Kuragehime

Ever since her late mother took her to an aquarium when she was young, Tsukimi Kurashita has been obsessed with jellyfish, comparing their flowing tentacles to a princess's white dress. Now living with five other unemployed otaku women, 19-year-old Tsukimi spends her days as a social outcast dreaming of becoming an illustrator.

However, her life changes forever when one day, a beautiful woman unexpectedly helps her save a jellyfish in a local pet store. From then on, the stranger—confident, fashionable, and the complete opposite of Tsukimi and her roommates—begins to regularly visit the girls' building. This trendy hipster, though appearing shallow at first, harbors some secrets of her own, starting with the fact that "she" isn't really a girl at all, but a wealthy male college student named Kuranosuke Koibuchi!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Koibuchi, Kuranosuke Main

Saiga, Mitsuki Japanese

Kurashita, Tsukimi Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Mayaya Supporting

Okamura, Akemi Japanese

Hanamori, Yoshio Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Clara Supporting

Morohoshi, Sumire Japanese

Koibuchi, Shuu Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Banba Supporting

Kumai, Motoko Japanese

Negishi, Saburouta Supporting

Chiba, Shigeru Japanese

Jiji Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Chieko Supporting

Saitou, Kimiko Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Takeeda, Yoshinori Producer

Satou, Yumi Producer

Morijiri, Kazuaki Producer

Reviews

Dec 26, 2025

Graciana

Recommended

"If reincarnation is real, I hope I'm not a human next time. But I don't want to be a dog or cat. Because there are still "cute" ones and "not cute" ones. If I do get reborn, then I, I want to just rock gently on the ocean waves. I want to be a jellyfish."

This is so cuteeeee! beautiful and funny. The art is also amazing. I wanted them to be together so bad, my "lesbian" couple (iykyk). I wish the anime focused on their relationship evolving 💔 genuinely deserves so much love and a second season. We want moreeee!

You will soooooo be in love ... with Kuranosuke's thought for Tsukimi, seeing good in her while she doesn't see it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 23, 2025

MichaelBellonis

Mixed Feelings

"Every girl is born a princess, some just forget is all"

While whittling away at my Definitive Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List, I’ll sometimes watch an anime that I really want to make the list - but unfortunately, just probably won’t.

Princess Jellyfish is an 11 episode anime adaption that came out in 2010, animated by Brain’s Base, and directed by Takahiro Omori, who’s known for directing Natsume’s Book of Friends, Baccano, and Durarara!!.

On the production side of things, there’s a lot to love about Princess Jellyfish - the animation is stunning, the editing packs a lot of comedic punch, but above ... all else the colors are breathtaking. The Color Setter for the series was Ritsuko Utagawa, who’s also done colors for productions like 91 Days, Gintama, and Baccano.

Princess Jellyfish is a story centered around the main character named Tsukimi Kurashita, who lives with 5 other women in a Shared House where No Men are Allowed. Each of the women are Otaku, and each have a very specific hyperfixation. Due to inherent insecurities about themselves, they often do not go out in public, cannot be around those they consider “The Stylish”, and also cannot interact with men.

This comes into play when the main character is introduced to a man named Kuranosuke, who at the time of meeting, was wearing a dress, makeup, and wig, so that Tsukimi was under the impression that he was actually a woman.

This is where the start of the anime’s faults begin - this idea does present the idea of masculinity versus femininity, but it doesn’t ever go any further than just presenting the idea. The series has a lot of strong points, from the art direction, to the voice acting, to the editing, and especially the humor, but where the series falls flat is the lack of consistent and strong themes. Which would be okay if it were a series that didn’t have anything to say - but the issue comes in when this series clearly has a lot to say, but no breathing room with which to say it.

It touched on a few themes that could have been really fascinating, from gender identity, to being comfortable in your own skin, to even sexism and SA, but it never dove any further. It felt like the story wanted to do so much more than it got to do, so everything it was able to do felt frustratingly shallow - including the ending itself, which was incredibly rushed and felt like a large portion of the story leading up to it was cut out.

Absolutely all of these complaints are PROBABLY due to the show not being able to continue adapting the rest of the manga, but this is purely a look at the anime as an anime, and not at the manga and what could have been.

While I love this setting, the characters, the dialogue, the humor - due to the frustratingly lack of strong themes, especially when the premise so eagerly invites those themes at every turn, this will unfortunately not make the cut of the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 23, 2025

lostinspace75

Not Recommended

Funny

Informative

I wanted to give a disclaimer for queer people with this review, I even logged into my account after like 4 years. I've been recommended this anime in regard to its queer themes, which do not exist. Especially for my trans folks, beware of the first 2-3 episodes as it may be triggering for some with clear anti-trans messages.

Look, I know the manga is old. That does not mean that the mangaka can clearly use the characters as a mouthpiece to voice anti-queer opinions. The anime adaptation does not help as the voicing articulates this message.

With the disclaimer out of the way, I want ... to rant about the representation of Kuranosuke and the Japanese people. I am sick and tired of this media when it tries to represent queer characters. The mangaka states directly that Kuranosuke is not a "travestive", or a "drag queen", rather a normal person. A normal person with a hobby to crossdress. Yeah and I'm supposed to believe in this walking contradiction. I will be coming back to the "normal" part.

For those do not know, being queer does not mean being gay or trans or being anywhere on the LGBT spectrum (a straight drag queen entered RuPaul this year for gods sake). It means that you do not conform to societal norms. And publicly crossdressing is not a societal norm believe it or not. Thus, combining these arguments, Kuranosuke is QUEER. He might use he/him pronouns and be straight, and not be a drag queen, but he is queer.

He is not a "normal" person by any means. But the mangaka clearly has a distate for the queer folk as Kuranosuke is disgusted when he's called "travestive" or "drag queen" by the cast. My main point is: Why would this mangaka write a full-fledged queer character while having conservative thoughts about TQ+ spectrum? Because just like most of the mangakas, they are fucking suppressing themselves like a fucking gay pdf pope in the Vatican. Queer topics were considered taboo until like 2020's which makes sense of the weird stuff we see on 10's manga and anime. But art is to push boundaries and break norms into bits. While this manga/anime media is just filled with slop where the author cannot be bothered push psychological or societal boundaries, write about actual struggles and display the intricacies of being outside of the norm.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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