Shamanic Princess: You're watching it backwArds!!

Shamaniac Princess currently airs on Crunchyroll. The entire OVA lasts only six episodes, each at under 30 minutes. It ran in Japan off and on between June of 1996 and June of 1998.

If you are watching the episodes in order, nothing will make any sense to you. In order to fully understand the story, you need to watch the episodes in the following order:

5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4.

The big complaint most people have is the story bouncing all over the place, but if you watch episodes five, then six, then one, it will actually flow.

The story begins with Tiara, a princess from the Guardian World, who can summon mythical creatures, and can herself become a demonic harpy, due to her fusing with her own shadow when she was a tween. If you start with episode five, then you'll see little Tiara befriending two other magical girls, Sarah and Lena. You will also see Tiara crushing on Sarah's older brother Kagetsu, who later becomes Tiara's lover.

Between episodes five and six, Tiara learns to use her magic without fear, experiences her first kiss at age 10 from her own shadow (WTF??) and then earns the right to have her first Guardian Partner, Graham, whom she summons, but summons wrong, causing him to suffer brain damage, have permanent speech problems and screws up his arm. Way to go, kid.

Graham is deeply in love with Tiara, and while Tiara cares for him, she has her heart set on Kagetsu. Graham hates this, but can do nothing to make her change her mind. He actually gets violently attacked by Tiara's magic for trying to come between her and Kagetsu.

Kagetsu is a neutralizer, meaning he has the ability to nullify magic if need be. As Kagetsu and Sarah grow up, Sarah becomes a bit more sickly. If you watch all six episodes, you learn Sarah is destined to be one forever with the Throne of Yord, which in and of itself is a screwed up demonic source. After the Throne (which by the way, is in fact, a mirror) absorbs Sarah, Kagetsu steals the mirror and tries to bring his sister back. Graham tries to stop him, and after a freaky battle involving bright magic, Kagetsu kills Graham, causing Tiara to dump Kagetsu.

Interspersed between the episodes is the recurring character Lena. Lena used to be Tiara's friend, but her feelings for Sarah and later Kagetsu, caused her to hate Tiara. As the girls grow up, she acquires her partner, Leon.

Episodes 1-4 take place after Tiara grows up and starts college. She has a new partner, Japolo, who is something between a ferret and a cat. Japolo argues with Tiara constantly, but is useful as he has the power to pause time.

By day, Tiara is a girlish college waif with a ton of new friends. By night, she has battles with Lena and tries to retrieve the Throne of Yord so she can rescue Sarah. Each time, she also has to confront her feelings for Kagetsu and the fact that between the time she first had Graham until now, she's become colder, ruder  and more hasty, but all of it links back to her own feelings over everything that has happened. 

Eventually, this all leads to an inter-dimensional fight with the Throne of Yord itself, and by the end of the fight, Kagetsu and Tiara are a couple again, Lena learns to deal with life, and Sarah accepts being one with the evil Yord.

The entire story is focused on repairing broken relationships and Tiara's personal growth. It's dark, ripe with shock-value violence and seizure-inducing flashes, and at times is a little confusing. In a nutshell, everything bad happens to Tiara, Kagetsu is one-dimensional, Sarah is a perpetual victim and Lena is the show's Meg Griffin. 

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