Sister Princess (anime)

Sister Princess

The Twelve Sisters, as depicted in the anime
シスター・プリンセス
Genre Harem
TV anime
Directed by Kiyotaka Ohata
Studio ZEXCS
Licensed by ADV Films
Network TV Tokyo
English network The Anime Network
Original run April 4, 2001 – September 26, 2001
Episodes 26 (List of episodes)
TV anime
Sister Princess: Re Pure
Directed by Tsubame Shimodaya (Stories Part)
Nagisa Miyazaki (Characters Part)
Studio ZEXCS
Network TV Tokyo
Original run October 2, 2002 – December 25, 2002
Episodes 13 (List of episodes)
Anime and Manga Portal

Sister Princess (シスター・プリンセス?) is an anime television series, based on the manga and video game series of the same name. The television series was aired from April 4 - September 26, 2001, ran for 26 episodes, and 6 volumes of videos were released on VHS and DVD. ADV Films licensed the show for its North American release. E-Kids handles the Chinese dubs of the show in DVD and VCD under the title 妹妹公主 (Mèi Mèi Gōng Zhǔ).

Contents

Synopsis

Wataru Minakami fails an entrance exam and therefore is left behind by his friends. He suddenly finds out that his father has enrolled him in a school in Promised Island and is suddenly whisked there. Upon arrival, he finds out that he has twelve sisters who look forward to spend his time with them. He has to face to a decision to go back to his possibly stereotypical lifestyle in Tokyo or be in Promised Island together with his sisters.

Anime-exclusive characters

The following characters listed here are those who appear only in the anime. One can refer to the main article for the information about Wataru and the twelve sisters.

Mamimi Yamagami (山神眞深美 Yamagami Mamimi?)
Mamimi, or Mami (眞深) for short, is initially regarded by those new to the anime as the "13th sister." In fact, like the sisters, she has a pet name for Wataru: An-chan (あんちゃん). However, she is just a girl posing as one of Wataru's sisters after he mistakes her as such, and she is sent by someone to watch over him and break him away from the sisters so she can bring him back to Tokyo.
Mami can be regarded as a pseudo-antagonist because of her mission, but she mostly acts as comic relief, even learning why the sisters love him very much. Eventually, she becomes a source of advice to Wataru and even goes after him when he returns to Tokyo, hoping to return him to the island.
In marked contrast to the sisters themselves, Mami treats him differently, acting as if she is more of a friend than a sibling (though towards the ending of the series, however, there are some hints that Mami might be developing deeper feelings towards Wataru). Furthermore, she doesn't bring a lot of things to Promised Island (only clothes and camping gear) with a hand-held computer and possibly a sewing machine as (arguably) her only luxuries.
Although she is not really Wataru's sister, she is somebody's sister. She always receives e-mails from her real brother, demanding whatever happened to Wataru and her plans to bring him back, much to her chagrin.
Towards the end of the series, it is confirmed that Akio, Wataru's friend in Tokyo, was Mami's older brother. The two are initially seen to have a bad relationship, with Akio treating his sister more as an agent than as a sibling and her caring little for him. Akio accuses Mami of having grown decadent on Promised Island, whereas she finds his intentions for Wataru to be distasteful. Later, they seem to be growing a little closer to each other, Mami managing to playfully tease Akio and him reminiscing a little about their past together; apparently she used to address her brother with the nickname she has bestowed on Wataru, 'An-chan'.
Voiced by: Kyoko Hikami (Japanese), Christine Auten (English)
Taro Yamada (山田太郎 Yamada Tarō?)
Yamada is the third ferry passenger who goes with Wataru and Mami to Promised Island so he would enroll at the school there.
Like Mami, he also provides comic relief to the show, acting as an odd-ball casanova and makes friends with Wataru so he can have a girlfriend. This is especially evident when he calls Wataru lucky for having very pretty sisters and dreams of spending his time with them. To this purpose, he would do anything to get their attention. Despite his odd behaviour, Yamada does have some redeeming traits; he can work very hard if he is properly motivated and refrains from doing anything truly scandalous.
It is worth noting that although none of the sisters shows any romantic interest in Yamada, they do seem to place a considerable amount of trust in him, probably because he is vocal about being friends with Wataru. Karen enlists his aid as a sympathetic ear for Wataru on one occasion, and Shirayuki listens to him when he says Wataru needs "nutrition for the heart", meaning she should make him much more food because it makes him feel manly (Yamada only said this because he wanted some of Shirayuki's cooking for himself and thought he could eat whatever Wataru can't).
When he is not spending his time with the sisters, Taro focuses his attention to anything related to a fictional anime called Garban (a parody of Gundam). Some of the episodes actually end with him watching Garban; these often involve either Yamada or one of the characters to make a comment that mimicks Wataru's own situation. Eventually, he manages to outgrow this obsession, when he is provided with a surplus of Garban material. His fascination with the fairer sex remains as strong as ever, though.
Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi (Japanese), Greg Ayres (English)
Akio Yamagami (山神燦緒 Yamagami Akio?)
Akio is Wataru's best friend back in Tokyo and the recipient of Wataru's e-mails which the latter writes at the beginning and end of almost every episode.
He has plans to have himself, Wataru, and another friend, Minai, to go to the same high school together and eventually become the elite men in society. But this plan fails after Wataru's failure in the entrance exam. The continuation of his plan is the reason why he sent his little sister Mami to watch over Wataru. At the end of the anime, Akio is jarred from his own vision of the future by Wataru's refusal to stay in Tokyo. He follows Wataru to Promised Island in the company of Mami and enrolls there, according to him in an effort to find out 'what is truly cool', based on a comment from Mami that his original plans for the future weren't.
Considering the fact that Akio transfers into the same class as Mami and Wataru, he and Mami must be nearly the same age. It is unknown whether they share only one parent or both.
Voiced by: Ryotaro Okiayu (Japanese), Chris Patton (English)
Jiiya (じいや?)
Jiiya (or Jeeves in the English dub) is, simply put, Wataru's old butler, who reports to Wataru in the first episode that he was leaving because he had promised Wataru's father that he would take care of Wataru until he graduated from junior high school and then sent Wataru to Promised Island. However, since then, Jiiya has been seen in numerous different guises just to watch over him, too, especially on his past.
One should take note that he should not be confused with Aria's maid, whom she also calls Jiiya.
Voiced by: Toshihide Tsuchiya (Japanese), John Swasey (English)
Dream Girl
This young girl's ghost, wearing a yellow dress and hat, is somehow related to Wataru in some way and frequently appears in strange places. Her identity is never fully established and there is speculation about who she really is. The only certain thing about her is that before Wataru left Promised Island when he was a boy, he made a promise with her and she disappeared soon after for reasons unknown.
In the last episode, part of her face is finally revealed and it resembles a younger version of Karen; many fans believe that Karen was the Dream Girl whom Wataru met many years ago on Promised Island, but it was never confirmed. Alternatively, she may be an amalgam of Wataru's buried memories of his sisters, forgotten until he experienced a time of great stress and lost the way he'd set out on in Tokyo, allowing her to manifest again.
Voiced by: Sakura Nogawa (Japanese), Kim Prause (English)
Minai (皆井?)
Minai is a friend of Akio and Wataru back in Tokyo. When Wataru failed the entrance exam, he was the one who passed instead. His attitude towards Wataru implies that he never treated Wataru as a friend, but only as a rival. He appears in the first and penultimate episodes.
Voiced by: Hisayoshi Izaki (Japanese), Mark X. Laskowski (English)

