Genre: Comedy/Romance
Company: Group TAC
Format: 2 OVA
Dates: 1992
As Nonoka Aida’s father lay on his deathbed, his last words were that he wanted Nonoka to marry Hajime, one of her childhood friends. Hajime is very much in love with Nonoka and has their marriage arranged a few days ahead of time, but not everyone agrees with this step that Nonoka is taking early in her life.
summary by Eek
Reviewed: 07/09/2003 by
Grade: 43% 
Highs: Good opening theme song
Lows: Just about everything else
Despite a decent opening theme song, Princess Army is a classic example of how you should not judge a book by its cover. Two OVA episodes do not do the manga any justice; instead, it creates something that is almost entirely different and borders on incoherence.
Where do I begin? We are given a group of characters who have a semi-defined plot, but practically nothing is explained. These characters had the perfect opportunity to expand on themselves, but they toss away each chance just for comedy that falls flat on its face or bargain bin-quality drama; even a few characters remain nameless despite the amount of time they are on screen and talking. While trying to create a shoujo romance, practically every romantic aspect is trivialized by the attempts at comedy. The mix of bland and clichéd characters with a weak plot does not yield very good results at all.
On the technical level, Princess Army is mediocre… at best. The seiyuu cast merely does its job, neither shining nor failing. The art and animation is average, as if the two episodes were from a television series rather than an OVA; a lack of artistic detail and the general overuse of money-saving animation tactics do not compensate for a bare bones plot and flat characters. As was said already, the opening theme song is good, but the rest of the soundtrack does not flavor the anime at all and is about as tasteless as elevator music.
While other anime have tried to stuff multiple manga volumes into a short period of time (Akira, anyone?), Princess Army tries to only tell a small part of the manga… and fails horribly. I think Nonoka’s reaction to Hajime’s attempted rape of her sums up this anime: it should be forgotten.
Princess Army can be downloaded legally in the United States HERE.
Anime Academy 