My Rating: 
Release Dates: Japan_08/16/2002
USA_01/25/2005
Creator: Ikuko Ito
Studio: Hal Film Maker
Genre: comedy, drama, magic, fantasy, romance
Themes: ballet, magical girls, love, slightly Romeo and Juliet
Number of Episodes: 38 (23 minutes x 38 episodes = 780 minutes)
A writer named Drosselmeyer, whose stories became reality, had his hands cut off and was killed by those fearing his power. With the story left unfinished, the prince and raven from one of his stories were trapped in an eternal battle. The raven broke free from the story into the real world, and the prince pursued to seal him away again. To do so, the prince shattered his own heart with his sword. Drosselmeyer had written about himself before he died, and managed to continue to control events despite his death. When he sees a duck watching the sad,heartless prince Mytho dancing on the water, he decides to let the story take its own course and transforms the duck into a girl named Ahiru (means duck in japanese) so she can help the prince. Ahiru becomes a student at the school Mytho attends, attending ballet classes with him. She learns of Mytho’s shattered heart and transforms into Princess Tutu with the aid of the egg-shaped necklace that glows red when a heart shard is near. The heart shards have found homes in people who feel a strong emotion, which then becomes enhanced and exaggerated with the presence of the heart shard.
FAVORITE CHARACTER:
AHIRU episode 01
Personality: clumsy, cute, free-spirited, very caring
Significance: main character, comedic appeal, she is Princess Tutu
GENERAL ENVIRONMENTS:
Ballae School/Class, town, book illustrations that are at the beginning
of each episode, Drosselmeyer’s dimension
Where I Started Watching: anime Club (2007)
Number of Times Watched: 5 (2007-2009)
Favorite Episodes: all episodes
When I first heard the name Princess Tutu, I thought it would be bad because it is very hard to create an anime that is about ballae. But of course, after I watched the first episode and saw how well the characters were drawn and how well the anime series was synced perfectly with music from the Nutcracker, Princess Tutu became one of my most favorite anime series. Princess Tutu also made me start appreciating just how great ballae and its music are, especially The Nutcracker. You can tell that the creators did a lot of research about ballae and how to mix a drawing style and ballae together from how well the anime and ballae music are emotionally synched togehter. Princess Tutu is also funny because of the main character Ahiru. Seeing Ahiru’s comedic school-life other than her life as Pricess Tutu gives the series a nice balance between all the drama, despair, and ballae.