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Shelf Life - Princess Tutu


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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 9:58 pm Reply with quote
Don't forget about more Junichi Sato fun with Magic User's Club! It's got the same character designer as Princess Tutu as well (Ikuko Itoh, I believe?) And Nozomi put it out pretty cheap too! Even if you just get the OVA series (the TV series is a direct sequel with a lower budget, but it's still fun), it's worth it!
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Zeino



Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:04 pm Reply with quote
Princess Tutu is one of my top 10 anime of the 00s. It is what made me fall in love with Junichi Sato who is an underappreciated genius who is the equal to his far more acclaimed colleague and Sailor Moon co-author, Kunihiko Ikuhara. For me, half of the draw of the series was the characters who over time endear themselves to you utterly and the other half was the metafictional element of stories within stories, characters fighting the author and overcoming fate that were set for them. And the use of classical ballet dances in place of the typical monster of the episode battles is just crazy brilliant.

It's one of five essential magical girl series that I think everyone who has more than a passing interest in the genre should watch.

Quote:
Heck, I'm pretty sure I even found an easter egg in one of the menus. Now that's a blast from the past.

It wouldn't happen to be a certain AMV with a Swedish singer that helped get alot of the people into the series in the first place, would it?


Last edited by Zeino on Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:11 pm Reply with quote
Love Princess Tutu. If it wasn't for that music video, I never would have heard of this and got interested. Pretear also on my favorite list.
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Denys Lalande



Joined: 28 Jan 2018
Posts: 88
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:26 pm Reply with quote
_PT_: An exercise in An Author's Worst Nightmare -- "what happens when my characters stubbornly refuse to do what I tell them to do?" >;)
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fuuma_monou



Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 1816
Location: Quezon City, Philippines
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:32 pm Reply with quote
Regarding the Duck/Ahiru thing in Princess Tutu: IIRC, Animax Asia's dub kept her name as Ahiru (so the lip-flaps would be the same, I guess) but also explained that it literally means duck. Mostly I remember it being one of Sarah Hauser's better female roles; lately she's played the male leads in Level-5 anime series.
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CR85747



Joined: 13 Oct 2014
Posts: 113
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:53 pm Reply with quote
"I'm gonna write a letter to the President!"
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6864
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:20 pm Reply with quote
John Thacker wrote:
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
I also agree the English dub is really good and people get too worked up over the issue on Duck's name.


One problem is that people incorrectly but understandably think that it's like changing Usagi to Serena (or Rabbit or Bunny) in Sailor Moon, instead of what it is, which is more like changing Onna Shinkan to Priestess in Goblin Slayer or similar shows.
I agree; there's a tendency in the anime fandom for knee-jerk, "that's like turning onigiri into jelly doughnuts in Pokémon!!" reactions, without considering the broader context of the show. (In this case, it's more like using "rice balls" instead of "onigiri.") Of course, that change is present in the subtitled version as well, though as I pointed out when this topic came up before, even the fansubbers agree with ADV's localization decisions. In many ways, we're lucky we even got a full release of Princess Tutu, let alone one with an English dub, let even further alone one with a good dub. The sales were known to be poor; I had thought that the second DVD single volume was heavily delayed due to those poor sales, but I guess it was officially announced as unspecified packaging issues with the licensor. Of course, even back then, people were whining about the name "changes," as if Ahiru and whatever romanization guesses the fansubbers came up with for other names (Mute, Fakia, Claire, etc.) were the undisputed gospel truth Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes

Juno016 wrote:
I'm going to second both Princess Tutu and Pretear. If you like one, you're at least going to have a favorable disposition for the other. But Pretear hasn't had a recent release, right?
Unfortunately no; Funimation did license Pretear back in 2012, but they've never done a new DVD release -- only streaming.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1006
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:19 am Reply with quote
Ojamajo LimePie wrote:
I love Princess Tutu, and I hope this re-release does well. I miss when magical girl shows that weren't super-edgy got licensed. (Wink, nudge.)
Heck, forget about super edgy, go even farther and make room for magical girl shows that aren't about defeating demons, whether "dark" deconstructions or more like Sailor Moon and Precure. Though I am never likely to get Hime-chan no Ribbon.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:54 am Reply with quote
John Thacker wrote:
Ojamajo LimePie wrote:
I love Princess Tutu, and I hope this re-release does well. I miss when magical girl shows that weren't super-edgy got licensed. (Wink, nudge.)
Heck, forget about super edgy, go even farther and make room for magical girl shows that aren't about defeating demons, whether "dark" deconstructions or more like Sailor Moon and Precure. Though I am never likely to get Hime-chan no Ribbon.


Basically, the pre-Madoka late 90's/early 00's, when "Magical girls" weren't seen as the symbolic scapegoat bane for all "annoying" anime in Japan (sort of their equivalent of why we still make Smurfs and Care Bears jokes about cartoons, thirty years after they stopped airing), before being guilt-by-association attached to the Otaku Menace.

Never mind "edgy", when we also start getting goofy genre-"deconstructive" series like Magical Girl Ore or Gonna Be the Twin-Tail, it's born out of pure frustration.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:15 am Reply with quote
I like Princess Tutu but it sounds like I really don't have to upgrade my DVD set which I expected as the show seems to be in that terrible spot after film but before HD so everything just looks... I have the ARIA BDs and upscaling helps only in bits and spots.

