Princess Lover!

When asked about the nature of a harem anime, most anime fans think: average guy, surrounded by 3 or more seemingly unattainable girls, in an unusual setting chuck full of breast-grabbing and panty-flashing. Does Princess Lover fall into this abysmal group? Yes, however it had the potential to achieve a lot more than what most harems fail to achieve, seeing how it's based on a rather popular visual novel.

That potential was shown in its characters however that same potential was foolishly squandered with its mediocre story. The story itself is typical, yet intriguing enough to keep most viewers interested. It’s about your average teenage boy named Teppei, living an average life, with his average family... Then shit happens and our protagonist is later forced to live with his super rich grandpa and transfer to some absurd school for the super rich.

After watching this I thought the writer must’ve taken whatever he could find from “Ye ol’ book of anime clichés” and decided that was their plot. Strangely enough, it worked surprisingly well when it came to introducing the characters to this profoundly entertaining story. The first half of the story basically sets this kind of tone for an exhilarating short series but in the end it was a wasted effort once the “real” story kicks in and boy, are you in for a ride. By ride I mean a one-way ticket to idiotsville, because only an idiot would throw away an enjoyable story for the garbage that replaced it.

With all that said, this anime didn’t entirely turn into a steaming pile of crap and that’s thanks to the interesting cast of main characters. Harem protagonists usually fall into 2 groups: the losers and the kind-hearted saviours. Yet Teppei initially doesn’t fall into either, because within his playful character is a young lad struggling to deal with his past and moral dilemmas. Not to forget the 4 leading heroines, who were rather well developed, some more than others and 2 of which who seemed similar in design and personality to 2 more well-known characters from other series. Whether that was intentional or not is unknown to me but they happened to be the most interesting of the 4 heroines. However apart from Teppei’s grandpa, the supporting cast turned out to be far weaker than the loosely put together story and if a couple of them were killed off, the story could have done a whole lot better.

The production values are somewhat difficult to delve into since a fairly unknown studio (GoHands) took on this series. The music was just about as memorable as every breath I take and the sound productions overall really isn’t any good. Yet the art style and animation has a unique vibrancy to it, giving a colourful experience that’s pleasing to the eyes. However the jarring simulated camera panning/rotation and the out of proportion bust sizes really brought it down for me.

Overall Princess Lover is a series that I hoped would break the chain of generic harem that seem to appear year after year, yet all it did was add unto the already tarnished reputation of the harem genre. Some of the blame falls onto the villains, who were the worst villains ever constructed but I blame the real villain… the idiot who thought of this crap. Well if you don’t mind all that I’ve said then watch at your own discretion; however I feel it’s more worthwhile to sit wait for the next Key & KyoAni collaboration.

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You have a summary of Princess Lover, so I won't bother telling you that. I won't post any spoilers, so don't worry.

Overall 7
Princess Lover started off very good. It had a serious with light humor tone, with all the ecchi-ness included; but, then went way downhill in the second half which really hurt it overall.

Story 6
If I was only rating the first 6 or so episodes, this show would be a 9 because it was very enjoyable. It's very obvious who Teppi likes right from the start (Charlotte) and they have a lot of nice romantic moments. So why did I give the story a 6? In the second half of Princess Lover, this show fails.....very hard. The last episodes were pretty bad. They bring in special ops and the story tries way to hard to be funny causing it not to be very funny. The story tries to be serious, but overall just can't be taken seriously. The only plus to the story in the last arc is that Teppi weeds girls out with a kiss. That's the only good thing.

Art 8
The art was very good, epically for a harem anime. Everything was pretty fluent and looked fine, but there were some distortions in some scenes that weren't really the focus of the shot which, if you noticed them, made the art seem not as good (animators got lazy/ budget issues). It never happened on the main focus of the scene though

** not included in the rating** I would wait for the uncensored version to watch this show, in the censored version they censor things that are already censored.

Sound 8
The OP/ Ed were pretty good and the characters voices were all done well. Nothing to really say here, no complaints and nothing to really say that was especially amazing.

Character 7
One downfall to the characters is even thought Teppi, Charlotte, Seika, Yuu, and Sylvia are the main characters, only Teppi and Charlotte get any real screen time. The others are are there, but don't do a whole lot until the end.

Teppi >> an okay harem lead. had some funny moments and wanted to save everyone. But he turned into one of those "talk it out" characters to the main "villains"
Charlotte >> A lot of people didn't like her, but I liked her. She's a typical pink haired harem character who is very clingy to Teppi. SHe isn't very smart, but she was the funniest. (sex jokes about Teppi's .......)

Enjoyment 7
As I've already stated, the series started off really good and was very promising, but then went way downhill in the second half which really hurt my enjoyment.

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[b]Princess Lover![/b]
I watched this anime because is ecchi and i like ecchi so i wasn't expecting this to have a good story but it was fine.

[b][u]Story[/u][/b]
At first this is interesting since the first episode, but as the episodes goes, it was ridiculous, there's a lot of plot holes and i felt that i was watching a mexican novel serie, filled with stupid plot holes that you can see even blindfolded, the thing is that the story could have been really good if this wasn't rushed, so i didn't like it because of those freaking plot holes, overall was fine.

[b][u]Art & Sound[/u][/b]
It was good on both, it really matched the scenes and the ecchiness was enjoyable too, the voice acting was good too.

[b][u]Character[/u][/b]
The characters weren't deeply developed, not everyone at least, is like they forgot the other two girl MC, they barealy appeared a lot and the girl of the main story was forgotten, they didn't have the time to talk and i'm talking about Sylvia, i hated that they didn't even try or at least Teppei didn't try to know her and she was a big part of the story for f**k sake, Seika appeared more than Sylvia, they only focused on Charlotte, and i still don't know nothing about Sylvia who i wanted to see more than Charlotte.

[b][u]Enjoyment[/u][/b]
I really enjoyed this despite the bad things, i wanted to take the good things, like the ecchiness, the comedy and a part of the story despite the plot holes and the writers not caring about the story, the ending was like lol wtf but overall was good enjoyment.

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This could have gotten a big fat "1/10" if not for the art/fanservice.

Basically an H-Game that should have been an H-Anime. The storyline is so poorly constructed and contained reasoning so shallow that I have thought to myself "WTF?" or "That's so shallow".

The deal with Princess Lover is that it's basically a harem anime but for the reason of making it feel different (in a disastrous way) from the rest, it goes on by inserting a serious side to the plot which can be seen halfway to the end.

This is where the story becomes irredeemable.

The first 2 or 3 episodes was quite interesting since it feels like a royalty harem anime that feels like it has a potential to be something unique. After the introductory arc comes the annoying "Passing the Club" which has started the downhill trend for this title. Then there's the last arc (Save the Princess). I found myself remembering the forum posts on various anime sites saying how bad it was.

In a nutshell, you'll watch this for the high production values and fanservice and nothing else. Then again, the terrible story will probably deter you from enjoying that in the first place.

Pros:
High production values
Fanservice (for guys)

Cons:
Story
Stupid and shallow reasons for the arc problem

Princess Lover got lucky by having a 3/10.

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