Originally it seemed like Ballmastrz would just find its comedy from the numerous tropes that go along with sports films and series. Now it’s exciting to see the show stray outside of that box a little due to the generous concept it’s created with the universe’s many disparate galaxies and competitors. For instance, why couldn’t the show do an episode where a team from a new planet is just a bunch of John McClanes and the whole thing is one big riff on the Die Hard franchise? “To Catch A Princess” helps explore the versatility of this show, even if it did initially feel like a series that might be limited or boxed in at times.

There’s also a bit of commentary here on how video games can become quite the addiction and take over people’s lives. Ace is more caught up in this cyber romance with Luna than the video games themselves, but “To Catch A Princess” still hints at the ugly side of video games and how unbecoming it can be to get lost continually chasing your princess. At one point a frustrated Gaz tells Ace that “video games are for losers who can’t win at anything in real life,” but it’s because of Ace’s obsession with gaming that he’s unfocused and useless at the Leptons’ practices.

The stakes get raised in the second half of the episode when Ace finally does catch his Princess and she insists that they take their relationship off of some server and into the real world. The vertically challenged Ace is a little concerned about meeting Luna since his avatar is more than a little exaggerated when it comes to his physique. Ace’s plan to come to his date as Ballmaster isn’t half bad and it finds a way to rope Baby Ball into all of this too, but there’s still the major catch that the two are still amateurs when it comes to the whole Ballmaster transformation.

This “date” quickly falls apart and Ace and Baby Ball wind up as hostages under the rule of Luna and her Oshigari Princesses. Naturally, they want to know the secret behind the Ballmaster transformation so that they can go through the same procedure and help bring their team to success. The Sailor Moon references here are all very much appreciated and the Oshigari Ball is dripping in kawaii goodness. This is a show that’s no stranger to exaggeration, but the Sailor Moon and “magical girl” tropes go over especially well. This will hopefully be a universe that the show returns to soon. It’d also be nice if the show offered a brief little piece of information regarding whether Dee Dee came from the Oshigari Princesses before transferring over to the Leptons. She’s certainly drawn in the same style so an acknowledgement towards that would be interesting.