Yousei Hime Ren

How bad do you want to find and get your hands on a treasure? Any kind of treasure? Well, ask the guy in Yousei Hime Ren or more commonly known as Elf Princess Rane. Well at least to him, he thinks after finding an elf fairy, she would be the guide to whatever legendary treasure. But on the other hand, the little pixie creature thinks he holds the secret to some whatever thingy she is looking for. I see. A classic case that they’re not on the same page. Then a whole lot of mess as they go in search for whatever they’re looking for. This has got to be a funny show, right? Gotta watch it myself to find out what kind of treasure they’re looking for that they’re willing to go through such mess.

Episode 1
Gou Takarada is so obsessed in finding some treasure based on some scriptures, he makes a mess out of the shrine. You bet grandpa is mad and tries to beat him up as he tries to escape. His sister, Mizuki takes over in beating his ass since grandpa has got to hold up a rock from falling. However this is part of Mizuki’s plan to let Gou escape. Unfortunately, this place is located on top of 30 storey building! His parachute didn’t work either! As he falls, he meets this elf fairy, Ren Chikonlee Chorus. She thinks he has come for her. Luckily Gou’s fall is saved by his other military sister, Natsuki. Meanwhile Mizuki reports to Takuma Zenshuuin about some anomaly detected in some district. She wants to report it to the president but Takuma says he’ll do it. When he does, the president wants him to write it instead! Gou rushes home with his childhood friend, Mari Yumenokata. It seems that this elf is a guide in finding whatever treasure he is looking for. Mari isn’t convinced since the shady book said it’s supposed to be a 1 inch priest. So to Gou, that is the same thing? And something about the nymph must control the dragon. Whatever. Ren talks about feeling the power in them and the land but they don’t understand. Gou misinterprets and thinks that priest is the nymph and off he goes to get it, leaving poor Mari behind. As she laments about it, another fairy elf but a witch, Leen Kyami Coonyo pops up to ask her about if she has seen a comrade the same size as her. She gets all too excited and kidnaps Leen back to her mansion! Then both realize they’re in sync when they start blabbing about wanting to find Gou and Ren. Meanwhile Natsuki is mad about some letter claiming her trespassing in the Yumenokata area. After b*tching about it, it seems her boss relays the good news that there will be some investigations starting. Natsuki flirts her way so she can be in charge of this team.

Gou is now at the shrine as he thinks of finding a door to the treasure. But Ren thinks he is guiding her with his strong power to whatever Four Hearts she is looking for. Gou thinks that huge stone is the one. Meanwhile Natsuki has her team sneak and infiltrate the area and this is of course picked up by Mizuki’s surveillance team. Mizuki reports to the president who then gives the green light to let her take whatever action. As Gou tries to steal the stone, grandpa shows Mizuki a secret room. Something about a plan to turn this city into an amusement park. And then something gets activated. Dragons flying in the sky. Because Gou considers Ren to be important, that buzzword powers her up as inscriptions pop up over the stone. Clever Gou thinks he has decipher it as the treasure but Ren reads it as a miss! The stone starts rolling down and gets in the path of the dragons. Huge explosions, lots of destruction. Chaos. So, it is stated the dragons are actually roller coasters? And now they’re broken and on fire. Takuma sad his project has gone up in smokes! Gou interprets as the dragon destroying the treasure to protect it. But he won’t be setback by this. He takes Ren to go on another treasure hunting adventure! Meanwhile Mari and Leen are having a nice relaxing bath together. Forgetting something? That’s right! Leen was supposed to find Ren and kill that b*tch!

Episode 2
The ground gives way as Gou falls into some secret chamber. But what the heck?! Everything starts to explode! Mizuki and Natsuki start to blame each other’s side for the destruction as Gou happily returns home first. Well, ever since Leen’s declaration, she fell asleep straight for 3 days. Can’t think over an empty stomach. Then there is Takuma giving some speech to his staffs. Only Mizuki seems to be moved and everybody is just dumbfounded. Not sure how but Gou sees lots of printing statements about the amusement park. He fears about their plans about changing the city too much because this means losing clues to find the treasure. Mari is called by the president who is also her father. Meanwhile Gou and Ren is making their way to the next treasure. As per the clue, when the phoenix flies, one must give a flower to the gentle nymph. Whatever that means. He thinks it is in this next mountain while Ren thinks this is where Four Hearts is. So apparently this mountain is where the president is going to take Mari because it’s her birthday and he also wants to reward the staffs for working hard. With Gou passing by and saying hi, Mari doesn’t hesitate to strangle him for always making her worried. Wow, she strangling him all the way? Now we see Takuma’s nefarious plan. You see inside the mountain is a hotspring bath which is inside a huge phoenix machine. Once activated, it will give a great scenery view as well as a bed of flowers he has arranged that proclaims his love for Mari! Cringe! Yeah, his dream is going to come true any time now…

