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Scrapped Princess Light Novel #1
Scrapped Princess: A Tale of Destiny
15 years ago, a set of twins - girl and a boy - was born to the king of Linevan. Shortly after their birth, a prophecy foretold that when the girl turned 16, she would bring about the end of humanity. To avoid this fate, the king ordered the princess disposed of. She miraculously survived, and now she has turned 15.
200 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 1999
2 people are currently reading
315 people want to read
About the author
Ichirou Sakaki
124 books22 followersSAKAKI Ichirou
Name (in native language): 榊一郎
Associated Name:
SAKAKI Ichirou
Zodiac: Sagittarius
Name (in native language): 榊一郎
Associated Name:
SAKAKI Ichirou
Zodiac: Sagittarius
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 2, 2012
This book really made me realize that I'm not a fan of the so called “light novel” format.
What you get in Scrapped Princess 1 is perfectly fine while it lasts, but it is over before anything really happens.
Light Novels are supposedly intended to make those young adults and teenagers read, who usually don’t pick up a book or who have too short attention spans to finish a “real” novel. That is to say, the majority of the separate light novel volumes are extremely short. Fast readers will finish one within an hour or two. However, this doesn’t mean that a light novel series in its entirety has to be short. It simply means that many light novel series will have 10+ volumes, with the same amount of content that in form of a “normal” novel would maybe make up a trilogy. In the end, this also makes light novel series a lot more expensive.
Well, back to Scrapped Princess. This first volume isn’t even an introduction. It is more like the first chapter of an introduction. You meet the three siblings, all of them pretty funny and likeable, they learn about Pacifica’s secret and they fight of the first wave of assassins. That’s it. This series has 13 volumes, but honestly, if they’re all like this, it could have probably been published in a single “normal” volume. Not to mention, a lot of the first two random assassins could simply have been cut out completely.
As said, I do like the main sibling trio. They had some pretty funny interactions. And since the last part introduces the real antagonist (those who won’t go down after a single fight), I hope there will be more going on in book 2.
What you get in Scrapped Princess 1 is perfectly fine while it lasts, but it is over before anything really happens.
Light Novels are supposedly intended to make those young adults and teenagers read, who usually don’t pick up a book or who have too short attention spans to finish a “real” novel. That is to say, the majority of the separate light novel volumes are extremely short. Fast readers will finish one within an hour or two. However, this doesn’t mean that a light novel series in its entirety has to be short. It simply means that many light novel series will have 10+ volumes, with the same amount of content that in form of a “normal” novel would maybe make up a trilogy. In the end, this also makes light novel series a lot more expensive.
Well, back to Scrapped Princess. This first volume isn’t even an introduction. It is more like the first chapter of an introduction. You meet the three siblings, all of them pretty funny and likeable, they learn about Pacifica’s secret and they fight of the first wave of assassins. That’s it. This series has 13 volumes, but honestly, if they’re all like this, it could have probably been published in a single “normal” volume. Not to mention, a lot of the first two random assassins could simply have been cut out completely.
As said, I do like the main sibling trio. They had some pretty funny interactions. And since the last part introduces the real antagonist (those who won’t go down after a single fight), I hope there will be more going on in book 2.
May 12, 2008
Reviewed by Carrie Spellman for TeensReadToo.com
There is a legend in the kingdom of Linevan about a princess. More accurately, it's a prediction, made by the Oracle, regarding the princess. According to the prophecy, on the day of her 16th birthday the princess will bring about the destruction of the world. Therefore, the infant princess was destroyed. Though it is considered blasphemous to speak of her at all, she is referred to throughout the kingdom as the Scrapped Princess.
Pacifica Casull is as familiar with the legend and its surrounding rumors as most people. She's about to get to a lot more familiar with the reality of it. According to her adopted father's will she IS the Scrapped Princess. It's a lot for a 14-year-old girl to take in, especially after the death of the only father she's ever known. Not to mention that other people are starting to find out. Which means that there are some highly skilled assassins on their way to find her.
It's up to Pacifica's adopted brother and sister to protect her. If they're willing to take the risk, that is. And, if they don't think she's going to destroy the world, and they're strong enough and talented enough, and if they can all put up with each other.
With more than a year before her 16th birthday, and twelve more books planned, Pacifica's adventures seem to just be beginning.
There is a legend in the kingdom of Linevan about a princess. More accurately, it's a prediction, made by the Oracle, regarding the princess. According to the prophecy, on the day of her 16th birthday the princess will bring about the destruction of the world. Therefore, the infant princess was destroyed. Though it is considered blasphemous to speak of her at all, she is referred to throughout the kingdom as the Scrapped Princess.
Pacifica Casull is as familiar with the legend and its surrounding rumors as most people. She's about to get to a lot more familiar with the reality of it. According to her adopted father's will she IS the Scrapped Princess. It's a lot for a 14-year-old girl to take in, especially after the death of the only father she's ever known. Not to mention that other people are starting to find out. Which means that there are some highly skilled assassins on their way to find her.
