A 12-year old girl tries to find her father, but instead meets another man called Nino, who teaches her unique ways to defend herself. And for the vengeance.

Red Princess Blues Animated: The Book of Violence is a brand new animated short film from Numb Robot, the group behind Cyn and Broken, visually and technically awesome short films. The bar has been set high once again and for the most of the time, RPB delivers that it promises.

Although the film uses a lot of still images with some effects on top of it, the graphics and colours look very good - many times even awesome (the film is completely hand-drawn, except for few 3D shoots). And the atmosphere doesn't suffer at all because of this, since the still images can been seen as pre-defined style more than a money/time -saving compromise. The japanese animation - anime - has been a biggest influence for the style and the filmmakers proudly tell us so. And the influence can be seen, really. The soundtrack is also top-notch, fitting with the visuals in a perfect way.

The voices by Larry Robinson and Paula Garcés are not bad, but still almost bland - like listening to a mediocre audio book. I don't know if this is the fault of Garcés and Robinson, or the direction. Still, this prevents RPB to reach its full potential. The short film RPB nevertheless keeps us highly interested to see the live action film Red Princess Blues sometime this year (2008). I believe the role for the protagonist is in safe hands for the feature film, when Garcés (TV-series The Shield) reprises her role.