Shin Shirayuki Hime Densetsu Pretear or "New Legend of Snow White: Pretear" (literally new white snow princess legend Pretear ) is the story of a young girl called Awayuki Himeno. Her father has just remarried the richest woman in town. She has two 'wicked' step sisters-Mayune and Mawata. Mayune is always playing ill fated pranks on her, and Mawata just doesn't want to have anything to do with Himeno. So when a handsome man with long blue hair takes her hand and tells her that she is Pretear, and there is something that only she can do, she jumps at the chance.
This 2001 mahou shoujo animeis very short-13 episodes, but has an amazing amount of character work. Himeno is a genki girl, but she is not generic at all. Her reaction to becoming Pretear is not the typical "Waaaah, I don't want to do this!" or "Yay! I'm a magical girl!" She realizes that this is a serious responsibility. Maybe it is because she is 16, on the higher end of the magical girl scale. Sure, sometimes she doesn't like the demands placed on her, and gets frustrated with working hard to defeat the Maiyouchi, which are creatures that steal the Leafe (a life force) from things and preparing to defeat Saihi Fenrir, an evil woman who wants to suck the life force from both earth and Leafenia, the world that the Leafe Knights, 7 young men who protect Pretear and also help her in her rather unusual transformation came from. Himeno transforms by taking the hand of a Leafe Knight, and her incarnation changes with the attributes of the Leafe Knight, whose hand she takes
If she takes the hand of say, Kei, the knight of fire, she becomes the Pretear of fire, and has a different costume than if she took Sasame's hand and became the Pretear of Sound. The interaction between the Knights has a very good dynamic. As said beforehand, there are 7 Knights-Hayate, Sasame, Kei, Goh, Mannen, Hajime and Shin. Hayate, who Himeno has a crush on in spite of herself and his calling her' Tulip Head' and Sasame have a rivalry that may be rooted in the past. The others are not as well developed, but there is an interesting dynamic between the older members (Hayate, Sasame, Kei and Goh) who are all young adults or older teens and Mannen, Hajime and Shin who are all under nine. The older members know some horrible facts about the past that they do not want to reveal.
Even the other characters have chemistry. Himeno's dad and new mom love all over each other, Mawata's lonely world is hidden from the others, and even Mayune isn't totally flat. For a 13 episode series, this has a lot of depth with a tight, logical story, and a compelling villain. It has been licenced by ADV for future release.