Zero no Tsukaima: Princess no Rondo - Episode 1

So the long awaited Zero no Tsukaima series three finally shows its tsuntsun much less deredere face and, after the let down ending of the previous series, the pressure’s certainly on for it to live up to the awesomeness of those better early episodes. My initial take on episode one of Princess no Rondo, was to be honest, fairly mediocre.

It seems that the classic Zero no Tsukaima formula is still suffering from the same old problems of series two – namely too many characters and too fast a story. In that short twenty-five minutes alone, we learned that (spoiler alert here) Saito is no longer bound to Louise by contract (rune markings, Familiar-hood, whatever), Louise is not the only Void magic user and Saito has competition from another Void familiar himself. Oh, and that elf from series two – you know, the one that essentially ruined the entire series’ credibility and reputation – she has a known name. And address. Seriously guys, whatever happened to pacing?

But maybe – and this is a big maybe – bringing back that elf will give the animators of Zero no Tsukaima time to atone for their mistakes, time to retread old ground and time to restore some of that lost credibility. I mean, the emotional climax of series two was all there. For fans of Louise and Saito’s embarrassed affections (yup, that’s me!), series two certainly delivered by the truckload. If it hadn’t had been for Saito’s woah-that-was-fast resurrection, I doubt very much that it would have left quite such an unpleasant after taste. But saying that, I can understand why the animators did what they did. If Saito had died, it wouldn’t have exactly left all that much scope for a third series after all.

So maybe I’m being too harsh at this early, early stage. With twelve episodes left, Zero no Tsukaima: Princess no Rondo still has plenty of time to develop and improve. In fact I’m hoping with every bone of my body that it does! I was still happy to see my favourite anime odd-couple back on screen after all this time. Some of the very best moments of the past two series were born out of Louise and Saito’s less than harmonious relationship, and from the look of things that element has been left well intact with Princess no Rondo. Other good points to draw on from this episode include the appearance of Siesta, the cute ED song (I didn’t much like the OP, though) and of course, par for the course for Zero no Tsukaima, a copious side-helping of fanservice. Not much wrong with that, eh?