Monday 10 September 2018

#67: Princess Tutu (2002-3)

From https://cdn.animenewsnetwork.com/thumbnails/crop900x350/
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Director: Junichi Sato (Chief Director), Shogo Koumoto (Series Director)
Screenplay: Chiaki J. Konaka, Mamiko Ikeda, Michiko Yokote, Rika Nakase, Takuya Satō
Voice Actors: Nanae Katou as Duck/Princess Tutu, Nana Mizuki as Rue, Naoki Yanagi as Mythos, Takahiro Sakurai as Fakir, Akiko Hiramatsu as Edel, Erino Hazuki as Uzura, Kyōko Kishida as The Narrator, Noboru Mitani as Drosselmeyer, Sachi Matsumoto as Pike
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Synopsis: In a fairytale town, a storywriter named Drosselmeyer, even after death, strives forward to complete the tale of the Prince and the Crow in real life. The original story, so far, had the evil crow defeated by at the cost of the Prince sacrificing his heart, shattering it into pieces and as a result losing his emotions. Becoming the emotionless Mythos, he is warded around the ballet school by Fakir, a very protective confidant, and Rue, the girl who loves him. There is also Duck, a literal duck Drosselmeyer turned into a girl with a magical necklace, one which also allows her to become Princess Tutu, a magical figure with the sole intention of recapture all of Mythos' heart shards for him.

The best way to describe Princess Tutu? Magical. An obvious comment but in awareness that head writer of the two season series Michiko Yokote first came up with her premise of a fairy tale, a tribute to ballet with a girl who was once a duck, long before the series finally came to be in 2002. Encompassing ballet and fairytales, it explicitly references countless examples of both in plot and music, even referencing material outside of them like A Midnight Summer's Dream. Even Drosselmeyer, the mysterious old man beyond death living in a clockwork filled netherworld, is named after a character in the Nutcracker. As a result, its innately a commentary on itself, of these characters and this material because of all these reference, as much as it is  a sweet fantasy series of the age and gender of the viewer. Thankfully, ultimately why Princess Tutu is an underrated gem from the 2000s which deserves wider recognition, what could've gone up its own navel with trite meta commentary is more interesting than that. Instead it's a proper fairytale heard many times before, only the crux being a tale of when these characters realise their positions in the story and overcoming the archetypes they were initially written as.

From http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KligJQXnjVs/VLL7vuq8THI/
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Bright, elegant and using very recognisable classical pieces -  segments from Swan Lake appear in most of the episodes especially as Duck becomes a white swan in the opening credit sequence for every episode - it's also effectively a magical girl show. A subgenre which began with Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Sally the Witch, where (stereotypically) a young girl gains the abilities to transform into a magical figure, most well known even outside anime fandom through the Sailor Moon franchise. This never becomes a critique of magical girls - darker examples of that include Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) - instead merely a catalyst for the plot. Where, instead, a knight finds himself questioning his position to weld a sword, the villains are not doing a great job and have an existential crisis, and Duck, a squawky klutz in human form, an angelic dancer as Princess Tutu, finds herself conflicted by Mythos regaining his heart shards, the task fraught with him suffering from newly acquired emotions and the other players in Drosselmeyer's story interacting with her.

Whilst it does have the look of a 2000s production, including notable compute effects, its helped considerably by the colourful, openly fantastical world which evokes European culture right down to German translations of the episode titles. Openly fantastical too, as members of the cast are also animals. Humanoid hippo students with birds dressed and talking like schoolgirls. And Mr. Cat, one of the funniest side characters whose portrayal by Yasunori Matsumoto is above the god-awful attempt in the English dub completely, the ballet teacher and anthropomorphised cat who threatens every female student with marriage. It never becomes weird in an abstract way, honestly, but that doesn't matter. Instead everything feels appropriate for what a fairytale is, where the unpredictable happens but in a way logical to its own world.

