English Dub Review: Fena – Pirate Princess “The Chosen Maiden”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Fena is taken by Cody, who reveals himself to a representation of Eden, to become the “Maiden of Choosing” like her mother before her so she can choose the fate of the world. Her options are leaving things as they are and potentially letting her friends die OR wiping out most humans now to bring about a new age, but she’ll lose her memories either way. After some encouragement from mental recollections of her friends, she decides to leave things the same, but still loses her memories and somehow regrows her hair black. Eden disappears, but the Goblin Knights are able to collect a ton of treasure and the Kusanagi before escaping. After picking up Yukimaru and Fena, the crew do their best to jog her memory by taking her back to places they had been, but nothing seems to work. Despite this, Yukimaru says he’ll keep trying and finally verbally confesses his love for her, which seems to budge something loose.

OUR TAKE

And that’s a wrap on Fena: Pirate Princess, though it’s about what I expected, for better or worse. After barely ever having an opportunity to really grow or develop as a character, suddenly Fena is put in charge of deciding whether or not to end the world because of an unknowably powerful force that has been around for millennia and…is it really any surprise that she doesn’t? There’s been no indication or instance that Fena would ever want to essentially wipe out humanity, nor has this ever been hinted at as being what “Eden” wants. It just seems like the writers wanted to have a big climax where Fena makes a bit world altering decision without actually building her up as someone that decision would actually matter to. Even if it is framed as a choice, it isn’t really, because “destroying the world” is not really an option for hero characters. The only way this even remotely works is if you actually take time during the course of the show to give the character who will be making the decision legitimate reasons to dislike humanity or think they might be better off extinct…but even then, they still have to choose an uncertain future letting people live anyway to push the lesson that people should continue living even when times seem tough, because otherwise it’s just a needlessly dark and depressing ending which this show definitely could not pull off.

Fena simply isn’t a character who has ever been exposed to anything or given any reason to not let people live. After a whole season of stuff just happening to her or around her, suddenly giving her this choice just leads to a predictable result. Though that’s without leaving out how nonsensical the rules of the choice in the first place, which apparently still require her to continue her bloodline (even if she chooses to wipe humanity out) AND lose her memories (even if she chooses to let them live) but also end up back with her “beloved”, who is still definitely Yukimaru despite their whole relationship never really being fleshed out or defined beyond “they really love each other a whole lot, you guys”. And as expected, we never get to see Shitan or any of the Goblin Knights use Kusanagi, which would have at least been a neat last cool thing for them to do, but we never find out what the sword does or why it’s there or what their clan needs it for. They just give it to Kei, who we also never see in action despite all the build up around him, and I guess all that potential betrayal or being marked for death or whatever is just forgotten about since this is all about Fena and Yukimaru despite how poorly they’ve been written. The show looks great as usual, but that can’t cover up all the flaws. But maybe looking at it overall in the Season Review will dig up some nice things to say.