Tatsunoko is one of the old warhorses in the anime industry to be sure.  But the fact that Egao no Daika is their 50th Anniversary project is certainly a potent reminder of that.  There’s a lot of prestige attached to this studio, though in recent years they’ve been relatively quiet apart from Psycho Pass and the Gatchaman (they were the first studio to animate the franchise, too) series.  Anniversary projects tend to be originals, and it only makes sense that a studio whose bread and butter is sci-fi should turn to it to celebrate its 50th.

For Egao, the studio has brought in Rinne no Lagrange director and industry veteran Tsohimasa Suzuki along with writer Inotsume Shinichi.  With originals it’s often the latter position which proves to be the most crucial, and Inotsume-sensei’s C.V. doesn’t offer up a lot of clues – virtually all of his work has been adaptations, albeit often very good ones.  I don’t think the premiere offers up many clues either – this show could still go either way – but I’d be lying if I said the ones it did point in an overly positive direction.

Egao no Daika is a show I’d very much like to like, not just because of the history behind it but because it’s just generally likeable.  The story centers around a 12 year-old princess named Yuki who is about to ascend the throne for real (her parents are dead, and there’s an unexplored deeper story behind that).  Her best friend and confidante is the young noble Joshua, whose parents were killed in the same manner as Yuki’s apparently.  Joshua is 15 and sees himself as Yuki’s knight-errant, obviously, though superficially she doesn’t seem to be subject to any literal threats and the planet they live on seems quite peaceful and happy (unlike the Earth surely was when they skipped town an indefinite number of centuries earlier).

The problem for me comes not so much in the premise, but in the formulaic way it’s executed, right down to the dialogue.  This is a very boilerplate cute princess series so far, and while Yuki and Joshua are likeable(!) enough they’re so generic that I can’t muster up much rooting interest for either of them.  Things are spiced up a little when a pair of noble twins from another planet show up to put Yuki (and eventually Joshua) to the test, and it seems there’s a war going on that no one is telling the princess about.  That’s the most interesting part of this story, because she’s just sent Joshua off to the front lines (unknowingly at first, as she never reads what she signs) and it’s unclear whether Joshua himself knows what he’s walking into.  And he even has a couple of death flags hoisted in the premiere, which would certainly up the dramatic ante.

It won’t be a huge loss for me if Egao no Daika doesn’t make the cut as my expectations for it were pretty modest, but in a season as small as this one (only 35 series, of which I previewed barely a third) any show falling by the wayside is notable.  I’ll give it at least one or two more episodes, but there was really nothing in the premiere to suggest it has what it takes to be compelling.  I’ve been surprised before (sometimes in series Inotsume has adapted) so hope, as its annoyingly wont to do, springs eternal…