First Impressions / Princess Principal

 

「Ripper Dipper」

There’s fake it ’til you make it. Then there’s being downright illegitimate. If I’m a tad touchy on how the laws of succession work, I feel it’s my responsibility coming from a country ruled by the crown. In fact, the very realm and monarchy that serves as the inspiration for the setting of Princess Principal! People might or might not deserve to be kings and queens. For example, a certain prince comes to mind as being is a complete joke, yet he’s next in line for the throne. But that’s unfortunately how it works. Royalty is something you’re either born or married into, and cannot be passed around at will.

But dangnabbit. Insane is what I would be if I didn’t call this one heck of an amazing episode.

The Princess and the Pickpocket

The Princess and the Pickpocket got me thinking. What if stories from the Black Lizard Planet and Ange’s lies, are life experiences expressed in a very cryptic manner? It is commonly said that the best kind of lies are mixed with truths. Not that I would know too much about that matter. Y’all heard it folks, Zaiden is an honest chap.

Anyway, our longstanding suspicions were all but confirmed: Charlotte and Ange switched in the midst of a revolution. Which also means in hindsight, Operation: Changeling unknowingly sought to replace the fake princess with the real one. That said, I really appreciate how the information we got was conveyed through Ange telling stories to the little girl. I actually expected to find out through a flashback following a heart to heart conversation between the Princess and the Principal.

While I couldn’t really imagine how it could be worse than a sheltered royal like Ange being suddenly turned to the vile streets of Victorian London, Charlotte deserves full recognition for surviving through some royal political instability. As Ange simply put it, one wrong move could have seriously spelled Charlotte’s demise. So she had to put in the blood, sweat and tears in order to keep up her potentially fatal façade of being Princess. Both received the short end of a stick, and had to make remarkably strenuous adaptations to survive such a cruel world. That is what makes the scenes between them and their reunion so heartfelt. They acknowledge… empathise with the ordeals and suffering the other had to endure, while loyally maintaining the close ties of love and affection they had fostered in earlier years. Watching the two playing a piano duet at the end of the episode really put the cherry on top of the icing.

Random Thoughts

  • Funny that Ange spent days painting a picture in front of the building being spied on without drawing any suspicion. I mean, why draw when you can paint? I reckon it ties into the lesson she taught the little girl, about approaching from the front to create a blind spot.
  • At least she apprehended this abusive jerkwad, and gave the orphaned children a lifeline. But you know that orphanage at Stanford Hill she referred them to…. could it possibly be a gateway into the Black Lizard Planet? I sure hope Ange hasn’t plunged these children into the hellish world she had to live through.
  • I love Angie’s grey hair as much as the next person, and couldn’t imagine her without it. But there’s a huge question to pop regarding how it changed from her natural blonde. If I had to guess, possibly a side effect of her extensive Cavorite usage?

P.S. Thanks to Passerby for helping cover, and allowing me to enjoy my holiday in Japan!

21 Comments

    1. I got this Vibes, since she play her doppelgänger in an earlier episode, because she wanted to get some ranks up in birthright to the throne, now we know that she want to changed the Laws… Some kind and a little bit of Naruto’s dream “become an Hokage”

      But my guess was more that both are half-sisters. Perhaps they are still half-siblings. But oh well, they still have this secret bonus card.

      Worldwidedepp
      Reply

  4. I don’t think Ange (Charlotte’s) hair has really changed. She seems to have a more ash gray type of blonde hair than Prince (Ange). And, at a young age, they had similar enough faces and hair color that it wasn’t noticeable.

    My only qualm with this episode was that they shouldn’t have cut away to the ED. They should have left it as the piano version.

    GoukaRyuu
    Reply

    1. their hair when they were children only had a slight gradient difference; to the point that it wasnt noticeable. The fact that their hair clearly look distinct from each other now is definitely intentional which implies Ange(charlotte) went through the effort of changing herself (like she has said in previous eps) or that her hair color might be a side effect of cavorite usage

      sonicsenryaku
      Reply

      2. Like Magewolf, my hair has changed too. I was born with blond hair and it was rather curly when I was a child. Around my teenage years it became both brown and wavy. That’s why it isn’t unrealistic to me that Angeles (Charlotte)’so hair got lighter with age. Hopefully, we will see what her parents looked like at some point and that will help settle things.

        GoukaRyuu
        Reply

  5. Watching this show only furthers the sheer amount of ideas that I can use to develop my very own money-making espionage stories wakakaakakakakakakka!

    In the meantime, this episode was riveting

    Speaking of which, I’d love to see an all-British cast once an English dub is produced. Perhaps a more fitting Norman-accent for the Duke and his retinue? But who’s side is he on anyway? The Commonwealth or the Royalty?

    Nishizawa Mihashi
    Reply

    1. Just want to point out, there’s no such thing as a Norman English accent. Normandy refers to a region in France, and it’s true a lot of English people can trace their heritage back to this place, going back about 1000 years to 1066. The only choice for dub is received pronunciation or good old cockney. I would be disappointed by anything else.

      Don’t forget to add steampunk as an ingredient to your stories. It may as well be the Chemical X for Princess Principal.

      Zaiden
      Reply

  8. “I love Angie’s grey hair as much as the next person, and couldn’t imagine her without it. But there’s a huge question to pop regarding how it changed from her natural blonde. If I had to guess, possibly a side effect of her extensive Cavorite usage?”

    You might be right about the cavorite. If you look at the little sister from episode 1 who was in the hospital with cavorite poisoning her hair is light and grayish while her brother has dark brown hair.

    Though it could also be a symptom of stress which would be a major factor when a girl raised as a princess suddenly finds herself trying to survive on her own with no practical knowledge of the outside world.

    qwert
    Reply

    1. qwert, great catch! Not to mention a surgery may exist to cure cavorite poisoning (what the brother was trying to pay for), but probably doesn’t deal with an after effect like changing hair colour.

      It would be too sad if Angie suffers from a shorter life span as a result, though I guess she needs a sob story too before the series ends.

      Zaiden
      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *