is an anime series, which was produced by Gainax, aired from 2002 to 2003, and ran for 26 episodes. The story centers on Yucie, a 17-year-old who is trapped in a 10-year-old's body, and follows her and her friends, all of whom are designated as Platinum Princess candidates. A Platinum Princess receives the Eternal Tiara, which grants any wish, but only to the one it judges worthy and only one wish. The anime was licensed by ADV Films in North America. As of September 1, 2009, the series is now licensed by ADV's successor, AEsir Holdings; with distribution from Section23 Films.
The show is loosely based on Princess Maker franchise, sharing the same character designer (Takami Akai) and many of the plot elements, such as franchise regular Cube (serving as the player's butler in each game) also appearing as the butler of Yucie.
Plot summary
Country-girl Yucie is admitted by chance to the prestigious Princess Academy, where the daughters of royalty and nobles attend to learn magic, dance, etiquette, defense, art and music. She embarks on a quest to collect the "fragments" of the Eternal Tiara in hopes that she may become the legendary Platinum Princess, who is chosen every 1,000 years. Yucie, along with the four other rivaling Princess candidates, must grow in heart to become worthy of the Tiara. Yucie is a spunky heroine who, despite her common lifestyle, is actually the daughter of a noble and former hero who has retreated from courtly life and lives in the countryside. She was discovered as a baby when Gunbard, the former Hero, found her during a battle.
The fragments take the form of Crystal Flowers and are scattered throughout the five worlds; Human, Demon, Heaven, Spirit, and Fairy. Strangely enough, the five candidates Yucie, Glenda, Elmina, Cocoloo and Beth are representatives of these five existing worlds. As the legend goes, once the Eternal Tiara is complete, it will select the Princess from the worthy candidates and grant her one wish.
Blindly pursuing her lifelong desire to grow up and be treated like an adult, Yucie must prove her worthiness to the Tiara and sets out to do community service as part of the academy's special Curriculum for the candidates, such as tending flowers, babysitting a giant fluff ball, helping to run an old church, helping to run a bakery, and overseeing a kindergarten picnic. Each task seems easy at first, but problems abound. It is later discovered that all the candidates are under the same 10-year-old "curse" and their rivalry quickly turns into admiration for one another's determination in reaching their common goal. Yucie and her friends each have a reason for desperately wanting to become the Platinum Princess.
In a side-story arc, Yucie is also hoping to find clues about the lost prince of the Human realm, who once saved her life while she was lost in the forest, looking for Sunset Blossoms, and whom she wishes to meet in person some day to thank him. Her memory of him is vague, and he was an adolescent at the time, so she has no idea what he may look like now or what kind of person he has become. When she encounters a young man named Arc during one of her odd jobs who looks so familiar; she has conflicted feelings. Arc is rude, patronizing, unfeeling and insensitive, yet she feels drawn to him. The prince was her childhood romantic ideal, but her seventeen-year-old heart falls for Arc. However, Arc is actually Prince Arrow in disguise.
As the girls continue to grow emotionally, their Platinum Princess candidate pendants grow in beauty and brightness as well, reflecting how much wisdom they have obtained. Yucie and the others finally realize why the Fairy World princess was so troubled and uncooperative when Beth reveals that her father, King of the Fairy Realm, is dying. The girls are resolved in helping their friend and saving the Fairy Realm by defeating the ancient evil Diablo who threatens the existence of all the worlds. With the combined help of their stewards and friends, the girls succeed with the power they obtained as candidates, but the prince is badly injured.
The final test begins, in which a magical judge will oversee the Tiara's choice. Yucie's only wish now is to save the prince with the power of the Tiara.
Upon entering the place of judgment, Yucie and her friends meet a mysterious figure. Out of friendship for Yucie, and to support her wish to save Prince Arrow, Glenda, Cocoloo, Elmina, and Beth all renounce their candidacy, making Yucie the only choice. The Tiara accepts Yucie as its new master. However, the girls realize that those not chosen by the Tiara will vanish. Yucie refuses to accept the Tiara when she learns this and tells the others she is determined to save the Prince some other way.
After careful thought, Glenda, Cocoloo, Elmina, and Beth ask the judge to erase Yucie's memories of them, so that she can return to the Human Realm in time to save the prince. In a tearful final goodbye, Glenda, perhaps Yucie's strongest rival, tells her to never forget to be her cheerful self. After Yucie leaves, the remaining four sketch a portrait of themselves and Yucie on a stone slab, in remembrance of their friendship, and disappear.
Yucie returns to save Prince Arrow and collapses from exhaustion. The Eternal Tiara disappears after its owner makes her wish, its power quelled by Yucie's strength of heart. Yucie awakens to the keen sense that she has lost something of great importance to her, but cannot remember what. Her father, Gunbard, feels responsible for her misery, since he was the one who put the Tiara together and restarted the Legend in their lifetime. With the help of the fathers of the missing girls, he opens the gateway to the place of judgment so Yucie and Prince Arrow can retrieve what was lost.
