Score: B+

This episode nicely wrapped up the debut for Princess Ripple. Natsu had the poor luck of being friends with the protagonist so she gets attacked two episodes in a row! But overall it was a solid episode for letting us see our main character in action and establishing what the good guys know about their overall situation. Admittedly…they don’t actually know all that much! This episode was the first time that Kagari realized that there were humans (I think) controlling the monsters. But even that much of a reveal should be enough to really let the story get rolling from here on out.

Why does this need to be a secret?

Definitely going to be fair to call this show a fusion of Symphogear and Precure. Whether that combination will thrive or not will have to be seen. They definitely are pulling pretty liberally from certain elements of each. The secret identity thing was exactly that. It had much more of the Precure vibe where they keep it a secret…just because. While identities were mostly kept secret in Symphogear too there was a more political angle to that. I don’t think there’s much issue for the girls to reveal that they are Princesses really. They might get more attention…but one of them is effectively a major idol so I can’t imagine her popularity going any higher than it already is!

Honestly the secret just doesn’t hold up in this case. There’s no evidence that their enemies can appear outside of this isekai region. So Minamo’s family is actually perfectly safe. Sure, her friends (that are girls and that regularly access that world) could be in danger. But not really. She already transformed in front of them. Do their enemies have smartphones and can check out social media posts? They already know what Minamo looks like and who her friends are. There’s no increased danger in terms of keeping things quiet. Also that still doesn’t explain why she can’t tell some people. I get that secret identities are a magical girl staple, but this case feels a bit unique. They are already spending time in a secret world. Not sure how much extra secrecy is needed.

Yeah this isn’t suspicious!

I’ve got to admit this Alicepia place seems incredibly shady! Are we sure the antagonists are really the bad guys here? It’s a world that only allows young girls to visit and generates energy from them having fun and expressing themselves. So it basically needs these girls to power itself and is using them like batteries. Sure, a give/take relationship isn’t the most evil of things. It makes sense this world and its inhabitants are gaining something from letting anyone come to this world at all. But it just sounds really iffy!

Did get a bit of a chuckle from Minamo hyping herself up before battle. Yes, Alicepia is a place where anyone (that is young and also female) can have their dreams come true. Just ignoring a massive percentage of the human race it’s basically a wonderland for “anyone.” Obviously I get her point. But honestly it will be interesting to learn about the antagonists since there’s a lot of iffy elements to that place.

I did like the finisher

It is kind of impossible to not compare this to Precure and Symphogear. At least I can’t avoid it. I think this show reveals how tricky it is to merge different franchises. It wants the big finishing moves of Precure and to be fair Ripple’s attack was a nice visual treat. But it also showed why Symphogear didn’t do things that way. Saying an attack out loud obviously stops the singing and setting it up slows the flow. Symphogear attacks generally happened in real time as the battles were going on. There was no cutaway as they set it up. Or at least it wasn’t cutting to some alternate space. And I think with singing combat there is a good value in keeping things flowing.

But if I compare it to a Precure finisher it’s not falling behind. I think the visual pop of Ripple’s attack was close if not clearing the usual Precure finishing attack. The music and singing definitely adds some nice power to it also. It will be interesting to see if that attack has the kind of flexibility it appeared to have while she was firing it. While it nailed the Jammerwock with a straight forward shot it had plenty of zig zagging before that.

Silly and fun transformation

My feelings on the transformation are that it was good. Visually it was nice and really leaned in on the magical element of this series and Ripple’s specific affinity with water. You could just feel them having fun with elements like the lock on her back unleashing those ribbons when unleashed. There was plenty of flash to it and I thought it was fun. It leaves me looking forward to the other characters and how spectacular their transformations will be. Ripple’s transformation left me with an impression that each one will be nice and distinct.

But I do want to compare again to Symphogear to note that it’s so key to have a good repeatable tune for the transformation. I felt like Ripple was hitting the same pattern a bit too often. You could feel the song at a metaphorical red light just revving its engine and wanting to get going! But that might just be a nitpick I’d have with Ripple’s transformation specifically. Will have to wait and see with the other girls when they get their chance to get a transformation sequence.

She’ll be fine…

This second episode was solid. We got some more fights, a full transformation, and introduced some interesting elements that the show might end up playing with. There’s plenty of potential with this show especially in the combat which is keeping things on a melee level right now. I’m not entirely sure that I’ll keep up with this one. I feel like a lot of my comments for this show would just be referencing Symphogear and that’s not entirely fair. But will see. Maybe the third episode will just land so perfectly that I’ll have no choice, but to keep going!