jade's Reviews > Princess Princess Ever After

“how does a hero decide who’s worth saving?”

an adorable little comic about two fairy tale princesses who break the mold together.

this experience was a bit like one of those pretty, sugar-spun sculptures. it’s extremely cutesy, looks pretty, and it makes you happy just looking at it -- but then you pop it in your mouth and (1) it’s over in a second and (2) it doesn’t actually have much of a taste.

the set-up of the story is as follows: princess sadie is locked in a tower by an evil sorceress, and princess amira is on the run from a marriage to ‘a stuffy prince’. she saves sadie from her predicament. along the way, they pick up prince vladric, talk down an ogre, and eventually confront the evil sorceress (and their own insecurities).

listen, i love myself a Going Against Restrictive Gender Roles fairy-tale setting, okay? check my shelves if you don’t believe me.

but where this was gorgeously pretty in terms of art style, it was a bit messy in its story and the messages it eventually portrays. and that, honestly, was a pity. i think it’s just a tad too short for all the concepts it’s trying to cover.

it’s still a sweet read, especially for younger (lgbtqia+) readers. there’s a lot in this comic that sets up a framework for social commentary and going against restrictive gender roles -- but unfortunately, the opportunities for exploring this are simply not taken.

first up: amira doesn’t want to be a princess because she wants to do things that aren’t meant for princesses. so she becomes a knight-like figure/captain instead. we never really know the depth of why she ran off (was her being a lesbian the problem, was it that she didn’t want to marry, was it that she wasn’t allowed to fight, or all of that and more?), so when the ending comes around and she still does what her mother intended for her, interpretation gets a bit weird. (view spoiler)[she marries royalty from another country, namely sadie. (hide spoiler)]

then there’s sadie, who struggles with a past where her sister abused her emotionally by calling her weak, fat, stupid, and unfit to rule a kingdom. yet this is never properly unpacked (i.e., looking more closely into body shaming and fatphobia, and how to turn that around and learn to accept yourself). (view spoiler)[to make matters worse, during the confrontation with her sister, sadie accepts that she’s stupid and weak and fat but simply strives never to feel like it’s “a bad thing” again. i... would definitely have not included ‘stupid and weak’ in that. (hide spoiler)]

vladric gets the short end of the stick, too. he’s a side character who’s meant to show the other side of the coin -- that princes grapple with the expectations placed upon their shoulders as well. like with amira, we never really learn why he’s not in touch with his family anymore, and what his actual struggle is. (view spoiler)[he ends up as sadie’s royal advisor in a way that still seems rather… princely-role-compliant? except that he no longer has to rule a kingdom? but we don’t even know whether that was his true problem or not. (hide spoiler)]

(also, amira and sadie call him ‘butthead’ instead of his actual name for the duration of the entire comic. like, even in the epilogue. it just feels juvenile instead of cutesy-friendly because we never really see them become close friends who can pull off assholish nicknames with each other.)

anyway, before any of you will come out and call me a meanie for ripping into a cute kids comic with an adorable princess/princess romance -- i agree that the art is amazing. the intent is lovely. i think it is very sweet.

the gist of it is simply that i’ve seen other children’s media do these sorts of topics better, and i think i am allowed some expectations.

✎ 2.5 stars.