Or to give its full, punctuated title: Princess Lover! The premise - once again - is to cram as many lithe, buxom females into as confined a space as possible and provide an empty husk of a male protagonist to catalyse their frequently outlandish but never overtly raunchy interactions. In short: fan-service romance comedy. The anime is just one of a number of media co-minglings, starting with the visual novel by newcomers Ricotta (as in the cheese) and followed by light novels, manga, this anime and a related radio show. What should be surprising is just how many different ways such a vapid and paper-thin plot can be told.
The lead character's parents are killed and while moping near their grave one day he gets embroiled in a scrappily animated chase between a horse drawn carriage and an open-topped jeep full of thugs. One tenuous event leads to another and the pink haired, well-endowed passenger is flung from a cliff into a thicket of trees where upon the protagonist wakes up and finds himself fondling her chest. This is all immaterial of course because he has been adopted by his immeasurably wealthy grandfather, ostensibly in order to find the people responsible for his parent's murder and subsequently avenge them. Instead though he spends time rubbing elbows with various females and partaking in the local school social club (by attending a party after etiquette lessons, naturally). That this feels so familiar is odd considering the set-up at least is superficially unique.
Everything else about this though is stooped in routine. Time and again this mediocre, pathetic approach to entertainment has been inflicted upon the world; insipid facsimiles of characters tottering about with malformed appendages wobbling at the slightest provocation, spouting clichéd and obnoxious drivel. Other male characters are emasculated in equal measure with the muscle-bound goons of the opening to the kind, elderly relative, who may as well paint a target on his chest, to the effeminate foil dropped in to provide some respite from the needless pandering of the double-X chromosomes. New and innovative situations include being caught by a love interest in a compromising position with another female and the naïve sexpot inadvertently arousing and embarrassing the male lead. This is tepid, predictable nonsense that has all the allure of a cow in a thunderstorm.
Princess Lover! doesn't do anything abjectly wrong but suffers from a severe deficit of imagination and execution: it lacks the budget to provide anything other than a protracted slideshow of character movement and the strength to break out of its series of inconsequential incidents. That the lead's raison d'etre is forgotten so swiftly strikes of needless lengthening or a lack of assurance as to its resultant quality. Series such as Ouran Highschool Host Club showed that the juxtaposition of working-class and fabulously-rich can be genuinely humorous and touching, while others like Ai Yori Aoshi demonstrated that personal development doesn't have to sacrifice the odd madcap situation. With its pronounced lack of depth, this is borderline misogynistic, reinforced by the profusion of quantum singularities where underwear should be. Within three episodes, Princess Lover has failed completely to make any impact at all; utterly humourless and pathetically racy, whether it runs for a full or half season makes no difference to a series with such low aspirations.
