Note: This post is considered an episode review and it dives into spoilers for the movie.
It sure has been a minute since I last covered Princess Principal (and that’s putting it very mildly). Long story short, I amassed a list of anime to finish covering in episode reviews and I’ve been chipping away at it for the past couple of years. I more or less had PriPri at the end of the to-do list since I knew it wasn’t ending anytime soon. Obviously, this post means that I’m almost done with the backlog so I can finally come back to this series. As of writing this post, Crown Handler is three installments in, with the fourth one releasing later this year. Suffice to say, I have some catching up to do. Part of me was tempted to wait for Crown Handler to finish but you know what, I’ve held off for long enough and the emptier my backlog is, the better.
Crown Handler is a six-part film sequel to the original TV show. I mentioned this in my last episode review but this wasn’t the first thing I had in mind for PriPri. I figured a continuation would first take the form of the “missing” 12 episodes (which at this point, will likely never materialize). That said, the show did end on a pretty open note so it does make sense to continue where it left off. The choice to do six movies as opposed to a twelve episode season is also odd to me. Like, Girls und Panzer, another Actas anime, is currently undergoing the same route but that’s one of the biggest CGDCT anime ever. It can afford to be released at a snail’s pace. PriPri did fairly well during its TV days but I don’t know if it’s big enough to do the same approach. Still, I guess I should be happy I’m getting more PriPri at all.
There’s a couple of behind the scene changes to address. The first is that Actas is animating Crown Handler on its own. For whatever reason, the production committee didn’t hire back the now-defunct 3HZ. I viewed PriPri as one of 3HZ’s signature shows so it saddens me to not see them involved. On the flipside, it doesn’t appear that the series has taken a hit in terms of visual quality. This first movie at least looks about the same as the show. Admittedly, you’d think the movies would look substantially better, what with them being movies and all, but I digress. Another change is that Ange is now voiced by Aoi Koga. Her original voice actor, Ayaka Inamura, retired from voice acting in 2018 due to health issues. A shame that Inamura had to step away from the role and her career in general but she of course did what’s best for her. I’m again going off of just the first movie but Koga does a good job voicing Ange, sound very similar to Inamura’s portrayal.
Crown Handler Chapter 1 begins sometime after the TV series’ finale. Now aware that someone is impersonating Princess Charlotte (Akira Sekine), the Duke of Normandy (Takaya Hashi) has begun to crack down on anyone suspected to be a spy for the Commonwealth. In response, Control tasks Team White Pigeon with rescuing and extracting some personnel. The last person on the list is rescued onscreen at the start of the movie. The ensuing chase scene serves as a nice throwback to the one in the very beginning of the TV series, albeit with more pizazz.
Concerned about the Commonwealth’s aggressive campaign, Control suspects that a mole they have within the royal family, codenamed Bishop, might now be a double agent. They assign Team White Pigeon to make contact with Bishop to assess the situation. The girls head over to the royal household, under the guise of Princess visiting to check up on the Queen’s health. At night, Ange (Aoi Koga) meets up with Bishop and learns that the spy is in fact Winston (Nobuo Tobita), the grand chamberlain who helped raised her during her childhood as the real Charlotte. Winston surprises Ange further by revealing that he already knows about her team’s investigation on him and, more importantly, her and Princess’s true identities. Now aware that Winston could expose them any second, the team tries to find any dirt on him while Ange works as his liaison.
The entire middle act of Chapter 1 is pretty much just the girls trying to find evidence of Winston’s betrayal. Definitely the highlight is the scene where Ange, disguised as Princess, invites Winston to a game of chess, so that Princess can secretly sneak into the Grand Chamberlain’s room. We’ve seen Ange and Princess trade places before but with Winston aware of their trick and the Duke of Normandy suspecting the existence of an imposter, this feels a lot riskier now. Even though Ange is extremely good at impersonating Princess, it’s hard not to feel tense as the game draws in a number of people, including the Duke. Any slip up and Ange’s cover is blown.
While the investigation is entertaining to watch, I do have two big issues with it. One, even though it’s technically a team effort, everyone besides Ange is sort of shoved to the wayside. Dorothy (Yō Taichi), Chise (Nozomi Furuki), and Beatrice (Akari Kageyama) barely do anything while Princess is mildly more involved since she has to do old switcheroo with Ange. I would give it a pass since the TV show often switches who’s the focal point but Chapter 1 also tries to continue off from Ange’s arc in the last two episodes. Like, after failing to everything on her own, Ange has learned to trust her friends more and she does that in this movie by being fully transparent with the team about the Bishop situation. That’s a neat way to continue Ange’s arc but it kind of falls flat when her friends make minor contributions to the plot.
Part of me also feels the movie doesn’t really explore Winston’s relationship with Ange and, by extension, Princess. You’d think since Winston is the first ever character to figure out the big secret, there’d be some complicated feelings worth addressing. Like, how does he feel about seeing Ange ten years after the London Revolution or that the Charlotte he’s helped raised the past decade was never the real one to begin with? The only scene that really does anything along those lines is the chess scene. Even though Winston suspects Ange is up to no good and he pretends that she’s Princess, a part of him appears happy to play a game with her, presumably like the good old days. After that is just the ending and by then, the movie more or less shrugs and it just has Winston say he’s happy to have served Princess and see Ange again. I suppose that’s the natural conclusion but I would’ve liked to see more steps taken to get there.
Eventually, the team figures out that Winston has coded in secret messages for an unknown third party into the speeches he writes for the Queen. The girls successfully catch him red handed after tricking him into sending a message they can intercept. Despite orders from Control to arrest Winston, Ange instead helps him escape, both in exchange for keeping the big secret and as thanks for all he did for her and Princess throughout their childhoods. This plan works…until the last second, where Winston is fatally shot by an assassin sent by the third party. That’s definitely a very frustrating moment. The movie makes Winston pretty sympathetic so this death feels rather undeserving. Also, I don’t know why every guest character close to the main cast has to keep ending up dead. At least it’s not someone close to Dorothy this time around.
On the flipside, I really like Winston’s dying words. He warns Ange that she’ll suffer the same fate if she continues telling lies. Considering Ange’s entire identity is one big lie and the increased risk surrounding it, that’s a pretty ominous note to end the movie on and it’s likely something to keep in mind for the rest of the series.
Watch Princess Principal: Crown Handler – Chapter 1 on HIDIVE
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