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, 2nd Key Animation, Key Animation

Reviews

Jul 17, 2024

itzswxzy

Recommended

Imma keep this straight and short.

This anime is super underrated, I mean the genre of Steampunk itself is on the lower end of Sci-Fi genres.
I found this anime of the fact that it was yet another piece of work from Okouchi and When I saw how it was a spy/steampunk with girls I thought it would be some simple and nice story but boy did it blow past my expectations.
Princess Principal is a episodic spy steampunk with non linear story structure that is brilliantly executed in its core. Each episode is a new mission and new plotline while still undergoing with one main ... storyline in the background and you never forget that which is a good thing because sometimes with episodic shows, it tends to lose its value and purpose through such issues. It also helps of how well paced the story is especially within the narrative events of each episodes. The cast is brimmed with interesting characters who all have their own personalities and quirks and none of them feel pointless to have around, they handle the tropes they were given excellently and of course they will have tropes/archetypes as every character & story has tropes/archetypes. However, Princess Principal exceeds past its tropes by utilizing the world building as well as plots conditions of being a spy and victorian Era which the story takes place within. It gives sense of plausibility within the quirks and gadgets the characters use too and doesn’t go beyond the realms of possibility, which helps to keep immersion and humane sense of the humaneness of the cast. Each of the 5 main characters in the cast are 3 dimensional characters with solid backstory, serving layered depth and complexity as well as motives towards their actions within the story.
I also appreciate how you can connect each of the episodes to one another as they are happening around almost the same time and really makes the audience pay attention and use their concentration to make them understand and make sense of the story.
I over all enjoyed and was entertained by the story and also appreciated the balance between the writing style of it.
Overall: 8.7-9/10
Recommend to anyone if they have free time and nothing in mind to watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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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 ... 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

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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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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