YMMV / Isabelle of Paris

• Captain Obvious Reveal: Anyone familiar with Osamu Ichikawa's voice could have guessed that Count Red's true identity is Andréa. Come on, he literally has Prince Heinel's Evil Laugh.
• Common Knowledge: The anime is so obscure it lacks a Wikipedia page, and is still prone to this.
  • Many websites including MyAnimeList and AnimeNewsNetwork write this as the anime's synopsis:
    The Main character is a 15 year old Isabelle Laustin, other characters being her parents Leon and Marie, Isabelle`s friends Jean and his sister Marie, and Isabelle`s suitor, Captain Victor. When Paris is beseiged and Napoleon III`s army is defeated, Isabelle escapes to London, disguised as a boy, and engages in secret agent stuff.
  • There are many things wrong with this description.
    • Jean doesn't have a sister named Marie, let alone a sister at all. He's an only child. It's Isabelle who has a sister who's one of the show's main characters, Geneviève. Marie is the name of Isabelle's mother.
    • Captain Victor isn't Isabelle's suitor. While Isabelle has a one-sided crush on him, he's betrothed to her sister. Despite this, Geneviève is secretly in love with Jules, her piano teacher, and eventually breaks off their engagement to marry him. Because Jules is a commoner, Leon and Marie disown Geneviève, to the horror of Isabelle. Victor never stops loving Geneviève even after this fact and dies heartbroken as he mutters her name, meaning Isabelle never got the guy.
    • Isabelle doesn't engage in "secret agent stuff" until seven episodes into the anime, and even then, it's only an arc. Most of the anime is about the class divide between the Bourgieoisie and the commoners, the oppression of the Parisians, Jules and Geneviève's Tragic Romance, Andréa staving off the Prussians and Thiers' betrayal of Paris.
    • The description implies that Isabelle escapes to London right after the besieging of Paris, when in actuality Isabelle and the Laustins fled to Versailles, where Isabelle learned of the secret conspiracy against France. She went to London on Geneviève's orders, who was working with La Résistance in Paris.
    • The description fails to mention that she returns to France after escaping to London^note Though the "Everyone Dies" Downer Ending implies that she'll start a new life elsewhere.
• Crosses the Line Twice: An unintentional example in episode 2. Geneviève slapping Jules because he told her to marry the fiance her parents chose for her. She then scolds him for telling her what to do.
• Mood Whiplash: in episode 1, while the Bourgeoisie are having a dance party, they are suddenly informed by General Gambetta that the Prussians have destroyed the French army and they are coming to France. The scene then cuts back and forth between the partygoers dancing at the ball and soldiers of the French military being brutally slaughtered, alongside imagery that implies the Prussians went on a scourge of France post-victory.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Isabelle is voiced by Mami Koyama, a.k.a. Arale, Queen Serenity and Minky Momo.
  • Victor is voiced by Kazuyuki Sogabe, a.k.a. Psycho Mantis.
• The Scrappy: Many fans were put off by Jean's stalkerish behaviour towards Isabelle and his inability to take "no" for an answer. Thus, they didn't feel bad when he died.
• Spiritual Successor: To La Seine No Hoshi, which was released four years earlier. Both are set in olden times France and center around innocent French girls who become freedom fighters and fight for the oppressed after witnessing how the elites abuse their power. Both also become entangled in the messy political scene of French society.
• Values Dissonance:
  • In episode 3, Isabelle rejects a rose Jean gave her. Her reason?
    Isabelle: "You're ten years too young to be hitting on me!"^note Keep in mind, both Isabelle and Jean are no older than fifteen.
  • While it may have been deliberate, Geneviève has a crush on her piano teacher, who's known her since she was very young. This creates a power imbalance between the two, and it gets even worse when it's revealed that he impregnated her.
  • Isabelle's response to Victor praising her for repairing the puncture in hot air balloon also counts.
    Isabelle: "Women are good at sewing."
  • Irma encapsulates many unfortunate stereotypes of Romani people, such as playing the tambourine, working in a circus, and being Andréa's sensual Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It doesn't help that she's introduced as being part of a gang that steals and sabotages for a living (granted, they are depicted as heroic and mostly white).
• Values Resonance:
  • Geneviève rejecting the Bourgeoisie's classism and choosing to pursue the man she loves anyway. Her speech to Jules is especially resonating.
    Geneviève: "Stop it! I'm so sick of other people making decisions for me! I am a woman! Do not decide me for me what my happiness is!"