The Princess Blog

The princess movies of 2024 are few and far between , but there are still a few to look forward to. While it may not be the original princess story we were hoping for, Disney announced Moana 2 earlier this year along with a brief teaser. The full trailer that launched today does not give much more information about the film's plot, but it does reveal a bit more footage. Following the concept for a cancelled TV series, Moana 2 sees Moana reuniting with some old friends for a new adventure at sea. The movie is set for Disney's usual princess movie release date of Thanksgiving weekend , marking it as one of their biggest blockbusters planned for the year. The fact that they gave such a prestigious date to a sequel is somewhat disheartening but may imply a higher quality film than the Disney sequels of old . The trailer portrays an aged-up Moana joining together with a new crew of Wayfinders to take on her biggest foe yet--an enormous whale covered in magical glowing symbols

It seemed too good to be true when I learned that a  Jewel Riders graphic novel was coming out nearly 30 years after the show ended . Though I thought the wait would seem endless, I was holding this magical book in my hands before I knew it. Featuring brand-new artwork and new stories about some of my favorite characters, this book is an absolute dream come true.  This show means the world to me . It was the first series to spark my lifelong love of animated princesses, and it was my first introduction to the  Magical Girl genre . I thought I was the only one who still remembered it until two of my friends founded the  Jewel Riders Archive  and allowed the show's small circle of faithful followers to celebrate  the 25th anniversary  and our happy memories of growing up with such a beautiful and magical world. Now that world can be shared with a new audience thanks to a collaboration between  41 Entertainment  and  Maverick , a division of Mad Cave Studios , in the first volume of a

The next book on my MerMay reading list  is from a series I had heard about in February for  National Fairy Tale Day but hadn't read anything from.  Hope Ever After  is a multi-author series of inspiring fairy tale retellings in which all the proceeds go to O.U.R. (Operation Underground Rescue) to rescue children from exploitation and trafficking.  A Cascading Hope  by Yakira Goldsberry  is a unique retelling of "The Little Mermaid"  that veers pretty far from the original story but stays true to the themes of a selfless mermaid protagonist  and the impending danger of turning to seafoam. The book relies heavily on Scottish mythology and has a lot of hard-to-pronounce names and Scottish accents written directly into the dialogue. There is a pronunciation and lore guide at the beginning of the book that is required reading for anyone who is not familiar with the culture. Muírin is a merrow, which is a Scottish mermaid with the ability to transform between human and mer-fo

Around the year 2000, I was browsing the video game section of a department store and discovered a PlayStation RPG with a beautiful angel on the cover. The back of the box described it as a fairy tale musical adventure, which sounded like it was right up my alley! Little did I know that would be the only time I would ever see a physical copy of Rhapsody in a store. When I asked about it at a Game Stop shortly after, the salesperson gave me a perplexed look and thought I was saying "Rap City." The game had a few quiet releases many years later for the DS and some other platforms but was widely considered rare in the West. It wasn't until very recently that I learned that not only were there  two sequels  but also that they were localized for English-speaking countries just last summer under the name Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles ! After nearly 20 years, the opportunity had finally arisen for me to play the complete series and learn about all three generations of magic

MerMay is still in full swing! For my second mermaid book this month, I decided to check out Of Seafoam & Saltwater  by Kay Leyda . This is a "lost princess" archetype story about a seemingly ordinary girl who discovers she's a mermaid and dives into a new world of undersea adventure and intrigue. Although this plot has been done many times before in books such as The Tail of Emily Windsnap , movies like Barbie in a Mermaid Tale , and independent works like Nerissa Sanderson, The Part-Time Mermaid , it's presented differently each time. This book is the author's premiere novel and the first in a series called The Piscea Chronicles. It's easy to see that she intended for it to be a series because there are a ton of characters, kingdoms, and concepts thrown at the reader to the point where the book can be difficult to follow at times. The first thing that drew me into this book was the beautiful artwork on the cover. I read many indie novels about fairy t

There are many fun mermaid books on sale this month for MerMay . One of the ones that stood out to me was My Fair Mermaid  by Sarah Beran . It seemed like such a novel idea to combine the story of "The Little Mermaid"  with Pygmalion / My Fair Lady . Although the book could have taken any number of directions to have an arrogant man convert a mermaid into human society, it turned out to be a pretty literal interpretation of the source material by creating a world where mermaids speak differently from humans due to living underwater and must improve their diction to be understood. I wasn't a huge fan of turning the original "Little Mermaid" character into a villain, but I did enjoy the story's unique focus on a related mermaid who followed her to land out of concern for her, which was similar to the "Sisters of the Sea" visual novel in Time Princess . Maribel is a mermaid with the unfortunate luck of being a cousin to Naia, the spoiled and selfish

I was elated to learn that the next visual novel in Time Princess  would be a return to noblebright stories about royalty! The now massive smartphone app originally premiered with a visual novel about Queen Marie , so it was only a matter of time before it returned to its roots. Twilight's Crown is a mix of history and fantasy, with a disclaimer that any relevance it has to real-life events is purely coincidental. However, the game is packed with references to famous princesses and queens. Its main character, Eleanor, shares a similar backstory to Queen Elizabeth in regards to living in a world where  primogeniture  laws favor male heirs over female ones and a series of unlikely events that lead up to her becoming a sovereign queen after her brothers die young. Her royal gowns feature a red and green flower insignia that strongly resembles one used on the iconic necklace from Anastasia  to prove her regal lineage. There are also visual and plot-related nods to "Beauty and the