Princess Principal: Difference between revisions

* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: Thoroughly averted. The series does not shy away from blood.

* [[Boom! Headshot!]]: The Princess accidentally blows the head off a marble bust with a shot from a gun disguised as a pen in Case 2.

* [[Cheeky Mouth]]: Inexplicably seen here, despite the general high quality of the animation throughout. And it's not consistent -- sometimes profile shots will have moving chins with coordinated mouths that clearly wrap around the front of the speaker's face, while other shots in the very same scene will demonstrate this trope.

* [[Conspicuous CG]]: Although it maintains a look of traditional cel animation quite well, there are moments, such as most vehicles and the traveling shot in Case 1 when the Princess's party returns to the ball, where the illusion fails.

* [[Cool Car]]: Dorothy's car, which looks much like one might expect a 1910s/20s-vintage hot rod/race car might, with all manner of piping and extra bits (including what might be a primitive supercharger) sitting on (or in) its hood. It's huge, almost the size of a truck, can hold pretty much the entire team at once, and appears to be spectacularly souped-up.

** The Princess has her own car, which is kept parked next to Dorothy's under the school. Although somewhat smaller and more "feminine" looking, it seems to be no less powerful.

* [[Cool Garage]]: The apparently secret garage under the school where Dorothy and the Princess keep their cars, and where Dorothy or Beatrice maintains them. It's not the [[Batman|Batcave]] (visually, it's much closer to the Black Beauty's garage in ''[[The Green Hornet]]'' TV series), but it's highly unlikely that any other student at Mayfair has one.

* [[Culture Clash]]: Some is seen between the Albionese and the Japanese who have come to revise a treaty; it's clear that Team Principal (and just about everyone else) is ill-informed about Japan and has little to no idea how to respond to many of their cultural gestures. And some clearly view them as barbarians in the grand British tradition, such as the people whispering on the dock, and even the Colonel who is part of Control.

* [[Grappling Hook Pistol]]: One of Ange's pieces of spy gear, first seen (chronologically) in Case 7.

** A classic case of Situational Irony: {{spoiler|Unbeknownst to anyone but the girls involved, Project: Changeling – intended to replace the Princess with a lookalike – would instead replace a lookalike with the real princess}}.

** There is also a case of Tragic Irony during Case 18, when Dorothy complains that {{spoiler|her father is late for a meeting, while his body is being wheeled into the morgue}}.

* [[Les Yay]]: Although there is nothing overt seen in the series (other than perhaps their plan to run away together to Casablanca), as is appropriate for the setting, the closing credits of both the series and ''Crown Handler: Part 1'' hint at something more than simply friendship between Charlotte and Ange. They are also a popular [[Shipping]] couple, although of course that has nothing to do with [[Canon]] developments.

* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: Invoked: When the Princess first proposes an alliance to Commonwealth intelligence, 7 speculates that she may have someone behind her manipulating events.

* [[Not So Different]]: The Commonwealth and the Kingdom. To the point that we hear almost nothing about their political differences.

* [[Operation: Blank]]: "Project: Changeling".

* [[Power Glows]]: Cavorite generates a green glow around whatever it affects. Interestingly, this ''isn't'' a [[Sickly Green Glow]] -- there's no indication that it's evil, harmful or otherwise problematic.

* {{spoiler|[[Prince and Pauper]]: This happened ''ten years'' before the beginning of ''Princess Principal'', with Princess Charlotte of Albion and her friend Ange taking each other's place on the day of a revolution that left them on opposite sides of the Wall.}}

* [[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? {{spoiler|Of course, there's no small amount of [[Accidentally Accurate]] in the latter conclusion...}}

* [[Single Phlebotinum Limit]]: The only technological anomaly in this setting is cavorite, the anti-gravity compound, which appears to be a naturally-occurring mineral found only in Albion, and then almost entirely within the Kingdom. (Although the Commonwealth has access to small amounts.)

* [[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''.

* [[Stealth Insult]]: The Kingdom of Albion to Japan in Case 7, when they send a powerless royal with no political connections to meet the ambassador who has arrived to renegotiate a treaty. Princess says nothing about her lack of power, so only Ange and Dorothy notice.

* [[Translation Convention]]: The original Japanese dialog says the characters are speaking English.

* [[Victorian London]]: With added [[steampunk]] and a [[Berlin Wall|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 (although the sepia-toned flashback in Case 13 shows it encompasses more than just London), 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 removed all the [[Les Yay]], sending the plot 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.