(Belated) Christmas Anime Roundup: Princess Tutu

[redwoodalchan]

The other anime series I checked out this holiday season was “Princess Tutu.” Now, I'd heard great things about “Princess Tutu” from my friends before I started watching it, and I was intrigued by the focus on storytelling in the grand scheme of the plot. Now that I've watched it, I have to say, it lives up to the hype.

 

“Princess Tutu” is basically a dark magical-girl show and a fractured fairy tale all rolled into one. It stars a group of kids, all of which look and act somewhere between the ages of twelve and fourteen, who are basically designed to act out fairy-tale archetypes—but none of them are entirely what they seem to be at first. There's also an ensemble cast for them to interact with, and a mysterious old man named Drosselmeyer (voiced by Marty Fleck), who seems to know everything about them and spends time spying on them from a world of gears. Drosselmeyer is the one who wrote the original fairy tale that features the protagonists.

 

Now, I must confess I sort of misjudged the characterization in this show. Going in, I noticed that pretty much every character was insanely likable for the first episode or two, and I was expecting that to continue. Basically, I was expecting a situation similar to that of shows like “Shiki” or “Baccano!” where every character would be beautifully-rendered—only better because I could literally enjoy every one without guilt! Well... that didn't end up being the case. Actually, apart from the four leads and Drosselmeyer (and certain other supporting cast members) I didn't get attached to any of the characters in the story at all. In fact, pretty much all the characters were fairly simplistic in and of themselves—what really took them to the next level were their actions and interactions with one another. Looking back, of course, this is completely understandable given what the story is trying to accomplish. “Princess Tutu” isn't like “Shiki”--it isn't a gritty story about Real People (TM) vs. The Supernatural, but rather is designed to resemble a fairy tale, so the characterizations can't differ too much from the sort you would expect in a fairy tale.

 

Like I said, there are four total leads in the story, two of each gender. They interact with one another a lot over the course of the story as they are all enrolled in the same ballet class.

 

First and foremost among them is Duck (voiced by Luci Christian), who's the heroine of the tale. Duck is, literally, a cute yellow duckling; but she can assume the appearance of a young girl for the purpose of transforming into Princess Tutu, the show's resident magical girl. Princess Tutu is an expert ballet dancer (complete with obligatory references to The Nutcracker Suite) whose main objective is to save the resident fairy-tale prince (see below) by returning the fragments of his heart to him so he can defeat an evil raven (voiced by Mark Kleinheitz, in a role vaguely reminiscent of Szilard from “Baccano!”). However, Princess Tutu is not allowed to confess her love for the prince, and once she restores the prince's heart, she'll turn back into a duck forever.

 

The storybook prince in question is named Mytho (voiced by Jay Hickman). He has the appearance of a fourteen-year-old boy with fluffy white hair and drooping yellow eyes. And I'm inordinately fond of him because HE'S JUST SO CUUUUUUUTE!! I wanna give him all the hugs! ALL OF THEM!!

 

Ahem. Mytho spends the majority of the first season not saying or doing very much, because without his heart he has no motivation to do anything but what others tell him to. He plays a bigger role in the second. One thing I noticed about Evil!Mytho in the second season was that his voice sounded rather like that of Mao in “Code Geass.” Since they don't share the same voice actor by any means, it may just be that melodramatic tenor voices tend to sound similar to me. That said, one thing that I found a bit off-putting about Mytho at first was how deep his voice sounded—it didn't sound convincingly like that of a young teenager at all. To be fair, this may be excusable as he's not a normal boy; and later on, when he goes evil (and subsequently regains his remaining heart pieces) it starts to sound more and more appropriate.

