helpers, New Alita has shown to be strong and deadly with a sword. She defeats the monsters in public also, gaining the nickname Murder Princess. Old Alita - now Milano, her servant - helps Falis/Alita become a better princess and queen by instilling in her a sense of responsibility and teaching her the little aristocratic things a noble woman should know (including submitting to having servants). In the end, it all comes down to the battle for the protection of the kingdom against enemies, likely and not, trying to take over the power controlled by the Forland family.

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There were some redeeming qualities of this anime, really. The story isn't really terrible, the end was typical, and there is some interesting parts of the plot. However, I was not a fan. Perhaps, it was more to do with the fact that the series was only 6 episodes, but I had really no emotional investment in the characters at all. Actually, I had to force myself to get through the first three episodes. The last three were decent. I was able to finish the end without much trouble, but I don't think an anime is too successful for me when the only motivation factor to finish it was to write this blog post.

Most of the enemy characters are some sort of misguided or misunderstood. The story behind the story feels like it was just thrown in there so that there was a reason things were happening, even though there was no foreshadowing involved. Normally, I'm happy for a good plot twist, but this wasn't a twist. It was more of a "Oh yeah, we need a point..." It's a bit frustrating. Honestly, I think the series could've handled a little good humor. I probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I'm sure there are a few anime that would be lower on a list for me, but this one is pretty stupid.

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