Princess Tutu is a charming, cute story for fairytale lovers. I watched it expecting it to be some frivolous magical girl story with ballet, but I was quite surprised with the central themes of fate, believing in oneself, and even takes a turn in existentialism with the idea of existence preceding essence. I just found the story compelling and interesting to watch.
Each episode of Princess Tutu beings with “Once upon a time…” a lectured mini fairytale which corresponds to the central idea of each episode. Instead of fighting Princess Tutu uses her powers of ballet to solve the problems, typically by dance with said enemy. Heavily influence by Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Prince, it takes many things and even character names such as Drosselmeyer.
The animation is decent enough, nothing truly extraordinary. The music takes from various classicals and orchestral ballets. Tchaikovsky, Leo Delibes, Franz Liszt, Camille Saint-Saëns Etc.
This show is pretty addicting once I saw the first episode I couldn’t put it down. Although this might look like a typical show I suggest you give it a chance and see if you like it as much as I did.