The complete Shamanic Princess, a striking fantasy which takes place in a Germanic college town. Images courtesy of Manga/Central Park Media. © 1997 Princess Project/Bandai Visual/MOVIC.

Shamanic Princess. Video Titles: V.1, Tiara's Quest. V.2, The Talisman Unleashed. V.3, Guardian World. DVD Title: The Complete Shamanic Princess. OAV series (6 episodes), 1996-1998. Directors: Mitsuru Hongo, (episode 6) Hiroyuki Nishimura. 60 minutes each; DVD 180 minutes. Price & format: video $24.99 subtitled/$19.99 dubbed each; DVD $29.99 bilingual. Distributor: U.S. Manga Corps/Central Park Media.

This is a strikingly unusual fantasy. The art style (by Atsuko Ishida, a member of the CLAMP art-group known in America for the Cardcaptor Sakura and Rayearth TV series and the X theatrical feature), the predominantly female teen cast and a heroine with a cute talking animal companion indicate an adventure designed for young girls. The non-linear story (the conclusion is in the fourth of the six episodes), the references to proto-Indo-European shamanism, the intensity of the drama (how do you fight a psychotically cruel god?) and the confusion of having to guess whether any character is really who he or she seems to be ("What is real and what is false? Can't you tell the difference?"), indicate an intellectual challenge for sophists with a predilection towards solipsism. The locale is a picturesque Germanic college town, but the main cast is a group of young -- sorcerers? angels? -- posing as students. Cryptic dialogue gradually reveals that they are from a supernatural guardian world, where they are acolytes of the priestly upper class that worships an unseen deity manifest in the Throne of Yord. One of their group, Kagetsu, has stolen the Throne of Yord and fled to our world with it. Tiara, the protagonist (Kagetsu's former lover), is sent with Japolo, her talking ermine familiar, to find and recover the throne; an assignment which will presumably mean killing Kagetsu. Tiara is taken aback to find that Lena, a former friend, is also on Earth with Leon, her human familiar, claiming that she has been sent on the same assignment. Are Lena and Leon confederates of Kagetsu trying to save him; are they trying to usurp Tiara's mission for their own prestige; or are their elders pitting them against each other? Did Kagetsu have a good reason for stealing the throne? Is the god within the throne a myth, a passive observer or a manipulator of the events? The action increases equally in emotional tension, deadly violence and surrealistic mysticism as the setting shifts back and forth between the quiet Teutonic academic community, the Celtic-Central Asian appearance of the guardian world and the god's domain within the Throne of Yord.

Shamanic Princess' erratic release in Japan (six half-hour videos between June 1996 and June 1998), with an increasing delay between each and a new director for the final one, combined with the enigmatic conclusion and the addition of subsequent flashback scenes (which answer some previous questions but raise new ones) in episodes #5 and #6, left the Japanese public wondering for some time if the series was really over. Tiara's appearance in sedate 19th Century European dress with her face and arms covered with vivid shamanistic tattoos, has inspired several costumes at fan conventions. (Production by Animate Film.)