Ok, I know I am quite behind on most of the shows I am supposed to blog, but I do what I can. Anyway, I am already at ep five of Princess Princess. Oh, and by the way, in case someone doesn't know, the show is going to be 12 eps only, so the next ep I will blog will mark the middle. Of course, no one, not even me knows when I will come around to blogging ep 6, but that is not the topic of this rant. And I am trying to catch up. I really am. At least on this show…

The beginning is of an unknown man watching pics of the Himes and claiming that he must find them. And then the name of the ep suggests stalking. I can already envision the drama. I guess it would be Mikoto that would take it worse. He just is the one to suffer when it comes to stalking. I understand him a bit this time. He thought he would have a nice summer vacation with his girlfriend, but instead is summoned to take part in the Hime activities. Anyone would be pissed off actually. I guess that makes him the only sane person in Hime Academy.

So we have summer heat and the Himes working – cheering on the basketball team. How boring… And it is the same, while Shihoudani and Kouno do their job properly Mikoto is sulking and wouldn't do anything unless he is forced to. And then come the School Council President (SCP) and Sakamoto.

Well, the unbearable heat ruins the Himes' make-up so they must do something, in this case go to the Hime Academy make-up room. And as if sensing something in the air the SCP orders Sakamoto to escort them 'just in case'. Wow, the tension increases, or would have if I didn't find this moderately funny. But on with the stalking, ah, I mean the show. Well the truth is I wouldn't mind stalking Shihoudani, or maybe even better stalk both him and Kouno, preferably while they are only the two of them doing what most BL fangirls wish to see them do on screen.

So while in the make-up room, we find out the name of Mikoto's secret girlfriend – it's Megumi-san in case you care – and it seems she is older than him too. Way to go Mikoto! But obviously the problem is that while she doesn't use make-up, he is supposed to use it and know quite a lot about it. I guess only a boy can say what that is from a male's prospective, but I don't mind men who know about make-up. I would feel a bit awkward going out with a guy who wears it though.

Anyway, the stalker is just outside, taking pictures and looking suspicious, which I guess is obligatory for any self-respecting stalker. Wow, the horror, what is going to happen next? Who is going to be the next victim… Ah, seems like I am confusing the shows here.

Wow, Sakamoto is quite the CSI: Pri Pri team member. Maybe I am not the only one to confuse the shows around here. But let's get ahead of ourselves.

When the Himes and Sakamoto go to the Home Economics room they see flowers everywhere and their dresses all over the place. And here the master detective, the Kun-kun* in Sakamoto wakes up – he stops the Himes from entering and thus polluting the crime scene.

Then comes the rest of the CSI: Pri Pri team in the faces of SCP and his minions and suspicion has it, it might be a stalker! So the Himes are to go straight to the dorms. Ah, the plot thickens. Nah, it's not actually, but the phrase sounds good.

The night falls. The lurker is probably somewhere around, the mystery level rises and the suspense reaches unbelievable heights (almost to the level while watching a replay of yesterday's weather forecast).

The Himes are in the dorm and while Shihoudani and Kouno discuss the incident, Mikoto is on the phone with his girlfriend. The other two catch him though and tease him how he is dishonest with her for not telling her of his Hime activities. I really love to see Mikoto teased. And he almost broke into tears. Poor soul.

And on the next day… It actually gets worse, all students have cut their summer vacation short as soon as they found out the Himes are in danger and will do their best in protecting their icons. I can only guess that the girls out there must be terrifyingly ugly. This would be the only explanation why would men prefer cross-dressing guys to girls. Or it is just that one of the ground rules for getting admitted to Hime Academy is to be gay with a cross-dressing fetish. It took you 5 episodes to realise that rule? It's the only way the plot would make any sense whatsoever.

Whatever, I guess this will forever remain a mystery. And honestly, I am not sure I want to know the truth even if it is available.

But seems that this is a repetition of a similar case from the time when the SCP was a Hime. Or maybe not? Wow!

