Left to right: Yuu, Charlotte, Teppei, Sylvia, Seika
Ordinary High-School Student Teppei Kobayashi has just lost his parents in a strange car accident, leaving him all alone, until his maternal grandfather decides to take him in. The day Teppei's supposed to meet with him, he spends time at his parents' grave, until he sees a beautiful girl in a horse-drawn carriage, chased by some thugs. Seeing her scared face, Teppei decides to help, so hops on his bike and somehow manages to rescue the Damsel in Distress, but not without some nasty accidents, guns, an angry Battle Butler, and a fall down a cliff that should've killed him and the girl outright, yet they miraculously survive.
After the mess, Teppei meets with his grandfather Isshin Arima. It turns out Teppei's mother Kanae is Isshin's daughter, the next successor to the almighty Arima Financial Combine, and wants to prepare his grandson as his successor, considering him an excellent young man. Therefore, Teppei has his surname changed to "Arima", starts to live in one of the Arima mansions, and attends "Shuuhou Academy", the most elite highschool in the nation, in order to facilitate his debut into high society. The first person he finds out also attending the academy is the same beautiful girl he helped before, Charlotte Hazelrink, crown princess of the European Kingdom of Hazelrink. Over the course of the series, Teppei's joined by Sylvia van Hossen, the daughter of nobleman Vincent van Hossen of the Flemish Principality; Seika Houjouin, the daughter of the rival Houjouin Corporation; and Yuu Fujikura, a maid assigned by Isshin to be Teppei's caretaker and counsel.
Based on a successful PC eroge visual novel released in 2008 by RICOTTA, Princess Lover! got a 12-Episode Anime adaptation in the summer of 2009 by Go Hands, with its own series of light novels, manga adaptations and a "clean" Updated Re-release for the PlayStation 2. An H-OVA, released in September 2010, re-tells the story, with the focus on Sylvia van Hossen.
Tropes in Princess Lover! include:
- Accidental Pervert: Teppei believes he has the power to invoke this and not get the usual barrage of Megaton Punches and slaps. He's dead wrong, as the Hot Springs Episode illustrates.
- Amazon Chaser: Variation- Teppei's immediately enamoured by Sylvia's fencing skills, earning an impromptu sparring session with her...before finding out he was engaged to her. He keeps sparring with her throughout the series and isn't necessarily attracted to her beauty, but her swordsmanship, since he's always wanted to have a chance to spar against a European expert.
- The Anime of the Game
- Arranged Marriage: On the same night he's announced to be Isshin's heir, Teppei's sparring with a blonde, fencer when their session's stopped by his grandfather's announcement that he's really crossing swords with his bride-to-be. Cue horrified expressions on the kids' faces.
- You can also count Charlotte and Haltman Bezelheim.
- Art Shift: During the Hot Springs Episode, Teppei inspires confidence in his male roommates of his skills as the "Lucky Pervert".
- Ascended Extra: Ayano Kaneko, one of Those Two Girls, is promoted to a heroine with her own route in the PS2 release.
- Best Served Cold: Teppei believes his parents' death was intentional; Isshin agrees. One of the objectives for enrolling Teppei in a high-class academy is to help him acquire allies whose influence he can use in finding out the truth, so he has a lot of time before he can exact revenge on the perpetrator(s).
- Semi-subverted: Isshin does state exacting vengeance on the murderer(s) will only lead to the cycle repeating against Teppei, while adding it's perhaps not what his mother would want. The final episode ultimately subverts it: Teppei does discover the identity of the murderer, but spares the villain's life.
- Big Bad: Haltman, just because Isshin caught him red-handed pickpocketing.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Nezu talking to the viewers in the Hot Springs Episode. Lampshaded by Teppei:Teppei: Who are you talking to?
- Breast Attack: Charlotte receives one from Josephine.
- Butt-Monkey: Nezu, oh so much. Poor dude gets Punched Across the Room so many times, but he survives.
- Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Seika towards Teppei, who initially looks down on him as an unwanted newcomer to the student body, with a Well, Excuse Me, Princess! attitude, yet she can't understand why she "can't get him out of [her] head". Eventually, her dislike of him stems from bad history between their two families. Once Teppei resolves the feud, Seika loosens up due to his continued efforts, especially during and after her clothing exhibition.
- Catchphrase: Sylvia's "How shameless!" and Nezu's "Nyoge"
- Censor Steam:
- Upskirt angles and nude shots have shadows covering the naughty bits in the TV anime. In the Hot Springs Episode, the shadows are replaced with steam (obviously).
- Subverted, of course, in the
DVD/Blu-Ray releases, except for the guys'...um...things (which are still blotted out). - Lampshaded in the Picture Drama as black holes.
- Chainsaw Good: Charlotte briefly gets to use one during the Arima Hills lockdown. Teppei nearly believes she pulls it out from nowhere, but was actually taken from a broken store window nearby.
- Chekhov's Gun: That second motorcycle the Arima Group engineers made for Teppei? Yes, the one with 4 legs, that abomination? Trust us: it's more useful than it looks.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Charlotte, but not when it comes down to love, though. Debatably, too, she's a bonafide example.
- Corner of Woe: Invoked during the Hot Springs Episode, due to Yuu finding it unacceptable that the princess trio insisted on having her share their room instead of the maid's quarters.
- Covert Pervert: During the hot springs trip, Teppei and his friends get reprimanded by the girls for trying to peep on them while they were bathing. But, to everyone's surprise, Yuu openly admits that she didn't mind at all and would've gladly shown Teppei her naked body if he had simply asked.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Apparently the proper response for being lectured when caught red-handed engaged in pickpocketing, instead of honestly asking for help because you're in dire straits, without even considering the latter, is to spend your entire life plotting to murder the entire family of the guy who caught you.