It's up to Pacifica's adopted brother and sister to protect her. If they're willing to take the risk, that is. And, if they don't think she's going to destroy the world, and they're strong enough and talented enough, and if they can all put up with each other.
With more than a year before her 16th birthday, and twelve more books planned, Pacifica's adventures seem to just be beginning.
October 20, 2024
I don't mind the prose or the plot. This book lost two stars for the unreasonably idiotic and extremely unlikeable Pacifica.
July 20, 2011
Pacifica Casull is an Ordinary Girl (TM) being raised in a provincial town in the ass-end of the Linevan empire. But when her arms-merchant father dies under mysterious circumstances, Pacifica learns that she is in fact the legendary Scrapped Princess. Fourteen years ago, the Prophets of Mauser had declared that the Queen's newborn daughter, upon her 16th birthday, would bring about the end of the world. Upon hearing this, the King authorized a post-natal abortion, but his wife objected and entrusted the infant to a loyal soldier and his sorceress wife.
But now royal assassins have tracked her down. With her mother and father dead, she's left unprotected except for her adopted siblings, Shannon and Raquel, who've trained all their lives to protect her.
So what we have is a pretty standard Moses-in-the-bullrushes story. The only thing that sets this apart from every other fantasy where some redneck peasant learns he's the Hero of Prophesy is that Pacifica is actually the Villain of Prophesy, and the people out to get her aren't actually evil.
However, the main problem with the book isn't that it's a cliched premise. It's that Pacifica is deadly dull. Any scene that focuses on her drags the story to a halt. You'd think learning that she's the anti-Christ would cause some serious internal conflict, but instead we get, "Is that true. Nah, it couldn't be. But if it is, I sure hope I don't hurt anybody." You could replace her with a dead fish and the story would be just as interesting.
It's not that Sakaki can't write interesting characters. Shannon pretty much becomes the default protagonist since Pacifica is too passive to claim the role, and he's far more interesting than his adopted sister. Then there are the assassins Big Shot and Sinner who are entertaining enough to deserve their own book. Likewise the Duke, who agrees to help Pacifica despite believing the prophesy, demonstrates far more complexity in his two scenes than our alleged-heroine in the entire book. She seriously reminds me of Akarin in Yuru-Yuri, who ends up being so inconsequential that her friends have to write her name on their hands to remember her.
One thing that's highly amusing about the book is that it's a flipside to those Western novels and films where the author doesn't know the difference between the Chinese and Japanese, let alone the other ethnicities of the East. The setting is the standard medievaloid fantasy realm, but Sekaki mashes all of Europe together, so you end up with Duke Luigi Franki whose castle is on the Richardson Road, while people follow the Mauser faith and use magic spells named after Norse gods. I guess in Japan, "Richardson" sounds just as exotic as "Franki".
On top of that, Sekaki makes the setting a complete anachronism stew -- it's superficially medieval, but the town where most of the action takes place has a public school that Haruhi Suzumiya and Taiga Aisaka would find familiar -- there're even references to parent-teacher conferences -- and people tote weapons out of a clockpunk story. But the weirdest aspect is that magic works in a manner reminiscent of computers. Spells require long incantations that are cumbersome in combat, but if you can hold the whole thing in your head, you can turn it into what amounts to a shell script that can be invoked by a simple phrase, and it's even possible to invoke batch jobs in this manner. At one point, a character uses a sentry spell to detect intruders, but we're told it's a difficult spell to maintain because it takes up a lot of processing power in the user's brain, a la a CPU-intensive program.
There's just enough interesting material here that I might continue the series, except TokyoPop only translated the first three volumes before going under (and the third one seems to've had a tiny print run) so there's nothing I can do without learning Japanese.
But now royal assassins have tracked her down. With her mother and father dead, she's left unprotected except for her adopted siblings, Shannon and Raquel, who've trained all their lives to protect her.
So what we have is a pretty standard Moses-in-the-bullrushes story. The only thing that sets this apart from every other fantasy where some redneck peasant learns he's the Hero of Prophesy is that Pacifica is actually the Villain of Prophesy, and the people out to get her aren't actually evil.
However, the main problem with the book isn't that it's a cliched premise. It's that Pacifica is deadly dull. Any scene that focuses on her drags the story to a halt. You'd think learning that she's the anti-Christ would cause some serious internal conflict, but instead we get, "Is that true. Nah, it couldn't be. But if it is, I sure hope I don't hurt anybody." You could replace her with a dead fish and the story would be just as interesting.
