English Dub Review: Fena – Pirate Princess “Bar-Baral”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Fena and the Goblin Island Pirates visit Bar-Baral for supplies and to get Fena a change of clothes, but are pursued by a group of female pirates organized by Abel, a British officer who is desperate to retrieve Fena.

OUR TAKE

With this, we have now completed one quarter of this series, but the plot still feels quite thin. We do know what the main objective here is, that being to find “Eden” with the clear stone that Fena was given, and we also find another one in this episode that will likely be used to compare it to, but the means of doing all of that still seem up in the air. We’re getting gradual characterization for the pirates (though calling them pirates seems a bit generous at the moment). Karin is the inventor girl who bonds with Fena as the only other girl there, the twins Enju and Kaede get some spotlight this episode and seem to currently be basically what you expect from two characters whose main personality trait is being twins, and Yukimaru is eager to help and save Fena at any given opportunity but is also quite shy around her. Everyone else will have to wait their turn to get fleshed out, I guess. But it sure can’t happen fast enough because while this group is all sleekly designed and cool to see in action, they are currently on track to be dull as dish water.

Though one of the more interesting developments in this episode, of which there are few, is giving us a better glimpse at a couple of the antagonists. The two we see this time are Abel, a British officer, and O’Malley, a red headed female pirate who he seems to be rather close with. Other than Abel seeming like a legitimate and credible threat that we’ll likely be getting to know better as the series goes on, I can’t help by perk my ears up due to the literary connection between Abel’s name and the enigmatic “Eden” the crew are searching for. If Evangelion has taught me anything, it’s that Japanese media tends to like using Abrahamic religious symbolism pretty loosely, so I can’t say for sure if there is an actual connection here, but the possibility is certainly there. Also wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that Abel is actually Fena’s brother or something. I did some cursory research and Fena doesn’t come up as a biblical name, but that could mean a lot of different things right now. I guess we’ll see if this goes anywhere as we move into finishing the first third of the show next week!