So how do we catch the stalker? We use bait – the Himes. And surprisingly enough Mikoto is the first to volunteer to be the one to lure him out of his hiding. And the other two quickly raise voices too.

So the three bravehearts go out and do their daily routine hoping the stalker will show himself and be caught. And so he does, only it turns out he is looking forward to make them idols. But…

…it looks he was not the one who sent the flowers. Wow, the mystery gets even more mysterious! Kind of…

And then comes the Hysteric Designer – Natashou… carrying three bunches of roses for the Himes. The mystery is solved – he was the person who brought the roses. They had something to do with his next design and he needed the inspiration, the idiot.

So the mystery is solved – there was no stalker. There goes my enthusiasm about the mysterious case – down the drain. That reminds of me of the last two episodes of Strawberry Panic which also had some boring investigation as an excuse for a plot. It seems that the new rule in scriptwring is something along the lines of "when you can't think of anything, write a pointless mystery".

What is left is for Mikoto to go on a date with his beloved Megumi-san and for Shihoudai and Kouno to follow him of course. Only they are mistaken for girls once again (see the previous ep for reference) and while they are courted by a couple of guys Mikoto and his beloved get away. Mistaken for girls? Shocking, isn't it?

Ok, my overall feelings and impression of this ep are not as high as after the previous. I guess that simple humour is just not enougn, I need at least a touch of character development and seriousness. There was some around Mikoto, who is ususally the most neglected, but it seemed partial and his usual behaviour just ruined the effect.

After five eps, which is almost half the series, I still have no idea what the point of the story is, I mean beside the idea of making a BL inuendo comedy. Come on, just give it a point, it's heading nowhere for now. Or are you, dear creators, trying to abide to the yaoi motto ヤマなし、オチなし、意味なし (yamanashi, ochinashi, iminashi – no climax, no point, no meaning)? If so, then you have more than reached your target.

The animation which I didn't mention in my previous entry remains below average – abundance of still shots and shots where the only thing moving are the lips of the characters, but this is not such a surprise. Still the character design is rather enjoyable, so I guess that will be enough.

* You need to have seen Rozen Maiden to get this one.

The comments in italics added by Matrim

It's a sad moment for the students at whatever the name of the academy is, let's just refer to it as Hime Academy, for easier. It's summer brake. Yeah, who would have thought that the students would be sad they are free to do as they please outside the walls of their all boys' school. But no! They are sad 'cause a vacation means time away from their beloved Himes. Now, if there are any men out there tell me please, how can that be sane.

The boys are going outside, to the world where REAL women are, but they would still prefer the company and smile of a Hime. There's something very wrong with that. Even I, who am a firm supporter of boy on boy action, find this disturbing. This is not sane, for Christ sake, it is simply not!

So how do we solve the problem with the lonely Hime-less summer. We take loads of pics of the desired fake girls in romantic dresses. Ah, they look good in them, but still this is somehow not right. But they do look good. That's it, I approve!

It is good that there is one almost normal boy – that being Mikoto, who actually dreams of, oh, no the blasphemy – REAL GIRLS! The poor bastard has a girlfriend somewhere out there, in the world which is blissfully unaware of the Hime system in Hime Academy.

And he gets mocked and threatened for that. Ok, on a sane level, I know it is bad, but he is such a fun to tease that I can wholeheartedly embrace the idea of him being treated like that every time.

So the final is that it's Shihoudani and Kouno, who stay in the school during the vacation. All alone, together, in one room. Ahh, the possibilities that flash in front of my eyes, all fruit to my overly BL orientated mind are so beautiful. And they are so in the aspect of the teaser-ED that has my hopes high since the first ep.

And then there's the fact that the dorms have no air-conditioning at such times, so the heat might make the kids hot, they might tear their clothes is attempts to feel the breeze against their naked skins but the sight of the tender skin of their beautiful roommates they might turn even hotter and indulge in some delightfully sinful pleasures. And if they do that "on screen" I could never be happier. Shit, *goes to take a cold shower, 'cause her imagination has taken the better of her.*

The next day happens to be Shihoudani's birthday and he gets a call form his family asking him to go home for the occasion, but not only is he not happy with the idea, but he is rather depressed after the call ends. And Kouno hiding behind a corner overhears the call and later tries to brighten his roommate's mood which ends with Shihoudani offering for them to go girl-hunting the next day. Bad, Shihoudani, really bad. There you should have jumped Tooru and taken him on the spot for the pleasure of all BL' ing viewers.

