S. Worthen | Weblog

cliosfolly recommended Princess Tutu a month or so ago and last week I had a chance to see the first three episodes. I love this series! I would love to see more of it. It's elegant and quirky, and features a very charming duck.

Before I describe the premise, I'll tell you about the audience reaction. During the opening credits and first few scenes, there was much groaning about the cuteness factor and sheer strangeness of it from the audience. By the end of the second, when a different video was going to be put on, the audience demanded that the third episode be shown.

The plot revolves around a girl (who might be a duck dreaming she's a girl) who lives at and attends a ballet academy in a German-style fairy tale town, where most things are real and normal, but there are strong fairy tale elements and aspects to life there, exacerbated by the interference of the storyteller Drosselmayer (yes, right out of the Nutcracker), a writer who died hundreds of years ago but was brought back to partial life when some of his characters escaped from the story he was writing when he died. That's the premise, not the plot.

Each episode is themed around music and elements from a different ballet. Improbable as it sounds, it's very, very well done.