I was tired after returning home from vacation after a chaotic week. As a result, I decided not to watch Prima Doll yesterday. After all, I wasn’t quite in the mood to watch something sad yesterday. However, now that I am well-rested, I suppose now is time to share my thoughts on the first episode.
An empire is fighting a war. The only weapon that can change its tide is dolls, which resemble teenage girls. Even the military personnel questioned their use of them. Still, they can control special robots in combat. Of course, they suffered some ever-lasting damage from the war. More on that later.
With that, we see the pink-haired doll wake up after being repaired. However, she has no memories whatsoever as she walks through the café named “The Black Cat.” Finally, she wakes up and sees a girl with a sign of a repair in progress.
She wanders outside the café and meets a little girl who is singing. Her name is Chiyo. Apparently, a robot runs towards Chiyo, but thankfully the pink-haired dolls stop it by controlling it. However, she faints shortly afterward. Not too surprising since she just woke up.
When she wakes up, the owner, Tooma Nagi, who repairs dolls talk to her, saying the incident is under control. Honestly, I’m unsure about Nagi’s gender as the voice seems a bit high for a male. Either way, the pinked-haired dolls have no memories.
Eventually, Nagi gives her the name Haizakura and introduces her to the other coworkers at the café. They are Karasuba, Gekka, and the completely silent Houkiboshi.
Immediately, seeing the girl dolls work at the café gives the vibes of Gochiusa. After all, the atmosphere feels similar and how Gekka pours the tea out from high up makes it obvious. However, Haizakura screws up at every task she tries, such as holding the menu correctly, pouring tea, and even cooking. I find it funny how Karasuba complains about how useless Haizakura is to Nagi. However, Haizakura probably has a skill that nobody knows about.
Haizakura eventually meets Chiyo again, and the show becomes a bit emotional. Not too surprising since it’s Key we are talking about here. However, Chiyo’s backstory is surprisingly not that sad. Although her mother helped the soldiers, she died because of the war.
Also, there is a doll named Yugiri that looks after her. She acted like an older sister. Chiyo likes singing a song to thank her, but she doesn’t know where she went off. Yep, Haizakura saw her and consults to Nagi. This is where we find out that the doll she saw is indeed Yugiri, who participated in the war. However, she is heavily damaged, although she looks okay from the outside.
Through a miracle of Haizakura talking to Yugiri about Chiyo, it somehow wakes up. That is after Haizakura woke up. This may seem like a miracle as Chiyo is happy to see her again, except Yugiri played along. She is unfortunately not fixed as Haizakura merely restored the signal, perhaps temporarily, without her memories intact.
This makes Yugiri having to say goodbye the next day disheartening to Chiyo. After all, Yugiri is everything to Chiyo, but it’s good to see her reassure Chiyo that she will return someday. Look at it this way, at least Chiyo knows that Yugiri still exists, even though she isn’t fully restored. Hopefully, someday, she will become fully operational as she returns to storage.
While the developments may seem rushed, it’s off to a good start. Of course, there is some intrigue about the dolls’ prior experiences before losing their memories. Also, will Houkiboshi ever talk? We’ll eventually find out.
A taste of what’s to come. Mix of cuteness and war drama. I dig it.
Poor Chiyo. Hope she’ll be okay. Hope this isn’t the last we see of Yugiri. Most likely is but we can hope.
Definitely, it’s more like cute girls being sad or something. But the automatas are adorable though.
Yes, it’s easy to feel bad for Chiyo, but at least she met Yugiri. Hopefully someday they will find a way to fix her up.