YoshiKyon

9/10

I think I first heard about Princess Tutu at one of the first conventions I ever attended, around 2007-08, when a friend couldn't stop singing its praises. At the time, I wasn't really into anime that much - little things here and there, but I was mostly attending conventions for games and not much else - but then Estantia, one of the loveliest people in my stream community and a creative mind through and through, put it forward for my "12 Anime in 12 Months" thing:

• Shinsekai yori
• Plastic Memories
• Vivy: Fluorite Eyes Song
• Kaiba
• Bloom Into You
• Princess Tutu
• Redline
• Monster
• Saint Onii-san
• Haikyu!!
• So I'm a Spider, So What
• In Another World With My Smartphone

And now, all these years later, I understand the high praise. I think it's worth saying that this isn't my kind of thing - I'll go into detail below, but it does a lot of things I just personally dislike that aren't necessarily bad - so that might be the difference between this being a 9 and a 10.
It's a fantastic show throughout, with enough regular story beats that it feels like it's constantly evolving, and the character development feels natural (mostly, there are exceptions) and is the true highlight of Princess Tutu. It's a masterclass in how to write a captivating cast that feels like they grow into the story.

Mild spoilers below.

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Princess Tutu is mostly split into two parts (related to how it initially aired - it was 13 episodes for the first season, but then 24 shorter episodes followed by a full length finale for season 2). The first part introduces the cast and focuses around a prince, Mytho, who has lost his heart and needs the shards restored by the protagonist, Ahiru. The second part revolves around what is essentially a dramatic theatrical play, and I really cannot say more without spoiling massive elements of it. Also, Ahiru is a duck.

The issues I have with Princess Tutu are mostly split into two parts: the mahou shoujo genre elements, and the character of Drosselmeyer, and I'm not sure the show would work without either.
The magical girl side of things is a big part of why I'm not a fan of shounen stuff either - I read Bleach way back when and there are some big hitters now, but for the most part, I can't stand the 'monster of the week' style shows. Princess Tutu does a really good job of avoiding that for the most part, but there are definitely some moments, particularly in the second half of the series, where it falls into this routine pattern, and it feels like you're watching a 25-minute show to get maybe 5 minutes of relevant plot and character development along the way. It's thankful that this happens late enough into the series that most people will already be invested, but it's still frustrating being 5-10 minutes into an episode and knowing it can probably be mostly skipped.
Drosselmeyer is the narrator of the story who occasionally takes a more active role and... this is the one that really wouldn't work if it changed. It's hard to discuss here, but his role is essential to the story, but having a narrator step in with commentary throughout personally made it difficult for me to immerse myself in the story. If I'm expected to fill in the missing pieces, I'd rather be left to speculate or assume what's in those gaps than be told "this character wants to do this but can't!" or whatever. This becomes less of an issue as the series progresses, but it definitely made it harder for me to really get into the earlier parts of the series.

I cannot, however, talk highly enough about the characters and how they're written - Fakir, in particular, is just spectacularly handled. His early introductions always seem to imply that there's something more beneath the surface, but then that surface gets peeled away time and time again. His character growth is phenomenal, repeatedly, and yet never feels like it's rushed or erratic. There's one notable story point that makes Mytho's character development feel chaotic, but again, it's something that couldn't be removed without causing more problems, and it's really the only weak link in a masterclass of character writing. I talked about Fakir, but I could touch on Rue or Ahiru just the same, or even some of the one-episode side characters.

The fact that I really struggled to engage with this in the ways I'd want to is the only thing stopping me from giving this a 10, and as I mentioned earlier, I feel like a lot of that is personal preferences - I don't like the monster of the week format that this hits occasionally, Drosselmeyer as a narrator feels more jarring than cohesive, and the world is a little lacklustre at times - and even then, I'd recommend this to just about anyone. It feels about as far as possible from my typical tastes, and I loved it; if it is someone's style, then it's an easy 10.