Forum - View topicANNCast - Tutu Time
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Wingbeats
 Posts: 272 Location: Boise, Idaho |
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Not sure what's up - but I'm getting a "no file" error when I try to download the mp3. The stream-y thingy isn't working either.
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SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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If anyone is interested, here's one of the papers I mention in the podcast that I wrote about Princess Tutu:
https://www.academia.edu/11502637/Twilight_of_the_Ducks_Music_and_Fate_in_Princess_Tutu |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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The streaming works for me.
On another note, here is the discussion thread for Princess Tutu. |
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rheiders
 Posts: 1137 Location: Colorful Colorado :) |
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Just thought I'd mention how I got into Princess Tutu since I'm one of those people Zac said he hadn't heard from who fell in love with the show without getting the references. I was about fourteen years old when I watched the show for the first time (actually, after watching Hope's video about it), and I fell deeply in love with the characters and the ambience the show was creating. The only ballet I'd ever seen was The Nutcracker, and my experience with fairy tales largely came from Disney movies. Of course, I loved seeing the Nutcracker every year and was fascinated with ballet as an art form, so I loved seeing how that art form was conveyed through animation (another medium I loved without really knowing much about it yet--boy how things change, haha). I loved the feeling of fairy tales, so even if I didn't get the specific references, I was completely happy to be swept along with the show's dream logic and just feel like I was walking through one of my favorite picture books growing up, or walking through the Nutcracker. I didn't need to know the details because the emotional beats hit, and because I thought it was beautiful.
Of course, now I know a lot more about some of the classical music, ballets, and fairy tales brought up in Princess Tutu, largely because Tutu made me interested in them. Utena (and Penguindrum, and Yurikuma) did the same thing for me, and usually when I make a top 5 favorite anime list the two end up right next to each other. I kept laughing when Zac was complaining about the lore stuff with the tree and Hope kept trying to interject, "But it was neat!" because that's how I feel!  I don't care if it's complicated; it's neat! Which is kind of funny, because I usually hate shows that get bogged down with lore too haha. I guess that just kind of shows the difference between people who love the show and people who are left a bit cold by it.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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I remember when Princess Tutu was one of the nameless, quote, "Anime with Princess in the title" that Best Buy was complaining about during the 00's Bubble--
And I'd only watched the first ep. out of curiosity because I'd just identified the fact that Kaleido Star and Sgt. Frog were from the same director as Sailor Moon, and now I wanted to watch everything Junichi Sato directed. 
Most of the current rabid "One of the greatest classics in anime!" fandom roots from an overcompensation of the same frustration of trying to make new converts, but it's still hard to believe there are any holdouts. Nowadays, it's at the risk of "the Eva factor", where casual anime fans avoid the fan-worshipped titles at all costs, expecting another pretentious artsy nightmare. (Which they might also get in the first episode, if they were too predisposed to expect one.) Haven't been able to download the podcast either, but sounds like Zac is in the latter category of "Look, it's just not that good, okay??" (And ftr, I liked the references, as the strange village is supposed to be the Once Upon a Time "Storybrooke of Ballet"--where they really "are" the classic fairytale-ballet characters in an amnesiac curse of their original stories by some scheming evil-overlord figure trying to "rewrite the ending"--and that Edel is the doll from Coppelia and Mr. Cat is Puss in Boots from Sleeping Beauty, etc. I suspect that hardcore Oncies make more sense out of this show than normal anime fans do. Those not up on their classic references might just put it off as a lot of anime artsy-nonsense and Sailor Moon recycling.) |
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Innerd
Posts: 2 |
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As someone who never studied classical music or the stories behind it, I really loved this show back when I was younger and I still do. The art and the characters is the appeal to me.
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FordXanakov
Posts: 15 |
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Hey thanks for reading my Twitter question! And thanks to RightStuf for the membership!
