by dm00
Mahou shoujo has been subverted before
If you like what Puella Magi Madoka Magica is doing to the mahou shoujo genre, you should take a look at 2002’s Princess Tutu, which remembered the grim in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Kyube could learn a thing or two from Drosselmeyer
The sweet appearance, the goofy cartoon duck, the pratfalls, Neko-sensei, and the ballet poses are a deceptive gloss on the dark forces, tragedy, and suffering that lies buried underneath. A bittersweet tale that doesn’t cop out — it obeys its internal logic to the end, when Ahiru makes the choice presented her by Drosselmeyer and is fully aware of what her choice means.
The series is also memorable for the surprising development that its major characters go through. The attitude you have three episodes in will not be the attitude you have at the end.
Oh, and director Juunichi Sato grew up to do Aria, so of course we’re fans.
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I’m watching this, albeit slowly (brother prefers Tetsujin 28). I’m still at the part where Fakir is an unlikable little bitch, so I’m wondering if the show could change that.
It definitely changes that.
I suspect you’ll be surprised just how much that changes.
At the same time, I’m more involved in the characters in Madoka Magica 4 episodes in than I probably ever was for the characters in Princess Tutu. Which feels strange.
Maybe because the focus on the small number of main characters has been pretty intense? It might also be that the comic pratfalls and artificiality of Tutu serve to distance the characters?
Maybe this is why I could never like this show because I quit watching 3 episodes in. I just didn’t see the appeal in a show where an anteater is dancing around.
Should probably just stick with it next time.
Tutu has two faults. It starts out to lighthearted, the show gets really dark towards the end, but you would have no idea from watching the first episodes. It drags out in certain places giving it a ‘monster of the week’ feel.
I hope I’m not spoiling to much. Princess Tutu is a meta story about a fairytale written by Drosselmeyer, he died before finishing the story, and now his ghost is trying to finish it. Tutu, Mythos, Rue and Fakir are characters in a fairytale who must defeat both the atagonist of the fairytale ‘the monster raven’ but also its author.
Hurin’s criticisms of the series are pretty fair. It does have an “opponent of the week” aspect, certainly. I think, on balance, it overcomes those flaws by the end of the series. Though it retains a certain goofiness well into the series (it is a series about a duck that turns into a princess, after all).
dm: Comic pratfalls always help in that case, not hurt. As for the articiality, I doubt it. I wasn’t sucked into the world as much as I could have been though.
hurin: I made your second paragraph of text such that others have to highlight it in order to see the text, which I think sort of spoils.
I think of princess Tutu as a decontruction and reconstruction of fairy tales tropes.
The ballet is used wonderfully to the point to make people like me who though was boring to absolute LOVE IT and wanting to see every single piece reffered in the series. Also princess Tutu made me fall in love with shoujo all over again dispise having twice the age of the target aundence.
Is delightfull to watch how the creators put so much elements into it and keep it cohorent and brilliant
And of course, Drosselmeyer=Crazy Awsome.