Dance Fights Are the Best

Screencap from Princess Tutu, one with the raven and one without because I really love the costume (both ridiculous and compelling at the same time, which I think can be said for a lot of ballet costumes), but I don't know how useful it will really be to anyone.

So, if you haven't seen Princess Tutu, you should really watch it. It is just amazing. It looks very silly, cute and light, but it's actually silly, cute, dark, and mind-trippy, but with a much fuller resolution and better explanation than most mind-trippy anime manage. The characterization deserves some kind of award and is some of the best I've ever seen in television, anime or otherwise. It is also about ballet and has beautiful, beautiful music, tons of dance/ballet references which will add to the story if you understand them and probably make you more interested in classical ballet if you don't. (It certainly worked on me--I ended up watching a bunch of pieces from famous ballets on YouTube, and the next thing I knew I was buying season tickets for three years in a row. I regret nothing.)

The anatomy is a little...not off necessarily, but certainly stylized. The whole anime is like that, and plus the main characters are all like 13/14, so there's that. Anyway, I'm probably going to do at least one more from Princess Tutu, because I love the action poses and the fact that they're dance.