Erm, hopefully I'm not the only one here that still watches anime anymore ... v_v
Princess Princess is a show that I ran across at another forum and found it to be intriguing, so I decided to go have a look at it. It starts out with the main character Tohru Kouno (see my avatar picture) on a bus as he is transferring to a new school. Tohru had been experiencing some difficulties with his family (this is explained later in the series) so he decided to go to another school farther away and board there to distance himself from them. Fujimori Gakuen has a stellar academic reputation, so Tohru-kun arrived with some high expectations for his new school, but no sooner than he got off the bus he ran into a girl. This seemed very odd to Tohru because Fujimori is an all boys school. Before he was able to talk to her, the girl ran off frightened, apparently being chased by someone. Tohru is a transfer student so he wasn't starting at the beginning of term and didn't go through the usual orientation like all of the students normally did. One of the teachers had to show him around one on one and the plot thickened further when the teacher started to study Tohru, sizing him up in a way that made Tohru rather uncomfortable. This got progressively worse when Tohru finally arrived at his classroom. All of the other students started to look on him as the teacher had, and by now Tohru was really nervous and wondering what was really going on here. He was asked to have a seat in the back of the class next to Yuujiro, who like Tohru was also exceptionally pretty for a boy. Things started to become clearer later on when Yuujiro took Tohru back to the dormitory. There he met Mitoko and even without the wig and costume, Tohro recognized Mitoko as the "girl" he had met earlier when he had got off of the bus. At this point the "wft? factor" had set in for Tohru, so the dorm RA, Yujiro, and Mitoko sat Tohru down and explained the school's "Princess club" to him. Of course he was mortified to learn that he had already been selected as a candidate to become one of the school's Princesses and join Mitoko and Yuujiro. The purpose of the club (as I understand it anyways) is to act as the school's morale officers, to provide a little inspiration and cheer for all of the other students that would become bored and demoralized with life in an all boys school. The next day Tohru met with the student council where they formally requested that he become of the Princesses. It is completely voluntary, and Tohru could have refused, but there where many nice perks that came with the job - things like all class absences are automatically excused, books and supplies are provided for free and so are school meals. There was also monetary compensation, and this is what caught Tohru's attention - the Princess job gave him the opportunity to become more independant from his family so he accepted it. From there afterwards, everyone at the school idolized Tohru like a pop star, whether he was in costume doing his work with the other Princesses, or just going to class as his normal self. It doesn't take long for Tohru to notice the positive effects that being one of the Princesses has had on the school and that this "club" wasn't really the utterly crazy idea that he initially thought is was.
There are many little subplots that run along with the major single episode stories, and the writing for Princess Princess is very well done. It's great how they make some really nutty situations reasonable and not seem so nutty. There are many comic situations that are just hilarious like when Tohru and Yuujiro are laughing themselves silly at Mitoko talking sweet talk to his girlfriend while Tohru and Yuujiro themselves are wearing these really cute Cardcaptor Sakura-like costumes. The humor seemed to be quite backwards and it's just nuts.
Oh, and the mystique surrounding Akira's older brother just cannot be described with words and has to be seen to be believed. ^_^;;
Overall I enjoyed this series very much, but if anyone has any hang-ups about shounen-ai or crossplaying, you'd probably not like this very much. For me, I would've loved to have had a Princess club or something like it at my school, but I know that anime is not real life and even if I had started a club like it on my own I have a pretty good idea of what would've become of it. v_v
