Princess Princess

Tooru Kouno's attractive appearance draws unexpected attention on his first day at an all-boys school. Having to transfer to a school without girls has been bad enough, but adding to his list of frustrations are boys staring at him all day long. However, he hopes that there may be girls around, since he ran into a lovely pink-haired girl on campus earlier that day.

After being escorted to his dorm by his classmate, Yuujirou Shihoudani, he meets a student named Mikoto Yutaka, who looks eerily similar to the girl he saw previously. To his shock, he realizes Mikoto is the girl and confronts him about this revelation. Yuujirou divulges that he and Mikoto crossdress as part of their job: a school tradition in which attractive first years are chosen as idols called "Princesses" in order to boost the morale of the students—and because of his looks, Tooru has been chosen by the student council as their third Princess!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shihoudani, Yuujirou Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Kouno, Tooru Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Yutaka, Mikoto Main

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Yoshikawa, Megumi Supporting

Takeuchi, Junko Japanese

Sakamoto, Akira Supporting

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Sakamoto, Harumi Supporting

Nojima, Kenji Japanese

Arisada, Shuuya Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Harue, Wataru Supporting

Terashima, Takuma Japanese

Sakamoto, Fuyuki Supporting

Watanabe, Akeno Japanese

Sakamoto, Natsuru Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuu Japanese

Watanabe, Takashi Producer

Kokago, Kouichi Producer

Iijima, Kouji Producer

Kon, Yuuko Assistant Producer

Reviews

Apr 15, 2025

rinbeeby

Recommended

this anime dares to ask: what if pretty privilege was literal? really crazy stuff. if you're a pretty boy you have to dress like a girl in exchange for free room, free food, free everything, and on top of it they get paid. if you're a handsome man you're on the student council. i love it, it's so camp and over to top.

the art is really cute, the main boys are adorable! i actually love the three main characters, specifically Touru and Yuujirou, and the relationship the three of them foster throughout the show. i honestly wish it was a little longer, or just more ... focused on their lives than the activities going on at school. it could've been a really cute slice of life sort of situation!

the music is just fine. i will say i have had the theme song stuck in my head ever since i watched it, though.

also, the voice cast is absolutely loaded. Romi Park (Nana, Edward Elric, Hange, etc) voices Yuujirou, Kamiya Hiroshi (Levi, Izaya) voices the student council president, and Fukuyama Jun (Grell, Watanuki Kimihiro, Shinra) voices the main boy Touru!! just crazy. love them

the plot is just super silly, i think it's best to not take this show seriously and just have fun while you watch it. it is cute, it is camp, and it is fun to watch. don't worry about the logistics too much and you will enjoy this show!

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 21, 2021

sntiago

Mixed Feelings

God, i saw this anime in the recommendations of another animes recommendations list. The memories hit hard. I genuinely thought this whole show was just a fever dream, and honestly thats how it feels like to watch it. Its got a lot of awkward pauses and silence.
The art is typical low budget 2010s anime. Acceptable but not good.

I like it for the fact that i love femboys and the whole premise is that a couple of dudes get dressed up as girls in an all-boys school for the biz

..and get harrassed for it. Harrassed, not in the homophobic way, but in the catcalling way. ... Talk about walking a mile in womens shoes.
TW:
Most BL/Gaybaitey/Yaoi stories have some sort of harrassment/non-con/dub-con/sexual assault subplot. I think at this point its a given in the genre and thats why most shows like these leave a sour taste in my mouth. so yeah.


I still think this is a classic in the genre. Something about its atmosphere and weirdness stops me from straight up hating it. Check it out if u like niche BL classics

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 20, 2016

sterrebloem

Not Recommended

A poor adaption of its highly likable cousin, the manga, Princess Princess is an anime that makes you suffer completely throughout it and is something you should probably watch with your friends to be able to endure.

I had decent expectations of this anime at first. Especially since the manga is one of my favourites of all time -- (I mean, who can resist Taishi Zaou's humour? It's just FABULOUS) -- and let's face it, Studio Deen is a great studio in itself too. There are so many elements to this that could have made it great.

The story starts out OK, presenting the same premise ... that the manga had shown, with some minor tweaks. The corner room in the dorms is now the P-room, the head of the dorm is apparently a senpai and... I don't recall Mikoto showing up in a dress at the very beginning? Since it's something only done for events and the like, but whatever.