 

Fakir (voiced by Chris Patton) is the third child in the main cast, and the other boy. The first time we see him, he's being a dick to Mytho and Duck and trying to keep Mytho from ever regaining his heart shards, but this eventually changes when he realizes that getting his heart back is what Mytho wants as well. Fakir, unlike Duck and Mytho, is an ordinary human, and his parents are seen in a flashback (whereas it's completely up in the air where Duck and Mytho came from, other than Drosselmeyer's imagination). We later learn that he's actually a descendent of Drosselmeyer, the man who wrote the story they're acting out; and that as such, he can influence his friends' fates by writing as well. This brings him into conflict with Drosselmeyer, who is only too pleased at the thought of all four of them meeting horribly tragic fates; as well as with a host of other characters who want to stop him from ever writing, lest more tragedies become reality. I really like Fakir as a character, but it disturbs me that he almost certainly has tons of fangirls who just want to fap to him. Seriously, he's a thirteen-year-old boy!

 

And last but not least, there's Rue (voiced by Jessica Boone). Rue is a star ballet student at Duck's school, but she's also Princess Kraehe, the (adopted) daughter of the raven Mytho is trying to fight and a major villain in the first season. Rue is desperate to have Mytho's love because the raven has convinced her that nobody else could ever love her. What really impressed me about Rue were the times when, despite her situation, she took the moral high ground. For example, early on in the second season the raven tells Rue to go fetch him a heart to eat, and both she and Mytho spend a good chunk of the earlier part of the season trying to make this happen, only to get thwarted by Princess Tutu. However, toward the end, one of the other cast members shows himself willing to offer her his heart, and she refuses to take it for the raven. And later on, she sacrifices herself (of sorts) so Mytho doesn't have to lose his heart. Of the four kids, she impressed me the most.

 

Then there's Drosselmeyer. Drosselmeyer is one of my favorite characters in the entire show, if not my very favorite; and I'd go so far as to say he's one of the better anime villains out there. Drosselmeyer wrote the story that Princess Tutu and her friends live in—though he never finished it—and he's a constant presence throughout the anime, showing up to taunt Duck and the others at least once an episode but never revealing his true purpose or doing much of anything until fairly late on. What's really fascinating about Drosselmeyer, by the end of things, is that he's actually, probably, the most “normal” of the cast members, despite his striking appearance and behavior; and I found it surprisingly easy to relate to his discussions of how boring perfect protagonists and happy endings are (if anyone's checked out my WIP fic about Cyrus you can probably see where I'm coming from—though unlike him I don't feel compelled to make EVERY story I write a tragedy). What really drove this home for me was a scene of him visiting Fakir in his study and talking about how Fakir reminds him of himself at that age. It's shocking to think of Drosselmeyer as having ever been Fakir's age, but of course he, of all the cast members, must have been at one point! I also love the way he closes episodes—his “All you children who love stories, come, gather round!” speech just has the perfect blend of inviting and menacing that would make you just as soon sit by his chair as run away.

 

There were a few other characters who struck my fancy. One that jumped out at me was Autor (Adam Conlon), a student who looks to be a few years older than Fakir, who's a bit obsessed with Drosselmeyer and knowing everything about him—to the point he even recreated his old office in case he would ever find a descendent of him to pass it on to. Toward the end of the story Autor kind-of takes Fakir under his wing to help him hone his magical writing abilities and save Duck and Mytho (and everyone else), but he's otherwise a jerk who wishes he could have the same powers as one of Drosselmeyer's family members and resents the fact that he can't. I did, however, think he was probably the sexiest character in the show. Make of that what you will.

 

Mr. Cat (TJP) is another well-liked and fun secondary character. He's Duck's lisping ballet instructor, who literally happens to be a cat. He's also obsessed with forcing his students in general, and Duck in particular, to marry him, and constantly brings the prospect up—mostly as a punishment but occasionally as a reward. There are times, though, when he lapses into traditional catlike behavior. I've always thought the prospect of Duck marrying him is quite disturbing if you consider that cats eat ducks. However, the fact that he's mostly a comic character makes the rare scenes in which he's actually serious all the more intriguing—such as when he offers words of advice to Mytho, and even to Duck.

