Zoe as Rapunzel

Once there was a girl named Izumi Orimoto who had beautiful long blonde hair and loved to paint. She was a servant of a jealous scheming witch named Musashi Miyamoto, who made her work hard every day. "I took you in when nobody else wanted you or loved you," Musashi always reminded her. The witch kept Izumi hidden away in a grand manor guarded by an enormous dragon named Takeshi.

Izumi's best friends - Tomoki, Takeshi's son, and Junpei, a gruff but good-hearted rabbit - were always by her side and tried to help her. But no matter how hard Izumi worked, Musashi was never pleased.

One day, Izumi and her friends discovered a secret stairwell beneath the kitchen floor. Curious, they crept down the stairs and found an old wooden chest. Inside the chest was a beautiful gold hairbrush with a poem engraved on the handle:

Constant as the stars above,
Always know that you are loved,
To our daughter, Izumi, on her first birthday,
With love forever, Mother and Father.

Izumi nearly wept. "Musashi said my parents never loved me...that I was left on her doorstep when I was a tiny baby. Why would she have lied to me?"

Suddenly, Tomoki sneezed and left a smoking hole in the floor - revealing a secret tunnel! Izumi crawled through the dark passage till it opened into the forest. Just beyond the forest stood a charming village. And in the distance, a gleaming blue castle rose against the sky! Izumi was amazed. It was all so beautiful - and so close by. Why had Musashi told her there was no one living around them for miles?

As Izumi walked toward the castle gardens, she saw a young boy start to fall into a pit. Quickly, she ran to the boy and pulled him to safety, but then Izumi began to slip into the pit too! Suddenly, strong arms caught her. She had been rescued by the boy's older brother. Izumi longed to stay and talk to him, but she feared Musashi would discover her missing. So she ran back into the tunnel without finding out the young man's name. What she did not know was that the boy was a prince and that his brother was also a prince - Prince Takuya Kanbara.

Back at the manor, Musashi's spying ferret, Kojirou, had already tattled on Izumi, and the witch was waiting for her when she returned. "How dare you?!" Musashi fumed.

"What are you doing?" Izumi asked her. "You can't keep me locked away from the world forever."

"Watch me!" grinned Musashi. With a magical bolt from her fingertips, she made the door disappear, the stairs vanish, and the wall grow. Musashi then destroyed Izumi's easel and paints. The long-haired beauty found herself trapped in a tall tower.

Musashi called Takeshi to her. "See to it that she stays put...or else," the witch warned him.

Meanwhile, Takuya rode far and wide, searching for the beautiful girl who had rescued his little brother. He wanted to thank her by inviting her to a masked ball in celebration of his birthday - and he also feared for her safety.

For years, his father, King Hiroaki Kanbara, had been feuding with King Mario Orimoto. Takuya didn't know why, but he know that Mario was preparing to attack the village. The forest was not safe. "I've got to find her!" he declared.

That night, Izumi dreamed that the handsome young man she had met earlier that day had come to rescue her.

"Izumi, Izumi, let down your hair!" he called to her. Izumi's long blonde hair reached to the ground and Prince Takuya began to climb up. But Izumi's dream turned into a nightmare as Musashi appeared.

Izumi woke up with a start and looked out the tower window, where Takeshi swooped by, eyeing her carefully. She then looked at the hairbrush in her hand and read the poem engraved on the handle. "I will be free," she said determinedly and slipped back into bed. While she slept, a shooting star transformed her hairbrush into a magic paintbrush.