Anyway, after listening to the podcast I decided what I'm going to do since I was having a hard time getting through the first half. I think some of my issues were similar to things Zac mentioned in the podcast, but not the major problem for me. My time for anime as well as my attention span have taken a hit since my daughter was born. She is about 7 months old now. I'll hang back a few more years and wait for her to be old enough to get something out of it and we can watch it together! (Edit: Come to think of it, that wouldn't be the only connection between the ANNCast and my baby girl. After she was released from the hospital, we had to take my daughter back to the hospital due to a little bit of jaundice. It's incredibly normal in newborns, but very stressful when you haven't slept much in 3 days. Last thing you want to hear is your baby has any health issues at all. So when we took her back and they kept her for obversation, I listened to old episodes of the podcast to help keep what little bit of my sanity I had left at that point (I remember listening to the best of various decades episodes in particular). I've been meaning to tell you guys this story for a while, because you indirectly helped me out a lot during a tough time. So thank you guys for putting out a great podcast! BTW, Emilia got over the jaundice really quick and is 100% healthy and happy today!) Last edited by FordXanakov on Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Lili-Hime
 Posts: 569 |
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Wow what a nice surprise!! I really love this show, so glad to see people talking about it. While I didn't really get all the references either, I'd been raised with ballet and opera thanks to my grandma so I was naturally just drawn to this show. She used to take me & my sisters to ballets all the time, and this brought back some fond memories for me as I happened to watch it pretty shortly after she passed away.
The main attraction to me with this show was the characters finding their own individualism and breaking away from their pre-defined roles in society. It didn't impact me as much as Utena because it was less 'mature' and dealt less with the gender & sexuality aspect, but the similar themes did resonate. I believe it's pretty common especially in our teenage years to feel like we're just 'assigned' a certain role in life and just have to play that out. And like duck, a lot of us have phases in adolescents where we feel awkward and inadequate. All the 4 major characters have moments where they stop allowing their self-image to be created by some over-arching meta narrative and just do what they feel in their heart; regardless of their fears. That's a pretty encouraging theme to me. And it being Utena jr. isn't bad. Utena is awesome. Girls who watch this show might be more likely to watch Utena as they get into their adolescent years. In my case, Sailor Moon was my gateway to Utena; Tutu is probably a much better one. |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 974 Location: Kansas |
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Watching Princess Tutu was like reading classical literature for me: I'm glad I watched it but boy was I bored in the process.
Like Zac said, the overall story was great but the episodic action was too slow. I don't even normally mind the "monster of the week" formula but Tutu's was just so repetitive and weak. I think it was definitely spoiled for me by it being hyped up. Everyone labeling it as a "magical girl deconstruction" ala Madoka Magica is just doing it a disservice. I spent the whole show waiting for "shit to go down" and it just never happened that way. It was a fairytale, a Grimm-like fairytale, but a fairytale through and through. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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I knew nothing about ballet and not many of the references when I first got into the show. It was great to learn about them, though I loved the show for the beginning. Don't think it was an impediment to my enjoyment at all. I had my eye on the series before it aired, though, because I was a huge fan of Magic User's Club (came across that show by chance with Media Blaster's release in the early 2000's) and thus the fact that it had the same director and character designer immediately drew my attention. I think it was one of the earliest (if not THE earliest) series I first saw some of fansubbed, in the sense of being a brand new franchise, and I eagerly anticipated ADV's release and bought them as they came out (waiting out the disheartening release gap between the first two volumes). The series was quite the experience for me, and it's one that's held up well for me rewatching. It's getting yet another collection re-release next April. Happy that it continues to remain in print and available for streaming for new people to check out.
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unitmikey
 Posts: 286 |
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Yeah... the main problem really is the character design. It's not just that they are for kids, but more that there is just something really bland to them. The director's imagery for mood were great, but the simplicity of the character art weighs down a show that really need to be well rounded to pull everything off. If CLAMP did the character designs I feel like the show would have received a completely different reaction from fans at large.
The writing and direction are impeccable though, and totally worth it in the end despite the character design needing work. |
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Keichitsu0305
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Besides the European fairy tales, world folklore, and occasional references classical literature, I knew nothing about ballets aside from the music sounded pretty. So, in far as references, Princess Tutu actually uses the ballets and fantasy in a meaningful way that resonated with the scene and enhanced it.
