History Anime / TheStoryOfCinderella

* AnAesop: In episode 16, Charles takes over Cinderella's chores for a day while she recovers from a fever. Come the end of the episode, he ruminates to Alex about how the experience has driven home that a lot of people work hard to make his life of luxury possible and he needs to do his part by taking his royal responsibilities seriously.

** Though he's a genuinely NiceGuy from the beginning, Charles doesn't take his lessons or his responsibilities as the prince very seriously and finds life in the palace boring. Over the course of the series, he starts to put a lot more effort into both, thanks to a combination of the need to thwart Zaral's plotting and his relationship with Cinderella helping him [[AnAesop develop a greater appreciation for the struggles of the lower classes]].

* ExtremeDoormat: Cinderella herself. She lets her step-family repeatedly abuse her, take her things, destroy her invitation to the ball, and basically ruin her life...all the while making her feel ''guilty for upsetting them.'' Strangely, she's ''extremely'' bold when dealing with Charles - though only when she thinks he's "Charles the Fibber" and not "Prince Charles."
** Justified by the fact that Cinderella's stepmother has complete authority over the household while her husband is away and can easily throw Cinderella out, leaving her homeless. She makes a point of holding that threat over Cinderella's head to frighten her into line in the very first episode, and later comments that the only reason Cinderella isn't already out on the streets is because there's nobody else to do the housework. It should be noted that in the time period when the series takes place, being a homeless young girl had almost no chance of ending well and would likely have been even ''worse'' than the stepfamily's abuse.

A 26-episode anime adaptation of the famous fairy tail, co-produced by Creator/TatsunokoProduction and Italian animation studio Creator/MondoTV. ''The Story of Cinderella'' opens as Cinderella's life changes for the worse when her father leaves on a business trip. No sooner is he out of sight than Cinderella's stepmother has unceremoniously moved her own daughters into Cinderella's room, thrown out her things, handed her a servant's dress, and put her to work doing all manner of menial labor. The series covers Cinderella's trials and tribulations as she tries to adapt to her new life while suffering the abuse of her mother and sisters. All the while, her fairy godmother, Paulette, subtly watches her and tries to influence events to fix Cinderella's life without her noticing. One of her ''first'' acts in this is to grant several of the animals of the house the power of speech, thus giving Cinderella companions in her dog Patch, a pair of mice named Chuchu and Bingo, and a bird named Pappy. The animals provide her company as well as help with her chores. The biggest twist in the series is that Cinderella meets her Prince Charming early - except here he's the roguish Prince Charles, who has a habit of sneaking out of the castle and meets Cinderella by accident while disguised as a commoner. The two have a few misunderstandings before becoming friends and start having adventures together. Meanwhile, the villainous Duke Zaral plots against the royal family throughout the story, at times working Cinderella into his plots and machinations. The series eventually culminates in the ball in which the fairy tale ends, but with its own unique twist.

''The Story of Cinderella'' originally aired on Creator/{{NHK}} in 1996 under its Japanese title of ''Cinderella Monogatari''. [=MondoTV=] aired the Italian version (retitled "La Cenerentola") on Italia 1 in 1997 and also produced at many more foreign language dubs, including an English language version that appears to have been dubbed in Canada and simply titled "Cinderella". It's unclear when and where the various dubs aired - the Italian version bears a 1995 copyright despite its initial broadcast being two years later. [=MondoWorld=]'s [[https://www.youtube.com/c/MONDOWORLD official Youtube channel]] now streams ten of the foreign language dubs they produced for free, including the original Italian dub and the English dub.

%%* {{Bishonen}}: Prince Charles...and for that matter, his page Alex.

* LostLoveMontage: Cinderella has this as she remembers her entire friendship with Charles after she learns that he's the prince and thinks they can never be together because she's below him. Though [[ItWasHisSled of course, in the end]], he's not so lost to her after all.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Duke Zaral is a villain through and through, but he's still truly distraught when his daughter Isabel runs away and [[AdultFear terrified for her safety]]. Cinderella stepmother is also genuinely worried about Jeanne when the latter gets lost in the woods and holds her comfortingly as they ride home after she's found, and in a later episode, when the stepmother becomes dangerously ill, Katherine and Jeanne are in anguish and never leave her bedside, then sob TearsOfJoy when she recovers.

* AdultFear:
** The stepmother's threats to kick Cinderella out of the house, sometimes for minor offenses or no real reason at all, seem calculated to rouse the fury of any actual parents who might be watching.
** In the fifth episode, Jeanne and Cinderella go running into the woods after Jeanne's hat when it blows away. Then a thunderstorm comes in, forcing them to take shelter. Cinderella goes back to the carriage to let her stepfamily know where they are, but Pierre has already gone looking for them, and in the meantime Jeanne wanders off and gets lost. The stepmother seems [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely worried about Jeanne]] as she sends Pierre on his search.
*** Even worse, Jeanne spies the campsite where the royal hunting party has set up and heads toward it. While her logic is sound, Charles and Alex mistake her for a bear in the dim light and fog and nearly shoot her before Cinderella intervenes.
** The entirety of the episode where Isabel runs away, but it's most prominent when Duke Zaral reaches the lake house where he knows Isabel would have gone and breaks down on the front steps upon realizing she's not there. The man may be a controlling father and scheming villain, but he really does love his daughter and is horrified that something might have happened to her.

** The entirety of the episode where Isabel runs away, but it's most prominent when Duke Zaral reaches the lake house where he knows Isabel would have gone and breaks down on the front steps upon realizing she's not there. The man may be a controlling father and general MagnificentBastard, but he really does love his daughter and is horrified that something might have happened to her.

* ArrangedMarriage: Cinderella's father sets one up for Katherine, but as their mother wants one of the girls to be available to marry Prince Charles, she tries to pawn him off on Cinderella instead (by lying, of course).

* {{Ojou}}: Isabel is the daughter of a lord and so she acts like an upper-class snot.

* SeriesContinuityError: In the first episode (at least in the English dub), Cinderella's mother is said to have died just four years before the main storyline, meaning Cinderella was about twelve when it happened. But in a later episode, a flashback to her mother's death portrays her as only about four or five at the time, and she claims not to have many memories of her mother because she was so young at the time.

** In the fifth episode, Cinderella recognizes Prince Charles as her new friend Charles the Fibber, and declares this with certainty to her animal friends. In the very next episode, she's easily convinced that he can't possibly be the prince.

* CondemnedByHistory: InUniverse. Cinderella plans to got to the ball in a dress her mother wore when she was young, when the fashion sense was popular. The stepfamily call the dress outdated as they see it, and the stepmother states that the ''ridiculous'' style had been out of date for ''years''. Jeanne is worried that Cinderella would be the laughingstock at the ball, and refuses to be seen with her in the dress.

* PimpedOutDress: Cinderella dons one for the ball, as expected. It's still her own dress, but Paulette upgrades it to look more fashionable.