Otakuism

Scrapped Princess Vol. 2 begins will the Casull siblings of Pacifica, Shannon, and Raquel continuing on their quest to protect Pacifica as the cursed Scrapped Princess. Their wonderings lead them to the town of Taurus and its local people. After a run in with some assassins they are forced to stay in the town for a while. But higher forces want the Scrapped Princess dead and are willing to destroy an entire town and its people to get to her. The Casull siblings have to decide between protecting their sister and a town that shuns them.

The second volume of this title from Tokyopop’s POP fiction line follows a “more of the same is better” formula. While this volume introduces more characters into the mix and expands on the fantasy world and its ruling powers, there is still the continuing touch of mediocre to the work. It’s not bad, and can be at times thoroughly engrossing, but the feeling of “been there, done that” still lingers throughout the work. It doesn’t help that the world of Scrapped Princess is as generic a fantasy world as you can get. The only thing missing are the elves, and thank god for that. The new characters introduced in this volume are a mixed bag. A few are interesting and funny, with Winia and her various insecurities being the best. Chris returns from the last volume and a thin layer of complexity is added to him. The rest of the villians are a generic mix of big baddies from the government, and are rather easily defeated. A few “mysterious” characters show up, who actions are completely random, and, in a way, irrelevant. The plot also suffers from an overly cheerful first half and a dark second half, with a sudden turn between the two.

The translation remains top notch, with even less of the annoying slang I found in the first volume. There are several more illustrations included in this volume, and while I wished they were more focused on the women (Mogudan draws some hot women) they’re still pretty good. Tokyopop’s policy of removing the original cover artwork for a piece of generic trash continues here, as I fear is will for most volumes. I really hate Tokyopop sometime for these utterly ridiculous and stupid design ideas they have. I still don’t see how this is supposed to increase readership. This volume wasn’t even at my local Barnes&Noble. Yeah, Tokyopop’s publicity is working real well. Here’s an image of the japanese cover of this volume:

If you liked the first volume of Scrapped Princess, faults and all, you’ll certainly enjoy the second. It niether improves or declines in quality, maintaing its own level of fun, if forgettable, adventure. Hopefully several of the hints and mysterious being introduced here will add up to a more interesting third volume.