"The show centers on a young gal named Ahiru who is a student in a prestigious ballet school. One of the others at the school, a boy named Mythos, seems to have had his heart magically yanked out of his chest and the result is that he essentially sleepwalks through life without emotion or passion. As this set of four episodes played out, it became increasingly apparent that Ahiru is no ordinary girl but a character known as Princess Tutu who appears to have had a spell cast on her as well (changing her into a duck at times of stress). For whatever specific reason, likely a deep-seated attraction to Mythos, she makes it her quest to find and return the missing pieces of Mythos' heart in order to restore him to normalcy. In doing so though, she angers a powerful rival that has appointed herself as his protector, and likely the one responsible for the spell cast on him in the first place (to save him from a lost love or something).

Okay, as the pieces of the heart are restored, Mythos seemed to slowly evolve, perhaps returning to his original state from before the spell. This angers the forces of those who think he's just fine the way he is and they intercede to prevent further restoration by Ahiru. The twisted thing was that her very realistic dreams take on a life of their own and the spell that changes her into a duckling becomes more obvious to be something else; she's actually a duck who can change into a Princess (in this case, the titled character, Princess Tutu). The specifics were confusing to a guy that didn't have the background on the characters needed to decipher the situations and for that, I apologize, but the main question these four episodes raised was whether or not ignorance is truly bliss (restoring Mythos will ensure he feels all the pain once again, causing him some amount of suffering)?"

The episodes this time were the concluding batch, 10) Cinderella (Aschenbrodel: Waltz Coda), 11) La Sylphide, 12) Banquet of Darkness (Scheherazade), and 13) Swan Lake (Schwanensee). They brought about the characters full circle as the secrets were unveiled and the prophecy was shown to offer Ahiru/Duck a choice; save her beloved and perish or allow him to remain in his present state with the Crow Princess. In large part, the comedic elements were overdone but provided the relief in such a way to keep the show flowing and lighten up the mood. I rewatched the show one more time along with Princess Tutu Volume 2 to see if it would make more sense. It actually did so I can imagine how much more I'd have gotten out of it if I had seen the first volume too. I liked the show enough to keep it as a Recommended title but I definitely suggest getting the volumes in order to watch them or you'll be scratching your head pretty quickly.

Picture: Princess Tutu V3: Erwachen was presented in the usual 1.33:1 ratio full frame color as it was broadcast in Japan a few years ago. It was a dark and moody show for the most part with the visual elements reflecting this but there was minimal grain or other defects to the picture. This was a nice surprise since many releases these days don't handle darker material well or at least the problems are more noticeable. There also seemed to be a visual aspect to Mythos' dilemma that was subtle and understated. I saw no compression artifacts during my two viewings of the DVD.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of a 2.0 Dolby Digital track in either the original Japanese or the well made English dub track by ADV Films. The vocals were pleasing on each track and I found different nuances to appreciate on each but the music was very well done on both, perhaps slightly richer on the dubbed track. If you listen to the show on a decent audio system with the picture turned off, you'll find the audio quite a bit better than average, especially for a 2.0 track.

Extras: I enjoyed the audio commentary between Jessica Boone and Jay Hickman on the last episode. The two were focused on the material at hand; something I generally haven't seen dub actors do in ADV Film releases of late. There was a Japanese pre-production promotional video, the usual clean opening and closing, some trailers, an "Etude" section that focused on some of the music involved in the show but also provided a narrative on the volume's episodes, but my favorite outside of the commentary was the feature on some of the voice actors doing their lines while the screen split to show the material they were dubbing (focusing on a lot of work by Luci Christian as the lead of the show; Duck/Princess Tutu, but starting with Marty Fleck as the voice of Drosselmeyer. Lastly, there was a double sided DVD cover and a paper insert; the insert containing a commentary by the Japanese Director Shogo Koumoto about ballet and the show.

Final Thoughts: Princess Tutu V3: Erwachen was a love story centered on ballet and music with the usual fantastical magic elements that only anime can effectively present. The animation style was kind of limited and I thought it was designed for a younger, decidedly female, audience but it tried a lot of new things and should get a couple of points for that fact. The fusion of music and dance as primary elements of the show will make it even more interesting to aficionados of those forms of entertainment but even a guy like me thought they came off rather well. The extras were superior to most anime shows too so check it out for some decent fun.

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVD Talk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003, Best Of Anime 2004, and Best of Anime 2005 articles or their regular column Anime Talk.