Princess Tutu

Publisher
ADV
Director
Junichi SatoJunichi Sato, Shogo Kawamoto
Production
GANSIS, Haru film Maker
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2002

Princess Tutu Episode 1

By David Rasmussen
14th Apr 05

Looks like I now have a brand new thing to review from Free on Demand!
They just started showing Princess Tutu on Free on Demand, and since I raved about the title when I reviewed Manga Graphic Novel 1 I figured this would be a good chance to start reviewing the TV Series, and then I can see if it’s as good as the Manga it’s based on. Let’s see...

Before We Begin...
Let’s recap the Manga briefly.
Meet Ahiru, who is abit clumsy but a good girl nevertheless.
She studies at this exclusive school, Kinkan Academy, which promotes the teaching of ballet to all it’s students. Ahiru dreams of becoming the ballerina she can be, and dance with the prince of her dreams... who happens to be going to the same school she does! What a coincidence.
Strange, though, he seems to have this thousand mile stare as if he’s looking at something far, far away... maybe it’s the lighting, maybe it’s the setting, maybe he just doesn’t have a soul... or a heart.
In this case it’s his heart, as in spiritual as opposed to physical since he wouldn’t be alive if he was missing THAT heart... anyway without a heart he has about as much personality as a Borg, only without the whole “You will be assimilated” thing going for him.
Of course getting near Mytho isn’t going to be easy for Ahiru, and not just because of her nerves or her awkwardness at times... Mytho has a “bodyguard” of sorts who is constantly watching over him in a fellow student named Fakir, whose relationship to Mytho is not entirely clear. He seems to want to protect him, but then there... well, moving on.

Walking around town one day, however, leads Ahiru to this new store where this kind woman named Miss Edel gives her a special pendant, which (when Mytho is threatened by a Resident Evil sized disgruntled fish) allows Ahiru to transform into Princess Tutu so she can save him!
But in order to “save” him she figures to gather up the many shattered shards of his “heart” and reassemble them, but how did that happen? Why was his heart “shattered”, and why is Fakir (who seems determined to protect... or use... Mytho) so determined to keep Mytho the hollow “shell” of a person he is?

Who is Rue (aka Princess Kraehe) and why is she hell bent on gathering the shards, yet also seems to be not so evil since at one point she is worried about a rampaging giant teddy bear terrorizing the town?
And what of Ahiru’s “benefactor” who seems to have her own hidden agenda?
Who is evil? Who is good? Filled with abit of grey there is a not so clear distinction as to whose side who is on, if any, and who is doing what for either good or evil. As the book ends there are lots of questions, few answers, and lots of tantalizing reasons to come back to continue onwards in Book 2!
And the book is just darn fun to read and cute too.

Too bad I can’t say the same for the Anime.

Episode 1
Within the first five minutes you’ll have more plot spoiled than you ever wanted spoiled, or needed spoiled.
Why Mytho’s heart is shattered, the “enemy”... though I’m sure it’s not the same “enemy” as the manga... and a few things that just don’t sit well with me. Starting with the starting.

As the opening credits roll you are treated to a hauntingly beautiful piece of opening credit music that is just wondrous to listen to! It is original, I think, and quite good... pity the rest of the soundtrack isn’t like that.
And as we open we find ourselves in a dark forest. Well, either the anime community has gone off and finally made “Silent Hill the Animation” or this is going to be even more of a disappointment than Disney axing the release of My Neighbor Totoro on DVD... if such a thing was possible!

Ahiru wants to dance a Pas De Deux with the prince, but she can’t because she’s a duck... in voice and in body... say what? Yeah. Apparently in THIS version she is a cute little duck at times, which is ironic since that’s exactly how the people who made this anime treated the story that came from the manga, like a duck... a duck’s foie gras (liver) in anycase! Just like an episode of Iron Chef (classic Japanese version) they have chopped up the source material, threw it into a blender with some other foreign “elements” set to “pulverize“, then they tossed the concoction into an ice cream maker to come up with something that only has a PASSING resemblance to what it was... with it being as disturbing as the thought of eating foie gras sorbet! So curse you, Hiroyuki Sakai! Curse you and your weird sorbets/ice creams!

