The Princess Blog

It's been almost a year since Kingdom Hearts III made its long overdue debut . Amidst the disappointment that fans had with the highly anticipated game, the most popular question of all was "What about Kairi?"  The new Kingdom Hearts III: Re Mind  DLC, which came out yesterday, attempts to answer this question . Kairi is essentially the  princess of the Kingdom Hearts universe , but is never treated as such. She is constantly placed on the sidelines, even after she receives her own keyblade to fight with at the end of Kingdom Hearts II. The Re Mind DLC addresses this issue immediately. When you start up the game after installing the DLC, a lovely new illustration of Kairi slowly fades into existence next to Sora's on the menu screen as a gentle reminder that she has been patiently waiting for her turn to be included in the story. For half the price of the game, I can understand why some people would consider Re Mind to be a disappointment. There are some new scen...

Kingdom Hearts 3 , which came out at the beginning of the year, was an enjoyable enough sequel if you could overlook some rushed storylines and underdeveloped characters. The character that got screwed over the most was Kairi, the series' only Princess of Heart that wasn't from a Disney movie. Kairi's development within the Kingdom Hearts series is important because she doesn't have a movie or spin-off to tell her story while Sora, Riku, and Roxas are all playable in various other games. We know that she grew up in Radiant Garden where her grandmother told her stories about the ancient Keyblade War and that she eventually found herself stranded on the Destiny Islands where she met Sora and Riku, but that is where her story ends. Kairi made multiple claims about wanting to help Sora after she got her own keyblade at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, but we barely ever saw her use it. Even when she did during one of the final battles in Kingdom Hearts 3, she was highly unski...

Three princess anniversary celebrations within roughly two weeks? Yes, please! Today marks 24 years since one of my favorite cartoons of all time, Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders , debuted. My friends over at the Jewel Riders Archive are kicking off a year-long 25th anniversary celebration  in a big way. Instead of attending a panel or screening , I celebrated this princess anniversary with a Skype party in which I got together with the Jewel Riders Archive, the founding member of the original Avalon fansite, and a prominent fan artist from the early days of the fandom to record a podcast where we discussed our favorite memories of the show. It was a huge honor to be included in this elite group of fans. The world of Jewel Riders has been a major inspiration for many of the stories I have written  in the past, leading up my most recent one, The Stolen Jewel . The Princess Blog recently celebrated its two year anniversary , and I owe some of its inspiration to t...

*The following post contains spoilers for some of the final cutscenes in Kingdom Hearts III. For a less spoilery post, please refer to the review I posted last week. Kairi is the only original  Princess of Heart  in the Kingdom Hearts series. She has been there since the very beginning when we saw her playing on the Destiny Islands with Sora and Riku. While Sora and Riku demonstrated enormous growth since the first game, Kairi still remains very much static. It's been 13 years since the first game, but her role still follows many of the same outdated tropes as much older video game princesses . While being a damsel in distress  is not necessarily as bad as it's cracked up to be, a princess character does need to have some sort of redeeming quality to make up for her lack of physical prowess. For Cinderella , it was her unwavering loyalty to her stepfamily and her late mother despite the tragic events of her life that would have turned anyone else into a bitter cyn...

Thirteen years after the release of Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts III  is finally available for us to peruse. With over a decade of buildup and hype, this game is a massive undertaking both to play and to review. There's just so much of it. There are a lot of cutscenes, a lot of new abilities, a lot of Disney characters, a lot of hidden Mickeys, and a whole lot of backstory to catch up on  if you haven't played all nine of the previous games in the series. It's just a lot in general. Fortunately, Kingdom Hearts III definitely lives up to all the hype. It is beautiful, emotional, and fun to play, but because of its enormous scope, it never lets the player take a breath. Between the endless array of minigames and the endless array of bonus abilities popping up on your screen during battles, it's very difficult to find time to sit back and enjoy the  rich and tranquil environments  of the Disney movies that you are playing in. For the purposes of this review, I will...

Kingdom Hearts Union X [cross] is a cell phone game that was originally released in America under the name Kingdom Hearts Unchained. It allows you to create a custom avatar and travel through the Disney movies to become a keyblade master. Even though it takes place within the canon Kingdom Hearts universe, it has many distinctive differences from the other games. First, this game is completely free to anyone who has a smart phone. There are certain bonuses that you can spend real money on, but it is absolutely possible to master the game without spending anything. Also, instead of playing as one of the main heroes from the Kingdom Hearts universe, you can essentially be anyone you want. You can name your character, decide if you want them to be male or female, choose a face and skin tone, and unlock tons of hairstyles, costumes, accessories, and descriptive titles throughout the game. Since I had so many options, I did everything I could to make my character as princess-like as possib...

Amid all the recent Kingdom Hearts hype  in anticipation of the new game, I learned that there was once a Kingdom Hearts anime series in development that never made it to production. This has been the case for many princess ideas that never quite made it out the door, such as the "Princess Academy" short and the unreleased episodes of Disney Princess Enchanted Tales . The series would have been inspired by the Kingdom Hearts manga  that was released in 2009, which got me thinking about another Disney Princess manga that could have made a terrific anime. Kilala Princess  came out in 2005 and told the story of a girl whose wish to be a Disney Princess came true. She found a magical tiara that was guarded by a prince named Rei who was searching for the true princess to save his kingdom. The tiara allowed her to travel to the worlds of Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine, collecting jewels for its seven spikes so that it would regain its full power. ...

The internet has been buzzing about Kingdom Hearts III finally getting a release date after fifteen long years of anticipation. Unless it gets delayed again, we will be able to catch up with Sora, Donald, and Goofy as they travel through the realms of various Disney movies on January 29th, 2019. There have been a couple of trailers  dropped over the last few days revealing footage from Frozen , Tangled , Toy Story , Monsters Inc. ,  Hercules , and Pirates of the Caribbean . For me, the biggest announcement came from the latter half of  last night's trailer  in which Larxene of Organization XIII  remarked that Elsa might be one of the new seven pure hearts that they needed for their latest quest. Anyone who has played the first game knows that this is a reference to the Princesses of Heart , a select group of Disney Princesses who had their chance to become video game royalty  when they got captured by Maleficent in an attempt to use their pure heart...

This week, I'm going to talk about different types of princesses, beginning with digital ones. I am no expert on video games, but princesses have been a big part of them ever since the NES era of the 1980s. They have become a staple of the ever evolving technology. The two most famous video game princesses are Zelda from  The Legend of Zelda , a series that began in 1986, and Peach, who evolved from Princess Toadstool in the  Super Mario Bros. series  that started 1985. Though they both began as stereotypical blonde princesses in pink dresses who needed to be rescued by the hero of their corresponding game, Peach and Zelda each stand out as very different characters. I would say it's no contest which one of them is the better princess. Even though Zelda began as a damsel in distress, the many incarnations of the series have evolved her into a wise, graceful, and confident leader. In many ways, she is no more of a damsel in distress than Princess Leia is from  St...