Why is Princess Principal not more popular

Hmm as someone who knows of it but have never seen it, it never really stuck out to me as a must watch above everything else out there, and I watch a fair bit of anime.

I’ve very rarely heard people talk about it too loudly, and when a show doesn’t have many people talking about it, if the key art doesn’t stick out much it just gets forgotten about at least in my book.

The long gaps between movies is . . . regrettable (and frustrating).

Not sure why this got relatively little recognition. It was love at first sight for me. Lots of great characters. And visually quite attractive.

I think it's the other way around, the movies made it less popular.

Also Princess Principal is an old(ish) series and it's an original series at that, i.e. it's not based on a light novel or manga.

I think it was quite well received by fans during its airing, but the final episodes were apparently disappointing for some. For that matter, the way the sequels were released, along with the long gap between the TV series and the films, also makes the anime becoming more niche. To an extent, the same can be said for Girls und Panzer, which is no longer as popular as it once was.

I watched it for the first time a few years ago, back in 2023, and also never really understood that ever since.

As in, it was one of those already on my planning list for probably a few years by that point, like many others on there, and I had seen it mentioned in passing enough in certain contexts to take and interest and make a note of it for future viewing.

But then after I actually watched and completed it, things felt a little bizarre and incongruent between how good it actually was - premise, direction, character dynamics together, some of the music and action setpieces, etc., and how little I hear about it compared to so many other things.

It's not exactly CGDCT as spycraft and associated activities aren't generally considered cute, but it's kind of CGDCT-adjacent so I just chalked that up to perhaps with alternative history material already being a niche, perhaps CGDCT + alternative history + Action and Wellsian light Sci-Fi being even moreso of a niche.

I still consider its first episode one of the best first episodes of any series.

Princess Principal is great and I have heard people call it a hidden gem (I agree with this). It's underwatched internationally but think it did fine in japan. Still looking forward to the Crown Handler 6 part movies despite it taking forever to come out.

I imagine the name has a lot to do with it. I was genuinely shocked to discover it wasn't a fluffy magical girl series about a twelve-year-old princess who is also inexplicably a school principal.

I watched Princess Principal. I remember that much.

I then proceeded to forget about it (and all about it).

I think it didn't have any male characters, but someone please tell me if I misremembered.

I remember stumbling upon the show while it was still airing on Animax years ago.

Never got around finishing the series by the time the channel was gone.

And the last thing I remember is the duel scene.

Probably time to get back and continue watching.

I’ve been wondering the same thing for ages. For some reason, I always group this show with Girls und Panzer since they’re from the same studio and push out a lot of sequel movies. Girls und Panzer was lucky to have a huge niche fanbase. Princess Principal didn’t.

One factor as I recall is that in the US, it was exclusive to Amazon's add-on anime streaming channel that relatively few people paid for. That limited the US fanbase somewhat out of the gate, compared to if you could have just watched it on Prime or Netflix or Crunchyroll.

It's on Amazon, I think, and I don't use it enough to justify Prime. So for me, it's lost in the sea of the eternal piracy backlog.

I feel part of the reason is its release; it was put on Amazon Prime's anime platform which required an additional subscription to access. Then again, Made in Abyss was released on the same platform.

It's an absolutely wonderful show though, I'm still eagerly anticipating the release of the remaining movies.

As one other poster mentioned, *blame the Bezos*.

Amazon jail didn't do the series any favors.

I remember finally managing to watch the first episode, and immediately ordering the blu-ray, because fie upon that *streaming service*.

But yeah, between the characters, especially *Ange*, and that *glorious* Yuki Kajiura soundtrack, it's one of my favorites.

I'd actually like to do a rewatch here sometime, if there's ever enough interest, but it'll probably have to wait ... for now.

It was popular It's just a 10 year old 12 ep anime original with no supplementary material until a manga 2 years after it was released and Amazon licensed the show, its own death sentence in the West. The Movies are still being produced, it just has no means of building interest.

It has a stupid name.

It's old. It has \*some\* new content, a 2-episodes long "movie" every 2 years, but that's not enough to generate interest (and IMO they are bad)

It was a thing, then it is not anymore. Or only in the CGDCT+action niche, after LycoReco/Railgun/Gunslinger Girls

Princess what?

They really should have taken the movies and made them seasons instead. The release model with the movies just doesn't work for maintaining interest.

I remember liking the show but its just kinda old by now with new content barely trickling in. Apparently the movie format makes more money but atleast for us western fans its not helping the popularity.

I like Princess Principal but I won’t pretend that it wasn’t in the back of my head because of the movies being released so far apart. Like that’s the sort of move that a well established franchise can get away with but I wouldn’t say PP has that kind of pull.

It definitely should've been.

Shameless related self-promotion: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/s/tfbFoSOFyp

Having seen the show, perhaps you can appreciate it more than most. (I did a *lot* more editing than people might realize. Like, frame cuts and sound effect editing and whatnot)

I watched it back in 2017, I don't remember much of it but based on my commentary left on the episode forums, the series was promising at first but ended up being disappointment in the end.

I mean if you compare it to Code Geass, I was expecting Princess Principal to have more scheming, murder, and political intrigue than it actually did. From what I recall from the anime, Princess Principal was not as serious as I wanted it to be. And the characters didn't feel well developed imho.

Because nobody knows what the release schedule for these movies is. Do they come to the west? If so, in my country? Which of them can I stream in my country? Movies are a hassle. The series was great, but movie series just don't work if they aren't advertised in the west.

As a fan, even i forgot they released the sequel of movie until i check it in MAL. The long between sequel is too long, that's it. And whenever i want to watch the new one, i need to rewatch previous movie + series to recap what happened

I hear it's more popular on the Black Lizard Planet.