YMMV / Fena: Pirate Princess

• Like You Would Really Do It: This was some fans reaction to the destruction of the Rumble Rose and apparent death of the very colorful female pirate crew. As it turns out, yes they would. Their deaths were genuine. Although at least three of them survived, per the epilogue.
• No Yay: Many fans who enjoyed Abel got creeped out when he started getting too close to Fena in Episode 7. He is essentially using Fena as a replacement for her dead mother, with that as well as the age gap causing a lot of fans to turn on Abel. The fact the two are half-siblings just increases the squick.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Abel gained a lot of haters after his aforementioned No Yay moment, but then his backstory was revealed, showing that Helena, Fena's mom, was taken in as a mistress by Abel's father, the king, and even impregnated by him, which caused rumors to spread that Helena was a witch. As a result, Helena was literally burned at the stake right in front of Abel. After that, a lot of people began to feel sorry for Abel, and while they still don't support Fena/Abel, he's not quite as hated as before.
• Tainted by the Preview: Many who detest non-Japanese influence in the anime industry dismissed the series out of hand simply because it was funded by Crunchyroll and [adult swim], particularly since it premiered shortly after Jason DeMarco, the co-creator of Toonami, was given a promotion and placed in charge of creating original anime for WarnerMedia.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The Rumble Rose pirates, a visually distinctive bunch of cool, all-female pirates. They're unceremoniously blown to smithereens in Episode 7 (though some are seen in the series' epilogue, implying at least some survived) after getting to do very little in the grand scheme of the series.
  • Kei is a member of the Goblin Knights who was purposefully held back so as to not fall to Fena's Magnetic Hero charms. When Fena is kidnapped, Shitan tells the group that if they go rescue her instead of heading back, Kei will be sent to kill them all and retrieve the map to Eden. We see Kei preparing to leave, and he completely disappears until a brief cameo in the epilogue, where Shitan smooths things over.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • When Fena is kidnapped by the Rumble Rose pirates, Shitan suddenly reveals that he was ordered to kill Fena after acquiring Eden's coordinates, as she is descended from witches and ensnares the rest of the group in her spell, which will lead them to doom. Naturally, this causes conflict with the others, and two episodes later, Fena herself finds out about it and is heartbroken. Rather than Shitan's harshness and inner conflict lasting most of the season, it's quickly resolved a scene after Fena finds out by having her somewhat gaslight Shitan into not killing her until he finishes her archery lessons.
  • Much was made of Kei hunting down the Goblin Knights in order to kill them for going after Fena instead of Eden, but shortly afterwards, Abel takes over the plot and Kei never catches up until after everything's said and done.
  • The initial trailers, and several of the early episodes, seemed to indicate that the series was going to be a high seas adventure with Fena learning to be a pirate captain, sort of like a mashup between One Piece and Pirates of the Caribbean. Then the second half swerves in a completely different direction and introduces several high-end concepts like the nature of humanity and Fena being a witch with magical powers. Many wish the staff had just kept things simple and done a straightforward pirate story. Not helping matters is Fena herself has little to no agency in her own series because of this, which more than a few people have noticed.
• Too Cool to Live: O’Malley and her colorful group of female pirates are the only actual pirates in a show called "pirate princess", put up a great showing against the One-Man Army samurai, and then (most of them) get blown to smithereens halfway through the series.

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