It's not that Sakaki can't write interesting characters. Shannon pretty much becomes the default protagonist since Pacifica is too passive to claim the role, and he's far more interesting than his adopted sister. Then there are the assassins Big Shot and Sinner who are entertaining enough to deserve their own book. Likewise the Duke, who agrees to help Pacifica despite believing the prophesy, demonstrates far more complexity in his two scenes than our alleged-heroine in the entire book. She seriously reminds me of Akarin in Yuru-Yuri, who ends up being so inconsequential that her friends have to write her name on their hands to remember her.
One thing that's highly amusing about the book is that it's a flipside to those Western novels and films where the author doesn't know the difference between the Chinese and Japanese, let alone the other ethnicities of the East. The setting is the standard medievaloid fantasy realm, but Sekaki mashes all of Europe together, so you end up with Duke Luigi Franki whose castle is on the Richardson Road, while people follow the Mauser faith and use magic spells named after Norse gods. I guess in Japan, "Richardson" sounds just as exotic as "Franki".
On top of that, Sekaki makes the setting a complete anachronism stew -- it's superficially medieval, but the town where most of the action takes place has a public school that Haruhi Suzumiya and Taiga Aisaka would find familiar -- there're even references to parent-teacher conferences -- and people tote weapons out of a clockpunk story. But the weirdest aspect is that magic works in a manner reminiscent of computers. Spells require long incantations that are cumbersome in combat, but if you can hold the whole thing in your head, you can turn it into what amounts to a shell script that can be invoked by a simple phrase, and it's even possible to invoke batch jobs in this manner. At one point, a character uses a sentry spell to detect intruders, but we're told it's a difficult spell to maintain because it takes up a lot of processing power in the user's brain, a la a CPU-intensive program.
There's just enough interesting material here that I might continue the series, except TokyoPop only translated the first three volumes before going under (and the third one seems to've had a tiny print run) so there's nothing I can do without learning Japanese.
September 27, 2007
Can a 16-year-old girl bring about the end of the world? According to Grendel Prophecy 5111, that is precisely what will happen should the Linevan queen give birth to a daughter. Of the twin boy and girl Queen Elmyr has, though, there is no record of the female, as she was sent off to be killed by order of the Kingdom - and so as the years went on, the child fated to harbor in the apocalypse became the legend of the Scrapped Princess - but the girl was still alive. The infant had been secretly smuggled out of Linevan to the neighboring city of Manurhin, to be taken in by the Casull family. Fifteen years later, Pacifica has no knowledge of her origin before being adopted, but when her adoptive father, Yuma, is killed, she and her siblings learn everything from letters he left for them. Shannon - skilled in swordsmanship - and Raquel - gifted with a strong capacity for magic - must now protect their younger sister; Pacifica's identity and existance has been discovered, and there are assassins that will stop at nothing to bring about her death. The three must go on the run to escape those out to kill her, all the while struggling to come to terms with the life-changing revelations and responsibilities left to them by their parents - what if the prophecy is true?
Ichiro Sakaki's SCRAPPED PRINCESS: A TALE OF DESTINY is the first of thirteen volumes in what looks to be a promising series. The themes of courage, sacrifice, and the true meaning of family enhance the action of the story, while humor works to lighten the mood. The three protagonists are highly likable, and the villains are very unique and fascinating. For a translation, the writing leaves little to be desired, and the few illustrations are a treat for readers. Overall, this little book is a pleasant surprise, and one that you'll be hard-pressed to put down.
Ichiro Sakaki's SCRAPPED PRINCESS: A TALE OF DESTINY is the first of thirteen volumes in what looks to be a promising series. The themes of courage, sacrifice, and the true meaning of family enhance the action of the story, while humor works to lighten the mood. The three protagonists are highly likable, and the villains are very unique and fascinating. For a translation, the writing leaves little to be desired, and the few illustrations are a treat for readers. Overall, this little book is a pleasant surprise, and one that you'll be hard-pressed to put down.
January 1, 2015
At first, I felt skeptical about reading this book because it contained some anime illustrations and I am not a big fan of anime. Nonetheless, I gave it a chance and I'm quite surprised that I really enjoyed it. It's a very light read. The plot is not very complex which makes it easy to understand. The story is short [I finished reading it in one day] but it is well written. The story had a hint of action, humour, magic and love, specifically love for family. Although, there were some words that I had to look up at a dictionary to know the meaning but that's not really a bad thing because it widens my vocabulary. There were also many quotes and phrases that I liked from this book. This book is written in the narrator's POV.
Here's a brief summary:
The story is basically about a princess who was given a death sentence immediately upon her birth because of a prophecy. She didn't die at that time [the reason I wont reveal to avoid spoilers] and was adopted and protected by the Casull family. She was given the name Pacifica Casull. Fourteen years later, her father died and she and her two siblings discovered that she was the so-called "scrapped princess" from the legend and rumours. Her father gave her siblings the duty to protect her from the assassins that will be sent to kill her until she turns sixteen. The three siblings then journeyed from one city to another for their own safety.
