Its main character is a five-year-old girl named Lynn Russell, the daughter of an English Lord (Sir George Russell/Viscount Marble) and his Japanese second wife (Misuzu Midorikawa). During The Roaring Twenties, Lynn has lived all of her life in Japan, but when she's five her mom decides to travel to England with her so she can meet up with her dad. Too bad that, as Lynn and Misuzu were on their way, their car gets in an accident and Misuzu dies while shielding Lynn...
Lynn wakes up at the hospital and George is next to her. He doesn't tell her off the bat that Misuzu has just kicked it, though; since she's too young to properly understand death, he just tells her she's gone to a "far away place since it was God's will" and doesn't clear it up. Then he takes Lynn to the family home, Marble Mansion, where she has to adapt herself to the British way of life. Though she has the support of her father and her half-sister Sarah Russell, Lynn is bullied by her paternal cousins Thomas and Mary Wavebury, and the Wavebury's mother Baroness Madeleine doesn't like her either. However, even after properly realising that her mom has died, Lynn decides to not give up and promises to her mom's spirit and to herself to become a proper lady and reach for her happiness.
The whole Lady manga/series has the following tropes:
- Adaptation Distillation: The anime changes a lot of content from the manga including George's marriage to Madeleine, Lynn attending school in Japan, Mary coming to Japan to live with Lynn's grandparents, George's wedding and Sarah and Arthur's wedding. Instead, Lynn never returns to Japan and the characters she meets there are woven into the second season under new names, while Mary becomes the final villain of the series.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The anime ends with Lynn winning the Lady's Crest and George never marrying Madeleine, ultimately surviving.
- All Girls Like Ponies: The second season takes place in an elite school for the English, and has a whole club of horse girls - Lynn, Cathy, Vivian and Betty, amongst others, love horses and horse-riding. Lynn later ropes her friends Dorothy and Lara into joining it.
- Alternate Character Reading: Lynn's name is written in kana and can be read as "Rin". Sometimes she is also referred to by the name "Rin Midorikawa", coming from both this and her mom's maiden name.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Has French
, Italian, Korean and Arabic ones. - Ambiguous Time Period: Supposedly taking place in the 1920's, the manga has things such as push-button phones (when candlestick phones would be the norm) and characters dressing in more contemporary fashion.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Madeleine Waverly is an aristocrat and an unlikable bitch, as her two children. Duke Warbawn is also quite mean due to his pride, pressuring George to go the Gold Digger way via marrying Madeleine and refusing to meet Lynn due to being the kid of George's second marriage and half-foreigner.
- Battered Bouquet: When Lynn shows up to the Marble Mansion for the first time, Sarah refuses to acknowledge her as her little sister. Lynn decides to earn Sarah's friendship by surprising her with some flowers and spends the day in the Russell's garden picking out the prettiest ones. When she gives them to Sarah, Sarah, who at this point is angry that Lynn won't take the hint, smacks them away and causes them to burst all over room. Lynn is so hurt she runs away crying, while Sarah tries to hide her own shame. When Arthur retrieves a fainted Lynn, Lynn once again presents Sarah with the flowers she picked. This time, Sarah accepts.
- The Big Race: In the Grand Finale, Lynn rides Andrews in the Olympic games's qualifier race, competing against everyone else from her school, as all the friends she's made throughout the series watch in anticipation. Lynn wins, not only receiving the Lady's Crest, but another unintended reward - her Racist Grandpa who refused to acknowledge her entire life for being half-Japanese, Duke Warbawn, finally accepting her.
- Black-and-White Morality: The original manga by Yoko Hanabusa is this. You're either 100% on board with Lynn, or an unlikable bitch, a jealous rival or a Hate Sink of some kind. The vast majority of the female cast despise Lynn for being more skilled/"better" than them (Sonoko, Sarah, Mary) or because Lynn has a shot with the guy they like (Cathy and again, Mary). Lynn's stepmother is also a horrible, abusive woman, unlike her father who's an angel. The anime adaptation adds grey zones here and there (e.g. Sophie is mean to Lynn because of her mother's abuse, Mary has a few moments of regret and shock after bullying Lynn), while toning down the unlikable characters Lynn meets and and giving them some Adaptational Nice Guy.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the Grand Finale, after Lynn's glittery and lavish Imagine Spot, she turns to the viewer and thanks them for watching. She then states that from now onwards, she will be a Proper Lady, making it sort of a Distant Finale.
- Cats Are Mean: Subverted and played straight. Mary's cat Prince is brash and aggressive, but Lynn's cat Queen is much sweeter. When Mary disowns Prince, he's adopted by Lynn and behaves a little better. Later, Prince and Queen have kittens together.
- Children Are Innocent: Lynn and her classmates are all bundles of energy that love cute things and making each other happy.
