Princess Principal

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Princess Principal is a Twelve-Episode Anime, originally aired in 2017. It is followed by a six-part film series, Princess Principal: Crown Handler, that was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic; as of early 2022, only the first two movies had been screened in Japan. The television series has been licensed and released on Blu-ray by Sentai Filmworks, and is also available on Amazon Video.

Victorian-era Britain Albion has discovered Cavorite and used it to become even stronger than in Real Life... but a revolution a decade ago has split the country, with the London Wall marking part of the border between East and West. There's still a war going on - not fought by soldiers, but by spies and subterfuge.

So, yes, this story is set in a steampunk version of the Cold War.

The Commonwealth of Albion has devised a plan – Project Changeling – to replace the Kingdom of Albion's Princess Charlotte (fourth in line for the throne) with a double, Ange le Carré. What they didn't count on was the princess deciding to join forces with Ange in order to become Queen and reunite the nation; a decision that she fully expects to end with her going to the guillotine. The two, along with Ange's partner Dorothy and Princess's school friend Beatrice, become an espionage team for the Commonwealth, based out of the prestigious Queen's Mayfaire girls' school that Princess attends and taking mission orders from "Control". A Japanese swordswoman, Chise, joins them early in the story, and is given the cover identity of a foreign exchange student. "Team Principal" has the advantage of Ange possessing the "C-Ball", the smallest known Cavorite device.

To add to the suspense, every member of Team Principal (with the possible exception of Beatrice) has a secret that she's keeping from Control... and, in the cases of Ange and Princess, from the rest of the team.

The story can't decide whether it wants to be in the "trenchcoat and stale beer" or "tuxedo and martini" subtypes of espionage stories. Perhaps it's best to place it in the middle of the spectrum, at "casual outfits and red wine". Or maybe "schoolgirl uniforms and tea".


 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The tunnels under and within the Wall are immense.  Then again, the Wall is tall and thick enough that entire buildings are incorporated into it. (This is a possible Shout-Out to the church in the Berlin Wall and the subway tunnels running under that wall.)
 * Alternate Techline: Takes place in an alternate early 20th-century Great Britain where cavorite-powered antigravity makes massive flying battleships possible.
 * Anachronic Order: The stories were aired (and provided in the North American Blu-ray release) out-of-order. Each episode is identified with a "Case" number that indicates where it falls in chronological order.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Cavorite, the anti-gravity compound.
 * Band of Brothers: The members of Team Principal will do anything to protect each other.
 * After Chise challenges a boy to a duel (with reason), Princess visits her for a private discussion. Chise expects to be lectured; instead, Princess offers to serve as her second.
 * The team disobeys orders in order to rescue Princess at one point.
 * Grey and Gray Morality: Outside of Team Principal, it's hard to call one side the "good guys" and the other the "bad guys".  The Commonwealth and the Kingdom both have sympathetic and villainous people among them and by turns the girls may find themselves threatened by ostensible allies and aided by technical enemies.  This is no doubt to emphasize the Cold War parallels in the story, as well as to underline how both sides are Not So Different from each other – a definite advantage when Princess Charlotte's plan is to eventually reunite them.
 * Identical Stranger: The only reason Project Changeling was even considered is because Ange and Princess Charlotte look alike.
 * Impersonation Gambit:
 * Project Changeling in its original form.
 * Ange tries to pull one to get most of the team into a restricted area. Since one of the guards she's trying to bluff has heard that Princess is already inside the restricted area, this quickly turns into an Indy Ploy.
 * Not So Different: The Commonwealth and the Kingdom.  To the point that we hear almost nothing about their political differences.
 * Roof Hopping: One of the things that Ange's C-ball allows her to do.
 * Secret Path: The hole in the palace wall where Ange could get in to see Charlotte.  Destroyed on the day of the revolution.
 * Sequel Hook: Zelda's escape at the end of the final arc suggests she – and the Commonwealth faction she works for – will come back to cause more trouble in the film series.
 * Series Continuity Error: Case 1 mentions that everybody knows what Princess Charlotte looks like. Case 16 has Princess go undercover in a London laundry mill.
 * Refuge in Audacity: This seems to be the idea behind the Princess going "undercover" without any kind of disguise.  It's so monumentally unlikely that a member of the Royal Family would do something like that, that she can and be dismissed as simply bearing a strong resemblance to Princess Charlotte.  After all, what's more believable?  That the Princess has inexplicably taken a job at the same sweatshop you work in, or that the girl they've just hired happens to look like her?
 * Spirited Young Lady: Most of the central cast, as befits a group of aristocratic teen girls (one of whom is a literal princess) from a quasi-Victorian alternate England who are a team of spies.
 * Spy School: In a Flashback we see some of Ange and Dorothy's training by the Commonwealth, along with dozens of other girls being groomed as spies.
 * Translation Convention: The original Japanese dialog says the characters are speaking English.
 * Victorian London: With added steampunk and a Berlin-style wall. London is Team Principal's home base, and the setting for half of the stories.
 * The Wall Around the World: The London Wall.  Exactly what it encompasses is unclear, but it clearly divides the known from the unknown and the safe from the dangerous, as far as most of the characters are concerned.
 * Wham! Episode: Case 20, which took some clues from earlier episodes about a relationship between two characters and sent them in a completely different direction.
 * You Are Already Checked In: In what might be the only case of both people involved being heroes, this foils an Impersonation Gambit during the final arc of the original TV series.
 * Zeppelins from Another World: The massive anti-gravity-lifted flying battleships fielded by the Kingdom of Albion, while not in any way actual Zeppelins, serve the same purpose in symbolizing the difference between the story's setting and the "real" timeline.
 * Zeppelins from Another World: The massive anti-gravity-lifted flying battleships fielded by the Kingdom of Albion, while not in any way actual Zeppelins, serve the same purpose in symbolizing the difference between the story's setting and the "real" timeline.