Here's a brief summary:
The story is basically about a princess who was given a death sentence immediately upon her birth because of a prophecy. She didn't die at that time [the reason I wont reveal to avoid spoilers] and was adopted and protected by the Casull family. She was given the name Pacifica Casull. Fourteen years later, her father died and she and her two siblings discovered that she was the so-called "scrapped princess" from the legend and rumours. Her father gave her siblings the duty to protect her from the assassins that will be sent to kill her until she turns sixteen. The three siblings then journeyed from one city to another for their own safety.
October 29, 2014
There's a lot the animated series faithfully portrays, but I can also see what the anime never covered---which will make collecting the novels a wonderful idea. There was one jarring error in the first SENTENCE, but after that it was hard to remember I was reading a translated novel. The story begins before the anime starts, showing the prophecy of St. Grendel, as well as a baby being handed off to Yuma and Carol Casull to raise. It then jumps to the funeral of Yuma (and, one presumes, Carol, since she is hereafter not mentioned), and various events that convince Shannon and Raquel it's a good idea to leave the village. The magic system was finally explained in a way that made a lot of sense as to WHY Raquel was so insanely powerful---and the book ALSO reveals that Shannon has great potential for magic... but not the control or the focus, so he doesn't have a single spell memorized. Pacifica is her bratty self, but getting inside her head does lend her some sympathy. It leaves off around episode two in the anime. Recommended.
September 30, 2008
I was very disappointed with the first Scrapped Princess novel. The story, especially in the first part of the book, is uninteresting and meanders to a degree that borders on pointlessness. The main character, Pacifica, inspires no emotion beyond mild annoyance. And the dialog is bland and uninspired.
When they turned this series of novels into a TV show they very wisely cut out almost the entire content of this book. Yes, I am saying that reading this book actually detracts from the story of the series.
Later in the series some very interesting ideas are brought out, but nothing of the sort happens in this novel. It is stock high fantasy, and a rather sub-par example at that.
The only character which I found even remotely interesting was Sinner, and that was only because he was completely out of his mind.
When they turned this series of novels into a TV show they very wisely cut out almost the entire content of this book. Yes, I am saying that reading this book actually detracts from the story of the series.
Later in the series some very interesting ideas are brought out, but nothing of the sort happens in this novel. It is stock high fantasy, and a rather sub-par example at that.
The only character which I found even remotely interesting was Sinner, and that was only because he was completely out of his mind.
October 10, 2012
I guess the fact that it's called a “light novel” should have tipped me off about this book, but I found the story to be clipped and rushed towards the end while the beginning lagged like crazy.
Add the fact that the heroine (Pacifica, the “Scrapped Princess”) is unlikeable and somewhat annoying, and this book was rather disappointing.
On a positive note, I really liked Pacifica’s brother and sister and wish they’d gotten more of a chance to shine and develop.
Overall, if you find you have an interest in the story, I would recommend watching the anime that’s based on the novels. You get a full story and can fast forward the slow/annoying parts.
Add the fact that the heroine (Pacifica, the “Scrapped Princess”) is unlikeable and somewhat annoying, and this book was rather disappointing.
On a positive note, I really liked Pacifica’s brother and sister and wish they’d gotten more of a chance to shine and develop.
Overall, if you find you have an interest in the story, I would recommend watching the anime that’s based on the novels. You get a full story and can fast forward the slow/annoying parts.
October 7, 2009
Now this was worth $5! Truly a "light" novel. I breezed through it happily and was neither strained, stressed, disbelieving, or bored. I suppose it fills in some backstory and details of the characters in the anime, but it probably follows much of the same events? Not sure since this is the first volume. But even though I've seen the anime twice, the story engaged me enough that it didn't feel old.
March 12, 2014
Novelization of the first volume of the manga Scrapped Princess. Fun tale of 15-year-old who discovers she is the Scrapped Princess, prophesied to destroy the world when she turns 16. Hidden as an infant, she is found out and her adoptive brother and sister must protect her so she can discover her real destiny.
May 1, 2014
It was a fun and light read but only served as an intro or something like a teaser. I'd read the next book if I'd ever stumble into it but I'd rather go watch the anime. There were scenes that were lacking in description and were definitely more fitted for a visual treat than just reading about it. I guess that's also because I already know there's an anime version.
July 15, 2009
Ok, so technically this isn't a graphic novel. This is the novelization of the manga that also has anime. Check out the manga too!
September 17, 2014
I have watched the anime and read the manga. This book was about what happened before they left on the trip across the kingdom. I liked how it is not always told by Pacific's point of view. We get to see what her older brother and sister think.
August 16, 2014
Much better than the anime.
June 15, 2013
I thought it would be more interesting but it was pretty boring.
Probably won't read any more in the series.
Probably won't read any more in the series.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews