one of the newer arrivals worth your time, Fena: Pirate Princess is currently streaming in Australia on Crunchyroll, and in the US on Crunchyroll with a 7/10 audience score that speaks for itself. 12 episodes — the right length to tell the story it is telling. Television that earns its era label is rarer than the number of shows attempting it suggests — most of what gets called prestige TV is really just expensive TV. Fena: Pirate Princess is one of the genuine examples: the craft is there in the writing, the performances, and the way it handles its subject matter. Asami Seto's involvement signals the kind of production that attracts serious talent and uses it properly. Available now on streaming — no excuses left for not watching it.

Fena Houtman remembers little about her childhood. Orphaned and raised as a servant in a brothel, her life changes when she escapes to an island of pirates where she discovers the truth behind her family. With Fena being the only one able to unlock her family’s secrets, and a formidable crew of female pirates on her tail, she must take her place as captain of her Samurai crew for a high seas adventure! Asami Seto and Ryota Suzuki lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It aired in 2021. The world-building is meticulous enough to sustain multiple rewatches, with details in early episodes that only make sense later in the run. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

Satisfying on multiple levels — something to enjoy on screen and something to think about after. The run is exactly the right length for the ideas it is exploring. The best science fiction uses its speculative framework to examine things that matter in the real world, and Fena: Pirate Princess does this with more subtlety than the genre usually allows itself. The special effects serve the story rather than substituting for it, which is the mark of a production that understands what genre television is actually for. Asami Seto anchors it with a performance that makes the more abstract episodes feel personal.