Ok, so they go girl-hunting, but looks like the types they look for have taken the day off (normally, who needs females in this series anyway). Shihoudani looks for big boobs and Kouno for the comforting type. But in the end they are enjoying only each other's company in a café *thumbs up*. And then two boys hit on them. Priceless!

But the sudden jump form laugh to "I want you to listen to my life-story" form Yuujirou is absolutely out of place. It comes out of nowhere and just makes no sense.

So then follows the 'sad, tragic and terrifying' story of Shihoudani's life, here and there interrupted by the horror pictures prematurely provided by Kouno's vivid imagination.

And it is funny – the story of the fatherly-type school teacher, who asked the adoring kid to stay after school and heavily breathing grabbed that same kid (Shihoudani, in case you didn't realize) with his sweaty hands and… oh, my God the horror pic of rape jumps to your mind to be shattered by the sudden demand for the mother's hand. *laugh*

But as it turns out, the new family soon expands with a little brother and Yuujirou starts to feel left out and slowly estranges form his relatives and he doesn't know how to fit back in.

Ok the whole feeling of this episode was rather good, but I feel that the transition between the funny beginning and the angsty second part was very poorly executed. Still I like the Shihoudani x Kouno interaction and character development.

The music during the life-story telling was rather fitting and even almost good. I didn’t expect something on this level from a series that mediocre as whole.

Funny but maybe because I don't expect anything form this series and watch it just for fun and to relax between exams, it constantly succeeds to surprise me in a good way.

Ok, I am actually blogging this while watching the episode, so I’ll just be writing whatever pops up in my head. This will also probably make the plot description more detailed and thus more spoilerish. Now that you are forewarned, let’s begin…

The third ep is kind of boring in the beginning. We learn that the Himes have to cheer for 15 clubs. And the characters are also startled by the news that should any of the sport teams pass the preliminaries, the Himes will have to go and cheer at the higher level games. The Student President himself has cheered even at Nationals. One can imagine the enthusiasm that Mikoto shows at the news. Even Shihoudani and Kouno stop and think again. Not that they have any choice in the matter, so all that’s left for them is to hope that as many teams as possible will fail in their attempts to pass the preliminaries.

The constant pouting of Mikoto starts to get on my nerves, besides it’s three eps already and it is like high time the character development started. We got some minor development of Touno, and a tiny one of Mikoto in the previous ep, but in the case of the pink-haired we are now back to square one. He is still the childish, always sulking Hime that doesn’t smile cheerfully but rather offers some crooked expression that would make a person sick if one could see it closer and better.

But there’s no way back. One of the rules that the cunning Arisaka has come up with states that should one Hime pull out of the Hime-project, all of them lose their benefits, so now Shihoudani and Touno have all the reasons to not let Mikoto back out.

Then we get another dose of Natashou and his hysteric explanations of what perfect outfits he has created for the Himes. We have the nurse-outfits, which are supposed to ease the nervousness of those who reach the local preliminaries. And the cheerleader-mini-skirt costumes for the prefectural games. And then for the Nationals there are the gorgeous bride gowns. Mikoto freaked out at this. I do understand him. What I have more problems accepting actually is how Kouno and Shihoudani could take it so calmly.

Throughout the ep so far there’s the rather meaningless for me joke of Mikoto asking Shihoudani whether the latter hates him and getting the affirmative answer, followed by the calm statement that it had been a lie.

Even when Kouno tries to reason that cheering can only boost moral, but not skill, his blond friend disappoints him with the exhibition of the enthusiasm that everyone puts into training. Wow, and the ever inventive in the art of fine sadism Student President has given to the Himes a notebook full of instructions how to act to inspire the teams’ members further.

