Year: 2003

Dubbed

Episodes: 26

Cat.: Drama, Magical Girl, Fantasy, Romance, Classical Music, Music

Summary:

Once there lived an eccentric author called Drosselmeyer who wrote grand tragedies - one of them was the tale of a prince who sealed away an evil raven by breaking his own heart into tiny pieces. However, before the story could be completed, the author died and the tale took on a life of its own. Now, in a town where fiction and reality meet, the story continues on its tragic course with Ahiru, a duck who transforms into the beautiful Princess Tutu in order to restore the prince's heart. But will Ahiru's act of love be enough to defy the story's terrible destiny and lead to a happy ending?

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When I started watching this I thought it was going to be the dumbest, girlest, silliest damn thing I ever saw. In the dubbed version Ahiru is called Duck, which is what Ahiru means in Japanese, but they could have just kept it Ahiru. But...

If you look past the title and invest in this anime of a duck who transforms into a hapless ballet student residing in a magical town controlled by a supposedly dead storyteller....Well, get past that (and more), and you will find that Princess Tutu is not only one of the greatest animes ever, but also an inventive, philosophical, and touching work of fiction containing elements from ballet, fairy tales, Creationism, Existentialism, Nihilism, fate, self-determination, etc... each of the 26 episodes contain ballet themes or music; in fact the music alone and also the way it is used as leitmotifs to further the story is quite amazing. You can tell the producers did research into ballet as well. It is very difficult to aptly describe this anime, as it has cuteness element one expects from a Magical Girl anime genre, but then at its core it is both philosophical and touching at the same time.

I give it a 5 out of 5.