h. struggletweets

@drosselmeyer

orb floating above desert

they/them

bad social theory + fake princes + birds

h. struggletweets @drosselmeyer2/20/2024, 9:48 PM

schaf @malymin

schaf @malymin2/20/2024, 9:27 PM

Does anyone want to talk about Princess Tutu?

It's a long story, but... i basically noclipped past the mainstream dubbed children's gateway anime directly from "American cartoons" to "anime that isn't on television." I didn't grow up with Pokemon, or Sailor Moon, or anything on Toonami. I didn't watch them until I was already an adult, actually. No, my first middle school anime was...

...Ok, one of them was Yugioh, but specifically the "season zero" anime that never got localized, which I went straight to via the gateway of Yugioh Abridged. That's right, I never watched Duel Monsters proper - not the 4kids dub, not the fansubs. I figured LittleKuriboh was "abridging" those card battles for a good reason, and I also found Duel Monsters just kind of ...ugly, in a boring way, compared to Season Zero's softer hair and faces, its more saturated colors, its deep dark shadows and painted skies.

But my other first anime was Princess Tutu, because it was uploaded onto the same youtube account that I watched Danny Phantom and Avatar on, and someone on Livejournal recommended it for people who enjoyed The Last Unicorn.

People compare it to Utena, sometimes, but I find that pretty much always makes people who watched Utena first become disappointed with the show when they finally watch it. Frankly, I understand some of that disappointment, because there are ways in which Tutu... augh, I don't know how to put it conscisely. Just know that I'm far more frustrated with Rue and Mytho's "happy ending" than Duck and Fakir's "bittersweet ending."

But when I watch other magical girl anime aimed at the same age demographic, from the 2000's, I definately remember why Princess Tutu is considered a masterpiece of the genre - at least in western anime geek spaces; I have always gotten the vague feeling that it is not as strongly remembered among magical-girl-anime otaku in Japan, but I have no idea how true that feeling is.

There doesn't seem to be much activity for the show in the tag. But I'd love to talk to people about it. Please, comment on this post if you'd like to converse about it.

#princess tutu #magical girls

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#going to be posting propaganda once I get to post #yay #rb

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in reply to @malymin's post:

Stepnix @stepnix3/5/2024, 2:28 AM

PTutu is one of my favorites! It's a really impressive mix of so many different motifs and I'm honestly really impressed with how it handles its metafiction... or at least my interpretation of it. I suppose it's the kind of show that invites overthinking, but that's part of the fun!

schaf @malymin3/5/2024, 3:19 AM

It was my first real introduction to metafiction, and I'm glad it was. ~~Sometimes I joke that the only reason I understood Homestuck's metafictional horseshit in high school was because I watched Princess Tutu first, lol.~~

Have you ever looked into all the ballet, opera, and fairytale references woven into the show before? The rabbit hole goes deep. At one point in episode 17, Fakir is reading books at the library and the text on one page is from a German scholarly journal, discussing The Never-Ending Story. I looked into what the original book was like, since I (like most Americans) was only familiar with the movie, and found some curious details... like that the Childlike Empress in the book has white hair and gold eyes. The original book is by a German author, and was apparently successful in Japan as well as its country of origin.

It's interesting to compare to Pretear, another magical girl show with a fairytale motif, also directed by Junichi Sato... because that show's use of its fairytale inspiration was much more shallow in comparison.

Stepnix @stepnix3/5/2024, 3:45 AM

I watched Pretear a while after and it felt a lot like a prototype for PTutu. The fairytale thing, but there's also one or two characters who feel like they're foreshadowing Rue's arc.

I think my favorite bit of analysis I stumbled into is about how Rue ends up being the real "ugly duckling" (or "ugly crow") of the series: Raised by the wrong species and comvinced she's defective, until her true worth and identity are recognized.

Maybe I should read the Never Ending Story... and then watch Tutu again........ that feels like a good idea

schaf @malymin3/5/2024, 3:56 AM

YEA. I feel like you can see a lot of the ideas that went into Rue in the arcs of Mawata and Takako from Preatear. Interesting thing - Takako's redemption doesn't happen in the original manga (which Sato also worked on) at all. Sato's made a few statements regarding the Princess Tutu manga that suggest he doesn't really see anything inherently wrong with "unfaithful" adaptations, and I think his approach to the adaptation of his own work from manga to anime in Pretear reflects that.

Oh, I think I remember that meta too! Don't remember where i saw it, though. And I also unfortunately lost the link to the one post that named the specific German journal that was quoted in episode 17, and I haven't been able to find it anywhere since.

Yesss, do it. The world could always use more Tutu rewatches, and also I loooove intertextual analysis. I need to read The Never Ending Story myself, but I'm bad about putting things off...