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Princess Tutu Complete Collection

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Princess Tutu Complete Collection 1

Title: Princess Tutu
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia / New Zealand)
Based on: Original Anime Series later adapted as a manga.
Genre: Fantasy, Magical Girl, Comedy, Drama, Metafiction, Romance
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: Full Frame Original Ratio (4:3)
Runtime: 650 minutes
Cost: $69.95 from the Madman Online Store
Classification: This title is classified PG for Mild Violence, Mild Coarse Language, Mild THemes, Mild Sexual References and Infrequent mild Drug References.
Blurb: A series that follows a duck, who becomes a human to help make her “Prince” Mytho smile again by collecting his shattered heart pieces. This is a suitable series for all ages and has enough to keep both the young and old alike captivated in a story that you might not expect from first glance. An original storyline which makes references to other fairy tales and ballet performances. The visuals are good and the music consists of a number of “ballet” style tracks.
Special Thanks: Special thanks goes to the Madman Entertainment PR Team for providing me with a review sample of this title.

This is a series I brushed off for so many years. “Why Sam? Why did you brush off the series Princess Tutu for so many years?” you may ask. The simple fact is, that most shows revolving around ballet result in the same generic storyline with different characters in it.

X wants to becoming a ballerina so she joins a ballet school with her friends Y and Z, and they work together to become the best ballerinas in their class and catch the eyes of the cutest guys in school… A and B.

Okay, I dont purposefully go out of my way to make sure of this, but read enough home readers and afternoon television in primary school and you get accustomed to bland storylines such as this. Getting back on track, Princess Tutu is a series that differs greatly, subtly incorporating references to different fairy tales and performances through a storyline that can captivate everyone, regardless of if they are four or forty. Interested in something different? Read on in my review of Princess Tutu. 

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 2Darkness hid the pieces of her beloved’s shattered heart, and time is running out for Princess Tutu to find them. Her dream of becoming a human girl has come true. However, peril lurks in the unseen shadows. Using the power of an enchanted amulet, she must unravel a dark and twisted mystery to keep her Prince and herself alive. 

The storyline is split up into two arcs which both overall combine into one whole series. As the above synopsis isn’t that descriptive, I would like to detail it a bit further. The storyline revolves around a character known as Duck (Whilst being known as Ahiru in the manga translation, she obtained the literal translation in this series) who as her name suggests, is actually a duck who through a power given to her by a mysterious person known as Drosselmeyer to rescue Mytho and reunite all the shards of his heart. Whilst there are a number of other characters in the series such as Mr Cat (Who threatens his students with marriage) to Duck’s friends Pike and Lilie (Who treat her at times as a means of deriving enjoyment from Duck’s embarassment), there are only two characters who have solid roles as secondary characters, these being Rue (An upper classman who has an interesting past) and Fakir (Who is harsh-tongued to Duck however holds a vital role in the second arc). These four each represent a character in the fictional tale of The Prince and the Raven which was an unfinished piece from Drosselmeyer and therefore their story unfolds many years after the tale but are each bound to it.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 3The storyline is interesting to say the least. Whilst giving the impression that it is a childrens show at first and does give hints at times that it wants to remain that way, I would actually consider this more towards the mature audiences tastes who can appreciate the references to it, that is not to say this isnt a series to buy a child however. For the first arc, you will find that the storylines are more episodic nature and follow the same general plotline of (Ahiru’s normal time at the Ballet Academy –> Something Happens –> Heart Shard found causing it –> Dance –> Heart Shard returned to Mytho’s). I assume this was to progress the storyline along a bit so they don’t get to the end of the first arc and wonder what happened to the heart shards, but the episodic storylines are relatively interesting but nothing special. The “Princess Tutu” segments are the means of saving a person or fighting an enemy, as instead of weapons this series relies on the magical power of dance to thwart Duck’s enemies. Once the storyline stops becoming episodic and the first antagonist appears, the storyline gets more interesting as it interweaves the four characters fighting both with and against each other for their own purposes.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 4The first arc could have stood alone by itself albeit missing out on the rest of the plot set up, therefore there was a second arc included, in which due to a specific event that occured in the first arc, some characters have suddenly switched sides whilst some were made to work together. This is more of an interesting arc, as it doesn’t involve any of the pointless episodic storylines and instead focuses on the underlying storyline that makes this series very interesting, that being the fact the events unfolding are all due to the “The Prince and the Raven” and Drosselmeyer attempting to conclude the story according to his preferences.