Everything would have been fine if Studio Deen didn't decide on mixing up story lines and arcs just to fit every good moment they wanted into the anime. It's understandable, but surprising and didn't do the anime well. Characters get minimized or exaggerated as the story goes on and certain events lose their meaning in the progress.



[--- SKIP THIS PART IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SPOILERS ---]

Examples of this are:

Sayaka's episodes are over the top and that says a lot, since she was an extreme character already. Why does she threaten to throw herself off a hill? How did she get to accepting Tooru and Yuujirou together if only days/moments before she was tormenting Yuujirou endlessly for being Tooru's "boyfriend"?

Why did Yuujirou's family unexpectedly show up at the school festival? Why not make Tooru come along with Yuujirou to visit them at his home? The fact he traveled so far at Yuujirou's request in the manga made it extra significant. Heck, even Yuujirou's mom wondered in an extra comic if Tooru was his boyfriend because of that. "Do you think they are dating...? No one would travel that far for just a friend, right? And lately Yuujirou has been sparkling --" [a reference to the princess smile] "... It's what love does to someone, I suppose..."

And I can't believe how flat Tooru's decision at the end of the anime was (episode 12). Why was the whole school there to cheer? Why did all the other characters even know and meddle with this? And how come Studio Deen missed out on a chance to incorporate the Very Gay Scene™ between Tooru and Yuujirou if they skipped various story lines to get there? They could have animated Tooru telling Yuujirou "I wanted to hear it from you the most... that you would miss me."

Anyway, enough about how Studio Deen tried to gay it up and hecked up in the progress. I could talk about it forever.

[--- SPOILERS END HERE ---]



Continuing, I thought the art of the anime wasn't great. It might have been decent for a 2006 anime, but it still had a lot of still scenes, chibis and lack of action. Maybe it's not fair to compare it to BONES anime, but I thought FullMetal Alchemist (2003) and Ouran High School Host Club (2006) were a lot better in terms of animation in that time. Not that I expect a lot of budget for an anime like this.

Which brings me to the genre: shoujo. I was okay with the mangaka calling the Princess Princess manga a shoujo because it was acceptable. Okay, it felt a bit fake, but it wasn't like she was particularly aiming for it to be shounen-ai. Gay moments aside, of course.

But Studio Deen? MAN, THEY UPPED THEIR GAME. "This is a shoujo anime" they whisper, as they show the ending with only Tooru and Yuujirou, while dressing them up... can I just say "gay". I screamed "WHAT THE F*** IS THIS" when the ending first came up because it was so random and ... gay. I have no other words to describe it. And let's face it: Mikoto would be relieved to be left out of that ending. If Tooru and Yuujirou are just going to be sexy photoshoot models pretending to be a couple, then Mikoto wouldn't want to be a part of it.

Poor Mikoto is always left out. Do I even pity him or feel relief for him in this anime? I don't know anymore.

Either way, the music of this anime was okay. I don't even know what to say about the opening and ending songs anymore. I just experience second hand embarrassment with those. The songs are pretty good though, really. I just can't believe they were put with this anime.

Characters are... decent? They had strong source material to back them up, if that makes sense. As much as was possible with the jumbled story lines, the characters were as OK as they could be in that situation. Aside from Sayaka, I don't feel like they deviated too much from the manga. Though Yuujirou acted out of character in a few occasions too, but whatever.


Let's just end this review and say I didn't enjoy this anime. I'm not even funny. I just wanted to whine and complain about a failed adaption of a manga I liked to bits.

Please do read the manga though. I promise it's great and more consistent and logical. If you like the idea of BL, then it will be GREAT as well. Because who doesn't think Yuujirou is into Tooru? And if you don't like BL... then that's probably fine too. I've seen a lot of comments around of people who said "I don't want them to be gay... but I think they would fit great together? xD"

Honestly, do whatever you like. Sorry for comparing this to the manga so much and I'm sorry if you actually liked this anime a lot. If you liked it, then that's great! I'm glad you did.

I'm just relieved that I'm released from Puri Puri Hell now.

Au revoir Puri Puri. Thanks for letting me write a review at 1 AM.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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