Scrapped Princess



Scrapped Princess is a light novel series written by Ichiro Sakaki, which was later adapted into a 24-episode anime. It centers around a seemingly 15-year old girl named Pacifica Casull, a cheerful, perky (and somewhat naive) princess who is destined to cause The End of the World As We Know It. Protected by her older siblings Shannon and Raquel, Pacifica is forced to flee across the world to escape those who want to kill her: kings, peasants, a religious order, and certain mysterious strangers...all while coming to terms with her destiny and making friends with the few travelers who don't yet know of her so-called "cursed" nature.

What starts out as a typical-looking Medieval European Fantasy anime takes a dip into Science Fiction territory at around the halfway point, without straying too far from its fantasy roots. Despite the show's premise (one girl against the world), a lot of the characters Pacifica meets on her journey act reasonably honorable, even though they have their own reasons for doing what they do. With great production values and a strong script by Reiko Yoshida (of Tokyo Mew Mew and Digimon Tamers fame), this is one of the better series you're probably not watching. The anime and manga are licensed and released in full; the light novels were licensed, but were apparently dropped with fifteen books to go.

Spoiler Ahoy!

This series provides examples of:

 * Annoying Arrows: In episode 18, Furet fends off a gang of assassins with a pair of knives and two arrows in his back.
 * While jumping around between galloping horses, no less.
 * Arms and Armor Theme Naming: Almost everyone is named after a type or brand of firearm or ammunition.
 * Pacifica
 * Bad Export for You: For the US DVD release, Bandai received masters that were of notably worse quality than the Japanese DVD release. Could have been an innocent mistake, but it also could've been a move by Kadokawa to worsen the cheaper R1 release and discourage reverse importation.
 * Break the Cutie: Pacifica. Yeah, kinda inevitable when everyone in the world is trying to kill you.
 * Brown Note: Simply looking at a Peacemaker directly in the eye is enough to brainwash an entire city.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Raquel Casull, one of the world's most powerful mages... when she feels like it. And when she doesn't...
 * Burger Fool: In episode 3, Raquel and Pacifica try to earn their keep at the inn they're staying by dressing up as the inn's mascot, Soopy-kun, and selling little pastries called "Soopy Buns", to varying degrees of success. Leo tries his hand at it, and likes it so much that the innkeeper lets him keep the costume, which he uses as a sleeping bag.
 * Calling Your Attacks: All spells require a vocal command to activate. Raquel Casull is especially good with this, since all of her spells have ridiculously short names and charge times (as evidenced by a hilariously one-sided battle in the first episode against a Mauser priest).
 * The novels explain that it's not so much a short spell, as it is that she keeps an "emulator" spell running at all times - she's essentially using macros to cast her spells.
 * Compelling Voice: Providence
 * Cool Ship: Skid
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Mauser faith has Christian-esque elements with plenty of local influence.
 * Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday: Predicted to end the world on it even.
 * Darkest Hour: The last episode has a great example of this.
 * Deadly Hug:
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Zefiris. And Cz to a lesser extent.
 * Dilating Door: The doors of Skid are the relatively conservative sliding Star Trek variant, but the protagonists just can't get used to them.
 * Disappears Into Light:
 * Doing in The Wizard: Sort of. See Clarke's Third Law.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending
 * Emotionless Girl: Zefiris and Natalie.
 * Engaging Conversation: Leo's first words to Pacifica.
 * Enigmatic Minion: Chris (in the beginning), Cz (later on)
 * Everythings Better With Princesses...Unless your name happens to be Pacifica Casull.
 * First Name Ultimatum: Seness has a habit of shouting "EIROTE!" even when her partner is standing right next to her.
 * Fusion Dance: Shannon fuses with Zefiris to become a D-Knight, and their fighting abilities are amplified several times over.
 * Gambit Roulette: There are plenty of these to keep you entertained. The anime even pokes fun of it once in awhile.
 * Gender Misdirection: Mauser is referenced throughout the series either by name only or as "Lord God Mauser". Mauser's name even sounds like it would belong to a male. In the end, however, not only is Mauser revealed to be a woman,
 * Giant Poofy Sleeves
 * Graceful Loser: Following his defeat in Episode 4, Chris vows never to directly attack the heroes' party again.
 * Gratuitous English: A good amount of the dialogue is in English, as well as the opening theme.
 * Heroic BSOD:
 * Hey Its That Voice: This anime is overflowing with familiar voices.
 * Humongous Mecha: Peacemakers have the ability to transform into 30-foot tall city-annihilating terrors. The highlight of the series is the battle in the Grand Finale with a mech Dragon fighting a mech Angel... In Space!
