Here, here! It is the buckling of these hideous pants!

I have no idea why this character's first appearance on the blog is still getting hits to this day, but let's see if she works her magic again.

This time out, Princess Resurrection takes a bit of a break from the Universal/Hammer motifs as they encounter a Shinto god, pay tribute to "unstuck in time" flicks like The Day Time Ended, and make a detour into giant robot vs Godzilla-alike.

The overplot advances incrementally once again, but on top of that Mitsunaga's developed a habit of glossing over the actual fighting; his interest seems more in the weird set-piece/homages rather than turning the book into a dedicated battle manga. It doesn't do any special harm to this volume, but we may not get any kind of payoff at all; this seems to be the last English-language installment for the foreseeable future, since this came out about a year ago and future releases appear to be caught up in Del Rey's closing down/relocating their manga operations. Here's a provisional eulogy, then, in case we never see another volume: Princess Resurrection peaked early (volume 3 was definitely the best) and never quite lived up to the "invincible corpse-fighter" legacy of 3x3 Eyes or Hellsing, but it was always an amusing, cheesecakey trifle. I'll miss it.

Jess Franco would be pleased

And so Princess Resurrection kicks off its sixth volume by checking Women In Prison off the list of B-movie genres. By itself, this is an enjoyable volume, but a few things are starting to bug me about the series as a whole.

As noted last time, the violence is getting a bit less over-the-top, especially the bits directed at our sad-sack protagonist. This is one of the things keeping this from just being, like, Rosario + Vampire, so I'm sad to see it get dialed back.

Also, the pace of the plot can only be described as glacial, though to be fair I was initially surprised to see it develop one at all. PR isn't so much chapters in a continuing story as it is a bunch of random action setpieces based on whatever was playing on Cinemax last night. This particular volume is so picaresque that the Princess sustains a major injury between chapters, then heals up completely between the next two.

On the bright side, drawing whatever the hell you feel like isn't such a bad thing if you're a decent artist, and for every unfortunately dressed extra (I have no idea what's going on with the werewolf gang leader's pants) there's an interesting bit like this lens flare effect off the flashlight, which I actually can't recall having seen before, at least in manga. The title character's complete unflappability also leads to a fairly original twist on the old "replaced by doppelganger" gag.

This is still trashy fun, but I fear it's not going to fully live up to its initial promise and become awesome. Prove me wrong, Mitsunaga. I'd also like to ask Del Rey to step up their game on their translation/English adaptation/localization/whatever we're calling it today. I dare anyone to read the Princess' dialogue on the left over there in anything but a halting Shatnerian stammer. You can maybe argue that it feeds into the Ed Wood ambiance, but frankly, I just reread a bunch of Studio Proteus books and I'm not feeling that generous. Even Toren Smith's porn reads way better than this.

The awesome inanity of Princess Resurrection

Let's see... this semi-immortal warrior appears to be wearing a cape over a bikini top, cargo pants with the fly unbuttoned, a belt under said pants, a Klingon bat'leth, and some kind of giant claw-gauntlet. Fantastic.

This isn't even the best volume of the series... Hiro doesn't sustain any especially grievous wounds, nor do we have zombie pandas, dual chainsaw action or ghost shark vs chandelier, but there is a surprising and obscure B-movie cameo to go along with the more obvious George Romero references.

Sadly, this isn't one of Del Rey's more gracefully translated titles, but this was hardly art to begin with, just good trashy fun. With Hellsing almost over and 3x3 Eyes' English release in an endless limbo, Princess Resurrection is here to fill that invincible-undead-fight-manga-shaped hole in our hearts. God bless. Just stick to the manga, the anime version is bowdlerized beyond repair.