Princess Lover

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The main characters of Princess Lover! from left to right: Yuu, Charlotte, Teppei, Sylvie, Seika

Ordinary High School Student Teppei Kobayashi has just lost his parents in a strange car accident, leaving him all alone, until his maternal grandfather decides to take him in. The day Teppei's supposed to meet with him, he spends time at his parents' grave, until he sees a beautiful girl in a horse-drawn carriage, chased by some thugs. Seeing her scared face, Teppei decides to help, so hops on his bike and somehow manages to rescue the Damsel in Distress, but not without some nasty accidents, guns, an angry Battle Butler, and a fall down a cliff that should've killed him and the girl outright, yet they miraculously survive.

After the mess, Teppei meets with his grandfather Isshin Arima. It turns out Teppei's mother Kanae is Isshin's daugther, the next successor to the almighty Arima Financial Combine, and wants to prepare his grandson as his successor, considering him an excellent young man. Therefore, Teppei has his surname changed to "Arima", starts to live in one of the Arima mansions, and attends "Shuuhou Academy", the most elite highschool in the nation, in order to facilitate his debut into high society. The first person he finds out also attending the academy is the same beautiful girl he helped before, Charlotte Hazelrink, crown princess of the European Kingdom of Hazelrink. Over the course of the series, Teppei's joined by Sylvie van Hossen, the daughter of nobleman Vincent van Hossen of the Flemish Principality, Seika Houjouin, the daughter of the rival Houjouin Corporation and Yuu Fujikura, a maid assigned by Isshin to be Teppei's caretaker and counsel.

Based on a successful PC Eroge Visual Novel released in 2008 by RICOTTA, Princess Lover! got a Twelve-Episode Anime adaptation in the summer of 2009, with its own series of Light Novels, manga adaptations and a "clean" Updated Rerelease for the PlayStation 2. An H-OVA, released in September 2010, re-tells the story, with the intent of averting the Bleached Underpants of the TV anime.

Tropes used in Princess Lover include:
  • Accidental Pervert - Teppei believes he has the power to invoke this and not get the usual barrage of Megaton Punches and Armor Piercing Slaps. He's dead wrong, as the Hot Springs Episode illustrates.
  • The Anime of the Game
  • Arranged Marriage - On the same night he's announced to be Isshin's heir, Teppei's sparring with a blonde, fencer when their session's stopped by his grandfather's announcement that he's really crossing swords with his bride-to-be. Cue horrified expressions on the kids' faces.
    • You can also count Charlotte and Haltman Bezelheim.
  • Art Shift - During the Hot Springs Episode, Teppei inspires confidence in his male roommates of his skills as the "Lucky Pervert".
  • Ascended Extra - Ayano Kaneko, one of Those Two Girls, is promoted to a heroine with her own route in the PlayStation 2 release.
  • Best Served Cold - Teppei believes his parents' death was intentional; Isshin agrees. One of the objectives for enrolling Teppei in a high-class academy is to help him acquire allies whose influence he can use in finding out the truth, so he has a lot of time before he can exact revenge on the perpetrator(s).
    • Semi-subverted: Isshin does state exacting vengeance on the murderer(s) will only lead to the cycle repeating against Teppei, while adding it's perhaps not what his mother would want. The final episode ultimately subverts it: Teppei does discover the identity of the murderer, but spares the villain's life.
  • Big Bad - Haltman, just because Isshin caught him red-handed pickpocketing.
  • Bleached Underpants - Played straight with the TV series, subverted with the OVAs.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall - Nezu talking to the viewers in the Hot Springs Episode. Lampshaded by Teppei:

Teppei: Who are you talking to?

Nezu: Looks like the president is a typical AB blood type girl...
Seika: If you dare say such things in front of the camera, just you see how I'll destroy your future!