Maneuvers are such as holding the hand of the baseball player while he prepares to swing the bat (ok, if this sounds stupid, just bare in mind that I don’t know anything about baseball), or of the go player while he moves the pieces, or even lying atop of the judo player in a pathetic attempt to imitate some pinning technique. And Arisada watches form aside with a nasty smile. That manages to make me laugh, but not because I really find it funny, but rather because it looks so stupid that it is ridiculous. This somehow reminds me of how I felt when I watched Mai-Otome, not a good memory, you should know. But the thing that gives Princess Princess advantage over Otome is the fact that it has far less pretence to be anything more than it is.

Luckily in the middle of the ep we have some rather sensible words coming out of Kouno’s mouth, that show that this series might rise into the light of competence from time to time, if the script-writer(s) desire(s) so. And the glare Shihoudani gives the blue-haired Hime is such a nice combination of admiration, surprise and something like love. Love it! I rather approve of the BL references, no matter how small they are. That is the reason why I am watching the anime after all. It is hardly the plot or the animation that draws me in.

Ok, as anyone, who’s even seen anime and has any idea what a cliché is, can guess there are some teams that manage to pass the preliminaries, so the Himes are left with no choice but go and cheer outside of the safe walls of the school.

But what is best about this ep are two things: One – the fanservice we are treated with. We get a bath scene. And a bit later a furo scene too. I feel happy and rewarded. I also demand more.

And two –there’s one more sensible conversation between Kouno and Yuujirou on the matter of Shihoudani’s treatment of Mikoto. The conversation is abundant with suggestions that the blond Hime has his eyes set on the pink-haired one. Even if I prefer a blue x blond coupling I am still happy that there are some references of BL. Ok, they might most probably be references of friendship, but no one can mess with what I want to think, right?

And there are some vague hints that neither Shihoudani, nor Kouno had a happy childhood. I do hope this would pave the way for some actual character development and plot.

And I was as it seems too hasty in the beginning when I said that there had been no character development, After all there was some. In conclusion the first part of the episode is rather bad like C, but the second gets B+ easily, it might even pull it up to A–. Bear in mind that the marks I put are in accordance with the level of the series itself. This A– is hardly the level of a B– episode of series like Evangelion or Gundam SEED (ok I tend to put Gundam SEED everywhere, but that is because I am rather obsessed with it, sue me).

The animation is of noticeably lower quality and if that was any other anime it would have put me off watching it, but since I am only watching this one for fun and because of the BL aspect that smirks in here and there, so I am continuing following it. However I just don’t like how even the characters started to look worse. They are the main reason the girls (lets face it, I’d be surprised if there’s more than 1% of males in the audience) get the eps and watch them. Somehow the animators succeeded in making even the chibies look bad.

It’s the second ep of Princess Princess and while it is even cheesier than the previous one I find it enjoyable.

What do we have here? We get introduced to the Student Council President – Arisada and his minions, so to say. Arisada is quite aggressive in his pursuit of his own agenda and pays no attention to anyone that tries to argue or flinch out of one’s duties.

What is really funny this time is how easy it is to buy someone by just offering him free lunches, free books and some pocket money. That is what the advantages for the Himes seem to be if we trust the very suspicious Student Council President. Only hearing about those small but obviously important for him financial benefits is enough for our cute main character, namely Kouno, to change his mind from “reluctant” to “I am doing it”. Talk about male pride here .

It is even better when the so set on getting out of the Hime business Mikoto asks whether Kouno has any male pride, only to be hit with the answer “No”. Strike! Poor little Mikoto, he was so smitten and shocked. And it gets worse when Shihoudani accuses him of not accepting and acting in the situation and a “true man” would. That’s strike #2!

And what is in the base of Mikoto’s hatred for his Hime assignment? The fact that he seems to have a girlfriend out there somewhere. That one was actually a strike on me and I’d dare suppose on all the Boy-loving girls out there, who would ten times prefer some homoerotic action between the Himes (though if I have to choose couple it would be Shihoudani x Kouno, thus leaving Mikoto as uke to whom? Maybe Arisada, now that would be funny to no end, ne?). Oh, and the ever helpful School President offers to talk and explain the situation to the poor clueless girl. I hope I’ll get to see that. It would be priceless, lol.

