Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime 51

  
  
  

With the power of the Grace Stones the Black Crystal is broken and flies off out of the Mysterious Planet and into space... The Sun's Blessing returns to its former brightness and the clouds in all of the kingdoms clear up. The Bumo Box disappears... and our old buddy, the chancellor of the Moon Kingdom is back. Thought I'd never see him again ;) In the Moon Kingdom, Moon Maria finally wakes up... Fine and Rein did it! And so of course they celebrate by doing the yatta dance... however, Pumo is nowhere to be found. Fine and Rein start to cry...

But then Fine and Rein are transported to the inside of Sun's Blessing where Princess Grace talks to them. Pumo's doing just fine -- the last Grace Stone barely made it in time before he completely disappeared. Fine and Rein cry even more now that he's back. Pumo cries more than a bit himself when he realizes that Fine and Rein have done it. The Sunny Luches, their role complete, turn into small jewels (with appropriate colors) containing the hopes and wishes of everyone on the Mysterious Planet. Her work done, Princess Grace can now have eternal rest. She tells Pumo to look after Fine and Rein for her. Naginyo's role is done as well...

To celebrate the revival of the Sun's Blessing a party is held at the Sun Kingdom. As usual, Fine and Rein are late since Fine couldn't stop eating and Rein took an hour long bath. And of course they trip and fall when they finally get to the ballroom. Nothing's changed at all (^^;;) Bright comes and invites Rein to dance with him, and Shade offers to dance with Fine as well. Everyone dances happily, and soon enough the kings and queens join in as well. And we end with a nice iyaiyaiyaaan, iyaiyaaaa to this being the end... though not really the end for most of them since there's a sequel ;)

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For a last episode this was very... last episode-like, with things pretty much going as you'd expect. (save for the reappearance of Roman and his henchmen. I thought they'd been forgotten). I was just about as sad as Fine and Rein when Pumo disappeared, but of course since we had to have a happy ending he came back. medatashi, medatashi :) The couples seem to be somewhat official now with Bright x Rein and Shade x Fine. Quick change of heart on Bright's part, don't you think? Perhaps he finally realized what was going on :P I would suspect we'll be seeing much more on the relationship front in Gyu!, so stay tuned folks.

Wow, it's been a year already? Time sure does fly when you're having fun, as the saying goes. It's been a while since I've gotten into a show as much as I have with Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime, probably since Cardcaptor Sakura. I've probably spent more money buying Futago Hime stuff than CCS stuff, actually (^^;;) I've been done in by Jun'ichi Satou yet again ;) After I watched the first episode with Leonne making her first appearance I knew I was hooked -- that doesn't happen often. Rather than a big plot, what made Futago Hime special for me are the characters, starting with Fine and Rein and their trademark iyaiya dance, then Leonne's shyness and choukawaii-ness in that first episode, and continuing with the other princesses as the show went on. Most of them have something to make them unique -- Altessa for being a tsundere brother-con, Sophie for her sharp tongue and general airheadedness (she made a great comedy duo with Altessa), Leonne for her gentleness and her Samba dance later on, Miruro for her shyness at first then finally opening up a bit thanks to Fine and Rein. And of course Fine and Rein shared some qualities (that's the rule for twins in anime) -- both bright and cheerful all the time even when times were tough (that seems to be the big idea in Futago Hime) -- but their differences were shown to set them apart. And of course every princess was quite kawaii. The episodes where Miruro was the main character especially stand out to me as being among the best Futago Hime has to offer... of course. If you've been reading the blog you know all about that ;) Anyways, all of that plus excellent performances from all of the seiyuu adds up to make Futago Hime something I looked forward to watching every week, and just about every week I really enjoyed myself.

Now, I could go on about some of the weaknesses of the overall plot -- I did feel that after Bright turned to the dark side and we entered the Grace Stone part things somewhat got lost and didn't have quite the feel that the show had up until then, and the quality of animation seemed to drop along with that (though that might be explained by HAL having to do ARIA at the same time). That interview with the staff in the character detail book mentioned that they had no idea Bright would go dark in the beginning and such, so perhaps they weren't sure exactly where they were going. Myself, I would've liked to see the more of the whole rectangular relationship that was going on there, but in that same interview it seemed that the staff realized that was a bit much for their intended audience, so they moved away from it. But putting all that aside, the characters and that rather unique Futago Hime "feel" (I can't quite explain it, but y'all know what I mean) more than made it worth continuing to watch.