I agree that rewatching the series in parts is more beneficial since I had to look up information along with the extras to fully understand some episodes. Hype will hurt any series and boy, was this over-hyped. For me, I waited a whole year after Madoka ended so, I could avoid getting disappointed by the raving reviews. Didn't work but, I just love Tutu and Utena more. Rose put it best saying that Utena and Madoka are intellectually rewarding while Tutu remains emotionally rewarding. As for names...why not The Prince and the Duck (since Drosselmeyer's last tale was The Prince and the Raven) or Ahiru the Ballet Princess? Hold Me Now is still one of the best AMVs of my early weeboo career. The bloopers track still cracks me up like whenever Luci Christan as Duck/Ahiru curses.
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NickPenrhyn
 Posts: 35 |
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So I'm getting that Zac found it was a bit convoluted xD
He's got a bit of a point: the Episode Primer scenes invite maybe a bit more reading into than is actually dramatically present early on. Those bits are really only supposed to create a sense of fate that the episode either fulfills or disproves. I think Princess Tutu falls into the mystery genre, musical reference aside. That's the pacing intended, and what people are ultimately staying for: will Duck escape fate, or is it gonna rear its ugly head? |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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While I've always enjoyed classical music, and this is my favorite anime of all time (the funny thing is, it's the total outlier. Gurren Lagann, Macross, Digimon, Outlaw Star, notice how very little Tutu has in common with those), I went in not knowing jack about any of the ballets either (except some of the disneyfied versions). I am into classical music for sure, but Giselle? Scherezade? Ring Cycle? Coppelia? Midsummer Night's Dream? I didn't know the plots to any of these things personally. I looked them up later, but I probably saw the series three times before knowing the plots to them (because I really loved it so I saw it a bunch of times before I even had a chance to do more research, lol) I pretty much knew Romeo and Juliet (because that's a high school standard in the US, but it's also popular enough that everyone knows the basic plot of that anyway) and that's about it.
But what I loved, in addition to the perfectly chosen classical music, was definitely seeing the first season play all these tropes fairly straight, enjoyable, but nothing earth shaking, and then take the second half of the show and subvert every damn one of them. I remember when I first saw the show, that was what I determined was what I loved about it so much. Seeing all the characters fight against fate in their own ways was what I loved the most. And all the emotion of the ending? Simply incredible. Also, my favorite character was totally Fakir, but I certainly loved Duck, Rue, and Mytho by the end (though you certainly end the first half with different feelings on the various characters, I liked that that changed. So yeah, I was sure I was missing references when watching it, but it didn't personally hamper my enjoyment at all. What I don't get is why taking a few sentences to explain the tree thing is wrong and hampers the anime as a whole, but try to explain in Utena the elevator, or Miki's stop watch, or anything with a damn car (don't seriously explain these, please, it will take a while, I am aware). That could take paragraphs with three people giving you wildly different answers, but that's suddenly ok because Utena is doing it more obviously on purpose? Some people think Miki's stopwatch signifies something important, some insist it's just a character quirk. I'm not meaning to pick on Utena (though it is a low hanging fruit), plenty of other anime have obscure references that might require tons of pages to explain too, I don't see why going light on it suddenly is a negative, like it has to be all or nothing. That seems like a double standard. If you don't like that thing at all, that's fine, but I just don't see why it's ok there, but not here (as long as the show itself isn't garbage, no amount of symbolic digestion would help a Uwe Boll movie) |
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escahime65
 Posts: 87 Location: Iowa |
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The Hold Me Now amv is what got me interested enough to watch Princess Tutu. (Seriously, if you haven't seen the amv watch it ASAP! It is one of the best ever.) I pretty much agree with everything Hope and Rose said. All the layers of context just added to the story for me and the guide on the dvds helps with that. Of course, I have always been a sucker for great classical music and fairy tales so it is right up my alley.
One thing that gets underrated is the amount of comic relief in it. Like when Duck's friends completely misunderstand what is happening or Cat sensei or Uzura's antics. It helps balance all the drama. I enjoy Tutu much more than Utena or Madoka because the story feels more cohesive and well planned and pulls those heartstrings hard! Also, I never could make much sense of Utena and Madoka's plot really pulls the rug right out from under you, which I didn't like. I think Tutu really hits all the right notes when it comes to drama, mystery, romance, fantasy, etc. It is definitely in my top 10 anime.
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