The Wandering Witch Devours Princess Connect! Re: Dive

Posted on Jun 24 2020

Welcome, all, again. Today let’s talk about Princess Connect! Re: Dive, a show that can be kind of hard to pin down: it’s comedy; it’s adventure; it’s bodaciously harem! Well, bodaciously bodacious, anyway. Just to clue you in (as if I weren’t the very last person to figure this out!), this series is yet another anime tie-in to an existing game, brought to us by the masters of the form, video game development studio Cygames. Other current or recent Cygames crossmedia project titles include: Granblue Fantasy; Shadowverse; and Seton Academy: Join the Pack!, to name only a very few. Apparently not satisfied to collaborate with productions based upon their games, Cygames in 2016 founded the anime studio CygamesPictures, and also branched out into music, manga, and artist management. After all, why merely monopolize the market when you can BE the market? (I was going to crack a Yakuza joke here, but a couple of well-dressed, severe-looking gentlemen showed up advising strongly against it. Yeah, I think they might have been lawyers–super scary!) Point is, this anime shouldn’t invite complaints that it differs too widely from the game for fans to enjoy; after all, it’s the selfsame company making both. The limited scope of an anime production simply focuses the show upon a certain storyline that emphasizes specific characters, as opposed to the broader sweep of the game.

That said, let’s get back to our show! Our hero Yuuki is something of an Everyman, assuming that most guys are fantasy-loving gaming addicts crashing hard from a bad acid trip. And crashing is the right word, as he falls right out of the sky into the land of Astraea, conveniently landing in the protective and possessive care of a little Elven hottie named Kokkoro. You know the type: sharp spear but sharper ears; short dress; absolute devotion. What a fantasy! Too bad our boy Yuuki is too muddled in the head to really sort things through. Or to fight off the wild dogs that keep trying to snack on him. No, all the heavy lifting falls to Kokkoro: fighting off hungry critters; pitching camp; pitching quietly awkward woo. But whatever his damage, Yuuki doesn’t seem to mind being fawned over, and Kokkoro’s the girl for the job! (Heck, I’d take a wild spill and a bit of mild brain damage to get the Kokkoro treatment. . .) Anyway, to borrow a line from Steve Miller, they’re “two young lovers with nothin’ better to do.”

And they stay that way until they happen upon a boisterous and busty ditz named Pecorine, who inadvertently upends everything. Pecorine really isn’t very bright, but there’s also really no reason to think that she’s ever needed to be. She’s got charm, positive attitude, and a sunny disposition; nor does it hurt her socially that she’s got more bounce than a rubber ball and more curves than an alphabet comprised entirely of S‘s. And she’s strong, too, a fierce warrior princess whose one real physical weakness is her high metabolism–that’s right, Pecorine’s always hungry and constantly eating. (But don’t worry: it all goes straight to her ____s!) And while she does require her own special sort of care, Pecorine lends strength to the little party. Not to mention, she’s the main draw for another recruit, Karyl, a magical neko-girl who seems to be stalking Pecorine. True to her cat nature, Karyl tends to be standoffish and ostentatiously independent; also like any other cat, she’s quick to accept favors so long as you remember that she’s graciously allowing you to treat her. An assassin, she finds her easy inclusion into Yuuki’s group a bit unsettling, and her uneasiness only grows when she realizes that her loyalties are becoming divided. Somebody’s not gonna like that, and Karyl knows it.

But now that our twosome has grown to a foursome, new needs arise. Things like food, shelter, and some source of income for procuring them. Of course, had everyone been paying a little more attention, they might have noticed that Kokkoro had for some time already been trying to form them into an official guild. Because with guild designation, they have special access to housing and–even more importantly–can take quests in pursuit of payment. Being a peaceful lot (an amnestic warrior; his devoted, spear-wielding companion/bodyguard; a sword-swinging princess; and a feline femme fatale assassin), they naturally opt to form the Gourmet Guild, dedicated to gathering and eating tasty things. (Weirdly, that’s exactly what I would have done with such a gorgeous harem! Good going, Yuuki!) All that in place, our unlikely gourmands launch themselves out into the world to see what it has to offer, all the while making new friends but also attracting the attention of established enemies. Hungry for adventure? For eye candy? Just hungry? Let’s go!

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