Category: Princess Principal

We have another fun action-spy time this week. While this week isn’t as great as the week before, the decision to group the girls in different pairings make this one entertaining to watch. This means Ange is pairing up with Beatrice, and the Princess with Dorothy (just to make it more consistent I will address Ange the spy as Ange, not Charlotte and the current Charlotte as the Princess). Admittedly, the first pair receives a larger amount of focus than the other duo since this week is all about their first mission together and in Beatrice’s case, accepting those girls as her companions. Beatrice has a decent DARK backstory here, but her character is still the simplest out of our main girls and the way she’s obsessed over the Princess is way too much for me. On that I think all the clues have been suggested regarding how those girls’ relationship gonna pan out. The Princess really intents to become the next Queen so that she can order the fall on London wall. Ange agrees to play along with her even if it means she’d deceive the Princess and deceive herself. Of course, when she’s going to deceive the Princess she has to deal with Beatrice so that development can create an interesting crack between the main cast. Take heed that even work together as a team, each girl has different agenda and at the end of the day it’s a matter of who achieving their objective, so I expect the last “conflict” would be within the group.

Their mission this week is to retrieve a stolen printing plate (make me wonder what’s the currency they use in that fictional world? Do the two divided nations use the same currency? North Pound – South Pound?), and that somehow involve dodging bullets outside of a floating airship, explosions and tandem parachute jump because… when you’re a spy so you just have to make some noise huh? Dorothy again steals all the limited screen she has here with her seduction femme fatale technique (looking forward to her arc), and I’m glad to see many events don’t go as Ange’s plan during the mission, thanks largely to Beatrice. Still, she possesses an amazing superhuman skill of listening to multiple phone lines but still be able to remember all the conversations. As far as this mission goes it’s fun to follow at best, but gives little insight for us to delve into. On that note, how the hell Beatrice can intimate voice from some random caption that she has never meet before?

The reason why Beatrice can alter her voice has been revealed this week, and well, it certainly is sad and twisted. Her father uses her as a lab rat and he changes her vocal chords into a mechanic one. That explains her unnatural high pitch “himesama” voice but it would prove to be useful for spying. Ange and Beatrice share nice chemistry together, although I don’t really like the way they’re linked together by the Princess. Indeed, the Princess role plays a great impact here since as soon as Beatrice realizes how Ange truly cares about the safety of the Princess, she lets her guard down and agrees to join the spy team. Chise is nowhere to be found in this episode but from the look of it, I expect her to make an appearance soon, probably next week and it will be interesting to know her stand and her role in all this. A fairly enjoyable but a bit forgettable episode. Still my muse of this season. And like Rick remarks at the end of Casablanca: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Man, plot twists. Through many twists and turns within the episode, we have a big switcheroo Sixth Sense-size at the end that completely change the context of what come before. I mean, Princess Principal walks on a really thin wire here. On the one hand, deceive and betrayal are the backbone of spies, guessing the motives of each character and how they double-cross each other make this show intriguing to watch. On the other hand, major plot twist like this is always tricky, you can’t make viewers invest on something and then pull the rug from under their feet. It has to deepen the narrative. This revealing works because it deepens the narrative, but I feel more worried than happy to be completely frank. It seems to me that Princess Principal relies too much on such twists and if that is the case, they will fall quickly because the plot won’t hold up anymore. If what I was ranting above doesn’t make it clear enough, there are spoilers down below so you might give this episode a watch before continue reading. Now, for those who remain, let’s head down to the episode.

We’re heading back to case1, the start of it all – when the spy and the princess agree to make a pact deal together. Let first begins with the Control, the headquarter that consist of 4 important figures from the Commonwealth- Military General, head of Spy, a Governor and the other that I assumed is a Duke – to plan out all the spy affairs. They come up with the bold (and ill-fated) Operation: Challenging, intend to replace Ange for the Princess. This episode not only deals with the outcomes of that Mission, they also cram in “retrieving some important key” mission somewhere in the middle and then flip them all over again with the reveal that the Princess already knows everything and then Ange single-handed controls everyone to get the results her way. Pacing-wise, it’s too much to take in that the key-subplot don’t have time to sink in. When you really think about it, the plot’s development starts to reveal some inconsistencies. For example, the guards serve more as a bunch of mannequins than actual guards because they should’ve figured out Dorothy as a spy the moment she came close to the guy and picked her immediately after finding out the key was disappeared. The Operation: Challenging sounds pretty implausible at best, and I’m already taken into account Ange’s impressive ability; but, how they gonna deal with the real princess when the plan succeeds? Lock her away? Kill her? What about Ange’s cover as a student then? Moreover, the moment when the bell chimes and everyone was distracted (as plan? I guess) was too much of “luck” factor involved to be taken seriously. I honestly don’t buy any of these.

Now, let address the elephant in the room. Ange and the Princess (Charlotte) have a history together and it’s heavily implied that they swapped roles as a young age due to some accidents. So, Ange WAS the real princess – Charlotte, and Charlotte’s real name is Ange. I swear it’s a goddamn effective twist because all the hints have been planted well before. Now that all the vague conversations from last week, like “some lies become truth in the telling” or “Because we’re complete opposites” from their introduction have a new deeper meaning. But then, who else know about this? For me, it’s no coincidence that the Control advises Ange to replace Charlotte in a first place. From what I gather in the first episode, the remaining girls don’t aware about it either. It’s interesting to see how the show goes from there as if anything, Ange’s chain of actions heavily shows that she has a more personal objective than following higher-up’s orders and I would say that the main chemistry between Ange and Charlotte is the show’s central emotional development.

The show’s aesthetic remains distinctive and overall stylish. I dig many shot compositions and I even like the high shot angle when Ange and Charlotte introduced to each other; but whenever the CG panning appears it does distract me from the show a bit so I hope they tone it down. Character-wise, Ange and Charlotte steal the spotlight and at least Dorothy is watchable (her smoking scene is hilarious), but Beatrice is under-developed thus far and others function more as a plot device than actual characters. I’m fine with that though, as long as they develop the five girls I won’t have any complaint, and I suspect the Japanese samurai girl Chise will have a proper introduction next week (while at it, did anyone else notice that we have A, B, (double) C, and D for our lead? Interesting). So, with all the rambling, did Princess Principal deliver a great episode? Well, again, yes and no. I’m not fond with too many twists and turns, especially with this series since those twists could potentially destroy the emotional investment you have for the characters and the spy case of the week is frankly, weak but this particular plot twist is a game-changer, and makes me really excited for the next episode. Love it or hate it, let’s all see how the mystery will unfold.