Then there’s the clear and present “danger” of the so-called “storyteller” character who doesn’t appear in the manga, or so I hope. The character is as disturbing to look at as he is personality wise, and there’s nothing good about him. Why the anime had to be burdened with such a weird freak of a character is unknown! I liked the strange “lack” of a villain in the manga’s beginning, and how you were left wondering who was bad from who was good. Who was genuine in their words and feelings, and who was deceitful and hiding more than they let on. Most of the threats of the manga’s first volume came from things “touched” by Mytho’s heart shards that were mutated by said contact with same heart shards. That was the proper way to do the “big bad” of Princess Tutu, not to mention kick this series off as opposed to this obvious farce of a “big bad” in the anime who was just a big disappointment from the start!

Then we have the strange personality disorders, or characters who don’t seem to be in character.
We have Ahiru, who seems (as of the start of Episode 1) to be the “bird whisperer” since she seems to feed the local birds (and the runaway former pet birds who now seem to roam the city just waiting for food from her since there’s way too many birds that don’t look at all to be wild birds). Eh? She didn’t have a habit of feeding (or talking to) the birds as she does in this version! Also her name is “duck” in this anime!
Her name is NOT DUCK! Her name means “duck” but you don’t call her duck!
Oh, yeah, looks like they Americanized the names for the most part... how sad.

Speaking of “sad” we have the sad case of Yuma, who seems to be channeling the worse traits of a different character... Tomoyo Daidouji of Card Captor Sakura.
When they did the English dub (evil dub) of Card Captor Sakura they did a lot to ax any signs of Tomoyo’s feelings for Sakura, only now it seems that the people who did this Anime went out of their way to have Yuma seemingly drooling over Ahiru which she really didn’t do in the manga. And she does it in such an obvious way you wonder who they’re trying to fool... not me, that’s for certain!
She’s Ahiru’s good friend, yes, but she didn’t show any signs of having a fatalistic Tomoyo Daidouji romantic link to Ahiru in the manga... and since I am a firm believer of the manga I’m going to stick to that story and you won’t shake me from it.
It’s not going to work anyway! I stick to my guns that Tomoyo and Sakura were meant for each other DESPITE the fact CLAMP shoved her together with Mr. Potato Head (Syaoran Li), but I don’t buy for a second that Yuma supposedly has those same “feelings” for Ahiru since she never showed that in the manga.
Also Yuma is too air headed and bubbly in the anime, which she is NOT in the manga. She is a happy bubbly personality, but not to the point of it becoming an annoying thing to watch... like here. She has some serious moments as well, like the chapter concerning her reunion with her bear Mallon.

Then we have the overusage of one Mr. Cat. Mind you, if you follow the manga as a guide then Mr. Cat does NOT appear for a few episodes, and he appears as the special teacher called in to assist in teaching the Basic Class (and wasn’t there from the beginning)! That means the girls should have a female teacher as of this episode, since she teaches the Basic Class (of which Ahiru is a member of), but instead who should walk in but Mr. Cat, mostly so they can “milk” the Mr. Cat character for all he’s worth... so where is Adam Sandler when you really need a good cat milker!

Then there’s the disappointing soundtrack. Disappointing in that it has an original opening song, and an original closing song, and an anime filled with borrowed tracks from The Nutcracker and probably other classical ballets as well. Yeah. It’s like getting a sandwich made with fine quality freshly baked bread filled with the same old usual sandwich meat and cheese from the meats and cheese section! It’s not a good thing!
I wanted to hear some original music! I wanted them to show me some fresh blood in classical music that would really make this anime stand out, not make the soundtrack suffer from 2001 syndrome!

2001 syndrome. Ok. You all know of the Arthur C. Clarke book slash classic sci-fi movie 2001 : A Space Odyssey, right? And you know that the movie was just full of classical music (like this anime).
HOWEVER did you know that originally the 2001 soundtrack was to have original music made for the movie included? At the last minute however they swapped it out with well known classical music, which left the original soundtrack lying unused until only recently when they finally put out a 2001 (if I remember right) with it’s original unique soundtrack restored.
THAT is what Princess Tutu needed. It needed the courage to create new music that spoke volumes of the series, and the beauty of the manga which should have been translated better into the anime.

