A while ago I e-mailed an animated GIF I’d made of the infamous Lum character to a friend. My friend, who notoriously hates anime, immediately offered his opinion with the following quip:
"It’s everything I hate about anime, all rolled up into one picture!"
Far too often, Elf Princess Rane is everything I hate about anime. This is the kind of screwball comedy where the dub actors scream at each other almost constantly. The male characters are uniformly awkward and have extremely bad hair days, and the women are unspeakably beautiful even if their hair are the more unnatural shades drawn from a crayon box. The screenplay, which moves far too fast for anyone to follow the first couple times, is also full of Asian in-jokes. I don’t know how many non-Asians will get the jokes, but most otaku will probably laugh hilariously anyway, even if they don’t understand them. The overall impression I got from Elf Princess Rane? This is a comedy that should have stayed in Japan; it isn’t worth the effort to understand.
The plot revolves around Go, the screwup son of a pair of adventure hunters. Go wants to live up to his parents’ expectations, which is no easy feat given that he’s inept. Enter a mysterious little Elf named Rane who magically appears before Go one day. Go misinterprets everything that the Elf says and a series of ‘hilarious’ adventure-seeking mishaps occur.
The video is even less funny than this plot description sounds. Elf Princess’ Rane strives for Takahashi style slapstick, but has none of the characterization that makes Ranma or Uresei Yatsura fun to watch. Go’s strenuous physical comedy also invites unfavorable comparison to Jackie Chan’s. Whereas Jackie Chan’s energetic antics are always leavened by Chaplinesque sentimentality, the physical comedy of Elf Princess Rane borders on the witless Roadrunner and Coyote formula. The most frightening thing about Elf Princess Rane is that it’s the first in a series of videos that, God willing, will never be available in the Western World.
If you haven’t seen a lot of anime or even film in general, then Elf Princess Rane might be moderately entertaining. If it’s the first anime you’ve ever seen, please don’t think that all anime is like this.
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Other Anime Reviews Affair on Nolandia Review Curse of the Blood Rubies Review DNA Sights 999.9 Review Project A-ko Review* Slayers:The Motion Picture Review* |
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