Princess Principal

In the early 20th century, the discovery of the substance Cavorite allowed the production of advanced military technology and steered the country toward conflict. London is now divided by a wall, and the Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Albion battle a silent war where espionage is the only weapon that can destabilize the enemy. A group of girls from the prestigious Queen's Mayfaire school work as undercover spies for the Commonwealth.

Led by Dorothy, an experienced driver with a striking personality, their group includes the talents of Ange le Carré, a cold-blooded liar and expert sharpshooter; Chise, a proficient samurai; and Beatrice, a voice-mimicking specialist. They use their unique individual skills for the Commonwealth to survive in a dark world filled with conspiracy, mystery, and infiltration. In the shadow of the war, they have only one goal in mind: completing their mission.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

le Carré, Ange Main

Imamura, Ayaka Japanese

Dorothy Main

Taichi, You Japanese

Charlotte Main

Sekine, Akira Japanese

Toudou, Chise Main

Furuki, Nozomi Japanese

Beatrice Main

Kageyama, Akari Japanese

Julie Supporting

Kino, Hina Japanese

Anderson, Amy Supporting

Watada, Misaki Japanese

Marilla Supporting

Furukawa, Yurina Japanese

Gaveston, Lily Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

L Supporting

Sugou, Takayuki Japanese

Maruyama, Shunpei Producer

Maniwa, Kenzou Producer

Kyoutani, Tomomi Assistant Producer

Tachibana, Masaki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, 2nd Key Animation

Reviews

Aug 29, 2025

50Fiftillididee

Recommended

🚞 The Victorian Spice Girls ⚙ Changelings & High Treason °8.6° °continuity of cool competence° 💯%🔍

Principal - Noun. Chief of import; important; chosen or assumed among a branch of possible values. Primary; first level. The primary participant.

PP takes place in a future past - Edwardian London is divided by civil war, and it's chock full of cool contraptions. These girls will need all of those gadgets because they go from one dangerous mission to another. They are girls. They're in High School. And they're spies.

This is a snappy, witty, efficient spy-thriller. It's jam-packed with action, intrigue and plenty ... of fun, in between tea times. Each episode is a tasty little snack like an after dinner chocolate. For me, 1-per-night was perfect in order to savor it. Let's meet our girl spy band: le Carré Ange - an alien from the black lizard planet, so she claims. She will quickly follow up with the fact that she “always lies.” Then there's Dorothy - a femme fatale spy who is somehow passing for a HS student. Toudou Chise is the Japanese spy. Beatrice - her voice is heard, and she's a woman of countless voices. Let's not forget Charlotte the Princess. Though she can't make it “official” she is also working besides these girls. The viewer has no doubt what the Princess's principals are.

They took pains of love with the art of the series. The opening song is solid while the closing credit music is even better. There's plenty of jazzy saxophone to complement the downright slinkiness of our leads. The voice acting is lovely (and bang-on proper Mayfair). The art is fresh and beautiful with a watercolor style in some places and gorgeous steampunk⚙glam in others - there's even gears on the Christmas tree. The girls are bright, but the air is dark. All the chimneys are swept so this world is coal-dusted-dingy. The reality scale is more focused on hyper-fantasy Go BIG: big buxom figures in buxom dresses, big hats and jewelry, big hairdos, big eyes, big round faces. The backgrounds are minimized stylized realism. Every frame is art.

It starts as a bit of lite fun. Here's a fun episode, and there's one, too. They pile up separately, but as the 2nd half of the show unfolds, the plot takes some surprising turns as it ratchets up and solidifies. The writing is tres bien, l'extraordinaire câpre. (If I break into French, it means I really REALLY liked it😘).

The dialogue and characters are a constant source of amusement, though the laugh lines are few and it's no comedy. Doing what's good, right, and best isn't so difficult in the beginning of the show, but it gets progressively harder, more dangerous, more problematic, and dang near impossible until: The only way to do what's right is to become a traitor. Sadly, this is a common human generational cycle and we seem to be fast approaching such conundrums IRL. These girls stare down all sorts of peril but they never lose their cool. They are the kind of women that all women should want to emulate.


QUOTE📢

Who says I'm joking; I just like to lie.


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬83 📝84 🎭83 🌞58 🎨91 ⚡87 🎵/🔊79 😅30 😭41 😱57 😯54 😖38 🤔50 💤0 🔚?

