Whenever you look at certain titles, you seem convinced in yourself that you know what's going to happen but this anime really manages to throw a curve ball at the last possible minute. Today I review Petite Princess Yucie.

Yucie is 17 years old, only she's stuck in a ten year old's body; she gets selected to attend the Princess Academy run by the country's ruling monarch Queen Ercell. The purpose of attending this Princess Academy is to select the Platinum Princess who is selected every thousand years to wear the Eternal Tiara and have their wish granted; but to gain the title, Yucie alongside other cursed 17 year olds in ten year old bodies must work together to show the true virtues of being a Princess while recovering the fragments for the Eternal Tiara, which include action, volunteer work, dancing and Idol singing??? (It makes sense in context) The other cast members include Cocoloo the Spirit, Glenda the Demon, Elmina the Angel and Beth the Fairy all alongside stewards that support them in every way possible.
Now from all this, you've got the plot to Sofia the First in Animeland right?
WRONG!!!
This has the most surprising depth of any series of the same genre; yeah it's clearly a show for girls and it would probably be no surprise that it gets in a lot of cutesy stuff but once you get into character depth you discover some surprising truths.
Glenda has family issues as her dad can't run the Demon World properly while acting like a doting father which caused her mother to leave, so becoming the Platinum Princess may give her father the motivation to do his job properly again.
The realm of heaven is revealed to be a world obsessed with perfection so when Elmina messes up a dance routine she suddenly acquires a fear of failure as well as losing the respect from her father.
Cocoloo worries she has no presence at all..........She's a ghost.............I got nothing.
Beth on the other hand has to deal with an invader in her world named Diaboros, with such dangers affecting her world she resorts to desperate measures to win the Tiara.
Yucie doesn't really have a motivation other than wanting to be tall, which is lazy but then again supporting casts have often made up for cookie cutter female protagonists in Shoujo Anime.
I'm not really going to mention Prince Arc, he's very much a typical anime Prince but one side character that needs a mention is Gunbard.
Apart from having an awesome name, Gunbard is also a former knight who served the younger Queen Ercell. He actually found all the pieces of the Eternal Tiara and restored it all for the love of Queen Ercell only for Ercell to marry someone else while he was away, although he reluctantly continued to serve her, he would later find baby Yucie summoned by some kind of magic, so he adopted her and raised her as his own daughter, a great background story for an unexpected character.
Speaking of unexpected the last few episodes were an act of sheer genius in plot twists, I won't spoil it but lets say you're an expert on Shojo anime and you've probably guessed the ending by say the Pop Idol episode, then you get to the climax and you expect to see the ending you predicted only for the show to throw a complete curve ball that's unexpected and so well executed that you have to give credit to the writers for doing it, and on a series that's based on the Princess Maker Sim games to boot. Nice job Gainax, even with relatively small productions you can still make good anime.
Final Verdict: It's a really good series. It may drag in some episodes but the more in-depth plot points really save it from falling into a cliche pit and the ending is downright memorable. The dub is pretty decent for a late ADV production as well. Pick it up, you won't be disappointed.