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]

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Adaptation:	Princess Principal
Summary:	Princess Principal: Ange Report
Side story:	Princess Principal Picture Drama
Sequel:	Princess Principal: Crown Handler Movie 1

Sawashiro, Miyuki
Japanese

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Staff

Maruyama, Shunpei

Producer

Maniwa, Kenzou

Producer

Kyoutani, Tomomi

Assistant Producer

Tachibana, Masaki

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

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Opening Theme

"The Other Side of the Wall" by Void_Chords feat.MARU

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Ending Theme

	1: "A Page of My Story" by Ange (Ayaka Imamura), Princess (Akira Sekine), Dorothy (You Taichi), Beatrice (Akari Kageyama), Chise (Nozomi Furuki) (eps 1-11)
	2: "The Other Side of the Wall" by Void_Chords feat.MARU (eps 12)

Reviews

Dec 11, 2023

lan_zhu

Recommended

This anime is literally a dream come true for my childhood self. I've been searching for a spy anime, and this just happened to be perfect.

The ART.
I love it. I'd see all those game openings with this cute art style and wish for an anime with it. There is a pretty obvious use of CGI and 2D blend in one scene that I don't think looks right, but all the 2D animations are beautiful.

The characters.
Our main character, Ange is exactly what my 9 year old self wanted in a female protagonist. She's trained as a spy, calm and collected during missions, and great at ...

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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 ...

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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.

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Poll: Princess Principal Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Aug 20, 2017	102 replies	by rainbowScarlet »» Apr 17, 7:26 PM
Poll: Princess Principal Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jul 16, 2017	132 replies	by Bing_101010 »» Sep 10, 2023 5:11 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
Poll: Princess Principal Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Thatonebadbro - Sep 24, 2017	183 replies	by Epiroogu »» Sep 3, 2023 12:31 PM
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le Carré, Ange

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Princess Principal

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Information

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Available At

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Synopsis

Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

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Recommendations

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