Yucie faces the cloaked figure once more and demands that what was lost be returned. The ruined empty world that was the place of judgment is actually the lost Magic World, a sixth realm. The judge was actually a Platinum Princess Candidate 1,000 years ago, a princess of the Magic Realm, who refused the Tiara to save her friends, but lost her friends and her world to destruction as a result.
Yucie finds Cocoloo's drawing, which breaks the judge's spell and unlocks her memories. The princess of the Magic Realm chides Yucie for not accepting her fate, but Yucie tells her how important friends are, as they are her true strength. With her power as the Platinum Princess, her tears shine brightly on the ground, causing a miracle.
All the spirits of the Magic Realm rush to Yucie, who can now hear them. She tells the princess of the Magic Realm that all who died there still love her, and that they have always been with her these 1,000 years, and they never regretted fighting alongside her to the very end. The judge realizes that she had never been alone and that she had made the right choice in trying to save her friends. Yucie's power covers the ground with Sunset Blossoms, and a Crystal Flower emerges from the ground to the hands of the Princess of the Magic Realm. The sixth and final fragment is added to the Eternal Tiara. Together, the former and present Plantinum Princess combine their strength to make Yucie's wish come true. The Magic Realm finally collapses after its last princess, smiling with joy, disappears.
In the end, Yucie and her friends are readmitted into the academy. With the curse lifted, and the Eternal Tiara again fragmented and sealed, they can finally grow up and enjoy their mutual friendship.
Characters
Platinum Princess Candidates
Similar to the classic Princess Maker tradition, Yucie was found as an infant by the knight Gunbard after a battle, and became his adopted daughter. Due to an unknown curse, she stopped growing at the age of ten, and looks like a child although she is now seventeen. Yucie is very cheerful and gregarious, but she has a very strong desire to break her curse and become an adult. One of the reasons is that she often feels that being small in size is a hindrance to others, thus wishing to grow up. Yucie becomes a Platinum Princess candidate after she sees the light of the Eternal Tiara, which is not visible to others. It is also said that she is the princess of the Human World, as shown in the last episode. Although there is no evidence to prove it, her adoptive father, Gunbard, recognizes her as the princess of the collapsed castle during the battle he was last involved in, as he saw Yucie descending on a forest near the ruins. When she met Arc, she got mad at him for calling her huge forehead but falls in love with him later on. She starts to recognize Arc as the prince who saved her as a child. Her theme color is orange.
As Princess of the Demon World (Underworld), Glenda was fiercely competitive and has strong magical powers. She immediately butted heads with Yucie, her rival to become the Platinum Princess. Glenda was a bragger who frequently proclaims herself as"fantastic" and "elegant", and was also often selfish, jealous, and temperamental. But she has a sweet side which she tries to hide, when they went to Underworld when the Kobolds welcomed them, and eventually becomes very close friends with Yucie (perhaps, even overly protective of her), even though she denies to admit it. Throughout her friendship with her new friends, she changes to more honestly enjoy friendship and have fun with her friends. She is seventeen, but like the others, has the body of a ten-year-old, although she looks rather developed. She desires to be the platinum princess because she wishes to become an adult. She believes if she becomes an adult, her dad will do his job as lord of the Demon World properly, her mother would return, and she would have the power to protect all of the demons living in the demon world. Her theme color is red.
Cocoloo is a soft-spoken young woman who becomes Yucie's friend very early in the series. She is a fellow student at the Princess Academy (later revealed to be the Princess of the Spirit World), who wears tiny spectacles at the end of her nose, with her chief characteristics being self-effacing, self-humiliating and gentle. Cocoloo is so gentle that she is often ignored and talked-over by the much louder Yucie and Glenda, which causes Cocoloo to lament that she "has no presence after all" (Which is rather ironic, as Cocoloo is the princess of the Spirit World). However, Cocoloo is amazingly kind and encouraging towards her friends, which makes an impression on everyone who gets to know her. She also suffers from a curse that makes her look ten, even though she is seventeen. Due to her being a Spirit, almost all physical attacks are useless on her, just as shown when Diabolos' tentacle tried in vain to impale her. Her theme color is blue.
As the Princess of Heaven (Celestial Realm), Elmina wears white robes and has wings. Elmina is very studious and fastidious, even emotionless and monotonous voice, and a bit of a humorless goody-two-shoes. When she was younger, her stern father (who is the King of Heaven) would not tolerate imperfection. Elmina tries very hard to be perfect, and she is also very hard on herself whenever she makes a mistake. Once she makes a mistake or believes she failed, she will be depressed and lose her confidence to keep going, because of her sad memories with her father in the past, leading her to have an emotionless expression. With her new friends at the Princess Academy, Elmina slowly learns to be more secure and not to give up, even when she fails. Elmina is also the tallest of the 5 candidates. Looks ten, but is actually seventeen as a result of the same curse. Her theme color is pink.