In between the main plotline of the story, there are scenes where Duck converses with the people she meets, undertakes ballet classes – and usually suffers the prospect of marriage, struggles with her attraction to Mythos and attempts to come to grips with her task of being Princess Tutu, a duck and a human girl all at the same time, as if she acts like a duck, she will turn into a duck and if she doesn’t follow her role, she can easily be killed off or remain permanently as a duck.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 5In terms of the character, both the main characters, Duck and Mytho are not unique or enjoyable characters to watch with their normal personalities. Duck is always shown to be the “incompetent” protagonist which gets dragged up quite a lot in the story, and whilst this suits the character I do feel they took it a step too far which resulted in wasted time and tried to water-down the storyline for the younger audiences. Mytho on the other hand is bland during the most part of the series, having very little value and little to no character development throughout the storyline and if he wasnt having his heart pieces collected from him, would be an unmemorable character. However, all the other characters in the series really do pick up the few faults of the main characters.

Both Rue and Fakir generally appear unfriendly at the beginning of the storyline and both seem to be secondary characters that act to occasionally support and occasionally oppose Duck for their own ideals. Both of them do receive ample development as the series progresses in terms of their thoughts on the currently unfolding events and their relationship to Mytho. The best characters without a doubt however are the secondary characters Drosselmeyer who is a sort of narrator for the series and occasionally taunts and questions the characters in the series – occasionally causing a breaking of the fourth wall by other characters who realize he is there and Mr Cat, who despite having a minor role as a dance instructor, does the “Cat in Heat” role well by finding different means to get students to marry him to instructing Mytho in love.

Overall, a storyline that starts off slow however picks up near the end as the characters get more development and the story of  “The Prince and the Raven” unfolds itself. The “Fairy Tale” at the beginning of each episode is also a nice touch as it explains what the story will make references to. Characters (development)on the other hand varies between episodes but is overall enjoyable.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 6 The design of the series is overall average at best, but does manage to capture the fairy tale feel that this series was going for. The character designs for the “human” characters were nothing special, usually going for simple hairstyles and clothings. The “Story” characters such as Princess Tutu, Drosselmeyer and one of the antagonists Princess Kraehe were slightly better designed and as this is a series on ballet, were animated very well. The environments were nothing diverse, representing normal “Storybook”  inspired buildings and a grand castle that represents the dance academy but more could have been done to give them more life (When walking around town for example, it is very rare to see another person in the backdrop). During the “Battle” scenes, they choose to change the environment into a more fantasy chalk-themed backdrop and that is more effective overall.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 7Princess Tutu Complete Collection 8Princess Tutu Complete Collection 9

Opening Sequence
Morning Grace by Ritsuko Okazaki

I will be openly honest, I have never been a fan of ballet music, it is far to soft and to put in simply…. plain. However, coupled with the animation which was top notch and appropriate for a show revolving around ballet, the song was very enjoyable.

Ending Sequence
Watashi No Ai Wa Chiisaikeredo by Ritsuko Okazaki

As you may have realized considering I have not included any images of the ending sequence, the ending was bland and boring with nothing much occurring at all. Song was so-so.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 10As you may expect from my comments on the opening sequence, most of the music in this series is inspired from or derived from the ballet music genre. It is enjoyable althrough could have used a greater variety of tracks at times.

Voice acting was an interesting issue in this series, as it ranged from extremely good to (in my opinion) rather bad. Jay Hickman who voiced Kurama in Elfen Lied takes the role of Mytho in this story, and I hate to say it, but he did not fit the role at all at the beginning, and despite suiting the more talkative role at the end of the series, the first episodes were not suited to his voice. On the other hand, Luci Christian who has been in too many series to count takes the role of Duck and does a solid performance of the clumsy character (You will instantly recognize the voice as being very similar to her role as Nagisa in Clannad).

Jessica Boone and Chris Patton who both have a number of series behind them do very strong jobs are reflecting the personalities and moods of their respective character. The two winners hands-down however go to TJP who voices Mr.Cat and couldn’t have done a better job at the changing mood and cat-sounding voice, and Marty Fleck in his role of Drosselmeyer who manages to put across the mysterious and wise sounding voice well.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 11 The packaging used for this collection is the general Fatpack style, with all six of the original DVD’s placed into it. The front cover art (Pictured above) is of Duck and Mytho and is very detailed. The back cover design features images of the characters in cogwheels in the same style used in the series. It also has the usual blurb effectively done however for those not used to the style of font, slightly challenging to read. Inside, the inner cover is identical to the outer cover. The discs are all the original DVD’s and generally feature Duck alognisde one other character and suit the ballet theme. However, the DVD holders are similar to the ones used in Madman’s release of Figure 17, meaning that some of them are a real hassle to get out, otherwise there were no problems with the packaging.

