When I sat down to watch Princess Principal, I couldn’t tell you what I thought it would be, but damn if I wasn’t surprised.  I guess I expected some kind of “cute girls doing edgy spy things” and, to some extent, that’s sort of the zoomed out view of things.  However, it’s so much more.  As The Afictionado put it when we were talking on Twitter earlier, this show is more of “a steampunk fantasy full of spy intrigue and reminiscent of Baccano!”

And that’s freaking sick.

Take a steampunk setting in turn of the century London, split London with the idea of post-WWII Berlin (including the wall), add in a helping of fun pseudo-science, pour in a cast of charming characters, and then top the whole thing off with a great soundtrack and you’ve got yourself what I’m watching this season.  This dish was delish, and if this rest of the series is anything like the first episode, then I’ll be craving more and more over the next few weeks.

Damn, if this setting isn’t awesome looking.

So, to get this out of the way, our cast of characters are girls who currently all go to a prestigious school for nobles and higher class, though not all of them seem to come from that background.  Set in an alternate version of London, the school hosts a few spies for the government on one side of the London Wall, a wall that separates the “Kingdom of Albion” and the “Commonwealth of Albion”, a division not just in physical location but also in ideology, if the communist-esque banners in the quick expository intro were any indication.  The cast work as one of two (so far) groups of spies employed for various missions.  Using the school as a home base, the girls are given various missions that see them heading to the other side of the wall for reconnaissance, assassinations, rescuing defectors, and whatever else needs done.

What I’ve enjoyed so far, is that with so much going on, the show gives us the info only when we need it, never getting too lost in details and forgetting the plot.  Because of this, aside from a relatively quick front load of exposition, all the other information is given out about as often as the girls get it, purely on a need to know basis. This assists the pacing but also matches the tone of the show, in that we’re purposefully left out of the loop to enhance the tension and uncertainty of everything that’s being shown.  We never really know if we’re following the good guys or even what are the true motives of the powers that be.  While we’re clearly meant to empathize with the main cast, because of a lack of information and the inherently deceitfulness of the characters, we really don’t know a damn thing.  Even when we’re given a small clue as to the backstory of Ange, by the end of the episode, we’re second guessing this as well.

Except this guy.  Everyone clearly knows what’s up with this guy:

Glad to see the bad guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark got work after the film.

This was such a beautiful moment.  This is what hooked me.

This is a good crew holding the reins on an anime original series, which has me super excited to see what all they come up with for this series.  That said, it’s only the first episode so could it be bad?  Sure.  And I think the intentional lack of information could definitely be a double-edged sword if it turns out that way, hooking us in but failing to give sustenance past the first episode.  However, more than last season’s pick for our site, I think we’re showing a lot more promise on this one, both in what was actually shown and who’s behind it all.

Y’all better not be cluing me into something about yourselves, Studio 3Hz…