 * __TROPE-NAME-GOES-HERE__: During one of the picture dramas, Beatrice impersonated Ange while calling Princess so that Beatrice could find out whether Princess thought Beatrice was a liability to the team - not knowing Ange was standing beside Princess at the time. Princess played along.
 * __TROPE-NAME-GOES-HERE__MAYBE-ONE-OF-THE-'GAMBIT'_TROPES__: The only reason Ange proposed Project Changeling was so she could see Princess again. She never expected the actual results of the operation.

Characters Subpage
Characters from Princess Principal usually have secrets to keep - sometimes, even their birth names are major spoilers.

Team Principal
"Team Principal" is what Control calls the team. They call themselves "Team White Pigeon" if they call themselves anything at all.

Dorothy
Voiced by Yō Taichi (Japanese), Elizabeth Bunch (English), Stephanie Kirchberger (German)

Birth name:

A description of the character goes here.


 * Big Breasts, Big Deal: The "When you've got it, you should flaunt it!" subtype. She loves showing her cleavage whenever there's a guard who needs to be distracted. (See also this official but non-canon art.)
 * Older Than She Looks: She can pass for a high-school student, despite being 20 years old.

Ange le Carré
Voiced by Ayaka Imamura (Japanese), Avery Smithhart (English), Marnie Aramruck (German)

Birth name:

A description of the character goes here.


 * Meaningful Name: After John le Carré.
 * Meganekko: Ange wears Purely Aesthetic Glasses as part of her cover identity at Mayfaire, and adopts a stereotypical "cute" personality to go along with them..
 * The Glasses Come Off: Whenever she's on a mission.
 * Nice Hat: Has a rather splendid black silk top hat, as shown in the main work page's image.
 * Rei Ayanami Expy: She's a teenaged girl with cold-pastel hair and an unnaturally stoic demeanor, she has an extreme loss in her backstory, she acts like an alien sometimes with her references to the "Black Lizard Planet", and she's the only one who has ready access to the setting's Phlebotinum.
 * Street Urchin: Survived (and even thrived) on the streets of Commonwealth London.
 * Teen Superspy: Unlike everyone else in the group she is both highly trained and a genuine teenager (sorry, Dorothy), and equipped with gear like the C-Ball.
 * Teen Superspy: Unlike everyone else in the group she is both highly trained and a genuine teenager (sorry, Dorothy), and equipped with gear like the C-Ball.

Princess Charlotte
Voiced by Akira Sekine (Japanese), Patricia Duran (English), Arlette Stanschus (German)

Birth name:

A description of the character goes here.


 * Everyone Calls Her "Princess": Nobody else is of her social rank, so they wouldn't dream of addressing her by name. (Except for Ange, and then only in private.)
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Granted, the "something" in this case is "spy on her own country".
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Granted, the "something" in this case is "spy on her own country".
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Granted, the "something" in this case is "spy on her own country".