Final content follows the first round of final credits at the c,one of episode 12.


My Age rec 14+ Violence 65/100 + The occasional lewd talker.

Re-📺? Without a doubt

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by 50Fiftillididee (93)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Aug 10, 2022

Lowoto

Mixed Feelings

Thoughts:
This anime was decent and I think deserves more attention.

I found that it couldn't own up to how silly the plot was every time a "serious" scene came up. They release episodes at random points in the timeline but I don't think it helped and just made things confusing at the start. They keep repeating the same lines of dialogue about how being a spy means you have to lie and it got annoying.

^These were nitpicks and when I looked past them I got a fair amount of enjoyment.

Story 6.5/10
The anime takes an episodic approach to storytelling meaning some episodes were not as ... good as others but overall I think majority of them were good when they focused on our main cast. I wish that there were more tense drama but everyone got along too well for it to happen even with villains.

Characters 7/10
Characters are alright the seducer one used her abilities at every single mission which got annoying (especially since it worked every time) but her actual backstory and personality are chill. Japanese girl was also fun in the fact that she had to get accustomed to a culture that is not her own. The princess was ok I found that she was generic in "I want to save this kingdom" princess ways but was executed well regardless. Voice box girl was annoying at first but grew to be entertaining since she is the least experienced in spy work it can be fun to witness her growth in the field. Ange was my main interest as the series was going on since she was "mysterious" I wish they gave her backstory about how she became a spy more depth but it's an oh well.

Soundtrack 5.5/10
Soundtrack was ok at first but got repetitive overtime. No tracks stood out particularly.

Animation 9/10
I'll just get to reasons why you'd wanna watch this. Animation. The setting is beautiful being based on industrial revolution Victorian London several background shots left me in awe. The action scenes are well choreographed with sword/gun fights and unique mainly because of the use of gravity. It refreshing.

Comment:
I'm kinda lazy so sorry if this review comes off as unorganized, I just decided to list my fresh thoughts on the show as a review (also it's my first one :P).

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Lowoto (1)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Aug 16, 2018

FrozenRoy

Not Recommended

Princess Principal is a show I would have been unlikely to put high priority on watching, but the fact that a bunch of people I knew were planning to watch and review it instantly got it on the table for me. While I was far too slow to join them, I nonetheless made sure to push through later, and here we are. And Princess Principal's concept IS interesting enough. You don't really get a lot of anime spy shows, for example. The recent Joker Game anime, which I still need to watch, was one of the first examples to come to my head. Joker Game, ... from what I saw, looked a bit underwhelming, so I went into Princess Principal hopeful it would be better.

Princess Principal's chief issue lies in the characters, as there is absolutely no character development throughout its twelve episode run time. Each character gets at least one background one shot story to give you an idea of how they joined the team or got to where they are, but they are essentially never relevant to the plot (Beatrice's in particular is barely even seen, let alone matters) and do not end up driving much of anything or even giving us much more of a sense of the characters. Chise's is the closest and it is still mostly tepid, although it at least has a full and complete self contained story...and then she got another generic focus episode that served solely to show off characters you don't care about who will never appear again and stuff you already knew!

I like the idea of how the background stories were structured, starting us with the team on a mission already and then slowly showing us how they got here while mixing in more present episodes, but the fact that these backstory episodes are totally lacking in substance just kills the concept in the crib. The princess was just about the only character I thought was interesting, although she is a pretty unrealistic character, because her episodes were executed somewhat different than normal via the latter episodes. It was more tied into the overall story than the one shots and offered more character insight in the process. Can't go into too much detail here since it'd be a spoiler, although you will most likely figure out what happened by the end of the second episode.

The overall series plot is only barely existent, with the series largely consisting of one shots and an ending 2-parter. The 2-parter would have definitely benefited from some foreshadowing. It wouldn't be hard to tie more of the one shots in to it when almost none do. For example the episode about smuggling nerve gas through could have instead been about smuggling through some materials which are used in the final episode. You know, basic stuff. Granted, the finale isn't good either and has one of the goofier villain exits I've seen as they escape the plot after suffering a minor setback.

