Napping Princess

Sleep is a commodity that most people can’t do without and most would wish for more. In the Anime Napping Princess sleep is something that Kokone doesn’t have a problem with, which is a problem as she should be studying for her exams. Also, when she sleeps or naps she becomes a princess and enters Heartland a world of magic, with battling robots and corporate battles in a cyberpunk society.

Meanwhile her father a widower who is still affected by his wife’s passing is messing about with jobs that are beneath him, but it’s a living. Everything changes one day when he is arrested. That’s when the intrigue begins with Kokone’s dreams (hinting at family secrets) and reality start to merge as the film moves into the world of big business and industrial espionage.

If it sounds confusing it’s because it is, involving as it does estrangement, boardroom battles, love friendship, loss and magic. Director and writer Kenji Kamiyama does produce some dazzling animated set pieces and the unfussy soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura is a real boon. The standout element though is Kokone and Morio her schoolfriend. Their friendship and characterisation are a delight.

It’s probably too convoluted for its own good and maybe too long. But the clues are there for the viewer, and it does come together in the end, though maybe not entirely satisfactorily.