Anastasia Romanov

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov of Russia (Анастасия Николаевна Романова), also known as Anya, is the titular protagonist of the 1997 Don Bluth film of the same name, and a fictional version of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. She is voiced by Meg Ryan, while Liz Callaway provides her singing voice. She is the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia ("Anya"), the youngest daughter and one of two surviving members of the Imperial family.

Since 2019, Disney fans and Anastasia fans have considered her to be a de facto Disney Princess, since Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets (including 20th Century Fox and its animation division) and their massive back-catalogue of films (including her own).

Why She'll Be Home With Us Once Upon A December

 * 1) First and foremost, she is a massive improvement over Don Bluth's previous princess, as she is a well-written strong female character up on par to the standard of many animated female protagonists of the time (such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid (1989), Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991), Jasmine from Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas from Pocahontas (1995), amongst others), with a clear set of personality, goals, and likability.
 * 2) She is based on a real person, rather than a fairy tale character, which is very unique for a princess character.
 * 3) Her musical numbers, especially Journey to the Past and Once Upon a December are well composed and excellent.
 * 4) She wears a total of 13 outfits throughout her movie, but the yellow dress pictured above is considered the best and very cute.
 * 5) She is one of the very few animated princess characters to come from Eastern Europe or any Slavic country, which is very awesome.
 * 6) Due to Disney buying out 20th Century Fox in 2019, she is now considered by fans to be a de facto Disney Princess. In fact, it's possible that Disney could make her an official Disney Princess at some point in the future.
 * 7) Her animal companion, Pooka the spaniel is cute.
 * 8) Her final showdown with Grigori Rasputin is awesome. Especially its ending, which features her saving Dimitri and by smashing the sorcerer's reliquary with her foot a total of three times. And she actually did all that while still wearing a long ball gown and high heels, which is outstanding especially considering such clothing and footwear would be very restrictive for combat in real life.
 * 9) Her extremely heartwarming relationship with Dimitri.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Since the real life discovery of Anastasia's corpse in 2007, she feel not so great like when it was first released, as here real life counterpart didn't really survive the Russian Revolution, though to be fair, the discovery didn't take place until ten years later after the film was released.
 * 2) * In fact, her entire film is most likely an alternate history and What If...? vibe.
 * 3) She was completely redesigned in the Broadway Musical adaptation of her film, and a lot of her iconic dresses were dropped in favor of more historically accurate dresses, which was only done to appease the Russian population, which is inexcusable since her movie version already has historically accurate dresses like the court dress near the end of the movie. See Loathsome Characters Wiki for more.

Trivia

 * The real life Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was born on June 18, 1901, making her the only Disney Princess to be born the same year as the founder of The Walt Disney Company, who was born on December 5, 1901.
 * She is the second official Disney Princess to not originate from Walt Disney Animation Studios after Merida, as they originated from Pixar and 20th Century Fox, which were acquired by Disney in 2006 and 2019 perspectively.

Reception
Like the film itself, Anastasia herself has received a generally positive reception from critics and viewers alike, with critics praising her spirited personality. Ryan's vocal performance was also well-received, although some critics found her American accent distracting. Due to stylistic similarities between her film and animated Disney films released around the time, the character has often been mistaken as a member of the Disney Princess franchise since her debut, however since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, She is now considered a Disney Princess by many fans.