From https://ibdp.videovore.com/video/50081810?size=600x400

Where it gets more unconventional is as much through the split between its two seasons. The first is very straight forward and could be a great series in its own right with a conclusion. After is where things become much more interesting. Noticeable, the other half was originally split into fifteen minute episodes before they were recreated for the West by ADV Films as regular twenty minute plus episodes. They're where the characters really begin to question and undercut the storytelling tropes being pushed upon them. That the writer is a character in the story, Drosselmeyer a Greek chorus in himself and already established as a bastard in the first season, desiring a tragedy with his cast, immediately raises the stakes. When characters don't follow his plans, due to being emotional complex people, the plan he has falls off the rails. The mix of drama, comedy and occasional moments of grim consequences is sustained throughout both halves but the later half gets more esoteric. When one character briefly turns into a tree, this is definitely the closest the series as a whole gets to be strange.

Especially when they hired Chiaki J. Konaka, one of my favourite screenwriters known for his unconventional storytelling, where it gets at its strangest, with puppets dancing and wormholes into the clockwork netherworld, my beloved screenwriter's touch to be found. If anything Princess Tutu proved that, whilst a distinct voice in the director's seat is still important, writers for individual episodes are as much guides for the show's personality as I learnt with this series. In general the project, whilst having to explain a lot more than usually for a show like this due to being a series for an audience of all ages, does a lot of heavy lifting perfectly, particularly  as it does have "situation of the week" style stories for single episodes, having to tie up a narrative with characters only appearing in that one story and make their contributions justifiable. In fact what I presumed, early into the second season, would dangerously become tiring actually gets to the point of the exasperation the villains eventually have with themselves as well as their task. Somehow a narcissitic lothario who feels he cannot love as many women as he'd want and has his man servant gore him with bulls continually, another of the funniest characters of the series despite being in one episode only, manages to have a vital point to him in the story of Rue, the secondary female character who's isolation away from Mythos due to Princess Tutu plays to the tragedy of her own life. This broad, conventional storytelling technique of a short story per episode is actually used in clever ways as a result, little moments having a lot of use from even its most comedic characters - one of the best little moments, from a Konaka scripted episode, has a joke of Mr. Cat trying to ward away a goat woman who likes him help two characters in their series long concerns by overhearing him at the right moment, examples like this bound to grow in rewarding upon rewatching Princess Tutu multiple times.

From https://nerdloveshop.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/tutu11.png?w=663

I also learnt more so with Princess Tutu an even greater appreciation of Japanese voice actors.  Snippets of the late ADV Film's English dub causes me to wonder how my younger self could stand them, a over- sugared recreation of stereotypical anime voices that feeling hollow from what I heard. Everyone in the Japanese dub however feels natural in their roles. Nanae Katou as Duck in particular is perfect, right down to a mallard's squawk to her voice. In a series like this, which is playful and still has humour even into its last episodes when the story gets serious, where it is a family friendly fairytale, there's a lot to admire in hearing characters who are taken serious, even the comedic ones having moments of seriousness to admire them. (And anyway, even that humour's to be loved, characters like Duck's best friend Pike (Sachi Matsumoto) and Lilie (Yuri Shiratori) so easy to make awful if they are played too broadly, more so when Lilie's running gag is that she is so enthusiastic about Duck constantly failing to a fetishishtic degree.)

So whilst not abstract, right from its beginning to an ending that is both bitter sweet but also joyful, Princess Tutu triumphs by being very unconventional. Where it goes to in the second half leads to so many curveballs that, as an anime series should, it feels like you've ended up in an entirely different series from the first episodes and it was built up to fully. And especially as a story that is both a fairytale children could watch, but also is a tribute to fairytales and ballet for adults to learn from, it means a lot. In the former, it's a great story. In the later, Princess Tutu also succeeded for me by introducing this particular viewer to references I hadn't known of. Each episode starts with a female narrator using an existing story, from those you'd recognise to obscurer choices like Hans Christian Andersen's The Red Shoes being twisted into unconventional direction mid-narration. As someone with no knowledge of ballet, its grown my interest considerably. If anything the success, even if as a cult series, of Princess Tutu must've be a wonderful experience for head writer Michiko Yokote and the entire production staff.


From https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/princesstutu/images/3/
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