Cursed Princess Club 2 is a good continuation of the series. I was wanting something cozy and wholesome and this mostly is just that. The MLP:FiM emphasis on learning both self-acceptance and how to develop social relationships with ones peers is definitely still a major force, but the fairy tale as well as general gender commentary is also a nice addition. The bit with the Princels seems a little forced in terms of story but it still mostly works as a quick observation on mindset even with the parody involved. A lot of the plot episodes are pretty recognizable; the princes and princesses trying to outwit overprotective king’s instructions to see each other, the birthday party ball episode has two different but still tropey aspects about fangirls and rival lady duel, and not in a bad way. Both are played as advice for being true to yourself and hoping to be accepted for who you really are; poor Maria (Gwen’s oldest sister) has a moment with Blaine’s (her princely fiancé) mother that seems to be a comment on this as well. Frederick, Gwen’s fiancée, also gets some character attention as he’s dealing with starting to pay attention to more than Gwen’s looks as well as some of his own insecurities.
The arc about Gwen getting mysterious messages telling her that the sender can help with her self esteem about her appearance (Gwen’s started seeing herself with a cracked face in the mirror) by making her beautiful helps connect the episodes for the most part, and it actually does help set up the reveal about Prez’s curse and backstory; there’s a double sided joke in here that really works both for the presentation of the information but also for Saffron’s reaction to the info. I also might be seeing more than is there but there’s also a hint that maybe there is some kind of curse on Gwen; the Cursed Princesses see a Pastel royal family portrait and seem to think that given the extreme difference between Gwen and the rest of her family, there might be something dark/magical involved. It could just be they hadn’t realized how different Gwen was from her family, but it’s possible there’s a hint there too. Paired with the occasional gag of mistaking Gwen for a witch (even other witches do this; “Hey! There’s my witch, right there 😊”), it’s possible there might be some sort of reveal coming, but we’ll see.