I am a bit disappointed by the positive talk on Pretear which in my mind was Sato working in a field he wasn't comfortable with, the reverse harem. The soft focus of the show permeated its premise in its short run and that's Sato's main problem, that it takes him awhile before his shows tend to get focused so his shorter series tend to back end with bits of "So that's what he was trying to do" or they just never gel at all. For me, Pretear was definitely an example of the latter.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:23 am Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
I agree; there's a tendency in the anime fandom for knee-jerk, "that's like turning onigiri into jelly doughnuts in Pokémon!!" reactions, without considering the broader context of the show. (In this case, it's more like using "rice balls" instead of "onigiri.") Of course, that change is present in the subtitled version as well, though as I pointed out when this topic came up before, even the fansubbers agree with ADV's localization decisions. In many ways, we're lucky we even got a full release of Princess Tutu, let alone one with an English dub, let even further alone one with a good dub. The sales were known to be poor; I had thought that the second DVD single volume was heavily delayed due to those poor sales, but I guess it was officially announced as unspecified packaging issues with the licensor. Of course, even back then, people were whining about the name "changes," as if Ahiru and whatever romanization guesses the fansubbers came up with for other names (Mute, Fakia, Claire, etc.) were the undisputed gospel truth Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes


You're so right, Zalis. The nonsense that comes out of the so-called purists in the fandom, I swear...
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 2997
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:20 pm Reply with quote
zawa113 wrote:
Don't forget about more Junichi Sato fun with Magic User's Club! It's got the same character designer as Princess Tutu as well (Ikuko Itoh, I believe?) And Nozomi put it out pretty cheap too! Even if you just get the OVA series (the TV series is a direct sequel with a lower budget, but it's still fun), it's worth it!


Yeah, nobody talks about Magic User's Club which is a shame because it was a fun series. Nozomi even released the English dub in stereo which was a pretty big deal because this was one of the shows that Media Blasters originally released with mono audio (same case as Berserk before their 2008 "remaster") and also included are the Japanese extras including a segment with both Junichi Sato and Ikuko Itoh at Triangle Staff.

Animegomaniac wrote:
I like Princess Tutu but it sounds like I really don't have to upgrade my DVD set which I expected as the show seems to be in that terrible spot after film but before HD so everything just looks... I have the ARIA BDs and upscaling helps only in bits and spots.


Maybe someone else can confirm but did Sentai keep the Japanese credits intact on the new BDs? The Aesir DVDs I have are straight ports of the ADV discs from back when they were still using creditless videos to add their own English credits for each episode (which got annoying with their ED scrolls covering most of the screen).
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:48 pm Reply with quote
NJ_ wrote:
zawa113 wrote:
Don't forget about more Junichi Sato fun with Magic User's Club! It's got the same character designer as Princess Tutu as well (Ikuko Itoh, I believe?) And Nozomi put it out pretty cheap too! Even if you just get the OVA series (the TV series is a direct sequel with a lower budget, but it's still fun), it's worth it!


Yeah, nobody talks about Magic User's Club which is a shame because it was a fun series.


It's a fun series (didn't even know it was Sato), but
A) It sort of got lost in the 90's Comedy crowd back at the expensive/no-rental birth of US anime DVD, with Tenchi, Slayers and Nadesico getting all the attention,
B ), We really don't know just what the heck is up with that alien bell,
and
C) I don't care if she turns "nice" at the end of the first season, Akane Aikawa still obnoxiously drains the oxygen out of every episode. The hairs on your neck start to go up every time she gets a line. Mad
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4787
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:36 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:

Is it recommendable to fans of ducks in general? Such a species seldom finds representation in anime protagonists, after all, let alone protagonists of anything acclaimed.
I think you might enjoy it as Duck's animal form is a major plot point in the show and she switches to her animal form pretty frequently in the series.

Quote:
Unfortunately no; Funimation did license Pretear back in 2012, but they've never done a new DVD release -- only streaming.
I never understood why Funimation has yet to release Pretear on DVD in spite of having the rights to the series for years now. It's not like a situation like Crest of the Stars where they had to wait years for Bandai to find good masters for them to use and the old ADV boxset has long been out of stock on Right Stuf.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1006
PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:06 pm Reply with quote
EricJ2 wrote:
Basically, the pre-Madoka late 90's/early 00's, when "Magical girls" weren't seen as the symbolic scapegoat bane for all "annoying" anime in Japan (sort of their equivalent of why we still make Smurfs and Care Bears jokes about cartoons, thirty years after they stopped airing), before being guilt-by-association attached to the Otaku Menace.

Never mind "edgy", when we also start getting goofy genre-"deconstructive" series like Magical Girl Ore or Gonna Be the Twin-Tail, it's born out of pure frustration.


I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're saying here.

The genre deconstructions and parodies and dark versions (which didn't really come in any order, considering things like Pretty Sammy or Puni Puni Poemy, or the endings of Minky Momo or Nurse Angel Ririka SOS) are pretty much all riffing off of the type of magical girl show that largely started with Sailor Moon and then swallowed the whole genre (with some shows like Akazukin Cha Cha getting changes from the manga to the anime to fit more in that style), with the Precure franchise being the long running current standard bearer.

I'm talking about the type of shows that previously were magical girl shows, perhaps the last example being Mahou no Stage Fancy Lala (and before that Kaito Saint Tail). None of them have ever been that popular in America (and probably did cause some heartburn among retailers here), but none of those shows ever became any kind of scapegoat for annoying shows in Japan, as opposed to here. They mostly died out for a variety of reasons, not least being simply a lot fewer anime shown on television during normal viewing hours in Japan (which is related to the end of the toy-financed show boom and in which has analogies with US children's television of the 80s and early 90s.)
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