If there was one word to describe Princess Tutu, it would be enchanting. Princess Tutu has no problem drawing its audience into its magical fairytale and delivering a truly enchanting environment as its setting. Much credit can be given by the outstanding seiyuu performance and gorgeous music.
Had it not been for the excellent execution of classical music, this atmosphere wouldn’t have succeeded to the extent that it does. From Romeo and Juliet to Swan Lake, Princess Tutu exercises the best that the music world has to offer, and each dramatic scene is only amplified by its melodies.
Where the music achieved so much, the same cannot be said about the plot. The beginning is mostly “find the lost heart piece of the week” as it sets up the story for the series. After a dramatic turning point, where the story should have kept an exciting pace continuing to the end of the series, it regrettably returns to its “… of the week” formula. As a result Princess Tutu might prove boring, however, I do have to admit that the last four episodes make me want to forget all that; it was that engrossing. By the end of the series, the viewer can tell that the characters have truly changed and developed. Their progression is noticeable and helps to bolster their already fascinating appeal.
Artistically beautiful, wonderful seiyuu performances, and a spectacular story setting, Princess Tutu is a series that has true potential to be great but the plot hinders it. If you don’t mind this formulaic mahou shoujo series, you’ll definitely enjoy the rewards it has to offer.
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If you’re as manly as I am, it’s easy to feel initially uncomfortable when watching Princess Tutu. That nagging feeling that you’re watching an anime aimed primarily at girls with ballet and romance and dancing and feelings is difficult to escape, until you realise the series also has people being sliced in half and angst and evil monster ravens and curses and a truly wet-your-pants scary old man.
What impresses most about Princess Tutu initially is the world of the series. Set in a town that’s like an amalgam of all the fairytale places from the stories you knew as a child, the design work is gorgeous and really sucks you in. “Fairytale” is very much the buzzword for this series - all the conventions of the genre are here, but twisted into something a bit darker, stranger and far less reassuring. There’s something about ballet that offsets such a world very nicely, and the classical music used throughout adds to the bewitching atmosphere of the series. Top class animation and a gorgeous colour palette help contribute to the overall effect, making this series a real treat for the senses.
The characters are, on the whole, very easy to like. Katou Nanae turns in a tour-de-force performance, adopting scratchier, nasal tones as Ahiru and then sounding suitably princess-like as Tutu. She makes Ahiru incredibly endearing when she could be a potential irritant, always a boon to a series like this. Equally worthy of note is Neko-sensei, hilarious to the point of overshadowing everything else that is going on. Watching Ahiru’s romantic tribulations are all very well, but I couldn’t help but hope Neko-sensei would appear almost all the time he was off screen. Whilst this could be construed as a negative element, the other characters are more than interesting enough to justify watching the series. Especially intriguing is the metamorphosis of Fakir from seemingly malevolent bully into a hero. Also noteworthy is Drosselmeyer, a character with disturbingly shrouded motivations and a truly creepy, unsettling voice. The series manages to make the character consistently scary, adding a layer of dark menace to the proceedings and giving the feeling of something nastier hiding beneath the fairytale façade.
If you know your fairytales, and I’m sure you do, Princess Tutu will seem comfortingly familiar. Whilst not complex, and occasionally predictable when dealing with the more school-centric side of things, there are some darker elements to the series that will take you by surprise. We’re not talking Now and Then, Here and There dark, but certainly darker than you’d imagine for what seems like a ballet-orientated mahou shoujo series. Unfortunately, the storyline flags a bit in the middle, but not to a really worrying degree and it picks up nicely for the ending. My other main problem with the series is that it doesn’t quite reach heights to make it an all-time classic. Quite simply, I felt the story could’ve gone the extra mile and been even more adventurous and dramatic. There’s nothing wrong with what we ultimately have, but it could have hit the spot just a bit harder. Still, as this series has children in mind, it would be silly to quibble too much.
Ultimately, it’s hard to be too harsh to a series that does almost everything else right and presents a very enjoyable, worthwhile 26 episodes of high-quality entertainment. I never thought I’d have any interest in ballet or ballet/classical music before watching this series, but I finished Princess Tutu with more appreciation for both. For those fed up with the episodic, overly long, repetitive mahou shoujo series around and looking for a bit of edge and visual style, Princess Tutu is just the series for you. And for anyone else, it’s more than worth a look. You might just be as surprised by it as I was.
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