And then comes the best comic relief in the series so far – Natashou-senpai – the Hime-outfit designer. He is a man who seems to talk at the speed of light about his inspiration and the dresses that he would create for our lovely cross-dressers. He did manage to scare the shit out of Touno, who was staring at him with his mouth open and ready to pass out of shock at the vicious and unexpected attack. LMAO.

And of course we find out why the hell, Arisada is so set up on having the Himes do their job perfectly. He was a Hime during his sophomore year. And it was also one of the reasons he was chosen as Student Council President.

Next we are served a nice nickname fight between Touno and Shihoudani, who take it out on Mikoto, who has the guts to interfere.

As it turns out later, Mikoto can’t cope with the overenthusiastic fans of his Hime version, who have the bad habit of molesting him. Poor baby. I guess the overabundant testosterone seeks some kind of release even if it takes such a peculiar form. And just when he thinks he is not alone in his suffering, it turns out he actually is. Hattrick! Looks like his stuttering and inability to stun the audience with the sparkling shine of unreachable and godlike posture is the reason he gets molested all around.

When Shihoudani and Touno try to teach Mikoto how to act haughty and he fails miserably the background music (if one can call that music) is a discordant violin scrape that just fits perfectly the hopeless attempt of Mikoto to be at least half as cool as Shihoudani.

So what the helpless pink-head has to do is act like a Queen, Only his imagination provides him with the idea of queen that should be like some S/M domineering Mistress in a low-quality porn. Luckily he succeeds a bit later.

And then matters become absolutely ridiculous when it is time for the Himes to try their new outfits designed by the crazy lunatic. When Touno tries to take his shirt off, the assistants of Natashou demand that he let them keep their fantasies. They would rather not see that blatant evidence of his maleness (ok, he is not that masculine, he is not masculine at all, if you ask me , but they seem unable to tolerate the sight of a flat male chest. Oh, God…).

And after some brief info on Sakamoto’s family life. He has a brother that graduated from the same school and was really pretty and popular, so he gets to shine with the reflected light of his brother’s fame and is thus referred to by everyone as Sakamoto-sama. Man, even by Arisada himself, My, oh, my.

And the episode ends with the second official introduction of the Himes, so that Kouno would be presented to the croud of cheering female-beauty-deprived strudents.

The animation is almost of the same quality as of the previous ep, which of course is not much of a compliment with the exception of the character design. The background is still lacking in a lot of senses. The weird emotion-describing backgrounds still take a lot of time. There are quite a few static scenes where nothing but the mouths of the characters move, if even they. Ok, as it is quite obvious already this is a rather low budget shoujo comedy that features as many fetishes and clichés as it can, but it is still enjoyable, which is why I keep on watching it. It makes me laugh. Of course not as much as Ouran, but I don’t think there’s something out there that has ever made me laugh as much as Ouran does, not even FMP? Fumoffu.

]]> http://diefanboys.wordpress.com/2006/05/06/princess-princess-02-financial-benefit-male-pride-or-the-introduction-of-the-gothic-lolies/feed/ 0 diefanboys http://diefanboys.wordpress.com/2006/04/19/princess-princess-ep-01-the-cross-dressers-are-here/ http://diefanboys.wordpress.com/2006/04/19/princess-princess-ep-01-the-cross-dressers-are-here/#comments Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:48:52 +0000 Alexis https://diefanboys.wordpress.com/2006/04/19/princess-princess-ep-01-the-cross-dressers-are-here/ ]]>

The second anime this season that is filled with bishounen and it has some promising signs that it might be somewhat BL. I know that the manga is shoujo and not shounen-ai, but everyone, who’s seen the ED, should really be prepared for a possible amourous relationship between males. And am so fully supporting such a development. And I have to say that this one is just not only a few steps but rather a whole staircase higher in quality than Gakuen Heaven.

