While the title Princess Tutu can be misleading into a childish feminine anime, these are only small factors in the story Princess Tutu.
This story is a fantastic mixture of the elegant and beautiful world of ballet. The anime takes a signature form of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, while many of the stories include elements of fairy tales and famous ballets such as Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.
The anime follows Ahiru (or Duck in the english adaption with her name Japanese name translated) a duck who has been turned into a young school girl who attends an art academy as a ballet student, and her efforts to restore the heart of her a classmate named Mytho by transforming into Princess Tutu (who ultimately is similar to Swan Lake's Odette the White Swan). The anime goes into the results of her actions and how they affect her and those around her, in particular Ahiru's classmate Rue, who is in love with Mytho, and Fakir, Mytho's childhood friend. Rue is also Tutu's rival known as Princess Kraehe (and similar to Tutu being the equivilent to Odette, Kraehe is the representation of Odile or the Black Swan) the daughter of a raven. It becomes apparent that Ahiru, Rue, Mytho, and Fakir were meant to play out the roles of characters in a story written by a writer named Drosselmeyer, a man whose words were said to come true and when he died his hands were cut off in fear of his power, but the characters begin to resist their assigned fates and they fight to keep the story from becoming a tragedy as Drosselmeyer wished.
I thought the story would solely be fluffy, cute and annoying because of the name, and it was cute which I enjoted but while I love ballet I thought it would ruin the name of the art, but the anime only added to it in a creative way. The ballets were portrayed with class and the story had a dark mystifying feel to it especially during the second season. This 26 episode anime is well worth the watch and time especially for dancers. I personally found my love for ballet again through this and anyone male or female should enjoy this anime.
This anime music video not created by myself but by Marissa Panaccio sums up the anime perfectly and was the reason I began the series in the first place. (This AMV has won "Best Action" and "Best of Show" from Anime Boston and "Best Freeform" from Fanime.)
So with a spare moment, Princess Tutu should be added onto the list of "Must Watch" animes and I give it 5 stars for creativity and proving its name wrong with a dark nature and the expression of beauty in ballet all at the same time.
Until next time...
~Himeko
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