If there is one thing that I liked about ADV Films besides some of the interesting releases they chose, it was the extra content they placed within their releases. Princess Tutu is no exception, with most probably the most extras I have ever seen crammed into one collection. First off, in the collection there was a 12-Page booklet featuring interviews with the Japanese cast and articles written by the various staff responsible for the series such as Ikuko Itoh –  the person behind the original story, designs and animation and Junichi Sato – Executive Director which were overall a nice addition. However, that is only icing on the cake when it comes to the DVD content. What was included per disc was:

Disc One

  • Staff Commentary
  • Voice Actor Commentary
  • Clean Opening/Ending – Included in every disc
  • Outtakes – Do note, that there is swearing included in here.
  • Etude – An explanation of some of the references in the series which has been dubbed into English.
  • Ballet for Beginners – Helpful if you have no idea what they are talking about at times – Dubbed into English
  • In The Studio – A look at the voice-acting process, rather interesting.
  • ADV Previews

Disc Two

  • Staff Commentary
  • Clean Opening/Ending
  • Outtakes
  • Etude
  • Ballet for Beginners
  • ADV Previews
Disc Three
  • Voice Actor Commentary
  • Japanese Pre-Production Promotional Video
  • Clean Opening/Ending
  • Ballet for Beginners
  • Etude
  • In The Studio
  • ADV Previews
Disc Four
  • Staff Commentary
  • Egg Suite [New Years Special OVA] – English Dubbed
  • Etude
  • In The Studio
  • Clean Opening/Ending
  • Split Episode Previews / Clean Opening / Clean Ending – In Japan, the second half of the series were aired in 13 minute slots, therefore each episode was split into two parts, with the second having unique opening/ending sequences.
  • ADV Previews
Disc Five
  • Voice Actor Commentary
  • Mr Cat’s Love Lesson [New Years Special OVA #2] – English Dubbed
  • Etude
  • In The Studio
  • Clean Opening/Ending
  • The Path to Tutu
  • Split Episode Previews
  • ADV Previews
Disc Six
  • Voice Actor Commentary
  • English Staff Commentary
  • Japanese Staff Series Remarks
  • Vorfinale [TV Special #3] – English Dubbed
  • Etude
  • In The Studio
  • Clean Opening/Ending
  • Split Episode Previews
  • ADV Previews

and for those who have skipped over the list, I appologise, however you have to admit, there are so many extras on these DVD’s that it puts, practically every other series I have watched to shame in this criteria.

Princess Tutu Complete Collection 12So, to conclude this review, I now present the all important personal opinion. When I first got this title, it wasnt because I was into the genre or anything, it was the fact that I was interested in reviewing a series aimed at children, just like I did with the POP Wonderland: Alice in Wonderland book and Tamagotchi: The Movie. BUT, after watching all the episodes, I am extremely glad that I was able to watch it, as it is a very unique and satisfying watch even if the storyline progresses at a slow rate and some of the character development is lacking or uninteresting.

I still don’t understand how peoples souls can be changed through dance or if I will ever stop think that how they pronounce Mytho is Mute-o, but hey I enjoyed it and it didn’t come across as a childrens series similar to the one I mentioned in the first paragraph. Overall, it is a series for all ages to enjoy!

Final Score

Storyline / Character Development: B
Design: C+
Music/Voice Acting: B
Packaging/Extras: 
A+
Personal Preference: 
A-

Overall Score: B+

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

2 COMMENTS

  1. I am currently watching this show, Its really good it blew me away to be honest. Its very cute but dark and deep at the same time its very rare to get that combination. Kind of reminds of a little known series called Madoka Magika.

    I was sad however to find out that this series was running out of print here in Aus. it was very hard to find and thats a shame or a show so good. I hope Madman reprint this.

    • I agree with your comments, it is a brilliant and different series that too many people pass up because they think it is a childrens story. I haven’t seen this in stores at all recently as well, however people are still able to buy it online from the Madman Store as it is not yet out of print (From what I can tell it is only when they delete it off the website that it is out of print)

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