Princess Princess D

I recently bought this anime/manga series from Makati Square. It's a drama starring real people (as opposed to animated characters) called Princess Princess D.

The plot is set in an all-male school in Japan where it is a tradition that freshmen are chosen every year to be the school's princesses. These guys would dress up as princesses and attend some school functions, visit clubs and basically be the school's crushes. In return for being princesses, the guys would receive free uniforms, free school supplies and even some allowance. A little bit of a stretch of imagination but still acceptable, especially if you come from the Philippines where education is held in high regard but not everyone has the resources to finish school.

The Princess system is implemented by the Student Council. The real story begins when a new guy enrolls in the school. He's a guy who walks slowly, snaps his fingers while he walks and basically what you would consider a cool guy. He becomes so popular that the Student Council President and his cohorts distrusts him. And they were right, this new guy plans to change the schools tradition and "set up fireworks". I find this intriguing, until I found out what his plans were. On the day that the Princesses were having their "Princess Hour" show (during lunch time - as a way to reestablish their waning popularity), this new guy shuts down electricity to the room that the Princesses were broadcasting their show from and ta da! comes up with his (and two other guys') own show as . . . DARK PRINCESSES. What?!

From then on, I lost interest in the series and fast forwarded to the end. Having some guys dress up as princesses is a little bit of a stretch. But having a new popular guy try to bring down a school tradition by becoming a Dark Princess is too much of a stretch. He could have invited girls to the school during school events and functions, but no. In the end, it turns out that the new guy is a brother (or a half brother) of the student council president and they have some dramatic confrontation but I lost interest and didn't bother to understand what it is all about.

This is a story that can only come out of the anime/manga of Japan.