Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Princess Jellyfish: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

The Odd Quintuple.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 24, 2012

Have you ever felt like an outcast, like you just don’t belong? Well, join the group. Not the group in Princess Jellyfish, mind you: they’re really weird. It’s somewhat ironic that real lovers of anime are often branded with the epithet otaku, which more generally indicates anyone with any particular obsessive fixation. In the case of Princess Jellyfish we deal with a gaggle of otaku women who all live in the same apartment house. The heroine of Princess Jellyfish is one Tsukimi Kurashita, an 18 year old resident of Tokyo who dreams of becoming a manga illustrator. Her real fascination, though, is with jellyfish, something passed down to her by her mother, an obsession which is depicted in frequent flashbacks showing Tsukimi and her Mom looking at the gelatinous creatures at an aquarium. Tsukimi ends up at Amamizukan, an apartment house catering to otakus where she slowly ingratiates herself with an outré group of women (the apartment house only allows females, which actually leads to one of the weirder subplots of the show, more about which later).

These five women dub themselves the Sisterhood and forge an unlikely alliance that helps them to confront their individual “issues,” as well as helping them make forays out into the wider, supposedly real world. As voice director Christopher Bevins points out in one of the two commentaries included on this two Blu-ray set, the outsider ethos of Princess Jellyfish, as well as its gynocentric focus, is fairly reminiscent of another, older anime, Fruits Basket (which I reviewed for another site many years ago). Princess Jellyfish may not be quite as surreal as Fruits Basket, though it comes close some of the time, and it repeats that earlier series’ penchant for sweetness mixed with off the wall humor.

In Princess Jellyfish’s first episode, Tsukimi rescues a jellyfish that has been placed in a tank with an inhospitable other species whose close proximity will end up killing it, something the store owner is unaware of. Initially Tsukimi is afraid to even talk to the store owner, as he is “chic” while she is a bona fide otaku. Even when she does try to tell the guy about the problem, she stutters and stammers so much that he thinks she’s a bit off her rocker, and is attempting to throw her out of the store, at which point an ultra glamorous model type shows up and intervenes. This model manages to convince the store owner to just let Tsukimi have the poor jellyfish, which Tsukimi and the model take back to Amamizukan and place in Tsukimi’s bathtub. Tsukimi christens the little critter Clara. The model ends up sleeping over, and the next morning Tsukimi is shocked and horrified to discover that “she” (the model) is actually a “he”, a cross- dressing young boy named Kuranosuke. That leads to a whole series of comic misadventures, as first of all Kuranosuke as a male is not allowed on the premises, but perhaps even more disturbingly in his guise as a female he (she?) is way too glamorous for the other otakus at the apartment house.

The rest of the series (which as of yet has not had a second season announced) plays out in small interactions between the five bizarre women who share housing, each of them with their own particular (and peculiar) obsessions. One of them, Chieko, who dresses more or less as a traditional geisha, is manager of the building, which her mother owns. It turns out her mother is considering selling the building to Kuranosuke’s brother, Shu, who is a real estate developer. That provides quite a bit of “drama” (meaning out there comedy) for the series’ second half of episodes, as the Sisterhood has to come to grips with potentially being thrust out into the big, wide world that they’re all spectacularly ill equipped to handle.

Princess Jellyfish is an incredibly sweet, good natured show that should appeal to anyone who has ever felt they don’t quite fit in. The characters are all extremely exaggerated, as might be expected, but they’re also all surprisingly lovable. This series (as well as its source manga) was specifically designed to appeal to girls, and therefore there’s little amped up action at hand here. This is a kinder, gentler anime that finds humor in bizarre interactions and that ever present dialectic between the nerds and the cool kids. Chances are more people are going to identify with the otaku category than with the “stylish” folks, and that makes Princess Jellyfish a show that speaks to many, not just one gender or class.

Princess Jellyfish: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Princess Jellyfish is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is one of the brightest and most appealing looking animes in some time, one that trades in on Tsukimi's ambitions to be an illustrator with an often cool and innovative animation style that actually resembles some of those classic magazine illustrations from the sixties (see the fifth screencap for a good example). The series also exploits purely graphical elements a lot of the time, and at other times the characters almost resemble paper cutouts, without surrounding lines, a la South Park. Colors are incredibly vivid and well saturated, and line detail is very strong and consistent. The series has some unusual character designs for an anime (not Tsukimi's rather "forcefully" drawn eyebrows for a good example), and those all pop very well in this splendid looking high definition presentation.

Princess Jellyfish: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Princess Jellyfish offers two lossless audio options, the original Japanese language track delivered courtesy of a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 stereo mix, and a very good English dub (with a glut of FUNimation voice actor regulars) delivered via Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mix. The original language track is perhaps a bit sweeter and less weirdly boisterous than the English language track, but fidelity here is strong and the stereo presentation, while certainly not at the immersive level of the 5.1 track, is rather well handled. The 5.1 track is just off the wall a lot of the time from a voice actor standpoint, and it also offers sterling fidelity and very good dynamic range. The show's appealing score is significantly opened up in the surround track as well.

Princess Jellyfish: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Episode 1 Commentary features Voice Director Christopher Bevins, who also voices Hanamori, as well as Maxey Whitehead (Tsukimi) and Josh Grelle (Kuranosuke). These three "old hands" talk about how special they all feel Princess Jellyfish is, especially in an oversaturated anime market.


• Episode 11 Commentary features Bevins, Cynthia Cranz (Chieko), Monica Rial (Mayaya), Leah Clark (Jiji), Mariela Ortiz (Banba), the entire "Sisterhood" minus Whitehead's Tsukimi. As might be expected with this many participants, this is a pretty noisy, busy and jokey commentary that's fun to listen to but imparts little information.


• Princess Jellyfish Heroes are little shorts that focus on various characters, and which include:
  Part 1: Mayaya Chapter (HD 5:05)
  Part 2: Banba and Jiji Chapter (HD; 6:01)
  Part 3: Chieko Chapter (HD; 5:21)
  Part 4: Shu-Shu and Mr. Hanamori Chapter (HD; 6:01)


• Go, Sisterhood Explorers! are similar shorts focusing on various brief adventures of the Sisterhood Expeditionary Party, including:
  Part 1 (HD; 00:32)
  Part 2 (HD; 00:32)
  Part 3 (HD; 00:32)
  Part 4 (HD; 00:32)
  Part 5 (HD; 00:32)
  Part 6 (HD; 00:32)


• Tsukimi and Jiji's Jellyfish Tour (1080i; 21:33) is a live action featurette starring Kana Hanazawa (voice of Tsukimi) and Mamiko Noto (voice of Jiji) on a tour of the Enoshima Aquarium.


• The Princess Jellyfish Field Guide is a text based supplement that gives backgrounds on both jellyfish and human characters in the series.


• Promotional Videos (HD; 00:34)


• U.S. Trailer (HD; 1:47)


• Textless Opening Song "Kokodake no Hanashi" (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "Kimino Kireini Kizuiteokure" (HD; 1:32)


• Trailers for other FUNimation Releases

Princess Jellyfish: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Though Princess Jellyfish's original source was ostensibly a Shōjo manga marketed to females, something that the series also tends to emulate, even guys may find a lot to like about this series. Weirdly funny and always visually very interesting, this series is sweet and bizarre in equal measures. Watching these five outsiders band together is a lesson in "strength in numbers," and the series finds a very appealing tone that manages to be both out there and oddly real feeling at its emotional core. With great looking visuals, excellent audio and nice supply of supplements, this release comes Recommended.