-- Yukimaru
I know this anime is a collaborative work between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim, so it's surreal to me how much this show felt more like an animated Disney movie than anything else it could've been.
A Disney Movie. That's the quickest and easiest way I could summarize this anime - by calling it a movie from a company that isn't associated with it at all, in fact, a movie by a company that is a direct competitor to Adult Swim, a network that has found a home on places like Cartoon Network in recent years.
Yet, even knowing all of that, I can't change my answer. Fena: Pirate Princess isn't just another Crunchyroll Original like we've seen before, nor is it like any other anime we've seen air on Adult Swim. It's not K, it's not Trigun, and it's definitely not another Fullmetal Alchemist... but that doesn't mean it's another Star Wars: Visions or Pirates of the Caribbean either.
There are many reasons I immediately jump to relating an anime like Fena to a movie along the same lines as Frozen or Beauty and the Beast, and if you've seen this anime, maybe you know what I mean. If you don't get it though, let me explain.
From start to finish this show felt like I was watching a Disney movie. The characters never really changed aside from the main two, it wasn’t ever perfect, and sometimes things got a little too fantastical but nonetheless, it’s something I’ll remember every little detail about and I feel like I could rewatch this series a hundred times without it ever losing its charm.
It really wasn’t perfect by any means, and I’m sure someone more critical could break down everything that didn’t make sense about it, because like I said, sometimes it got too fantastical to make sense, but I call it a Disney movie for a reason - you watch these movies for that fantastical feeling, not because it needs to be a masterpiece, and it’s that feeling that these films give you that leaves you able to watch them over and over again without growing bored.
Watching this show made me feel like a kid again, watching Aladdin or Frozen for the first time, and feeling these emotions I didn't understand. When Aladdin took Jasmine on a magic carpet ride, I was able to understand that nothing like that was possible, but it was the sense of "what if" that made it magical either way. Disney movies have this way of making you feel like a child no matter how old you are, and will always leave your imagination going wild with all the fantastical scenarios they present you with... and Fena does the same thing.
Fena: Pirate Princess somehow managed to recreate that magical feeling that I got watching Miguel sing "Remember Me" to his grandmother. It didn't make a lot of sense every moment of its runtime, and it didn't try to stay on a realistic track, but that wasn't the point of the story. Fena wasn't meant to be realistic but was instead a journey that we could watch but never recreate. A journey we could lose ourselves in without reality pushing us down.
From the beautiful love story between Fena and Yukimaru to the side characters who built a cast of absolutely loveable morons, like the twins who just screamed Sven and Kristoff every chance they got, to Eden, the show's final destination, Fena never left this magical world it built, and it created a story that we, as viewers, would want to get enthralled in, whether we meant to or not.
I realize I'm talking in circles at this point, but there's really just one more thing I want to mention, and I did just bring it up, but Eden is one of the most beautiful, yet heartwrenching places I've ever seen in anime. It's a place that fits perfectly in this fantastical world that Fena has created, and a perfect fit for the theme of a... Disney movie.
Since the gang entered Eden, where an island grew from the desolate land that just sat in its place, we could tell that Eden wasn't anything set in reality, but just what the name implies - heaven outside of the human realm. We saw treasure litter the floor and mysteries from all over the world find their way into one place. We watched as Fena put on a beautiful dance to create a staircase that led to the true land of Eden, and we watched as Abel, the main antagonist of this "movie" reach his final ending, with one of the most bittersweet scenes in the series where he finally found his love once more before succumbing to the effects of his own journey.
Finally, Eden ends with us learning about who "Fena" is. The chosen maiden who gets to decide if life gets to go on as the world decided, or if the world will be reset for a better eternity. The chosen maiden who will forget this entire journey we just went through alongside her for the sake of a better tomorrow.
Finally, the series ends with a new Fena building up her memories once more and moving on from the dream that she no longer gets to experience. The dream that WE however can experience again and again. A dream that I will want to experience again and again.
Fena never stopped telling its own story to try to step back into the land of reality, because Fena's story wasn't one of reality. Fena's story was one set in fiction, both in our world and hers alike. Fena's story, while forgotten by her, won't be forgotten by anyone else who experienced the tale, both the characters that followed her journey and us, the ones who watched it from the outside.
Fena: Pirate Princess might not have been a perfect anime, but it was a perfect dream. A perfect story. The perfect tale of my favorite Disney princess.