Princess Principal: Difference between revisions

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, that they're keeping from the rest of the team.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[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 [https://t24hs.com/top-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-berlin-wall/ the church in the Berlin Wall and the subway tunnels running under that wall].)

* [[Alphabetical Theme Naming]]: The original Team Principal is made up of Ange, Beatrice, Charlotte, and Dorothy. When everybody starts calling Charlotte "Princess", Chise joins the team.

* [[Alternate Techline]]: Takes place in an alternate late 19th-/early 20th-century Great Britain (internal evidence suggests circa 1900) where steam still predominates and cavorite-powered antigravity makes massive flying battleships possible, and automotive technology is twenty or thirty years further along than it was at the equivalent point in our timeline.

* [[Anachronic Order]]: The stories were aired (and provided in the North American Blu-ray release) out-of-order, specifically to include all of the characters in the first aired episode and presumably in order to keep some secrets for as long as possible. Each episode is identified with a "Case" number that indicates where it falls in chronological order (which we are using to identify the episodes here).

* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]: Cavorite, the anti-gravity compound.

* [[Bait and Switch Credits]]: At no point does Ange ever transform into a black humanoid lizard; her stories of being from the "Black Lizard Planet" are accepted as lies or understood to be metaphors for being a spy.

* [[Because I'm Jonesy]]: 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.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Grey and Gray Morality]]: Outside of Team Principal, it's hard to call one side the "good guys" and the other the "bad guys".<ref>And sometimes, including Case 13 and Case 22, it's a stretch to call Team Principal "good".</ref> 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.

** Subtly [[lampshaded]] in-universe when the team chooses the name "Team White Pigeon"; Dorothy likes the name because it isn't grey.

* [[Historical Domain Character]]: Charlotte's beloved grandmother is very clearly [[Queen Victoria]]. This allows us to set the date of the events in the show to no later than 1900 (Victoria died in January 1901), and probably a year or more earlier given her apparent health.

** In ''Crown Handler: Part 1'' her health is explicitly said to be declining, suggesting the film series takes place in 1900.

* [[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. (The Commonwealth has access to cavorite as well, but apparently not enough to build their own battleships.)

* [[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''.

* [[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.