Then there’s the whole turning Ahiru into a little duck thing! That didn’t happen in the manga so why are we being burdened with it here in the Anime? It’s as if the anime was a hybrid... like they took Princess Tutu, slapped on Swan Lake, The Ugly Duckling, The Nutcracker (abit of music comes from there) and more for this awkwardly paced, not so well written, flawed and error filled, just plain no good anime.

The manga has such promise, but the anime throws it all away and tries to be “unique”... tries and fails!
I don’t know what they were thinking when they made this, but it couldn’t have been a good thought.
Breakdown time, while I’m still able to.

Princess Tutu Breakdown the 1st
What’s Hot? - Sadly it’s not as hot as it should be, which brings me to a riddle.
How do I tell you about the good of Princess Tutu without speaking of the bad?
I can’t tell you to watch the anime first because you’ll never ever want to pick up the manga, which is a bad thing because the manga is good (a little treasure of a title you might have overlooked, but deserves your attention no questions asked)!
On the other hand I can’t tell you to read the manga and THEN watch the anime because you’ll be dreadfully disappointed with the anime once you read the manga! It just doesn’t go with the manga!
I wish I could say that this is worth watching, I really do! I like the manga, I have only praise for it and I want you to read the manga because it’s good. However, that being said, there’s way too many things that are so wrong about Princess Tutu the anime to even recommend it!
Too much spoiler info at the start! The characters seem rather “off”, Mr. Cat is overused, the “storyteller” big bad is no good, the whole Ahiru as a duck thing doesn’t work, the music should have been more original and not just canned classical that everyone and their second cousin has overused for their shows!
The point is that this series should have been better, and yet it wasn’t! It feel short and I was disappointed!

The manga has beautiful moments, especially with Ahiru’s friends! Like the scene with Yuma and her bear Mallon as they are reunited, or when Ahiru (as Princess Tutu) dances with her friend Mai to comfort her after she’s rejected by Fakir (both scenes revealing another heart shard that belongs to Mytho).
I have a feeling the anime will either ruin these scenes, or cut them out altogether which is a bad thing!

What’s Not? - Think I said all there is to say on that, so nuff’ said.

Moments to Remember? - There are moments that still shine through in this series, but the goodness of this series is constantly hampered and handicapped by the flaws and the bad things which just drags it down.
It could have been a most memorable series, but it falls short and that is a disappointment!

What to Ignore? - The moment comes when Ahiru must save a falling Mytho from certain death... which is even more disturbing since he’s been bedridden for awhile and is only wearing a nightshirt!
The first thing that came to mind was naked Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Libery doing cartwheels in the nude. Go figure.

Overall? - There are a lot of things Princess Tutu Episode 1 can teach you!
Never ever end your sentences with stuff like “I’ll give my life for that to happen” or something like that!
Never ever end your sentences with a declaration of death if you got something, because lord knows in series like this there’s always somebody willing to take you up on your offer.
Never ever allow your original story to be chucked into a writing “food processor” to be chopped up into slush, then frozen and remade into storyline sherbet. You’ll not like the results of the tinkering.
Why did the Anime have to be so damn different, and in a bad way! Bad Anime! Bad!
And remember! If the manga is not broken, don’t try to “fix” it by making a completely “revisioned” anime... more often than not you’ll create a monster you wish you hadn’t made... much like this series!

Yeah, yeah, Prince of Persia : Warrior Within didn’t suffer from the “changes” made between that game and the previous Sands of Time, but this isn’t Prince of Persia!
I still have praise for the Princess Tutu manga. It’s a title you should check out, and embrace as quality reading. However I don’t feel the same about the anime, and really wish it was more like the manga than what it turned out to be which is just plain disappointing.
I wish it was different, but it isn’t. Sad but true. Maybe Episode 2 will change my mind, but I doubt it.

-- David Rasmussen 14th Apr 05

Princess Tutu Images