As for the technical aspects, the animation went up and down as would be expected for a one year show. However, given its time slot and audience, Futago Hime was impressive for the many episodes it did look quite good. Episode 25 comes to mind as an example, and most of the episodes with Miruro as the main character were nicely animated as well. Hopefully some of the episodes that were below average will be retouched for the DVD release. The music in Futago Hime was excellent, all fitting very well in whatever situation. I'd have to rank the OP and ED (the 1st one) among the best of last year, both for the very catchy songs and the excellent animation. I really should get the soundtrack ;)

Anyways, if you've been reading the past year you know how much I've loved Futago Hime, so there's not really much need to keep going on here. There's something in it for the young ones, as well as the older fans of the genre such as myself. A big thank you to Jun'ichi Satou and the staff for doing a great job and working so hard the past year. Work just as hard on the second year ;)

I'd like to send thanks to all of the Futago Hime fans that have stayed with me and kept on reading the past year. Your comments were much appreciated :) Also thanks for those who hopped onboard with my experiment in fansubbing and sent e-mails and such. I'm really sorry I couldn't continue it since I know a lot of you really enjoyed it from the e-mails I've gotten. It was very much a learning experience for me :)

And that's about all I've got to say about Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime. Thankfully, this isn't the end, as the second year, Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime Gyu! starts next week! Not bad for a show that was rumored to be cut back around the fall. That also means I'm going to be spending way too much money over this next year as well. For a trailer and more info check here. I'll post it ASAP next Saturday ;)

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Can't forget to do the random stats here ;)

Episodes Blogged: 51/51 (100%) - Every last one, every week (save one) for one whole year. Quite something for me
MVP: Miruro (and Leonne, too)
Entries with "Futago Hime" in the title: 65
Word count of all Futago Hime entries: 70914 (about 75 pages at 12pt Times New Roman)
Number of times "kawaii" was said: 51
Number of times "Miruro kawaii" was said: 14

Futago Hime Moe Character Ranking:
Miruro >>> Leonne (uncrossable barrier) >>> Sophie >>> Fine/Rein >>> Altessa >>> Everybody else

Favorite Episodes (in no particular order):
1 - Totally done in by Leonne-chan's kawainess. Iyaiyaiya~
17 - Sophie and Miruro speak for the first time!
19 - First Miruro episode. Everyone wonders how such a cute girl like Miruro could come from that... Miruro jumps over Leonne to take first place in my Futago Hime Moe Character Ranking for good ;)
25 - Kamisakuga! Normal kawaisa x 10 ;)
29 - Altessa changes her style. Second ending first aired. Everyone done in by Miruro's pose (that seemed to be aimed squarely at the older audience).
32 - Samba! Leonne shows off her samba costume. Bright goes hard gay (I really didn't need to see that).
34 - Second Miruro episode. Miruro shows that she can have fun, too. Saw little Miruro. All the Miruro fans moeshinda (possibly multiple times).
40 - The Flame Kingdom Variety Show. Leonne-chan's quite talented. Excellent tsukkomi when translating for Bo Dragon (or did she agree with him?). Delayed onsen service for the ooki na otomodachi
41 - Third and final Miruro episode. Miruro and her Mom finally make up. Medatashi :)
43 - Kaleido Star parody episode. Nacchi takes most kawaii guest character spot.
45 - Last Princess Party, and fitting kamisakuga for it. Altessa goes dere thanks to Auler (you the man!). Miruro sings Princess wa akiramenai. Samba Leonne shows up again.

Futago Hime Goods Owned (in no particular order):
Futago Hime ~Lovely Kingdom~ 1 (manga)
Futago Hime DVDs 1-7 (+box with first press of 7)
Fine & Rein Plushies
Futago Hime Himitsu Jiten
Futago Hime Character Detail Book
Fine & Rein Collective File DX Figures
Futago Hime Twinkle Princess Figures (full set of 5)
Futago Hime Princess Doll Figures (full set of 4)
Futago Hime 2006 Calendar

Y'all do the math ;) I really need to grab the soundtracks and such...