 

There were a couple of more minor roles that I liked or that otherwise stood out to me. One such character was Uzura, a puppet created from a larger puppet named Edel after she sacrificed herself to make a fire to keep Fakir warm (both puppets are voiced by Christine Auten). At first I thought Uzura was kind of annoying, but she grew on me after she proved to be useful (such as by turning the gears to the story when they've stopped so Drosselmeyer can have a word with Princess Tutu), and in general I liked her more than Edel because unlike Edel, Uzura seemed to have a personality. I was also rather intrigued by the Anteater girl from the second episode—though that was largely on account of her voice actor, Tiffany Grant (better known as Asuka from “Neon Genesis Evangelion”—ponder that one!). In other voice actor news, Vic Mignogna actually appears in this anime, as Femio, a vain prince Rue tries to seduce as Princess Kraehe—which I'm sure provided Vic with good practice for his later roles of Faye from “Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles” and especially Tamaki from “Ouran High School Host Club.”

 

There weren't that many other characters that really stood out to me, but there weren't that many that I honestly disliked either; mostly they were just bland and forgettable. However, I did find myself getting really annoyed by Duck's roommates Pike and Lilie (voiced respectively by Cynthia Martinez and Sasha Paysinger—who ironically play two of the nicest and most likable characters in “Elfen Lied”). They basically spent the entire series being mean to Duck for no good reason at all, and they only really worked as the comic relief they were meant to be in the more light-hearted first season—by the second season they were just obnoxious. Pike is marginally more tolerable than Lilie, and there is even an interesting subplot in which she tries to date Mytho, not knowing that he's being evil, and Duck ends up having to rescue her; but unfortunately that never really led to any real character development on her part—after it was over she went back to being just as annoying as she had before.

 

Now, given that “Princess Tutu” is essentially a fairy tale, lots of old-fashioned storytelling devices come into play, and one of the most obvious is probably the dichotomy associated with the Fair Lady/Dark Lady archetypes. The protagonists of “Princess Tutu” basically form two pairs of foils modeled after this dichotomy, one of each gender: for the females, we have Fair Lady Duck and Dark Lady Rue (or if you prefer, Fair Lady Princess Tutu and Dark Lady Princess Kraehe), whereas for the males we have Fair Man Mytho and Dark Man Fakir. Duck and Mytho, the “fair” characters, have light hair, wide open, droopy eyes with long lashes, and higher, softer voices, gentler natures, and occupy themselves with helping and saving people, while Rue and Fakir, the “dark” characters, have black hair, rather narrow, dark eyes with upturned corners, and voices with rougher edges, as well as more abrasive outward demeanors (and Rue functions as something of a villain). In the first season these roles are clearly defined, but toward the end of the first season, and for all of the second season, they begin to change. In the case of the boys, the lines between who's supposed to be “fair” and who's supposed to be “dark” become more and more blurred, as Mytho starts acting evil and Fakir, despite his outwardly harsh demeanor, reveals himself to be a good person who truly cares deeply for Mytho and all his associates. This doesn't happen with the girls (Duck pretty much has to stay good, since she's the story's hero), but it is worthy of note that Rue ultimately becomes disenchanted with evil and even takes Princess Tutu's place to confess her love for Mytho so Princess Tutu herself can go on. On the other hand, it's also worthy of note that both girls have bird motifs, but that Duck is a cute and friendly bird, whereas Rue associates with black, nasty-looking birds.

 

Another interesting feature of “Princess Tutu” is the opening to each episode, in which a woman's voice tells the story of a fairy tale (many of which are seem closely connected to real-life fairy tales, which may or may not have become ballets) that has some bearing, whether obvious or not, on the episode's plot. It sort-of serves as a reminder that fairy-tale devices are in play with each course the characters' arcs take. It's implied that the fairy tales we hear about were at one point written by Drosselmeyer, but it's never explicitly confirmed.

 

Of course, the best thing about “Princess Tutu” is easily its close connection to the act of writing and storytelling itself. The characters' looming realization that they're in a story, and that they can change that story if they have the strength to do so, really sets the series apart. Admittedly I've always had a bit of a weakness for stories that break the fourth wall, as it were, but “Princess Tutu” does that concept one better: not only are the protagonists characters in a story, but the writer of the story they are in is also a character in a story, and so it's possible for the characters to have conversations with their very own creator, and explore the ways in which the town they inhabit is a land of stories (to say nothing of Drosselmeyer's great line where he ponders whether or not he's a character in a story himself—something which is, of course, perfectly true).

