Princess Nine: The Complete Collection (DVD)

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"Princess Nine" took me by surprise. When I first received this series, I didn't think that a twenty-six-episode anime about baseball could even be slightly good. It is, in fact, excellent. It contains a very solid and moving story that should appeal to all audiences. A love of baseball is not a necessary component to enjoy this anime. It certainly helps with terminology though.

"Princess Nine" has a heart-warming story that slowly sucks the viewer in. Our main character Ryo, is the focus throughout most of the story. Ryo's father was a great baseball pitcher. Before he died, he taught her how to pitch. Ryo begins to follow in her father's footsteps as a star athlete. This much starts the rollercoaster of emotion that is the series. The emotional press really begins when Ryo is offered a baseball scholarship, and the opportunity to play on the same championship field that her father had played on.

The first half of the series seems to be the formation of the all-female baseball team. While the team starts with three players, Ryo and "coach drunk"(as Ryo affectionately calls him) must scout six more girls with the talent and drive to play on the team. This is, of course, easier said than done. Looking back, it seems like it took a tremendous amount of time to get to the meat of the series. While I was watching the series, I really did not notice. The plot and action were so engrossing, that before I knew it the series was in its final episodes.

What really impresses me about "Princess Nine" is that character development is highly emphasized. While the series does have a few episodes on "special techniques", the baseball seems almost secondary to the personal growth each character goes through in the series. The best example of this is the development of Yuki. In the beginning, Yuki does not talk. By the end, she is a member of the team, and has given up her only childhood friend "Fifi". Towards the end of the series, she even has conversations with her teammates. I consider these final episodes to be among the best in the series.

It was a pleasure to watch the "Princess Nine: Complete Collection". It seems an even greater pleasure to be able to review it. This series is a remarkable addition to the anime world, and should be viewed by every anime fan. In short, this series should be considered required viewing for all. At this point, the only thing that this series has left me wanting is more episodes. I would have watched an additional twenty-six episodes if they had been available.

Video:
The video aspect ratio is 1.33:1 (full-screen on 4:3 monitors). The animation quality of this series is quite good. The colors are well contrasted. It creates a very vibrant atmosphere, and contributes to the overall detail of the video. While watching this series, there is the occasional distortion (such as white dots). This is a rare occurrence throughout the series, and happened less than five times by my count. The only problem that I experienced with the video was a mapping error. While on my primary DVD player, the disc would skip from the "next episode preview" to one of the "ADV previews" when pressing the next/skip button. On the secondary DVD player I used, it considered skipping the next episode preview to be a prohibited action. Either way, it makes it very hard to skip the preview.