Because Gou continues to blab about the treasure, blah, blah, blah, Mari is not impressed and has her butler throw him out. This means tumbling down the mountain and ruining the flowerbed! OMG Takuma has to quickly pick them all up and rearrange them again! As Mari soaks in, Haruki talks to her about Gou. Basically, it’s her one sided feelings for her childhood friend. Then asking her opinion on Takuma, Mari just views him as papa’s assistant and has no romantic interest in him. Haruki hints she likes Takuma but also hints he likes another girl. The phoenix starts to activate as Gou crashes below. He sees Leen kissing Ren?! When Ren wakes up, she changes her tone and blames her for all the troubles. Basically her goal is to kill so she can get Four Hearts by herself. By achieving so, she’ll be appointed some grand witch by the queen and she’ll live happily ever after with everyone jealous. Until Gou points out if Rane is killed, she won’t find Four Hearts. Oh well… Time to work together! Not only the elves are glowing but somehow Takuma too. The power zooms them back to the phoenix. Yes, once again messing up the flowerbed. Oh Takuma, one more time… Gou gets onto the chamber where Mari is and believes she is the nymph he must give the flower too. The chamber falls off and rolls down. DESTROYING THE FLOWERBED AGAIN!!! If that’s not enough, the phoenix soon comes crashing down and through town too! With the flowers scattered, Gou gives one to Mari. She is happy that he finally remembered. Sorry, it’s not for her birthday. Enjoy the view. Meanwhile Leen and Ren have this misinterpretation that Gou is a giant (technically to them) and that he knows about Four Hearts. Sorry, nothing is happening either…

One Man’s Treasure Is Another Man’s Joke…
Oh wow! You mean there is more???!!! Hey… Wait a minute!!! That was very naughty and evil! You see, at the end of the second episode, they showed us a preview of some clips happening in the third episode. However they explicitly state that this third entry depended very much on our ‘generous funding’. Did you get the hint?! Yeah, they’re going around ‘collecting treasures’ from the audience! Reminder people, the next release depends a lot on your hearty support! Well… WELL???!!! Aren’t those interesting scenes enough to move you to make the move?! I guess we fans never found that treasure… And so, the release date of episode 3 has not been confirmed and it never will! OMFG! You f*cking trolled and lied to us!!! SO EVIL!!! SUCH A MEANINE!!! So don’t go scour around the internet for that elusive third because it never came out. Man, we sure had a good time laughing at all the craziness and now they’re getting back at us with this tasteless joke. Yeah, I bet the studio went out of business a long time ago… Sorry, last time I checked Dangun Pictures… Still around but just not active.

Actually, I don’t even know what the whole story is about. Oh heck, it is actually originally written. I have a theory that they wanted to write something so bombastic and nonsensical, it’s like they wrote the whole thing on the fly. They’re making things up as they go because there is nothing coherent in this whole series as I can see. Sure, we have the main character who is a treasure hunting maniac and his elf fairy who is trying to look for some sort of power. Both aren’t on the same page and thus hilarious chaos ensues. And then it’s like they ran out of creative juice and thus decided to just abandon the whole thing. Yeah, perhaps some sort of twisted conscious kicked in and they found all the crap not funny anymore. That is why I have this feeling the way the whole thing ‘ended’, it felt more like the series was abandoned. Yeah, who knows what more sh*tty stuffs could have happened had they had more episodes. Oh heck, it could even be more risqué had they made the third episode! Just saying.

But alas, no more of all that garbage and so we are left hanging on what the whole thing is about. Yes, yes, to tickle our funny bones because it is obvious that everything is done to an exaggerated extent for comical purposes. The characters are so dumb and there are bombastic explosions and destruction in both episodes alone. Yeah, a couple of episodes are going to put those Bayplosions to shame! We are left to reach our own conclusions on everything. It’s such a shame because I thought it had some sort of potential despite everything was just pure comical garbage. So we’ll never know what the heck this Four Hearts thingy is, the origins of the title (I’m sure you’re wondering why Ren is an elf princess, right?), why the hell Natsuki and Mizuki’s department are always at each other’s throat and definitely for sure we’ll never get to see Mari and Gou ending up together as a couple. As long as that treasure maniac puts his treasure hunting as his first love, nothing else matters.