The one shots aren't that great either and suffer from an issue that the first episode already kind of tries to spell out (albeit trying to spin it as a good thing) and which is obvious from just watching 1-2 episodes more: Nearly every episode of this show is going to have some kind of plot twist shoehorned into it. Once the viewer understands this, almost every episode becomes painfully predictable as despite the show trying to sell you on "twists" it never really tries to be inventive, do anything new or even execute what it does in a manner that advances the characters. I wouldn't mind the lack of inventiveness if not for the last point, as the execution is pretty much boring and expected without using it to enhance the show. Episode 6 was the height of this to me: Unless you either have somehow not gotten what this show is about at that point or have never seen this style of plot before, you will figure out exactly what is going to happen at least halfway through the episode if not sooner. It was extremely disappointing and going for a different ending which could further Dorothy's character would have made it much more engaging.

This is compounded by the fact that this is one of those series where all of the characters are unbelievably competent and thus makes it difficult to feel tension in scenes. Most of the time, their plots don't even go all that wrong and thus there is not a lot of challenge felt: There are a pair of recurring antagonists so forgettable I don't even remember their names and they always come off as less competent than the show presents them due to repeatedly losing and being foiled in frequently easy ways. When the show tries to end on a stinger of them preparing for future conflicts, it is difficult to take them seriously due to this. For an idea of how unbelievably competent some characters are, the backstory of one says that they cannot read or write, but that they then learned NINE LANGAUGES...without anyone helping them. While also learning about 10 other listed things! It completely destroys any willing suspension of disbelief when it is so outrageous, especially since the setting otherwise plays out as somewhat realistic but with some ill defined magitech.

If there's one thing Princess Principal did solidly enough, it was the art and sound. All of the girls are reasonably cute, the background art is at times fairly pretty, it has a very victorian feel to it mixed with some industrial stuff, so if nothing else that works. The CGI on the other hand is pretty hit or miss. Stuff like the car is usually fine if sometimes a bit jarring, but the last car chase scene for example looks pretty bad (the CGI train made me laugh for a bit, which is not what you want from your dramatic heart pounding scene usually!). The soundtrack was a bit more forgettable, but there were some decent background tracks and the OP and ED are solid. Overall, this was one area where Princess Principal largely felt reasonable.

I was honestly somewhat surprised by how much I disliked this series by the end of it. It started off fairly standard and I thought it would be some general 4-6 star anime fodder. Instead the complete lack of character progression, lackluster one shot plots, lack of an overarching story and absence of tension completely stifled the show for me and left it a pointless slog. I would recommend avoiding this anime unless you are a hardcore spy fan (although you might even be more annoyed by me at how lackluster it is if you're hardcore into the genre), have some character design or part of the concept really jump out or simply want to watch as much anime as possible.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by FrozenRoy (18)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Girls in uniform

by RokkanShojo

44 Entries · 91 Restacks

No Need For The Source, I'm Looking For Something Original

by Theannoy3rd1

50 Entries · 1.0K Restacks

Everything is a lie

by RokkanShojo

50 Entries · 624 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for December

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for December Week 1: December 4 - 10 Anime Releases Akame ga Kill! (incl. Theater) Complete Collection Blu-ray...read more

Dec 3, 2018 11:43 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (2 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for September

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for September Week 1: September 4 - 10 Anime Releases Bungou Stray Dogs 2nd Season (incl. Hitori Ayumu) Comple...read more

Sep 3, 2018 2:56 PM by Sakana-san | Discuss (27 comments)

	Poll: Princess Principal Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jul 16, 2017	133 replies	by NoviSun »» Mar 28, 6:30 PM
	Poll: Princess Principal Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Thatonebadbro - Sep 24, 2017	185 replies	by bekam11 »» Nov 22, 2024 4:49 PM
	Poll: Princess Principal Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Aug 13, 2017	136 replies	by little_raven »» Nov 7, 2024 7:00 PM
	Poll: Princess Principal Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Aug 20, 2017	102 replies	by rainbowScarlet »» Apr 17, 2024 7:26 PM
	Poll: Princess Principal Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Jul 9, 2017	205 replies	by Bing_101010 »» Sep 7, 2023 8:04 PM

The Most Promising Premieres of the Summer 2017 Anime Season

Not sure what to watch? Here are the 7 anime premiers we're most excited about for the Summer 2017 season.

by Littoface

101,284 views

Spoiler

Recommendation