The Princess Blog

With a multitude of  new anime shows  coming out every season, it's easy to spot trends in Eastern culture and observe how they differ from Western tropes . One trend that has been popular in anime for many years is the unassuming hero or heroine. This is a character who came from a life of emotional abuse, and is unexpectedly thrust into a supportive environment that they don't think they are worthy of. This is one of my favorite tropes because it often includes sweet and supportive romantic leads that blend well with the classic "Cinderella" story. It also adds more meaning to the glitz and glamour of royal life. The latest example of this trope is Betrothed to My Sister's Ex , which premiered as part of the Summer 2025 anime season. Betrothed to My Sister's Ex is the story of a mistreated noblewoman named Marie who was brushed aside by her parents in favor of her sister, Anastasia. When Anastasia dies in a freak accident, Marie is sent to marry Anastasia...

It's no secret that modern anime tends to be derivative. Almost every new animated show from the East tells the story of a character reincarnated  into another world or a younger version of themselves. However, another trope, specifically among anime about royalty, has dominated the airwaves. Nearly every would-be anime princess in recent years begins her story with a broken engagement to a prince. This was the catalyst of everything from 2023's I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness  to last year's 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy and The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor . This season, a brand new show entitled I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons  follows in their footsteps. The series begins with a noble lady named Leticia forced into an arranged marriage with Prince Clarke. To prepare her for her future as a princess, her parents send her to the castle for private finish...

This hasn't been the best year in terms of new anime. The past two seasons had a dearth of princesses after the Winter 2024 isekai explosion . Not only that, but the Spring 2024 season was severely lacking in romance. Get your tissue boxes ready because the new Fall 2024 season is here to change all that. Nearly half this season's anime shows have a romantic arc of some sort, which is a great follow-up to the shocking love confession in last week's episode of Wonderful Precure . Two anime shows from this season that stand for having romantic princess-oriented plotlines are Nina the Starry Bride and The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor . These are the types of shows that I never get tired of. Although they follow some stereotypical anime tropes, they are the only way to relive some of the original Disney Princess archetypes  that have been lost to time in Western animation . Nina the Starry Bride is the newest take on the female-oriented rags-to-riches doppelgang...

When I think of Japanese fantasy media, the first thing that comes to mind is anime . That's why I was surprised to see a live-action Japanese movie centered around fairy tales.  Once Upon a Crime  is a recent Netflix release in which Little Red Riding Hood is a detective who attends the infamous royal ball with Cinderella to solve a murder. The movie uses a similar concept to Once Upon a Time  by combining fairy tales and changing the circumstances around certain characters to add an element of surprise. With its lack of wide shots and cheesy visual effects, it was by no means a cinematic masterpiece. However, it did something different with these characters that I have never seen in any other iteration, which is really saying something considering how many versions of "Cinderella" are out there. The movie presents itself as pure camp from the very beginning when a witch named Barbara asks Little Red Riding Hood if she's impressed by the fact that she's a wit...

From the game that brought interactive historical fiction about royal figures like  Marie Antoinette and Princess Sissi  and creative gender-swapped retellings of Swan Lake , Aladdin , and Romeo and Juliet  comes a story about a woman who finds an abandoned baby in the middle of the street. This latest visual novel from Time Princess  feels a little out of left field considering how much history, mythology, and fantasy the game has tackled in the past. Whispers of the Rain takes place in 1980s Japan, but the story is so universal that it could take place anywhere. It also contains some of my least favorite costumes in this series to date. Everything looks so plain and boring compared to the extravagant ensembles from other visual novels in this game. With two more new stories coming out just around the bend, it seems like they're phoning it in to release as much content as they can as quickly as possible. Whispers of the Rain follows Time Princess's recent trend of ...

Barely even a week after their Phantom of the Opera visual novel came out, the Time Princess app released Taishō Adventures, an original story set in Japan that could not be more different than Phantom. This is the first new story that had more than one chapter since I started playing Time Princess, harkening back to its original three visual novels . It takes place during the Taishō era , a period of Japanese history that lasted from 1912 to 1926. Since this the same time period that Gotham Memoirs takes place, there is some overlap of the clothing styles. The setting in Taishō Adventures also incorporates some classic Japanese fashions including colorful kimonos and beaded floral accessories as well as many Japanese cultural references including idioms, fairy tales, and architecture. It delivers a satisfying resolution no matter which story path you take, which is more than I can say about Helen of Sparta or Shadows of London . It takes a little while to grasp the story in Ta...

Japanese company  Kuraudia Co. recently partnered with Disney  to create a new line of gorgeous Disney Princess wedding dresses. This is far from the only company that makes wedding gowns inspired by our favorite animated heroines. Though they  recently went out of business , the popular American bridal chain, Alfred Angelo,  had recently revealed several new designs  for Disney Princess inspired dresses that were more modern-looking than the ones from Japan. Designer Kirstie Kelly also unveiled a  Disney Princess inspired collection  several years ago, which has since been discontinued. Though the Americanized versions of these dresses hardly resemble classic  princess fashion , the correlation between weddings and princesses seems to date back an eternity. Do the two concepts go hand-in-hand like a bride and groom at the altar? Let's find out. Since the very beginning, most fairy tales that end with "happily ever after" included a wedding...