A typical episode of Princess Tutu

Nar­rator: Once upon a time, there was a nar­rator who ruined the plot for the pro­ceed­ing epis­ode by telling you roughly what hap­pens even before the strangely catchy open­ing song has played. But that’s OK because these are all fairy tales you should know any­way. Of course a cleverer way of doing this would be to leave it up to the audi­ence to fig­ure out what fairy tale is being told in this epis­ode for them­selves, but this anime is clearly aimed at 8 year old girls who wouldn’t be able to piece it together for them­selves, right? Now here’s the that strangely catchy open­ing song I men­tioned earlier.

doodle­doodle­doodle­doodle deeeee doo deeeee doo deeeee do diddle­dundundun deeeee doo deeeee doo deeeee do diddle­dundundun deeeee doo deeeee doo deeeee do diddle­dundundun deeeee doo deeeee doo deeh doodle­dooodle­doodle duh!

Duck: Man, what happened in the last epis­ode sure was inter­est­ing. I bet­ter spend the first few minutes mulling over what happened. I’ll prob­ably come to the con­clu­sion that I’m just a duck so it doesn’t mat­ter, or that I bet­ter con­tinue try­ing to find the heart shards for Mewtwo. He’s so dreamy! I just love effem­in­ate male ver­sions of a dam­sel in dis­tress with no dis­cern­ible per­son­al­ity. But enough of that, I bet­ter go to school.

Friends: Hi Duck!

Duck: Oh look, it’s my extremely unsup­port­ive friends! I won­der if they’re going to say any­thing new, or shall they con­tinue down the path of non-playable char­ac­ters who say the exact same thing no mat­ter what period of the game you talk to them in.

Friends: Duck you really suck at everything but we still like you any­way. Now go con­fess your love for Mewtwo

Duck: Ah well, I won­der if any of these other NPC’s will change what they sa–

Mr.Cat: If you girls don’t do what you’re told then I’ll have you marry me!

Duck: I guess not

Friends: By the way, did you hear of that fairy tale in this town?

Duck: Yes, it was men­tioned already in the epis­ode pre­view before the open­ing. What about it?

Friends: .…oh Duck, you really suck at everything but we still like you anyway

Duck: Oh look at that pretty girl. Don’t remem­ber see­ing her before…oh wait, that’s Mewtwo. And he’s talk­ing to one of the only other two char­ac­ters in this show with some semb­lance of per­son­al­ity. I’m going to go try eaves­drop on what they’re saying.

Fakir/Rue and Mewtwo: blah blah blah plot from the last epis­ode blah blah blah don’t you go doing this thing blah blah blah

Duck: Well that revealed noth­ing new. In fact, this entire epis­ode has come to a bit of a stand­still, doing the exact same things that every other epis­ode has done thus far. Surely the audi­ence must be get­ting bored by this stage. Oh wait never mind, here comes Miss Walk­ing Deus Ex Machina!

Miss Walk­ing Deus Ex Mach­ina: Hi there. I’m now going to talk in some sort of thinly dis­guised riddle that is actu­ally telling you to go to the point that your friends men­tioned earlier in the epis­ode. Really, you should try take the hint by now

Duck: Thank you Miss Walk­ing Deus Ex Mach­ina, but instead I think I’ll go mull over stuff like I usu­ally do. Besides I’m just a duck and stuf– oh wait a second! Through some sequence of events I just found out that the dam­sel is in dis­tress yet again. I bet­ter go save her…I mean him. But what am I sup­posed to do? You would have though Miss Walk­ing Deus Ex Mach­ina would have given me a tool that I could use to take out the badguy and restore the heartshard but I guess not. Whatever shall I do?

Dros­sel­meyer: Oooh dearie me, the plot has come to a stand­still yet again. Whatever shall I do to solve this? I know! I’ll make her trans­form into Prin­cess Tutu and save the day~!

Viewer: But isn’t that what hap­pens every single time?

Dros­sel­meyer: Well yes, but I can’t change it. It would ali­en­ate my audi­ence. Chil­dren like repetition.If she didn’t trans­form into Prin­cess Tutu at exactly the 16 minute mark of every single epis­ode I would get com­plaints from the parents.

Viewer: I read on an inter­net forum that this show is extremely pop­u­lar amongst young adults

Dros­sel­meyer: What, really? That’s non­sense! I haven’t put in a single giant robot or booby jiggle. I bet they’re all young girls pre­tend­ing to be older than they are. Kids these days are whizzes on the inter­net you know. Any­way, she’s still chan­ging into Prin­cess Tutu. Look, I’ve star­ted the trans­form­a­tion sequence and everything.

Prin­cess Tutu: Halt, evil per­son. I am Prin­cess Tutu and I am here to solve whatever prob­lem we have going on here by offer­ing you to dance.

Villain-of-the-week: But no, I am being afflic­ted by whatever piece of emo­tion belongs to Mewtwo this week. How will dan­cing help anyway?

Prin­cess Tutu: Just dance any­way. It always man­ages to solve the prob­lem some­how. I dunno, I don’t write the story.

Prin­cess Kraehe: Aha~! I am Prin­cess Kraehe and I’m here to chal­lenge you to a dan­cing battle in my barely legal outfit.

Viewer: Aw man, I love bal­let! I won­der what types of moves they will show­case? I’m very much a new­bie when it comes to bal­let. I couldn’t tell the dif­fer­ence between a demi plie and a pirou­ette to save my life. But that’s ok, this show should explain some of the things going on. They never explain what’s going on in the actual classes them­selves but maybe they were sav­ing if for the battles. I am very excite

Tutu twiddles her hands above her head for a bit

Kraehe spins on the spot a few times

Tutu does some sort of fly­ing leap

Kraehe arches back and then stumbles

Prin­cess Kraehe: You have defeated me Prin­cess Tutu, but next time you won’t be so lucky

Viewer: .…WTF?

Prin­cess Tutu: Oh Mewtwo, I shall now return this heart shard to you. Hope­fully this is the emo­tion of com­mon sense so you won’t go stum­bling off and get­ting your­self into trouble yet again.

Mewtwo: I would prob­ably be much less of a dam­sel in dis­tress if I was voiced by Dan Green like the real Mewtwo

::Note:: While I have picked up Prin­cess Tutu for the ‘no anime is dropped forever’ posts, this is not the final review. That will go up once I’ve com­pleted the series. Also, as much as I might make fun of it here, it has star­ted to grow on me in its own strange way