 * Identity Amnesia: Pamela!
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title is in the form "Classical music genre of focus person/group of the episode". The genre is usually related to the mood of the episode. (e.g., The Waltz of the Abandoned Dog Girl, Symphony of Those Who Protect)
 * Info Dump: Zefiris delivers one. Lampshaded when Pacifica falls asleep.
 * Instant Runes
 * JAM Project featuring Okui Masami ("Little Wing")
 * Lethal Chef: Pacifica loves and loves to consume, but the stuff that she produces is...well.
 * Lethal Harmless Powers
 * Lost Colony
 * Loophole Abuse: There is an order to the army to kill Pacifica, but no order specifically states not to let her go
 * Low Culture High Tech: What everyone believes to be magic is really
 * Magic From Technology
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Pacifica's tragedy-triggered superpower is a sonic scream that undoes the mass brainwashing of the Peacemakers.
 * Medieval Stasis: Justified in that
 * Meganekko: Eirote
 * Messianic Archetype (Pacifica)
 * Mind Control Eyes: Any human who looks directly at a Peacemaker gets red eyes with white irises.
 * Mix and Match: + fantasy.
 * Modesty Towel
 * Nice Job Breaking It Herod: Newborn Pacifica's death sentence is the event that kicks off everything after.
 * Odd Couple: Seness (fierce warrior princess) and Eirote (reserved domestic type)
 * Offing the Offspring: Pacifica's biological parents tried to drop her off a cliff fearing that others would try to kill her for being the "Scrapped Princess". She survived, and she's still being hunted.
 * But her mother arranged for her fostermother (a powerful sorceress) to be waiting at the base of the cliff to catch her.
 * On the Next Episode of Catchphrase: "See you next time!" / "Look forward to it!" (Raquel Casull)
 * Outsourcing Fate: When
 * Parental Abandonment: In addition to the above, her adopted mother died some years ago and her adopted father was killed by an assassin in the first novel (just before the first episode).
 * Path of Inspiration: The Church of Mauser.
 * People Jars: Lord Renard places several of his "followers" into comas and encases them in containment tubes in episode 10 to use them to power a spell to zap-fry the city of St. Grendel, a rival of the Church of Lord Browning.
 * Pimped Out Dress
 * Population Control
 * Post Episode Trailer: Narrated out-of-character by Raquel's voice actress.
 * Power Limiter: The Peacemakers have 4 modes from sealed mode to normal, to limited battle release to full release which isn't capable of being used safely (for everyone else) in the atmosphere.
 * Rage Against the Heavens:
 * Rousseau Was Right
 * Ruins of the Modern Age
 * Screw Destiny
 * Selective Slaughter: The Peacemakers use their power to kill everyone but their assigned target: Pacifica Casull. Apparently their programming will not permit it.
 * It is suggested that this is because her power (a kind of Magic-EMP which leaves nearby peacemakers considerably weakened) is unleashed when she is directly attacked. Thus they need to convince humans that she should be killed rather than kill her themselves. At one point Seness decides to in a battle with a Peacemaker.
 * Floating Continent
 * Sleep Mode Size: Cz is first introduced as a small orphan girl who appears to have No Social Skills. When she returns later, she appears as a fully-grown woman, much to Shannon's dismay.
 * Sorry I Fell On Your Fist: Pacifica does this constantly.
 * Spaceship Girl: Natalie.
 * The "girl" part is Lampshaded by Zefiris, who is of the same model. She says she's not the one who came up with this look, thereby implying the invocation of the trope by their creators.
 * Sword Sparks
 * Transformation Sequence: The Cool Ship, Skid, has one of these.
 * Travel Cool: Taking the Skid to confront the Peacemakers.
 * Trial Balloon Question
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: Leo and Furet make some ugly women.
 * Worthy Opponent: Nearly every human character with a name behaves with a degree of honor and decency.
 * Writtenbythe Winners
 * You All Meet in An Inn: Not really their first meeting, but after her amnesia, Pacifica, Raquel, Leo, Doyle, Winia, Fulle and Leonard bumped into each other in a tavern.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real
 * Writtenbythe Winners
 * You All Meet in An Inn: Not really their first meeting, but after her amnesia, Pacifica, Raquel, Leo, Doyle, Winia, Fulle and Leonard bumped into each other in a tavern.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real

Tropes used in the light novels:

 * Functional Magic: Theurgy variety; a strange twist is that instead of invoking gods or spirits they are giving orders to unthinking machines who merely respond to commands with set responses.
 * Magic Misfire: Raquel's first-class spells have a 25% failure rate.
 * And her utility spells have an even worse success rate: something like 33% of her attempts at magical cooking result in blowing up whatever she was trying to cook. Not that Shannon will let her try that anymore.
 * Mummies At the Dinner Table (One of the first assassins to appear in the novels and his infant daughter)
 * Necromantic
 * Trial Balloon Question
 * Whip Sword