- Easily Forgiven: Hartmann and Josephine are forgiven for all their crimes (including kidnapping and murder), even though they have little to no redemptive qualities.
- Evil Is Petty: The reason why Hartmann has kidnapped and killed in order to ruin the Arima family? Apparently as a kid, he was scolded by Isshin for trying to pickpocket him. Yeah...
- Expy: Seems the design of the main female characters are a Shout-Out of sorts to Fate/stay night: Seika to Rin; Yuu to Sakura; Charlotte, surprisingly at some point to Rider (Minus the purple hair), and obviously Sylvia to Saber.
- And if you look at Teppei and Charlotte, you can somehow get the feeling that you are looking at small versions of Kiritsugu and Irisviel (including the Rescue Romance stuff)...
- Fictional Country: Charolotte and Sylvia hail from the made-up countries of "Hazelrink Principality" and "Flemish Principality of Eastern Europe". While "Flemish" is an actual word that serves as the adjectival form for Flanders
, a real-life polity/region currently split between Belgium, France and the Netherlands, as well as referring to the variety of Dutch language spoken within the Belgian portion of Flanders (thus fitting with Sylvia's Dutch-sounding name), it is not independent country and is actually located in Western Europe, so the name comes across as more of a description of the country than an actual name. - First Girl Wins: Charlotte, if the player so chooses in the visual novel.
- Flung Clothing: Sylvia's somehow able to change from her biker outfit to her usual one, while falling straight down, head first, from jumping off a helicopter, then taking out a few thugs before landing safely. On her feet. Without a parachute.
- Genre Savvy: During the Hot Springs Episode by one of Teppei's unnamed guy friends. Poor bloke knows that he's going to be the second person to be sacrificed for the mission and he accepts his fate with dignity. He even goes so far as to Lampshade it himself before he goes down.
- Girlish Pigtails: Seika's very prominent hairstyle, apparently part of her tsundere image. She does let her hair down, occassionally.
- Hot Springs Episode: Filled with A LOT of Lampshade Hanging and hilarious fourth wall destruction.
- Iaijutsu Practitioner: Teppei; apparently, knowing kendo makes you an instant expert at it.
- Imagine Spot: Charlotte's two friendly captors indulge in quite a bit of this.
- Impossibly-Low Neckline - Charlotte often achieves this.
- Job Title
- Megaton Punch: Executed by Teppei after deflecting bullets with a broken wooden sword.
- Meido: Yuu, who doubles as a romantic interest and a highly skilled computer hacker.
- Mythology Gag: Sylvia is the focus for the H-OVAs, but Teppei also daydreams of Yuu "servicing" him too.
- No Name Given: Teppei's father is simply "Mr. Kobayashi" in the visual novel; the TV anime never gives him a name, either.
- No Pregger Sex: Averted in the visual novel: Teppei manages to get Yuu pregnant before the end of her route, while Charlotte is carrying sometime during her story. Since there's a requisite number of love scenes per character...
- Not What It Looks Like: Sylvia decides to greet her fiance at school, as propriety demands. She walks in on Teppei bent over her childhood friend as she's sprawled on top of a desk.
- Preclimax Climax: In the H-OVA, Sylvia leaves the Arima estate to defend her kingdom, after learning they were at war with the neighboring Principality. But knowing she'd be risking her life in battle, she expresses her love for Teppei by letting him have his way with her the entire night. She leaves the following morning and entrusts Yuu to satisfy Teppei's urges until she returns.
- Redemption in the Rain: In episode 10 of the anime, when the main cast minus Charlotte learn that she's been abducted from under their nose, Teppei walks out from the overhang, and it begins raining immediately. The episode title happens to translate to Loss and Rebirth.
- Rescue Arc: Teppei rescues Charlotte at the beginning of the series, but the straighter exmaple takes place when he and the girls (forming a semi-Improbably Female Cast / Amazon Brigade) heads off to rescue Charlotte from terrorists plotting to discredit Isshin and Vincent's financial empires, lead by Charlotte's fiancé Haltman, who faked his own death by his secretary Josephine.
- Say My Name: Charlotte tearfully calls out for Teppei while she's bound in a locked hotel room, hearing him as he does the same.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: In the TV anime, Charlotte is very grateful to Teppei rescuing her from Haltman and shows her appreciation in a... very un-ladylike fashion. The audience doesn't see what happens, but her lines and Sylvia's reaction to the display of affection tell the whole story.
- Show Within a Show: Magical Knight Maria-chan, which is metafictionally confusing: it stars Maria van Hossen, Sylvia's kid sister, except the DVDs contain previews for episodes of the series, and those previews seem to take place in-universe!
- Shy Blue-Haired Girl: Yuu has been grateful ever since being adopted by Isshin and becoming a maid of his household. So she's acutely aware of her station and feels self-conscious whenever Teppei, or any of the princesses treats her as an equal (and even chastises them for it). She does agree to address Teppei on a First-Name Basis, though still adding "-sama" to it, upon insistence. Additionally, she reveals her skills as a computer hacker during the Rescue Arc, when she and the other maids of the Arima household access the hotel server from their computer laboratory.
- Tamer and Chaster: Played straight with the TV series, subverted with the OVAs.
- Techno Babble: Seriously, DNA-based computer viruses?
- This is taken directly from the 2007 Transformers film by Michael Bay.
- Thanks for the Mammary: During the very first episode.
- Those Two Guys: Ayano and Erika Takezono, who almost always follow Seika around. Then there are those two, nameless guys who tagged along with Teppei and Nezu during the Hot Springs Episode.
- And then those two bandits that watched over Charlotte.
- Tsundere: Seika, a Type B example.
- Wire Dilemma: Solved via Sylvia choosing the wire to cut according to her panties' color.
