Princess Army is the story of Nonoka's continued quest to discover the identity of her childhood savior and, ideally, fall in love with him. Along the way, she finds herself tangled in the drama of the school's up-and-coming judo club - being the daughter of two famed judoka herself, the club members believe she could be their key to stardom.
The manga ran from 1990 to 1993. A two-episode OVA under the name Princess Army: Wedding★Combat was released in 1992.
This manga provides examples of:
- Ass-Kicking Pose: Justified - all of the poses and moves are based off of real judo maneuvers.
- Attempted Rape: After confronting the delinquents smoking in the judo clubhouse, Kira snaps one of the buttons of her blouse with this implication. Shortly before she escapes, another delinquent bluntly suggests that they do rape her to keep her from telling the teacher.
- Badass Family: The Aida family is made up of...
- Seiichirou Aida and his wife, world-renowned judoka and dojo owners
- Kouji Aida, the ace of Mitsutomo Shouji
- Akira Aida, the current owner and head instructor of the Aida dojo
- Satoru Aida, a popular college judoka
- Nonoka Aida, a Child Prodigy judoka and gold medal Olympian
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: Nonoka blocks an attack from a delinquent kendo club member.
- Beach Chapter: The freshman class is taken on a school swimming trip. Ends up doubling as a big storm chapter.
- Betty and Veronica: Yuuya and Shinobu, respectively.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Yuuya does this often - even using 'the mangaka thinks you're hard to draw' as an insult at one point.
- Nonoka gets her chance in Volume 10, where she compares the official training facilities to the ones seen in Volumes 6 and 7.
- Calling Your Attacks: The announcers will often comment on the judo techniques being used.
- Career-Ending Injury: After Shinobu protected Nonoka from the drunk, the gash on his back caused spinal issues that prevented him from practicing judo ever again.
- Almost occurs to Nonoka after the regional tournament.
- Child Prodigy: Nonoka is stated to be better at judo than all three of her brothers.
- Shinobu's talent was stated to be god-given, however his Career-Ending Injury got in the way
- Combat Commentator: Justified.
- Comically Missing the Point: After being cornered by Kira in the clubhouse.Kira: "Why don't we do something 'good'? This place is dark and quiet. No one else will come to stop us. What do I have in mind? Only one thing."
Nonoka: "...100 ghost stories? No, I'm scared!" - Curb-Stomp Battle: Most matches with Nonoka seem to end this way.
- Dark Horse Victory: The Asamizo judo club is seen as this during their first regional tournament.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Most notably in the cases of Ishizawa, who encourages them to apply for the regional tournament, and Yagyu.
- Enter Stage Window: Yuuya climbs the tree outside of Nonoka's window in order to visit her without going through her brothers.
- Forgotten Friend, New Foe: Shinobu and Yuuya. By the end they seem to have reconciled somewhat, becoming Vitriolic Best Buds
- Game-Breaking Injury: Nonoka suffers from this after being pushed out of a window just before the regional tournament.
- The Glomp: A running joke early in the series was Yoshimi's attempting to do this to Nonoka every morning before school. Every time she ends up flipping him out of pure instinct.
- Gray Rain of Depression: Occurs during the reveal of Nonoka's saviors
- Heir to the Dojo: Nonoka is the daughter of two famous judoka, and the youngest child with three judoka brothers, who lives in a dojo.
- Japanese Delinquents: A group of them used to congregate in the track storage room/judo clubhouse, and one of them inspires Nonoka to sign the club up for the regional tournament.
- Love Triangle: Nonoka find out that her 'savior' is actually two people - Yuuya and Shinobu
- Magic Skirt: Averted, for the few times Nonoka fights without her uniform.
- Meaningful Name: Several of the characters are named after Japanese feudal lords, including.....
- Shinobu Oda is named after Oda Nobunaga
- Yuuya Hashiba is named after Toyotomi Hideyoshi (known as Hashiba Hideyoshi when in Oda Nobunaga's service)
- Tsuyoshi Tokugawa is named after Tokugawa Ieyasu
- Mysterious Protector: Finding out the identity of this person is what drives Nonoka throughout the first part of the series.
- The Olympics
- Ordinary High-School Student
- Parental Abandonment: The Aida's died in a traffic accident years before the start of the manga.
- Rescue Romance: What Nonoka hopes to have when she finds her savior.
- Sacred First Kiss: with Shinobu, forcefully on his end. Nonoka states that she can't forgive him for that.
- Sins of the Father: Yagyu vs. Nonoka. Yagyu's father was accidentally killed when Nonoka's father botched a move during a tournament.
- Thanks for the Mammary: Exploited several times by Tokugawa in order to buy time during his matches. The opponents eventually catch on, however.
- Tournament Arc: Several.
- Training from Hell: Yuuya creates a hellish obstacle course in order to find the judo club's fifth member, including events such as walking across a rope strung over a pool, fifty push-ups, rabbit-jumping up four flights of stairs AND beating Genzaburou in rock-paper-scissors. If you lose, he pushes you back down the stairs.
- Twin Switch: While Nonoka is in rehab for her shoulder, Yuuya sends his brother Masaya in his stead so he can continue training with Shinobu. She notices.
- After Yuuya punches a reporter, Masaya takes the blame to prevent his brother from being banned from any further tournaments.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Toward the end of the series, Yuuya and Shinobu become this.
- Window Watcher: Shinobu seems to be a fan of this.
