Princess Tutu masquerades like it's a clever subversion with complex themes as a magical girl show by using meta commentary on the fact that it's a story, but it's all smoke and mirrors.
First of all, most of the series is filler and it's the worst filler I've ever seen. Usually when there's filler, at least it explores new settings, expands on worldbuilding, has great character interactions/fleshes out the characters, etc. This filler does absolutely nothing for the themes, the characters, or the world, and it's extremely repetitive. Character has some desire, something something heart shard, and Princess Tutu dances with them to solve the problem instantly. The whole show could've legitimately been told the last six or so episodes and it wouldn't have made a difference.
Secondly, both the fillers and the main plot consist entirely of cheesy melodramatic sentiments concerning "love". They talk about "love" so many times it doesn't even sound like a word anymore. But the love they talk about is entirely superficial. Tutu, Fakir, and Rue all "love" the empty husk that is the prince because he's handsome and because he's chivalric. Since the whole show and every character motivation, every dramatic moment, is based on the power of feelings of love, the show just completely fails at creating any type of meaningful drama.
Third, the meta elements are a complete gimmick. They mainly function as a cheap way to create artificial angst/tension/drama by making the viewer feel, "oh it's so heartfelt and touching that the characters are actually fighting against the storyteller himself! They're defying fate!" when really if you actually took the time to craft stakes/threat and a plot that constantly challenges the characters by putting them in dire situations and having them fight willfully against it, it'd do the same thing. Calling attention to how the storyteller is trying to give them tragic fates but they're rebelling by rewriting the story is just lazy writing to achieve this effect. It also introduces a lot of logical inconsistencies/confusing things that ruin what they're going for if you think about it. For instance, if the writer controls everything, then the characters don't have free will and he could just as easily stop Fakir from getting his own writing powers, or make Tutu do anything he wants like give up. And in spite of Fakir talking about returning to their "true selves" rather than taking on roles/motivations written for them, their true selves are the exact same thing as their written selves, or rather they didn't even portray true selves at all. Their motivations are the exact same either way: save the prince, and they didn't bother to actually develop a real human relationship between Tutu and Fakir.
For all of Tutu's meta commentary, on the characters being puppets subjected to unfair tragedy for the sake of entertainment, it still ends up treating characters like puppets by using things like love at first sight and brainwashing in order to create a melodramatic story to tug on heartstrings.
Not actually a deconstruction or subversion
Princess Tutu masquerades like it's a clever subversion with complex themes as a magical girl show by using meta commentary on the fact that it's a story, but it's all smoke and mirrors.
First of all, most of the series is filler and it's the worst filler I've ever seen. Usually when there's filler, at least it explores new settings, expands on worldbuilding, has great character interactions/fleshes out the characters, etc. This filler does absolutely nothing for the themes, the characters, or the world, and it's extremely repetitive. Character has some desire, something something heart shard, and Princess Tutu dances with them to solve the problem instantly. The whole show could've legitimately been told the last six or so episodes and it wouldn't have made a difference. Secondly, both the fillers and the main plot consist entirely of cheesy melodramatic sentiments concerning "love". They talk about "love" so many times it doesn't even sound like a word anymore. But the love they talk about is entirely superficial. Tutu, Fakir, and Rue all "love" the empty husk that is the prince because he's handsome and because he's chivalric. Since the whole show and every character motivation, every dramatic moment, is based on the power of feelings of love, the show just completely fails at creating any type of meaningful drama.
Third, the meta elements are a complete gimmick. They mainly function as a cheap way to create artificial angst/tension/drama by making the viewer feel, "oh it's so heartfelt and touching that the characters are actually fighting against the storyteller himself! They're defying fate!" when really if you actually took the time to craft stakes/threat and a plot that constantly challenges the characters by putting them in dire situations and having them fight willfully against it, it'd do the same thing. Calling attention to how the storyteller is trying to give them tragic fates but they're rebelling by rewriting the story is just lazy writing to achieve this effect. It also introduces a lot of logical inconsistencies/confusing things that ruin what they're going for if you think about it. For instance, if the writer controls everything, then the characters don't have free will and he could just as easily stop Fakir from getting his own writing powers, or make Tutu do anything he wants like give up. And in spite of Fakir talking about returning to their "true selves" rather than taking on roles/motivations written for them, their true selves are the exact same thing as their written selves, or rather they didn't even portray true selves at all. Their motivations are the exact same either way: save the prince, and they didn't bother to actually develop a real human relationship between Tutu and Fakir.
For all of Tutu's meta commentary, on the characters being puppets subjected to unfair tragedy for the sake of entertainment, it still ends up treating characters like puppets by using things like love at first sight and brainwashing in order to create a melodramatic story to tug on heartstrings.