Princess Knight
Ribon No Kishi
Acknowledged as the first anime for girls (and indirectly leading to some of the most mind-boggling gender-specific girls titles {shojo manga & anime} which have proliferated in Japan over the proceeding 30 years), Princess Knight is a truly confounding tale. Set in a lurid fantasy-Europe, which makes Disney's penchant for Bavarian castles seem restrained, this is the story of Sapphire who cannot succeed to the throne of Goldland because she is a girl. Thus she parades as a boy, and smites one Franz Charming when she redisguises herself as a blonde girl for a journey into Silverland. If this already doesn't already sound like one of the wild romantic scenarios from the female cross-dressing Takarazuka Revue, complications further arise because when Sapphire was born, a mischievous angel (Tink in the original; Choppy in the American) pushed the heart of a boy into her mouth-so she actually has the hearts of both sexes within her.