- Coming of Age Story: Lady starts with 5 year old Lynn losing her mother in a car accident, her older half-sister wanting nothing to do with her, her own father being away at work and her grandfather rejecting her for being half-Japanese. Lynn also faces severe bullying and maltreatment from her father's would-be wife and her two children, the Waverlys. However, Lynn's spirit isn't broken, and she promises to her mother that she will be a courageous, kind and beautiful Proper Lady. One by one, this Plucky Girl rises through each adversary to find happiness no matter what.
- Creator's Culture Carryover: The anime has Thomas Waverly bowing to his grandfather upon greeting him...the same Thomas Waverly who wants Lynn to get out of England...
- Creator Provincialism: Yōko Hanabusa is a fully Japanese woman who wrote a manga about a half-Japanese girl named Lynn in England. She did, however, travel to England once to get an idea for the storynote .
Word of God is that Lynn was made half-Japanese so Japanese readers could understand her predicament. - Creator Thumbprint: Notice something about Yōko Hanabusa's works?note .
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Arthur and Edward refer to Lynn as "that Chinese girl". This isn't intentional racism, more like them simply not having met a Japanese person before.
- Also, Duke Warbawn is pressures George to marry Madeleine to have a "proper heir" since full-English Sarah is a girl as well as sickly and half-English Lynn is the kid of "an unknown Eastern woman". Sexism and racism, yay!
- Dub-Induced Plotline Change: Of sorts in the Arabic dub. The original Lady!! anime series was composed of two seasons, Lady Lady!! and Hello! Lady Lynn. The Jordanian company that dubbed the anime added the episodes of the second season to the episodes of the first one, and also left out the last final episodes (which were mainly compilation/recaps of the prior ones).
- Exact Eavesdropping: Both Sophie and Vivian happen to hear Mary's plan of blackmailing Lynn at different points in the anime, and tell her to ignore it and follow her dreams.
- Fish out of Water: Half-Japanese Lynn must learn how to assimilate in the good ol' U of K. By the end of the first season, she's embraced her British side and vows to stay in England, and by the end of the second one she's become a Proper Lady, just like she's always dreamed.
- Foreshadowing: In the Lady Lady theme song, Lynn has an Imagine Spot where she dances with Arthur. However, while Older!Arthur looks the same, Older!Lynn has long, thin hair and rounder eyes, and looks like Sarah. In the end of the anime, it is actually Sarah who is Arthur's love interest, not Lynn.
- Giant Poofy Sleeves: The equestrian club uniforms are green, with giant poofy white sleeves.
- Lighter and Softer: The anime omits Sonoko's abuse of Lynn with the riding-crop, George's death, and the angst Misuzu's parents have for not treating her right.
- Lost Wedding Ring: More exactly, stolen-as-a-cruel-prank "Lady's Key". Luckily, Lynn is able to recover it and in the final episode, uses it to open the box Misuzu gave her.
- Love Dodecahedron: Lynn and Sarah both like Arthur. Edward likes Lynn. Arthur likes Sarah. Unfortunately, Vivian also likes Edward. Mary is implied to have feelings for Arthur, hence why she blackmailed him to go the ball with her. By the end of the anime, Lynn ends up with Edward, while Sarah ends up with Arthur.
- Melodrama: From the point of view of a half-Japanese girl living in Britain as a noblewoman, kept in the dark about the fact that her mother was killed off in a car accident and her grandfather refuses to look at her for being mixed-race. Lynn only finds out because her father's potential new wife, and her two children rub it in her face. Lynn continues to face maltreatment from them and upon hearing that her father may marry the aforementioned woman, she's so disgusted she tries to flee back to Japan because she doesn't want her newfound older sister to suffer at her hands, and it takes a lot of convincing for her to stay and the marriage to break off. And the tragedy doesn't even end there, as the woman's daughter is angry about the rejection and schemes to get revenge on the Russells. There's a reason that this series has many sequel manga and a second seriesnote that had nothing to do with the manga - there's just so much material to choose from...
- Merchandise-Driven: The main reason a second anime series was produced was because the first one successfully sold a lot of toys. Hence the Canon Foreigner Lady's Crest gemstone being introduced - Toei thought that it would drive more sales, and they were right.
- Nobility Marries Money: Lynn's father is the Viscount Marble/George Russell, a British aristocrat. When George was young, he was married to his college sweetheart Frances Russell, with who he had his first daughter Sarah, and after she died in childbirth he married a Japanese woman named Misuzu Midorikawa, with who he had Lynn. Lynn lived all her life in Japan and moved to England at the age of five, but Misuzu died in a car accident on the way. Now that George is single and eligible for marriage, his father, Duke Warbawn, pressures him to marry Baron Madeleine Waverly for her wealth because he's in tons of debt for his poor financial decisions. Even though Madeleine has enough money to pay off his debts, George doesn't want to marry her, and opts for earning the money by more ethical means. As the Russells become poorer and poorer, Duke Warbawn's pressure increases, to the point he even offers to accept Lynn (who he previously excluded for being half Japanese) if George marries Madeleine.