Beatrice
Voiced (usually) by Akari Kageyama (Japanese), Shanae'a Moore (English), Liza Ohm (German)

Beatrice is Princess' best friend at Mayfaire (and vice versa), and despite her high birth is happy to serve as a servant to royalty. She was originally an honest and straightforward girl, although getting involved with the spies who have infiltrated the school quickly changed her behaviour.

She's also a Woman of a Thousand Voices (the anime fakes this by having multiple voice actors read her lines), thanks to mechanical vocal cords that her father implanted in her throat (against her will). This comes in handy, when she's able to be heard and not seen by Team Principal's opponents.

Beatrice is an amateur spy, and thus fills the story role of "person to explain things to" – letting the scriptwriters avoid the use of As You Know.


 * Naive Newcomer: To the spy business.
 * Woman of a Thousand Voices: As mentioned above.

Chise
Voiced by Nozomi Furuki (Japanese), Rachael Messer (English), Julia Fölster (English)

Birth name:

Chise's first (chronological) appearance is in Case 3, where she is introduced as one of the guards of the Japanese diplomat Lord Horikawa. The embassy is in Europe to sign a treaty with Albion... but which Albion? After Chise saves Lord Horikawa from the assassin Jubei Tōdō, Lord Horikawa asks that she be allowed to work with Princess and her team – ostensibly so that Chise can learn their ways, and secretly so that Chise can advise Lord Horikawa regarding which Albion to approach regarding the treaty. Chise eventually tells Lord Horikawa (in Case 11) that, while she doesn't know who should sign the treaty, she knows who she wants to sign, strongly implying that the members of Team Principal have become her friends.

She is a swordswoman par excellence, and is easily the best close-in fighter in Team Principal. However, her inexperience with the local customs and manners leads to her causing a few incidents.


 * Fish Out of Water: Chise is often puzzled by the strange customs practised in the land she's found herself in – although she is also often annoyed that her new friends don't know the customs of Japan, either.
 * The Reveal came as a surprise to most of Team Principal.
 * Nice Hat: Her black metal jingasa, as shown in the main work page's image, is unusual in that it does not bear a mon.
 * Ninja

The Duke of Normandy
Voiced by Takaya Hashi (Japanese), Jay Hickman (English), Wolf Frass (German)

The Duke of Normandy is the Kingdom of Albion's Home Secretary, and thus their chief spycatcher. Despite being Princess Charlotte's uncle, he would prefer to see Princess removed from the line of succession to the throne – a non-fatal method would suffice, but he isn't the type of person who would shy away from setting up an "accident".


 * Big Bad: As far as Control and Team Principal are concerned.

Gazelle
Voiced by Yuko Iida (Japanese), Melanie Burke (English), Nadine Schreier (German)

A description of the character goes here.

In Case 20, she is called "Inspector Flint", but other cases show her serving as the Duke of Normandy's secretary.


 * The Dragon: The "smart, detail-oriented administrator" type, although she isn't afraid to get her hands dirty.
 * Politically-Correct History: It is highly unlikely that somebody with dark skin could rise to a high position in Her Majesty's Civil Service at the time that Princess Principal was set. It is even less likely that a woman could do so. Yet Gazelle is a dark-skinned woman in a position of high responsibility in the Home Office.

Zelda
Voiced by Mie Sonozaki (Japanese), Elissa Cuellar (English), Franciska Friede (German)

A Commonwealth agent loyal to the military man she refers to simply as "General", and a representative of a different faction within Commonwealth military and intelligence than the Princess and her team has previously worked under.


 * Ax Crazy: Does not present herself as the most stable of individuals, no.

Trivia Subpage
Trivia about Princess Principal.

Non-Trope Trivia

 * The series' opening theme, "The Other Side of the Wall" by Void_Chords featuring MARU, was listed on The Best Theme Songs of 2017 list at Anime News Network; it was one of only three themes to get more than one nomination on the list.
 * A puzzle game based on the television series, Princess Principal Game of Mission, was available for mobile devices in 2017 and 2018. The game is no longer supported.

Trivia Tropes

 * Shout-Out:
 * As noted elsewhere, Ange le Carré's last name is a shout-out to author John le Carré.
 * Cavorite comes from H. G. Wells' Edwardian-era novel The First Men in the Moon.
 * "L" is probably a shout-out to "M" from James Bond.
 * The Wiki Rule: Princess Principal Wiki

Awesome Music Subpage

 * Crowning Music of Awesome: The opening theme to the TV series: "The Other Side of the Wall" by Void_Chords featuring MARU.