Princess Principal Episode 5: More surprising than it should be

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This series continues to be full of surprises. Of course, I don’t mean the whole deal with Chise and her father. That much was pretty obvious. This episode threw a few new things at us. I believe this episode is the first mention of the titular “Principal”, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to gather from it yet.

The episode also showed Princess taking action for the first time, rather than acting diplomatic or standing on the sidelines. Granted, it might just be because Ange is usually overprotective, but it was still nice to see.

The episode started off with a pretty natural opening as well, introducing the disparity between East and West through the commoners on the street. We can easily see the stereotypes that are associated with the East in a way that doesn’t really distract from the episode.

I also respected that the episode went directly into Chise’s introduction after they skipped forward to a second mission with her in last week’s episode. That last episode raises the questions about her character and the next episode immediately handles them. The fights in this episode also looked pretty nice. It’s something you don’t see often in a show like this.

Was I supposed to be conclude that Chise only won the fight because of the sudden collision of the two trains? If would make sense that a sudden stop would fling her forward into Jubei. However, he would theoretically have moved as well, and they should have been affected by the brakes long before the trains collided. Hard to say, but not hugely important.

I also didn’t get this cards scene at all. It mostly distracted me from what the characters were saying because I couldn’t figure out why the soldiers weren’t reacting.