A duck becomes a magical girl, and somehow that's the least strange thing about watching a show deconstruct every fairy tale rule while making you genuinely weep over a ballet about heartbreak. The pink exterior is a trap, this is psychological horror wrapped in tutus, where a girl discovers she's a puppet in someone else's story and has to choose whether to break free or accept her role. By the finale, you're not watching magical girl anime anymore; you're watching a character fight the author himself for narrative control, and it costs her everything.

Ahiru is a duck. The mysterious Drosselmeyer has turned her into a clumsy, kindhearted human girl living in a town where cats and crocodiles talk. With her egg-shaped pendant she can become Princess Tutu, a graceful ballerina whose dancing eases the troubled hearts of the people around her. Her task is to gather the lost shards of a prince's heart, which he broke long ago to seal away an evil raven. Mixing ballet, romance, mystery and psychological drama with the magical girl formula, the story centers on heroes struggling against fate, where their beliefs, feelings and actions decide whether this fairy tale can end happily. It is whimsical and haunting in equal measure.