  • Bromantic Foil - Haruhiko Nezu
  • Butt Monkey - Nezu, oh so much. Poor dude gets Punched Across the Room so many times, but he survives.
  • Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them - Seika towards Teppei, who initially looks down on him as an unwanted newcomer to the student body, with a Well, Excuse Me, Princess! attitude, yet she can't understand why she "can't get him out of [her] head". Eventually, her dislike of him stems from bad history between their two families. Once Teppei resolves the feud, Seika loosens up due to his continued efforts, especially during and after her clothing exhibition.
  • Catch Phrase - Sylvie's "How shameless!" and Nezu's "Nyoge"
  • Censor Steam - Upskirt angles and nude shots have shadows covering the naughty bits in the TV anime. In the Hot Springs Episode, the shadows are replaced with steam (obviously).
  • Chainsaw Good - Charlotte briefly gets to use one during the Arima Hills lockdown. Teppei nearly believes she pulls it out from nowhere, but was actually taken from a broken store window nearby.
  • Chekhov's Gun - That second motorcycle the Arima Group engineers made for Teppei? Yes, the one with 4 legs, that abomination? Trust us: it's more useful than it looks.
  • Cloudcuckoolander - Charlotte, but not when it comes down to love, though. Debatably, too, she's a bonafide example.
  • Corner of Woe - In the Hot Springs Episode, a Super-Deformed Yuu cringes shakily in the corner of the girls' room, in a comical moment where she's crying and frightened of being relieved of her maid duties.
  • Expy - Sylvie and Seika look awfully familiar to the female characters Saber and Rin Tohsaka.
    • Due to Sylvie's striking resemblance (both physical and personality-wise) to Saber, many fans go so far as to call her by that name.
  • First Girl Wins - Charlotte, if the player so chooses in the visual novel.
  • Flung Clothing - Sylvie's somehow able to change from her biker outfit to her usual one, while falling straight down, head first, from jumping off a helicopter, then taking out a few thugs before landing safely. On her feet. Without a parachute.
  • Foreign Fanservice - Sylvie
  • Gainaxing - Sylvie (particularly while fencing), and Charlotte while playing "horse" with Teppei.
  • Genki Girl - Charlotte
  • Genre Savvy - During the Hot Springs Episode by one of Teppei's unnamed guy friends. Poor bloke knows that he's going to be the second person to be sacrificed for the mission and he accepts his fate with dignity. He even goes so far as to Lampshade it himself before he goes down.
  • Girlish Pigtails - Seika's very prominent hairstyle, apparently part of her Tsundere image. She does let her hair down, occassionally.
  • Girly Run - Charlotte
  • Hey, It's That Voice! - Quite a few in the TV anime:
  • Hot Amazon With A Sword - Variation: Teppei's immediately enamoured by Sylvie's fencing skills, earning an impromptu sparring session with her...before finding out he was engaged to her. He keeps sparring with her throughout the series and isn't necessarily attracted to her beauty, but her swordsmanship, since he's always wanted to have a chance to spar against a European expert.
  • Hot Springs Episode - Filled with A LOT of Lampshade Hanging and hilarious fourth wall destruction.
  • Iaijutsu Practitioner - Teppei; apparently, knowing Kendo makes you an instant expert at it.
  • If It's You It's Okay - The guys are naturally caught peeping at the girls during the Hot Springs Episode and are lambasted for being middle-schoolers. Yuu, however, wouldn't have mind if Teppei asked her for a peek; the rest of girls are flabbergasted by her remark.
  • Imagine Spot - Charlotte's two friendly captors indulge in quite a bit of this.
  • Implausible Fencing Powers - Both Teppei and Sylvie are guilty of this.
  • Impossibly Low Neckline - Charlotte often achieves this
  • Karma Houdini - Both Haltman and his Sexy Secretary Josephine in the TV anime.
  • Lady of War - Sylvie; full stop.
  • Megaton Punch - Executed by Teppei after deflecting bullets with a broken wooden sword.
  • Meido - Yuu, who doubles as a romantic interest and a highly skilled computer hacker.
  • Mythology Gag - Sylvie is the focus for the H-OVAs, but Teppei gets daydreams of Yuu "servicing" him anyway.
  • No Name Given - Teppei's father is simply "Mr. Kobayashi" in the visual novel; the TV anime never gives him a name, either.
  • No Pregger Sex - Averted in the visual novel: Teppei manages to get Yuu pregnant before the end of her route, while Charlotte is carrying sometime during her story. Since there's a requisite number of love scenes per character...
  • Not What It Looks Like - Sylvie decides to greet her fiance at school, as propriety demands. She walks in on Teppei bent over her childhood friend as she's sprawled on top of a desk.
  • Pre-Climax Climax - The OVAs
  • Rapunzel Hair - Charlotte, Seika when she lets her hair down, also, and even some of the minor female characters in the series have waist-length hair.
  • Redemption in the Rain - In episode 10 of the anime, when the main cast minus Charlotte learn that she's been abducted from under their nose, Teppei walks out from the overhang, and it begins raining immediately. The episode title happens to translate to Loss and Rebirth.
  • Rescue Arc - Teppei rescues Charlotte at the beginning of the series, but the straighter exmaple takes place when he and the girls (forming a semi-Fundamentally Female Cast / Amazon Brigade) heads off to rescue Charlotte from terrorists plotting to discredit Isshin and Vincent's financial empires, lead by Charlotte's fiancé Haltman, who faked his own death by his secretary Josephine.
  • Say My Name - Charlotte tearfully calls out for Teppei while she's bound in a locked hotel room, hearing him as he does the same.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot - In the TV anime, Charlotte is very grateful to Teppei rescuing her from Haltman and shows her appreciation in a... very un-ladylike fashion. The audience doesn't see what happens, but her lines and Sylvie's reaction to the display of affection tells the whole story.
  • Show Within a Show - Magical Knight Maria-chan, which is metafictionally confusing: it stars Maria van Hossen, Sylvie's kid sister, except the DVDs contain previews for episodes of the series, and those previews seem to take place in-universe!
  • Shy Blue-Haired Girl - Yuu has been grateful ever since being adopted by Isshin and becoming a maid of his household. Henceforth, she's very aware of her social limitations and feels self-conscious whenever Teppei treats her as an equal (and even chastises him for it), or as the other main characters did in the Hot Springs Episode. She does agree to address Teppei on a First-Name Basis, though still adding "-sama" to it, upon insistence. Additionally, she reveals her skills as a computer hacker during the Rescue Arc, when she and the other maids of the Arima household access the hotel server from their computer laboratory.
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo - Sylvie, sort of (her blonde hair's kept tied around her head).
  • Techno Babble - Seriously, DNA-based computer viruses?
    • This is taken directly from the 2007 Transformers Film by Michael Bay.
  • Thanks for the Mammary - During the very first episode.
  • The Stoic - Sylvie
  • Tsundere - Seika, a Type B example.
  • Those Two Guys & Girls - Ayano and Erika Takezono, who almost always follow Seika around. Then there are those two, nameless guys who tagged along with Teppei and Nezu during the Hot Springs Episode.
    • And then those two bandits that watched over Charlotte.
  • Wire Dilemma - Solved via Sylvie choosing the wire to cut according to her panties' color.
  • Zettai Ryouiki - Get your checklist out and start ticking: Seika wears a mini-skirt? Check; Thigh-highed stockings? Check; Hair stylized to twin ponytails? Double check; The attitude of a tsundere? Triple check. That's right, folks: we've got ourselves a Grade-S example, right here!
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