Tutu Princess – Anime Backlog

Happy holidays, fellow loggers, and I hope your celebration preparations aren’t too stressful for you. Everyone has their own traditions, whether it’s Black Friday shopping, decorating sugar cookies, hanging lights on the roof, or for me, watching a seasonal show.

Although there are some exceptions (like COVID), every year I take my mom to some kind of holiday-themed show. These include classics such as nutcrackera murder mystery centered in an old house on Christmas Eve, to a story about a literary scholar who ends up in trouble beauty and the BeastRelationship with Satan. However, this year we saw a Ukrainian ballet performance ice queen. The costumes were beautiful and the Snow Queen ballet dancers were breathtaking. Her face is covered with crystals and she wears a crown of icy water on her head.

It was a great night and a great note to take with you tutu princess Come into my life.

Note: This column often contains spoilers. Readers are advised to use their own discretion.

tutu princess

Why is it important?

My peers and colleagues loved this series, but I never got around to watching it. once Upon a time, tutu princess firmly in my wheelhouse (for those of you keeping track, my wheelhouse consists of “classic magical girl” and “emotionally devastating horror”). My favorite anime series has some baseline similarities, Sailor MoonAhiru and Usagi both struggled academically and lacked self-confidence, only to be thrust into the spotlight as girls with a heavy fate (they were also both named after animals).

There is also significant crossover among employees due to: Junichi Sato. Sato is Tutu’s Lead Director, who has a long history of working in girls animation. He is best known as the series director for the first two seasons of Star Wars. Sailor Moonbut he also brought more beautiful, Ogamajo Doremi, Wanhuaxingand animated aria Life. Most recently, he directed the biggest magic series in animation, Pretty Cureand Embrace! Pretty Cure.

tutu princess has all the DNA of a Junichi Sato create. its field director Masago Komotoless famous, although he went on to direct the magical girl series The Second Son of the Immortal Star and subsequent sequels tutuSince then, he has been storyboarding mostly on and off. series author Michiko Yokote Still as prolific as ever; this year alone she’s written for 12 different anime series.

In addition to his pedigree, fans often praise tutu For his subversive take on common fantasy tropes, the meta-narrative that connects the audience to the characters, and the heartfelt message that allows each person to determine their own purpose in life.

Does it live up to its name?

tutu princess yes Revolutionary Girl UtenaThe sea of ​​​​kouhai. It didn’t achieve the same success as Sato’s colleagues’ emotionally complex work, but it presented similar themes for a youthful palette. Both series dialogue with fairy tales and expectations of “what should be,” then seek to undermine those same expectations in order to present a hopeful alternative.

What I’m struggling with is the location of this line tutu princess. There are narrative devices such as a crow or a dervish who becomes Tree In one episode, it has all the hallmarks of a fable, but lacks the interiority to reveal the “what.” I found myself wondering if there was a metaphor to be mined, or if the show was employing traditional fairy tale logic. A lot of things in fairy tales “just work”, and part of fantasy is accepting it. Cinderella’s mother can give her the gift of a tree from outside the grave, a pious girl’s tears can regrow her broken hands, and a wolf can disguise herself as a passable grandmother. Fairy tales are like that.

However, tutu Not Interested is just a story full of magic and a happy ending. If anything, its ending is bittersweet for our heroine Darhk. In fact, its ending was the one I had the most difficulty with, although it also had a lot to do with Utena TV drama. I grew to love and sympathize with both Rue and Duck, but I can’t say the same about the two male leads in particular. This could be because Mythos spends most of the series as a cipher, which is completely understandable given the plot at the time, but it does detract from the connection to him as a baseline before his personality becomes conflicted again. more difficult. By the time we got to the finale, I was lukewarm about half the main cast. I think this is due to the animation getting in the way of emotional moments (although one character jumped out of a window and another revealed that his parents were murdered). The character design reminds me a bit of hamelin violinistand I generally like the look of the show. This is especially true when the crows start to show up in the second half. His impossibly large feet pounding the street reminded me of some papier-mâché drama.

The writing makes an interesting choice, presenting the duck’s “attack” as not really an attack at all. The duck dances and therefore uses art as a medium for conversation and therapy. It was such a lovely message and I felt warm towards her as the story progressed. However, around the third act, she sat out a series of episodes as she doubted herself and her ability to be an effective ally. Around the same time, Fakir learned he could help eliminate Drosselmeyer’s influence on the town. The last set of plot twists were a bit twisty, and we saw Fakir not writing, even after he seemed to have overcome the associated trauma, and the duck’s dance act didn’t connect until the very last minute.

Drosselmeyer himself is a deliberately loose thread, but I really wanted some kind of greater confrontation because of all the trouble he caused the actors. Still, the story doesn’t have meaningful consequences for his ghost. It’s probably the combination of this feeling of dissatisfaction and a struggle with the storytelling method that made me less obsessed with tutu princess More than I hoped for.

View or delete?

tutu princess Still worth your time, especially if you like fairy tales. Half the fun is seeing how these classic stories are interpreted in the narrative. Duck is a wonderful heroine, imperfect but strong and genuine. The classical music elevates much of the emotional drama, while the subversion of the story sets it apart tutu From its magical girl siblings. Just don’t expect Ikuhara-level trope play.

Final Verdict: Yes.