Search - L/R - Licensed by Royalty: Complete Box Set on DVD

Moderately entertaining

Feuilles Mortes | 02/28/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Licensed By Royalty is a decent but mediocre watch. May not be recommended for purchase. Probably a rental. It doesn't use really great animation and character development is pretty weak for everyone, even the main characters Jack and Rowe. Jack and Rowe combine James Bond with Jin and Mugen from Samurai Champloo - a bit too slick and a bit too much foreknowledge-like planning. The music was pleasant to listen to but nothing really outstanding. There's a light hearted feel to the music and often times, played at completely inappropriate times.

The climax of the story builds too quickly. This is largely due to the 13 episode length and the sitcom nature of most of the episodes. There definitely isn't a lot of time to care, nor dramatic tension built up, so when things really get moving, it's not really dramatic and of course they play happy music inappropriately.

My two chief complaints are not that the animation was bad or that the series was too short or the music wasn't done right. My first complaint is that although extensive use of British accents were used, no one actually spoke British English. The accents are probably what Americans and a lot of people think British sounds. There's a decided lack of British slang which should be much more common. And the accents are too smooth. The second chief complaint is that there is far too much planning and prophetic foreknowledge. L/R somehow always have the right tools and people to pull off all their escapades. It's annoying. You can see this extensive planning in the end. They attempted a somewhat Cowboy Bebop level of drama which was very out of place with the rest of episodes, though it shared completely inappropriate music with them. You understand this overuse of planning when you consider how excessively smoke is used in the series."