- Official Couple: In the manga, Arthur and Sarah become a married couple and Sarah moves to the Brighton house to live as his lawfully wedded wife. Lynn is happy for them, even if she couldn't attend the wedding due to being in Japan. Edward is then inspired to be honest about his feelings for Lynn, and begins being himself around her more. She realizes she loves him too, and they similarly get married when they're of age. In the anime, while they don't marry, it's Arthur & Sarah and Lynn & Edward.
- One-Steve Limit: Sort of averted. Edward's full name is Edward Philip Brighton (though this is only mentioned in the manga) and in the anime, there's an original character named Philip Anderson.
- Phenotype Stereotype: The half-English Lynn is a blonde with green eyes, rather than dark-haired like her mother (though in the anime, her eyes are reddish-pink instead).
- Pink Is Feminine: Many female characters (Lynn, Madeleine, Mary, Vivian) wear pink, though there are exceptions like Sarah/Isabelle (blue) and Sophie (green).
- Private Tutor:
- Sarah is a Delicate and Sickly Ill Girl who's always confined to her room and can rarely go outside. As a result, she has one.
- Madeleine hires one for Thomas and Mary, but the two proceed to taunt her and make her stay miserable. When they're caught, they pin the blame on Lynn. The tutor manages to figure out Lynn is innocent and tells Madeleine, only to be screamed at and then dismissed from service. As she leaves the Marble Mansion, she fondly remembers little Lynn.
- Promotion to Parent: One of Lynn's classmates, Suzie, is being raised by her eldest brother Eric, alongside her other siblings Paul and Nancy.
- Race for Your Love: Not romantic example back then: Edward and Arthur pull this to convince Lynn to not escape from home and return to Japan. In the anime movie, Sarah and George do it instead.
- The Rival: Lynn has several for the Lady's Crest, the trophy for her school's best and more ladylike sportswoman. Vivian, Sophie, Catherine (Friendly Rival) and Mary are among them.
- Shoujo: Lady!! is shoujo to the core, except it has a "hoity-toity elite" filter, and is set in contemporary Britain. It encompasses many stock shoujo tropes such as the Cheerful Child protagonist with a Dark and Troubled Past, a hypercompetetive school laden with Academic Alpha Bitches, a Love Dodecahedron with the main character at the center and some additional drama with the bad blood between the Russells and the Waverlys.
- Shout-Out: There's an episode where Lynn attacks Thomas after weeks and weeks of bullying, and Thomas' mother punishes Lynn as a result while coddling her baby boy. This is near identical to a Candy♡Candy episode where Neil does the exact same thing to Candy. Some people even point out that shot-for-shot, the scenes are similar.
- Snow Means Death: Narrowly averted when Mary steals the Lady's Key, and Lynn goes out in the snow to search for it. Lynn ends up going missing, and Mary fears that Lynn might have actually died while looking for it and is so ashamed she puts the key back (being a rare moment of humility for her, considering she's usually a Manipulative Bitch with a Lack of Empathy). Alexandra finds a fainted Lynn in the wild and brings her back the Marble Mansion, and Mary is never found out for causing the whole situation.
- Surprise Car Crash: This is how Lynn's mother died - she was reminsicing about finally reuniting with George at the Marble Mansion with Lynn, but suddenly, another vehicle appeared and the driver swerved to avoid them....
- Tender Tomboyishness, Foul Femininity: Every Alpha Bitch Lynn meets (Sophie, Mary, Vivian) is always hyperfeminine and place great importance on their appearance, desirability to men and popularity. Downplayed with Lynn - while she is girly herself, she enjoys "boyish" actions such as riding horses and wild sports.
- Time Skip: The first part takes place when Lynn is a little girl, the rest when she's a pre-teenager. And the end happens several years later.
- Tragic Keepsake: Lynn's "Lady Key", a jewelry piece that originally belonged to Misuzu. It's actually the key that opens a vault keeping a valuable heirloom of the Russell clan, but it's not revealed until almost the end of Hello! Lady Lynn.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The car accident that cost Misuzu her life and sent Lynn to Marble Mansion was caused by their car swerving to avoid hitting a child chasing after her and her friends's wayward ball. (In the anime, their car collided headlong with a truck instead.)
- World of Technicolor Hair: The women of the Waverly family have pink hair, while Vivian, Jeanne and Sophie have purple hair. Cathy has greenish-blue hair. Quite a few background characters have blue or purple hair.
- Victorian Novel Disease: Whatever Sarah and Isabelle have - they constantly faint, have low energy and in Sarah's case, very overwhelmed on stress. WMG is that Sarah has hypothyroidism.