The story is rather simple: in an all-boys’ school a new (no, you can’t guess) out of season transfer student comes to live and study. Yeah, I know it is just the same as it was in GH, (man, there even was ‘the lonely boy in the empty bus watching in the distance at nothing in particular’ scene). But what is rather unusual in this school is that there’s a strange tradition involving the prettiest junior students – in order to make the atmosphere lighter and well, ‘prettier’, those who are considered worthy are turned into Himes (Princesses). Those being cross-dressed boys whose purpose is to cheer and brighten the life of their schoolmates. And of course our main character – Kouno Tooru is considered a Hime candidate . Unexpected, right.

So no sooner has Tooru-chan (don't you dare call such a macho character like him "chan"…ah, who am I kidding?) set a foot on school territory and before him from the clear skies lands a beautiful girl, only as it turns out later that this is not a girl, but Mikoto Yutaka, one of the Himes. He also gets to be in the same class with the other Hime – Yuujirou Shihoudani.

The first episode is basically an introduction to the characters and the school. But there’s a good amount of jokes that make the watching funny and pleasant.

Qualitywise the animation is average, but the character design is really good and I guess all fangirls (and probably the occasional fanboy) will be quite overjoyed with the appearance of the cast. It is interesting to notice that the main cast all have unnatural hair-colouring, while the common stunts have normal colours. And the hair and eye colours are matching for the four main characters.

Kouno Tooru is blue. Yuujirou Shihoudani is yellow, Mikoto Yutaka is dark pink and the class president Akira Sakamoto (whom everyone addresses as Sakamoto-sama even if he is only a junior) is green. At least it is easy to remember them. And the personalities they have are also quite easy to distinguish. Yup, no brain cells are needed while watching this one. But it is possibly BL, so I am ready to overlook that if I get enough humour and at least some excuse of a plot, which so far seems to be a possibility.

The background however is rather bleak and uninventive. There are the odd landscapes, but mostly we get stilled shots and some strange backgrounds, that are supposed to show the viewer the emotional state of the characters. Basically it is just plain and uninspiring. Where there is some actual background it resembles watercolour drawings and it is not that detailed, but anyway, I can get over it.

Then there’s the music.

The OP is OK, which is the same level as GH (since that is the only anime from the season I can compare Pri, Pri with, even if Simoun is done by the same studio /DEEN/ it is still just in another category altogether), but the ED is better and the background music is actually quite good. The BGM consists mostly of piano, string or small orchestra pieces in romantic style that I find rather well fitting, even if I saw a lot of opinions that stated the opposite. But this is a free world after all and everyone is entitled to an opinion.

So in this aspect Pri, Pri is just wa~y better than GH which only has it’s OP song and the piano version of it as BGM.

And then there’s the ED sequence, which is just done to please the eyes and soul (and fangirl-ism) of all the female audience (and to show to the male non-gay part of it that they should be watching something else). Two of the main characters (Tooru and Shihoudani) in rather suggestive poses, even if they are actually absolutely ‘work-safe’ so to say. But there are just those underlying nuances that make the fangirl in me go into a BL-adoration mode. Just see for yourselves

But I guess what really makes this one a worth-my-time anime (beside it being BL-candidate and thus worth enough) is the humour which makes me laugh and enjoy it. It certainly is no Ouran, but it is still good enough.

I’d say that even boys with broader mind and in the proper company might find themselves enjoying this anime, but I’d actually recommend it to the female audience. It is so much more worth one’s time than GH (yet, me have seen all three eps of it and still have some hopes that GH might turn out watchable).

If I had to turn on the cynical mode, I"d say that the major problem of this series is the ridiculous premise that in an all boy school the students would be happy with crossdressers rather than go and look for real girls. Hello, that's a school, not a prison! I'd buy a setting in which everyone in the school is gay but becoming fans of a the "princesses" due to the circumstance that this is a boys only school is bordering on the absurd. The interesting thing is that it's actually quite a funny series, it seems that I just don't have that broad a mind to watch it on my own.

Comments in italics added by Matrim