Ways of address

Below are the forms of addresses that each sister calls Wataru, in order of their first appearance in the anime. Although the main article already lists the Japanese addresses, the table is a comparison of the different addresses with original ones and those used in the English and Mandarin Chinese dubs. This only applies to the anime as the Sister Princess games were never released internationally.

Note that seven of the sisters and Mami call Wataru the same way in the Chinese version (哥哥, gēgē) probably due of the lack of more expressive ways in the Chinese language in addressing one's brother.

Sister How she addresses Wataru
In Japanese
(with Romanization)		 In English
(ADV Dub)		 In Mandarin
(with Pinyin Romanization)
Karen お兄ちゃん (Onii-chan) Big Brother 哥哥 (gēgē)
Sakuya お兄様 (Onii-sama) Dear Brother 哥哥 (gēgē)
Kaho お兄ちゃま (Onii-chama) Brother 哥哥 (gēgē)
Hinako おにいたま (Onii-tama) Bro-Bro 哥哥 (gēgē)
Mamoru あにぃ (Anii) Big Bro 老哥 (lǎogē)
Haruka 兄君さま (Anigimi-sama) Beloved Brother 哥哥大人 (gēgē dàrén)
Marie 兄上様 (Aniue-sama) Brother Mine 哥哥殿下 (gēgē diànxià)
Chikage 兄くん (Ani-kun) Brother Darling 大哥 (dàgē)
Shirayuki にいさま (Nii-sama) Elder Brother 哥哥 (gēgē)
Rinrin アニキ (Aniki) Bro 老哥 (lǎogē)
Yotsuba 兄チャマ (Ani-chama) Brother Dearest 哥哥 (gēgē)
Aria 兄や (Nii-ya) Mon Frère1 哥哥 (gēgē)
Mami2 あんちゃん (An-chan) Bud 哥哥 (gēgē)
^Note 1 : Literally "my brother" in French.
^Note 2 : Not really a sister as noted above, but she pretends to be one, so she too has an address.

Sister Princess RePure

Many fans of Sister Princess were disappointed at the outcome of the anime's first season. To answer this, a 13-episode second season, called Sister Princess RePure was produced, one that is faithful to the magazine stories.

The first twelve episodes in this season are each divided into two parts. The first part features the sisters spending their time with Wataru (who is actually nameless here). The second part highlights a particular sister's story about herself and the brother and is loosely based on the magazine stories published in G's Magazine. The thirteenth episode is a full-length one.

Mami and Yamada each have a small appearance in this series.

Hiroaki Miura plays the brother in this season, which also features Aria's maid, Jiiya.