For once, I have a complete volume of a series, though it seems that Rod Espinosa, its author and artist, may be returning to it. Thus far, there are three books in 'The Courageous Princess' series, first published in 2000, 2001 and 2002: "Beyond the 100 Kingdoms', 'The Quest for Home' and 'The Kingdom of Leptia'. All three are collated into this heavy large format hardback, which is labelled 'Masterpiece Edition'. Weight aside, this is surely the version to get if you're interested in diving into this story, which landed Filipino creator Rod Espinosa onto a few award nomination lists.

It's a gentle story with splashes of darkness, told and drawn cleanly with art that reminds me a lot of Studio Ghibli. This is absolutely the sort of story that Hayao Miyazaki might animate, especially given that it's rooted in classic fairy tale. Espinosa has apparently dipped into both literature and history often, including graphic adaptations of Poe, Verne, Dickens and Shakespeare, among quite a few  others; a series of steampunk takes on fairy tales; a manga version of 'Alice in Wonderland'; and biographical looks at various American presidents and other historical characters. No wonder he seems so at home in a fairy tale mindset here.

The courageous princess of the title is Princess Mabelrose of the tiny kingdom of New Tinsley, one of the Hundred Kingdoms. In the first of many snubs to convention, she's clearly mixed race. Her mother, Queen Helena, is part of the Charming family, so is flaxen haired and blue eyed, clearly in the European tradition. However, her father, King Jeryk, is obviously middle eastern and it's been suggested that he's descended from Aladdin. However, they get along wonderfully and are firmly able to compromise, as the princess's name proves: Helena wanted Mabel and Jeryk wanted Rose, but they lumped them together to make her Mabelrose.

The early scenes are happy, active and pastoral. Everyone gets along with everyone else, whether they're royalty or peasants, and Espinosa appears to be almost unwilling to draw any human being without their mouth being open. However, that's just New Tinsley and that's not how things are in the rest of the Hundred Kingdoms, as we'll soon discover. King Alreon of Warwick is hosting a ball in his son's honour and he invites Princess Mabelrose to attend, but it turns into a big wake-up call for her. She's ignored, ridiculed and laughed at. After all, while she looks good to us, Espinosa has clearly pointed out that she's not the fairest in the land, and the other princesses clearly agree.

After being tripped up by a bullying princess, she escapes to a side room, befriends young Prince Edward and uses a frog he found in the garden to cause chaos at the ball. It's glorious and I'd love to see it animated. The next scene would be more challenging, because, on her return home, she's promptly kidnapped by a dragon called, and I kid you not, Shalathrumnostrium, who's huge but is also able to whisk her away to his castle in the Unremembered Lands, which is almost as far away from New Tinsley as anyone can get and yet remain on the map that Espinosa kindly provides for us. So it goes.

Now, your standard fairy tale would have Princess Mabelrose the fairest in the land, which she's apparently not, because that's Princess Giovanna. And the dashing prince would quickly sprint to her rescue, which he doesn't, not only because he's too busy getting married to Princess Giovanna but because he didn't even notice Mabelrose at the ball. And so to plan B, which would be for her parents to pony up the sizeable ransom of gold that this dragon wants for her release, which they don't because they simply don't have the money. And so Shalathrumnostrium decides to keep her as a pet.

Of course, King Jeryk, being a decent and heroic sort, promptly sets out on horseback to rescue his daughter, but he has a long way to go and she doesn't even know that he's coming, so she rescues herself. The rest of the first book and the two that follow involve Jeryk getting progressively less far away but never close, Mabelrose getting progressively further away from the captor but never close to home and Shalathrumonstrium doing everything he can to re-capture the first princess to ever escape his castle and make a mockery of his kidnap and ransom schemes.

And, with that framework established, there lie the stories. Princess Mabelrose is easy to like and younger audiences ought to lap her up, but she's maybe a little too perfect for older readers. My feeling was that, while she's absolutely the courageous and even determined princess of the title, it's her inner peace and goodness that prove even more important as she meets a progression of characters during her travels.

Two join her, though I'd only call one a sidekick. He's Spiky, a talking porcupine which she meets in a forest of thorns. The other is a magical rope she takes from the dragon's castle and completely fails to notice helps her out time and time again. Spiky, on the other hand, notices the first time and Espinosa's greatest achievement in this book is to endow a scene featuring a porcupine and a rope with serious emotional power. That's artistry.

Everyone else comes and goes, whether she finds them or they find her, and the vast majority of them are decent everyday folk rather than the rich and powerful. Back in Warwick, we discovered that the rich and powerful are generally assholes, but they're never villains because they're rich and powerful. Sure, the villains that Mabelrose encounters, like the dragon and his tiger minion, King Irgerat, the tyrant of Leptia, certainly end up rich and powerful but that's because they're villains, so the progression is the right way round.

In fact, the only obvious flaws I'd call out in Espinosa's storytelling are his stereotypical choices of anthropomorphic animals to be good guys and bad guys and a mild reliance on prayer. Neither is a big deal but both are annoyances and the book would have been better with them resolved.

The former means that the bad guys are dragons, wolves, vultures, crocodiles and the like, each a cheap choice for villain. Sure, Espinosa includes a boar as a good guy, leading to a great scene in which he asks Mabelrose for a kiss and she obliges, convinced that he's a bespelled prince, but no, he's just a boar who wants a kiss.

The latter is mild because there doesn't seem to be any religion in the Hundred Kingdoms. I don't think we ever encounter a priest or a place of worship but there are a few scenes where characters pray, even though we have no idea who to, and their prayers are rewarded. The first of those is the princess herself, because her parents couldn't conceive until they prayed enough and boom, there she was. It seems to me that Espinosa would have been better off either leaving this out entirely or actively including religion in his worldbuilding.

So this is a gentle but very enjoyable adventure in which Espinosa channels anime and fairy tales into something new and subtly subversive. It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable read and I want to see what happens next. And I want to see Miyazaki make it an anime. ~~ Hal C F Astell