Forum - View topicREVIEW: Princess Tutu DVD 1
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khryoleoz
 Posts: 158 |
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Princess Tutu is an outstanding title that seems to have gotten the same kind of treatment as two other titles I adore. But whereas I at least got the first half of the other two, where's volume two for this one? Is there some conspiracy to delay Junichi Sato titles already announced for distribution? I concede that we have Sailor Moon and Pretear and I'm grateful for that. But I want Kaleido Star and Tutu too.
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SnowfairyX
 Posts: 438 |
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From what I've heard from many people, Princess Tutu is probably the best magical girl series in existence and an excellent anime overall. Still, the series doesn't seem to be very popular, though. I would have picked up this series already if ADV had included an artbox or a limited edition extra with the first volume. Being a fan of mahou shoujo, I'll definitely remember to pick up this series by the time a box set is released.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18175 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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SnowfairyX, I decided to review this title precisely because it doesn't seem to be as popular as it deserves. I normally despise the magical girl genre, so the fact that I gave it a strong review despite that should mean even more.
And last I heard there were production problems with the second volume. No word yet on a revised release date. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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That's cool. I love this series a lot and it ranks as an all-time favorite of mine. I am a fan of the magical girl genre, but this is a great series, and I could see why many who are not fans in particular of the genre would enjoy it. It's one of the best series out there storywise (each story arc starts out good, but it only gets better and better as it goes along. Both arcs have excellent endings IMHO). As far as the character designs go, I thought they're very cute and fit the style of the show well. I'm a little biased to Ikuko Ito's work, though. She was also character designer for Magic User's Club, my favorite anime series. One of the reasons I checked out Tutu in the first place ;)
Yeah, there seems to be some issues with the packaging on the Japanese side of things is what I heard, and they don't know how long it will take. :( I am very disappointed that the release has been delayed, as I've been holding out for a good R1 release for a while now. It's even more of a torturous wait for me since I want to hear how the rest of the dub turns out. It's very hard to match the excellence of the original cast, but I ended up being very pleased with ADV's work in the first volume and I'm really looking foward to hearing more of Luci Christian, Jessica Boone, Jay Hickman, Chris Patton, and the rest in future volumes. Really hope they whatever issues there are sorted out in good time, and they need to get Kaleido Star season 2 back on track as well... |
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ohtori_akio
Posts: 15 Location: Australia |
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I agree. This series is one of the best out there. The only Magical Girl that is better than it IMO is Revolutionary Girl Utena. It's also as unique as Utena ever was which makes it even more remarkable. Hope ADV get their act together and finish the series soon....
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Necros Antiquor
 Posts: 571 Location: Funny in a car crash sort of way |
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Normally, I usually watch shounen anime or anime that doesn't have a gender distinction. I made a promise to myself a few months ago to at least try some shojo anime, to see what the other side of anime is like. To accomplish this end, I downloaded some episodes of Tsubasa Chronicle, borrowed some DNAngel, and have been watching Princess Tutu (and Azumanga Daioh) on Anime Network on Demand. To be honest, if someone walked up to me and told me to watch this, I would have stopped at the words "magical girl anime" and never gave it another chance.
However, I didn't. I'm very surprised that I'm enjoying a show like this, especially when I usually despise the maho shoujo genre. It must truely be a testament to the quality of this show if I can continue to be intrigued by it. Hopefully it won't devolve into a "Dancer of the Week" show from here, to modify the phrase "Monster of the Week." |
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astra
Posts: 131 |
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I'm so glad you gave Princess Tutu a nice review. Its definitley an odd bird (ha!) but I think people should give it a try to see if they like it. Its appeal for me and a few of my friends was that it spoke to the inner eight year old in all of us that wanted to be a ballerina. Its fun to see that guys like it too!
I remember an earlier review of it on this site that was negative. I had no problem with the negative opinion, but what threw me off was when the reviewer gave the music a bad grade. You do NOT diss Tchaikovsky. This anime is great because it uses great music of the masters. It really reminded me of watching old Looney Toons but reallly matches the action to the music. This is definitley an anime for orch dorks and band geeks. I really loved the second episode because it used Pictures at an Exhibition. They used the chicken theme for when Ahiru turns into a duck and it was just perfectly arranged and timed. I love that they used all sorts of stuff, not just the stereotypical Tchaik for ballet! |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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Don't worry about that. The "dancer of the week" thing does not go on for the whole show. There are two major story arcs, one the Chapter of Egg (eps. 1-13) and Chapter of Chick (eps. 14-26). Both of them start out with a kind of "friend-of-the-week" theme that it follows for several eps. and then the story starts to pick up big-time when it starts getting about halfway through each story arc. That's not to say that there's not plenty of development to the story even during the "friend-of-the-week" parts, though (as can been seen from the first volume), and I rather like how they integrated that aspect of mahou shoujo series in such an interesting manner. |
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SnowfairyX
Posts: 438 |
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I appreciate you trying to spread the good word about this series, Key. It is unfortunate that many good series like Tutu are virtually ignored by Region 1, but these are exactly the types of series that I support. Do you planning on supporting this series eventually? What makes you "despise" the magical girl genre by the way? That seems like a pretty strong word and I personally find nothing despicable about many anime genres besides certain hentai. I know that many magical girl series are lacking originality, but why do you hate it so much in general? As for the second volume, I think I heard that by the time the second volume is ready, ADV will do something with the first volume. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18175 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I am supporting it now. 
I know part of the problem is that I am well removed from the target audience. (Though I say that, I do have a male friend close to the same age who loves mahou shojo.) Beyond the usual lack of originality that you already mentioned, the thing that gets me the most about magical girl series is that they tend to be overkill on the sugary-sweet side. And "despise" is the correct word for my reaction to the genre in general. Watching Ultra Maniac vol. 1 both ways to do my review of it was a real test of endurance for me, and I only barely struggled through the first episode of Wedding Peach. (You would have to pay me to get me to watch another episode of it.) I gave up on Nurse Witch Komugi after only one ep, though I think I got through two episodes of Pretear before bailing - so as you can see, I do regularly give the genre a try. Strangely, though, I did really get into the live-action version of Sailor Moon and watched the whole damn thing. Princess Tutu is not like any of the above, which is why I can get into it. And people are saying the series gets better still! It's likely to stay on my "high-priority" list. |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5466 |
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Man, wait until Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha gets licensed and released. It's one of the few mahou shoujo series where the action takes up almost half the episode. Of course it seriously picks up once her rival Fate comes along.
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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Hoping it gets licensed and released as well. Probably one of the most "shounen" of magical girl series, and I found it to be great fun, with some interesting characters and story. |
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