The prince falls for her before he knows she's the one he's supposed to marry, which means their entire romance lives in a space Disney never let you have, genuine choice instead of destiny. Cinderella doesn't wait for rescue in a ball gown; she meets him as herself, bruised and real, and he already knows her. The anime takes the fairy tale and burns the inevitability out of it, replacing it with two people who actually choose each other.
After her mother dies, Cinderella, the only daughter of a wealthy duke, gains a stepmother and two stepsisters when her father remarries and then leaves to travel abroad on business. With him gone, her new family makes her cook, clean and run the household, yet she stays cheerful and kind to everyone, her animal friends included. Meanwhile the Prince, bored with life in the castle, slips away and poses as a commoner. After they literally bump into each other, Cinderella becomes his close friend without realizing who he is. The King's right-hand man, however, is plotting to remove the Prince and take the throne. When the castle holds a royal ball so the Prince can choose a wife, her stepmother keeps her from attending, but help comes from her pets and her Fairy Godmother.
