Genre Magical girl Music by Kaoru Wada | Written by Michiko Yokote Studio Hal Film Maker | |
Directed by Junichi Sato
Shogo Koumoto Licensed by Madman Entertainment
AEsir Holdings | ||
Princess Tutu (Japanese: プリンセスチュチュ, Hepburn: Purinsesu Chuchu) is a Japanese magical girl anime series created by Ikuko Itoh in 2002 for animation studio Hal Film Maker. Inspired by ballet and fairy tales, particularly The Ugly Duckling and Swan Lake, the story follows a duck who is transformed into the mythical ballerina Princess Tutu in order to save the shattered heart of a storybook prince come to life.
Contents
The first season was broadcast in Japan in 2002 and the second in 2004. It was also adapted into a two-volume manga. Both the manga and anime series were licensed by ADV Films in 2004 for distribution in North America. The series explores the concepts of fate and free will. Reviewers point out that although Princess Tutu is nominally a magical girl series, it is more of a "fairy tale set to ballet with a few magical girl elements mixed in," and its use of dance in lieu of violence to solve conflicts carries "surprisingly effective emotional appeal."
Plot
Once there was a writer named Drosselmeyer, who had the power to make his stories come to life. But he died before he could finish his final tale, The Prince and The Raven, leaving the two title characters locked in an eternal battle. After many years, the Raven managed to break free into the real world, and the Prince pursued him. To seal away the Raven's evil, Prince Mytho shattered his own heart with his sword, causing him to lose all his memories and emotions.
Drosselmeyer, now a ghost, decides the story must have an ending. He finds it in the form of a little duck, who has fallen in love with Mytho. He gives her a magic pendant that can transform her, first into an ordinary human girl, then into the graceful ballerina Princess Tutu, another character in the story. As Tutu, it's Duck's job to find all the scattered shards of Mytho's heart and return them to him.
But not everyone wants Mytho to get his heart back. Rue, the Raven's daughter reborn as a human, has fallen in love with him too, and worries he might not return her feelings if he has a heart. Her desire to stop him regaining his emotions unleashes her ability to transform into Princess Kraehe, Tutu's evil counterpart. Fakir, the boy who found and took care of Mytho after he escaped the story, also tries to stop Tutu, fearing that the story progressing means the Raven will return and Mytho will have to risk his life fighting it again.
What's more, Duck learns that part of Princess Tutu's story is she can never confess her love to Mytho, or else she'll turn into a speck of light and vanish. However, it becomes clear that Mytho wants his heart restored, so despite Fakir and Kraehe's interference, she persists.
Eventually Fakir accepts Mytho's choice and decides to help Tutu, even discovering her true identity as Duck and becoming good friends with her. He also learns he's a descendant of Drosselmeyer, meaning he too has the power to make what he writes a reality. Rue finds out she's not the Raven's daughter, but a human child he stole to serve him.
After most of Mytho's heart is returned to him, the seal trapping the Raven begins to break. Finally able to feel love again, Mytho realizes he loves Rue - just as the Raven kidnaps her. Duck discovers her pendant is the final shard, meaning she must give up her life as a human to return it. She eventually finds the courage to do so, and becomes a mere duck again.
Mytho and the Raven battle once more. When the fight turns bleak, Mytho considers shattering his heart to seal the monster away again. Duck begins dancing to show him he must not give up. As she does, Fakir writes a story about how she never stops, no matter how many times the Raven's minions attack her. Together they create hope, which gives Mytho the strength he needs to rescue Rue and defeat the Raven. Mytho asks Rue to be his princess and they return to his kingdom inside the story. Duck and Fakir continue their friendship. With nothing left to do, Drosselmeyer departs in search of another story.
Anime
Princess Tutu was originally aired in two seasons. The first season, "Kapitel des Eies" ("Chapter of the Egg"), consisted of 13 half-hour episodes. The second season, "Kapitel des Junges" ("Chapter of the Fledgling") in R2 DVDs, and "Kapital des Kükens" ("Chapter of the Chick") in R1 DVDs, was aired as 25 quarter-hour episodes and one half-hour episode; to conform to the format of the time slot, each episode was halved. These were brought back together in the DVD release as 13 complete episodes.
North American DVD releases
In 2004 ADV Films announced that they had licensed the anime series for distribution in North America. ADV Films produced English adaptations for all episodes and, beginning in 2005, the series was periodically released as single DVD "volumes" that each contained several episodes. In 2007 the series was released as a complete DVD collection of all 26 episodes. In 2011 AEsir Holdings announced the licensing of the series and the release of a complete DVD collection of all 26 episodes distributed by Section23 Films.
Princess Tutu
Reception
The series has been reviewed many times, starting from the Japanese language streams, through the latest North American English language DVD releases. Generally the reviews are very positive.
Streaming
Anime Network offers all 26 episodes of the series, English dubbed only, from their internet streaming site for North America.
Manga
A manga adaptation of the anime series was written by Mizuo Shinonome and published in Japan by Akita Shoten in the shōnen manga magazine Champion Red. Two tankōbon volumes of the manga series were published in 2003. The Japanese manga series was translated to English and published in North America by ADV Manga in two volumes.
Volume list
Note: The English language manga continues to use the Japanese name "Ahiru" rather than the name "Duck" used in the English language version of the anime TV series.