 

In fact, it's pretty interesting to consider the parallels between the events of “Princess Tutu” and the act of writing fanfiction. Drosselmeyer is the “canon” author of the fairy tales that crop up, whereas Duck and Fakir and the others are trying to write fix fic of their own story. When Rue (or possibly Fakir) comments on how Mytho was always more interested in Princess Tutu (who in the original fairy tale had a minor role and met a tragic end) than any of the more important characters in the tale, it feels eerily reminiscent of fans' love affairs with minor characters in their own stories of choice, and how they sometimes even outclass the main characters in terms of popularity.

 

Now, it seems to me that “Princess Tutu” might be grouped into the “dark magical girl” category with shows like “Madoka Magica” (or even “Rozen Maiden”). Certainly, like “Madoka Magica,” “Princess Tutu” twists certain conventions of the magical-girl genre, and like “Madoka Magica” it's inexplicably aimed at a masculine audience. However, unlike “Madoka Magica” Princess Tutu doesn't go out of its way to appear “dark” or “edgy”--the moments in the story that appear dark are dark because that's what the story best requires at that point in time. In fact, I was kinda shocked by just how little violence, bloodshed, or death “Princess Tutu” contained—virtually none of the main cast members die and stay dead (well, except for Drosselmeyer, but he was dead to begin with). In the middle of the second season there was a point in which I actually sort of wanted Mytho and Rue to hurry up and give the raven a heart, to take the pressure off of Rue; but that never happened, which surprised me a little after watching “Madoka Magica,” in which even major characters can and will die if it contributes to the angst quotient. No, in “Princess Tutu” even minor characters don't just die, which I have to say, actually helps the story. By not killing off sympathetic characters willy-nilly, or showering the story with grittiness and gore, “Princess Tutu” is able to keep the “darker” twists and turns of its plot in sharper relief, while never breaking the fairy-tale atmosphere it builds around the characters.

 

Interestingly, I suspected as I began watching “Princess Tutu” that it would have a happy ending, and I turned out to be right about that. The thing is, it was the same with “Madoka Magica:” whether or not Kyubey would turn Madoka into a world-destroying witch was always, to me, a case of “like you would really do it,” with the only suspense being how Madoka was going to realize the truth and what she would do instead. So it was with “Princess Tutu.” I knew that, after so many crises had been averted before, the characters weren't suddenly going to fail at the last minute, but it was genuinely interesting to see how they went about averting their fate, and the ending came across as truly triumphant. Never have storytelling and writing looked more badass!

 

For the record, there actually isn't much similarity in either the plots or the focus of “Madoka Magica” and “Princess Tutu.” They aren't really drawing from the same type of story, since “Madoka” is more of a fighting show, where “Tutu” is about using magic to help and heal people. Additionally, “Princess Tutu” conspicuously lacked “Madoka Magica's” compulsion to darken up every little thing about being a magical girl, or rub your nose in how dark and edgy it was.

 

One final thing about “Princess Tutu” that makes it stand out is, of course, its ballet motif, and the frequent allusions to The Nutcracker Suite are really what initially led me to peg it as a Christmas story. Throughout the story various melodies from that ballet appear, though they're sometimes modified to better fit the mood of the story. The melody that stood out to me the most was the bombastic ending to the “Waltz of the Flowers,” and I think it's signifiant that we hear that particular piece played two times in the entire story: one is at the end of the first episode when Duck first transforms into Princess Tutu to save Mytho from falling out a window; and the second is in the last episode, when Duck's sheer determination helps Mytho to vanquish evil and restore peace to the town where they live. I think it really added a lot to the triumphant tone of those scenes.

 

And... that's about all I've got to say for “Princess Tutu” really. It's a great show; check it out if you haven't already.

 

Yeah.

Normally I'd post the OP here, but I couldn't find it anywhere on YouTube and it's not very exciting in any case.