not-so-delicious traps?
That title is pretty misleading, actually. Princess Princess is not particularly yaoi-y. The man kissing scenes consist of the male characters doing it to troll. Rather, it’s more of a delicious trap anime. The main characters are forced by their all-boys school into becoming delicious traps because well, the school does need cheerleaders and culture festival waitresses and whatnot.
The show is kind of fun because two of the princesses, Touru and Yuujirou basically go “Well, if I’m going to be forced to be a princess, then there’s only one thing I can do: I’ve got to own it.” Mikoto, on the other hand, does not want to be forced into a being a trap. Besides, he has a girlfriend! The irony is, of course, that the princesses are more woman than she’ll ever be. She’s kind of dull and boring next to the delicious traps. Were Princess Princess actually yaoi, Mikoto bitchiness would probably cause one of the other male characters to grab him by his tie and say “Ikanaide!”, followed by some implied buttsecks. But since Princess Princess doesn’t go that far, ultimately his personality just serves to make him a general sourpuss who wants to spoil everyone else’s delicious trap fun.
The show is forced into a bit of a tough position. The show really only has about four episodes of actual material where you can laugh with the show, rather than at it. Had they gone that little bit further with the whole quasi-shudou/onnagata/nanshoku thing, it might have provided a little more opportunity to laugh at the show and maybe stretched out the useful material some more, but it also would’ve probably made it harder to laugh with the show.
Would I watch it even if I weren’t forced? This is the reason I only watched on episode of this for the lulz back when it actually aired.
I recall stumbling on a comic with characters whom I thought looked like Utena knockoffs except not nearly as stylishly gaudy. This by the same author as Princess Princess. Went and flipped through on account of its creepy gender premise–back when the topic was only *just* getting too stale even for much-creepier ol’ me. This was Day of Revolution, wherein a guy who’s actually physiologically female gets surgery to become a full girl and has to readjust to school life now that all of his juvenile delinquent friends have come out and admitted that they only hung out with him because they thought he was cute.
Anyway, the protagonist eventually decided to get a boyfriend. The guy wasn’t one of her old gang but rather was the brother of her best friend, the most non-threatening of all possible choices.
That boy was Mikoto and the formerly-male protagonist of Day of Revolution is the girlfriend who got cameoed in the series.
Chew on that awhile.
Is this the show where they sing the Cutie Honey song?
@Dorian
LUL WUT. The Wikipedia page for Princess Princess said that the books were related, but they left out that little detail. So basically, she’s a Lady Gaga?
@i-k
Yes, it was. And all the boys in the school fuckin’ ate that shit up.
Dorian> LOOOOLLLL no wonder she looked slightly manly. But I mean she has no wang now that doesn’t count right???? xDDDDDDDDD
Yes, Megumi\Kai is doesnot have a *beep*. BUT do they have a vagina add-on surgery nowadays? I think not. And she still has pretty small boobs.
She looks more girly in the manga – the animantion is quite diffrenet then the original manga style, and to the worse, epcially with Yuujiro’s hair and *tries to remember main boy name and fails* whatshisname eyes.
Also, I personally thought the series was pretty funny-especially the “let’s make Mikoto our bitch” scenes, complete with slippers’ whacking, queen training, and the running gag of saying-we-hate-Mikoto-just-to-see-him-freak-out.
I expected this to be one of those just for lulz shows, with little to no plot/char develop, so I didn’t expect much seeing it, so I was not disappointed. I love the sound effects the anime uses, and the episode with Akira’s family (also chars from another work of the mangaka) was epic.
Its a pretty useful anime too – I use it to ease my friends into BL – step 1 is crossderssing, step 2 is Papa Kiss, step 3 is ENZAI!!! I love that crazy game so much.
I heard the mangaka wanted to push the slash factor a bit more, but was vetoed by the publishers who foolishly thought it will put off the readers – what, the huge audience that likes cross-dressing but get freaked out by BL? Oh, right, wouldn’t want to lose that market slice!
The J-drama was pretty hilarious and had more traps.
I quite like the Princess princess anime. iI thought i was cute and funny. But now i cn’t find teh manga.
Megumi/Kei undergone surgery to become a full girl– WAIT WHUT. As far as I remember from the manga, the guy-girl transformation was rather natural, like after 15 years of living the life of a guy, his TRUE FEMALE side emerges from the shadow lol.
read it again, and oh crap, how could I have missed that part orz.
That manga Dorian mentioned seems nice. I looked it up. Finally, a non-trap, actual T manga! Japan seems to have trouble making anything like that…
I remember this being pretty boring and disappointing.