Princess Principal: Crown Handler 1

First of all, if you haven't watched the anime yet, do that before watching this or else you won't understand some important plot points in this movie. Now, if you're reading this I'm assuming it's because you want to know if the movie is worth watching and the answer is, it depends. Now since I don't know what you particularly liked/disliked from the anime I'll just tell you what I liked and disliked about the film. Things I liked: + Same epic, steampunk, espionage action from the anime + The soundtrack (I relistened to LIES & TIES like 8 times now) + Some of the expressions in certain scenes are priceless +The art is just as good if not better than the anime (Definitely making some wallpapers out of a couple scenes) Things I disliked: - It's kinda short at almost an hour long - Nothing TOO exciting happens. There were moments that had me on edge for sure but, the threats just didn't feel that threatening to me Random note: Ange does have a different voice actor if anyone feels like she sounds off. Overall, if you liked the anime, you'll probably enjoy this movie... but not as much as the anime. It's only an hour so you don't have much to lose by watching it. Maybe my expectations were higher since the release was delayed due to the pandemic, making a long wait even longer, but they did a pretty great job all things considered.

Color me impressed. Another ark added to this fantastic series. TLDR: As far as princess principal arks go, this is the middle ground, it's not as good as the best of season 1, but it's also not the weakest part of the series. If you disliked the original, this won't change your mind. if you did like it, well then this is just more of the same greatness. *****Story/writing: great 8.25/10 princess principal has one thing over most anime, and that's how well put together and well structured it's story arks are. The writing is near flawless. while yes you can dislike or see certain elements of the story as weak if you want, you simply can not find a single issue with the execution. This movie is another part of that same good old pattern. The ark doesn't have anything you haven't seen before, even if you only look at this series, and the stakes aren't the highest we have seen. But don't let that distract you from the greatness of it, there is character growth, extremely clever mystery writing, and near perfect pacing. I do have one small concern though. and that one thing that has me worried is the ending, which is great on it's own, but it is something that is starting to become a pattern in this series. I hope they stop doing it again, because it is close to losing it's effect, at least for me. ***** Art/animation/directing: very good 7.5/10 as a movie and great 8.5/10 as a tv series it looks amazing. idk if I should judge it by movie or tv series standards, but both ways it doesn't look bad or even generic. and the directing is just A+ tier no matter how you look at it so there is also that. ***** music/sound-design/voice acting: near flawless 9.25/10 This is my second favorite Kajiura, Yuki soundtrack, and if you don't know, she is one of the most famous and highly praised anime composers. so that is not low praise. let me put it like this, The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. every track fits it's scene perfectly, there isn't really that many repeats and the opening sounds straight of persona 5. and if you have listened to the persona 5 soundtrack, you should know how high of praise that is. sound-design wise, it's good. this aspect is not really something that i pay too much attention too unless it's noticeably great or terrible, and this was neither. the voice acting is one of my favorite aspects of this show, I Adore it. the British accents are just perfect. what was that? you watched it subbed? here's the thing, I am personally of the belief that this show is a 100times better dubbed, so much so that I waited a year for the dub and didn't watch it before it came out. idk about the sub, but the dub is flawless. shout out to Sentai for their work. ***** characters/chemistry: very good 7.5/10 There wasn't really any major development or moment of shine for any of the characters. now, they still have extremely good chemistry, they do have small character growths and the old man which this arks focuses on is very well written. but well written is the key here. don't expect anything more than what you had in the show, for the most part it's still the good old same, which is not a bad thing or even a "mid" thing. but it isn't really too impressive either. ***** Enjoyment: 9/10 great pacing, great animation, great writing, great music and more... how can I not enjoy the hell out of it? it wasn't life changing or anything, but if you think it wasn't a fun watch, I'm sorry, but I don't think we can be friends. ***** overall: great 8.25/10 I say the tv series was slightly better overall, but this was for sure worth the long wait and I can't wait to watch the other movies. Thanks for reading :D

A das Finale style staggered movie release, one VA change, plus several delays later, we are finally at the first part (out of six) of the sequel series to Princess Principal, four years after its initial release. So how exactly does Princess Principal das Finale part 1 fare? Does it fulfill its premise of "spies and lies"? Do the two turtledoves consummate their relationship in Casablanca? Does it meaningfully build upon its unique Victorian era Cold War London setting? The answer to all of these is "No". But it's still a pretty fun CGDCT show. It's effectively the first two episodes of a hypothetical season2 to Pripri, with relatively low stakes and a simple enough thread to follow through the however many years this film series will take. Plotwise it's pretty basic, but I'm a sucker for Twin Switches in plots and Part 1 certainly utilizes this aspect more than the original series did. It's nice to see the main cast back in action, though Beato was surprisingly absent for most of the runtime. The few action sequences in this were fun and accompanied by the same-ish score from Kajiura from S1. The shift to a feature length production doesn't result in necessarily better animated or directed action sequences compared to S1, but they're still fine. So long as you temper your expectations and come into this knowing it's the first two episodes of a CGDCT series and not a spy thriller, you'll enjoy the film. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the film series will live up to the foreshadowing and the expectations set by part 1. And let's hope it's a one/more films per year kind of deal and not a GuP-style one film per two years kind of thing. 6/10

I always find it funny when studios try to sell a 50 minute long animation as a "movie". Like imagine going to a cinema to watch something that doesn't even last one hour. Rest assured, this is not really a movie but a double episode Princess Prinicipal with the quality as we've seen before. It continues where the series left off. If you've liked the series, you'll like this too. Overall what's at stake in the upcoming missions is higher as ever before so overall all the upcoming movies will be very exciting to watch. However one thing I've come to realise is that Beatricebarely plays a role in the missions anymore and I'd loved to see her using her voice manipulation ability more often. Overall I still think that the finale of the Princess Principal series was the peak of the show but this builds up to be something amazing as well, solid 7/10 imo.

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