Princess Princess is definitely one of the better anime titles released this year. The final episode just come out yesterday, so here’s my take for this anime.
Story:-
A shounen-ai anime bordering on yaoi (should be expected because aarinfantasy subbed this one), this one is definitely not for everyone. A beautiful boy transferred into an elite boys-only high school, and suddenly finds out that he has to participate in the school’s Princess system. The system demands that the participants (there are 3 of them, see picture above) dressed in various female costumes and make-ups, to satisfy the pent-up urges of the school’s students.
Basically, the anime depicts the routine life that the princesses has to endure in their job, and also their own internal problems like family and love problems. That how thin the storyline is. So you must wonder why I really enjoyed this title? This is because this anime is one of the few that has a unique charm that compensates the obvious deficiencies in the storyline, just like DNA^2 did. Most of the episodes has quite cheesy and predictable plots, of which I would have normally blasted away in reviews, but in this anime those cheesy and predictable plots are presented in such a pleasing way I can’t even give negatives comment to them.
This anime and Kiba the TV Animation are probably my best candidates the for the best anime released in 2006, even better than the anime I anticipates the most this year, which is the second season of Ah! My Goddess. Well, there are 6 months left in this year, and there are still Galaxy Angel II coming up, but this anime is definitely better IMO compared to Jyu Oh Sei (review coming soon), second season of Tsubasa Chronicles, The Third etc.
Character Design:-
Your typical shounen-ai anime titles dictates for overtly beautiful protagonists with big eyes and hair colours that can be anything but black. Compound that with generic character designs for almost everybody else and you got the unbalanced character design you will found to be common in this kind of genre. The focus is mainly on the princesses anyway as the thin storyline flaunt them a lot.
Voice acting:-
They are not outstanding, and they are not bad either. Nothing really to say, but just to say that the voice acting does not drag this anime down.
Music:-
The only negative point of this anime. OP/ED themes and the OST and simply not good enough, they are not even average.
Animation/Direction:-
These two criteria combines very well as a big part to make this anime likable despite thin storyline. The director managed to present the storyline very well, covering the cheesiness on them. The animation is great too, although with some tendencies of trying to be overly cute.
Conclusion:-
9 out of 10, quite a generous but fair rating for this one.