With only 2 episodes, it is a shame that nothing gets fleshed out but I guess it is enough for us to pigeonhole the characters because all of them are basically dumb. For the sake of comedy of course. Basically, no character development at all. Because what else can I say about Gou and his love for treasure hunting? This guy is so obsessed with it that he interprets whatever clues or guides to his own personal convenience. Yeah, he is going to claim that he is experienced treasure hunter unlike us amateurs who knows nothing! Hence this is all part of the formula for him to misinterpret the very vague lines of the clues so that all the coincidental destruction and mayhem can occur. Was it worth it all? For a treasure hunter, never give up until the real treasure can be found! Oh boy. Good thing his zest and zeal are through the roof so rest assured he’ll never run out of that passion.

Then there are the pair of elf fairies, Ren and Leen. Nothing much about them accept for, wait for it, comical purposes. They speak different languages at first and thus the excuse to misinterpret whatever they’re saying. In the end, Ren is gentler while Leen is the uncouth one who wants to kill her but then changed her mind because it’s like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Mari as the typical childhood friend trope, definitely having a crush on this maniac is the only reason why she has stuck with him through thick and thin despite her papa owning a huge company and is a rich girl. Then there are Gou’s sisters. In fact there are actually a whole lot more and the rest are in different professions. I believe they showcased a few of them in a rock band or something. Not sure what beef Natsuki and Mizuki have against each other but it’s the reason for some destructive chaos since both sides will go all out and just shoot each other or something. And Gou has got nothing to do with it all.

Last and not least, Takuma. This guy is super amusing and also written to be the series’ obvious loser. You already get the hint when this guy who has one of the weirdest hairdos, keeps falling down and covering his eye and he has to fling them back up in style in which they will soon fall back down again. Rinse and repeat. The other funny part is that his words are all backwards! I noticed that many are trolling us like for example if you do manage to pause and read a line that says we have too much time on our hands if we pause and read this! I don’t know if that is true because I am basing on the subs of it! But yeah, he thinks it’s stylish. I think it’s annoying. The second episode ramps his loser persona up 100 levels because of his creepy love for Mari. I’m sure we had a good time laughing at his stupidity in making that flowerbed over and over again, only to always get f*cked in the end. Cringe clown indeed.

Don’t be surprise to find a bit of nudity here but I suppose back in those days, making series into OVAs this was such a specialty. You pay a few cents worth of free tits. But that is about it. Watching this from today’s point in view, it is of course as mild and doesn’t stimulate my libido at all! Serious. Yeah, thanks to internet hentai ruining my mind ever since! This means the kissing scene between the elves that was supposed to be a surprising twist and shocker, did not even move me a single bit at all. Heck, I was in fact confused at first what the heck Leen was doing to Ren before I realized this was supposed to be some lesbo fanservice scene. Wasn’t it?!

I have to admit that the art and animation are pretty good considering this is a retro OVA. There is a decent amount of quality in the scenes. No doubt that there are lots of exaggerated animation and explosions to give a bang for your buck, at least the animation quality is pretty satisfactory compared to some series of today. I have to wonder if they spent all their budget that is only enough to make the first 2 episodes and that is why the joke preview at the end to ask us for more funds. I shudder to think the quality for the third episode would tank considerably had they go ahead with it. Danzen! Vector Power by Akko is the ending theme and your typical retro anime rock pop that I won’t mind hearing again soon.

Overall, this 1995 series is as silly as it gets. Of course it is a shame that there were nothing more than just a couple of OVAs and that’s the sad part of it. Sure, it might be nonsensical garbage crap but I believe that was what this anime was intentionally made for. Who knows? It could’ve been better but that is just me having some positive residues of this series. Yeah. Other more serious audience would feel better that such crap never continued but I guess I will never know of such sophisticated tastes. This means I will be left to go scour the internet for such treasures and gems and who knows? I may even find an even more obscure one that is even way better than this. But the risk is also there. This means finding dozens more that are just bat sh*t pure crap bad anime. Oh well, you can’t always strike gold all the time, can you?