Ulfson's Full Review: Princess Nine - Vol. 5: Bases Loaded
Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
NOTE: This review is a continuation of my reviews of this series. If you have not seen any of the volumes or my previous reviews, you risk spoilers by continuing.
The Intro
Ok admit it, after all the plot twists that have been thrown at us for the last 17 episodes you really thought that Ryo was going to die at the end of the last volume didn't you? Well no worries because you can't keep this firey fireball pitcher down quite that easily and she's back with her team mates for this incredible fifth volume!
The Story
Four more emotionally charged episodes are brought to us in this time as we travel closer and closer to the incredible finale that awaits us with the sixth and final volume of this wonderful series. In the first episode, Kanako's birthday is quickly approaching and her father, the principal, wants to know what she wants. Finally standing up for herself, all she requests from her father is that the team be kept together and Ryo be allowed to stay in school.
Meanwhile, Ryo is all healed and returns to school to be greeted warmly by her team mates, coldy by Takasugi and with a front page story in the newspaper proclaiming her a hero for saving the two children in the river at great peril to her own life. It is also in this episode that she learns the truth about the relationship between her father and the Chairman that happened twenty years ago. She learns more about her father's scandal and we learn the true motivations on why she wanted the baseball team so badly. It quite an emotional and wonderful story and breaths new life into the series.
In the second episode, new relationships start blossoming everywhere as feelings start to come out into the open, the first and most obvious of which would be the love triangle between Izumi, Takasugi and Ryo. In this episode, Izumi tries to make it clear to him that she loves him as Ryo gives him a birthday present as a way of showing her feelings. Takasugi however takes a much more direct approach to the girl he truly cares about by giving her his cherished medal that he won in the Jr. High baseball championships as a good luck charm and proclaiming his love for her outloud.
The next two relationships that start to blossom are ones that I surely didn't expect. First, would be Coach Kido hinting around that he may have feelings for Ryo's mother and then the second would be Hikaru falling for Ryo's best friend, Sheishiro.
Pain In Training is the third episode on this disc in which the girls finally make it to the intensive training camp that they've been warned about for the last three episodes to get ready for the regional preliminary round of the baseball tournament. While there however things turn badly as Izumi falls into a slump when she can't deal with the thought of losing the man she's loved ever since she was a child to another girl and then the normally quiet Azuma loses her precious doll/alien (If you think back, she claimed that her charm was an alien from a planet 18 light years away back on Volume 1) causing her to lose all confidence in herself but also to become depressed to a dangerous degree. This is definitely a heated episode with plenty of tension to keep you intrested but also sadness as more of Azuma's past is finally revealed to us.
The last episode we see on Volume 5 is called 'I Hate You, Takasugi!' and I have to admit that when I first read that title I did not expect it to turn out the way it did. Worried about Izumi, Takasugi arrives at the camp to find out the truth of why she called him in the middle of the night but gets no real answers. Later Ryo is out in the woods looking for Fifi, thinking about the hurtful words that were said to her by Izumi (I won't tell you what exactly she said but believe me, it was a regular verbal slap in the face!) she gets caught in a flash thunderstorm and winds up waiting it out with Takasugi in a mountain cabin. Emotions are heated and words are exchanged but nothing else.
Back in the team's room however, Azuma is still completely out of it. She won't eat, she won't sleep and everyone is trying their best to snap her out of it but nothing is working. Even more of Azuma's past is revealed here and it's definitely worth paying attention to as we learn more about this mysterious quiet girl in Left Field.
The Good and the Bad
Nothing in this series stands out as bad really but all the good things are kept there for us. While this volume revolves mostly around new emotions and relationships that are forming between the girls and some of the guys, it doesn't detract away from the main plot of the series of the girl's trying to get to Koshien since it is blended in so well.
Extras
Unfortunetly this volume breaks the Princess Nine tradition of being one of the first anime DVD's that I've seen that has wonderful extras. In this volume the only extras that we get are the clean opening and closing animations, the standard six ADV trailers and pictures of the original art boxes of the DVD's from Japan. While the pictures of the art boxes are semi intresting, It's a shame that they weren't able to keep up the trend with more intresting extras such as the Oden recipie from volume 2 or the karaoke from Volume 4.
Music
The music in this series hasn't changed either. The opening and closing themes are the same as they always have been (except that they used a slightly longer version of the opening theme for the first episode of the disc). The background music always fits perfectly though which is a major plus. When songs come on during the actual episode that involve lyrics (such as when they play the opening theme during tense practice sessions) it is always understated and blends in perfectly, the extra sub titles aren't even distracting!
Overall
The wonderful thing about this series is how it breaths new life into itself along the way to stay fresh and intresting. While it's important to have a central theme and plot, if you don't do things along the way to shake things up or bring the viewer in closer... things get stale and the viewer along with the series gets tired.
Princess Nine goes out of it's way to make you pay attention and wonder what's going to happen next. Never afraid to throw a curve ball your way, you better be ready to catch it or else you're going to get left behind in a hurry!
Volume five keeps up the wonderful streak of this series and I can only imagine how incredible the sixth and final volume will be!
Related Websites
http://www.advfilms.com/favorites/princessnine
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.