Princess Tutu

Princess Tutu.

It needs to be discussed, so here's the thread.

Actually, I do have a reason for making this besides general fanboyism (not that that's not reason enough). I'm trying to get some of the music from Tutu on my ipod, but I don't know which music is which. So far I've got Swan Lake, Danse Macabre, and Carnival Of The Animals, and I'm about to get Scheherazade and Giselle. What else should I be looking at?

Don't the episode titles actually incorporate the names of the relevant pieces of music?

A bit, but they also mix and match according to the mood needed. So the episode based on Swan Lake for example, doesn't have music exclusively from Swan Lake.

How about downloading the soundtrack?

I may end up doing that, but the complete soundtrack is obscenely large for a show its size, and not all the titles are indicative of the source.

I have the soundtrack, and it is very good - but not entirely descriptive (Though being someone who knows their ballet music - like me - does help).

You also need Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Coppelia and there's music from Gymnopedies, Carmen, La Sylphide and Don Quixote included.

I'm one of those weird people who likes Chapter of the Egg better than Chapter of the Chick.

Which ones were those=

Chapter of the Egg = First part, Chapter of the Chick = Second part.

About the music:

This is the best site ever for that.

It seems like it was compiled through the sheer fanpower of the Japanese fanbase, but I have no idea. If you plug it into Google Translate it does a pretty good job of translating it, actually, the only big, repeated errors I can find are "Aragonezu" instead of "Aragonaise", "Shumuire" instead of "Schmuyle" and "Sheerazado" instead of "Scheherazade". But it looks like you already got those ballets, so yeah...

I think Drakyndra pretty much got all of it. Cinderella and both Prokofiev's and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet I think are in there too. Siegfried Idyll...Pictures at an Exhibition...

I feel like such a ballet buff thanks to Princess Tutu. Yeaah~

Wow, thanks Drakynda and Tumbril. You've been a bigger help than I expected.

Edit: One question that's always bugged me. Who is the primary antagonist of the show? At various times they're struggling against Drosselmeyer, the Raven, and the story itself. There's a moment when they say the story is the real enemy, but most of their effort is directed at their physical antagonist. It seems like the Screw Destiny was just a side effect of their Determinatorness.

Double Edit:Further clarification: The reason I'm unable to just accept the story itself as the main antagonist is because the Sorting Algorithm of Evil requires that Drosselmeyer be the Big Bad since he wrote it, but in the end he doesn't come off evil so much as...Chaotic Neutral. The only way for me to accept the story itself being the main antagonist is to go meta (which Drosselmeyer admitedly does invoke at the end) and say that Junichi Sato is the Big Bad.

Am I making any sense at all?

edited 25th May '10 8:08:00 AM by CDRW

I'll try to keep this brief (I could ramble for ages and ages about Princess Tutu and it's metatastic Fourth Wall fuckery.

Firstly, I'd disagree with your categorisation of Drosselmeyer as Chaotic Neutral - he's puppetmastering people's lives into tragedy solely For the Lulz which is pretty malevolent in my eyes. To quote Terry Pratchett, evil is treating people as things.

Personally, I've always found the best way to look at things as that there are two stories being told - Princess Tutu, the anime, and The Prince And The Raven. For the majority of Princess Tutu most of the characters - excluding Drosselmeyer - exist within TP&TR - he's the villain, but the villain on the other side of the fourth wall to them. The Raven is on the same side, but he's as much a pawn of the story they are - he's just how it acts out their "destinies" to die. When they defeat him, they defeat the story, because the story is "Raven wins": defeating him causes it to Divide by Zero. And as soon as they destroy the story, the power Drosselmeyer has on them is also lost - because they are no longer within his domain, bound by the fourth wall he imposed on them.

Short version - Drosselmeyer is the Big Bad and the story of The Prince And The Raven is his Dragon - the Raven is the weapon the story uses to attack the heroes. In a way you were correct - Drosselmeyer is to RP&TR as Sato is to Princess Tutu. You're just forgetting that there's the story in Princess Tutu and the story. Yes, that means there are (sort of) two fourth walls involved.

Sorry for the length.

edited 25th May '10 8:54:05 AM by Drakyndra

No problem with the length at all. I enjoyed reading it and you bring up some good points that really helps me get my thoughts in order. I do have to point out though, that Drosselmeyer is an author and has legitimate reason to treat them as objects, not people, and his exit in the last episode wasn't treated like that of a villian.

Edit: Feel free to ramble all you want. That's what the thread is for.

edited 25th May '10 12:58:03 PM by CDRW

Keep in mind that as Princess Tutu is not the same story as The Prince and the Raven, the characters aren't quite the same either, with the exceptions of Mytho and the Raven. For instance, TP&TR didn't have a duck in it. Princess Tutu herself was a bit part, which Drosselmeyer decided to give, in an expanded form, to a duck who had fallen in love with the prince. Fakir, likewise, is only in the role of the Knight, rather than actually being the original character who was killed trying to protect the prince — he was, after all, born in the "real" world, rather than being a Refugee from TV Land like Mytho. As for Kraehe, I can't remember if the Raven even had a daughter in the original story.

So as far as Drosselmeyer's concerned, these are real people in the real world. And would you treat real people like you treat fictional characters?

edited 25th May '10 4:19:56 PM by ShayGuy

Well I personally kind of liked Drosselmeyer.

He was a bit sociopathic, and he was a little obsessed with tragedy, but it's not like he wanted to kill anyone. After all, he didn't even bother to try to take revenge on the people who cut his hands off.

I suppose I saw Drosselmeyer as more of an author who had to be defied, rather than a villain to simply be defeated. I personally imagine that Drosselmeyer has gone on to explore new stories and that his companion Uzura will either teach him compassion or at least keep him in check a little.

By the way, when do Duck and Fakir get the glory they were promised for defying their fate? In my opinion their ending was way more unexpected the one for Siegfried and Rue.

I feel weird for saying this, but I rather disliked the metafictional aspect of Princess Tutu. That's why I like the first part better.

Fandom Heresy

Eh.

Drosselmeyer is win.

He was rather entertaining, although his dub voice grated on me a bit.

He is, though, linked to the part of the story I disliked most.

I hate to say it, but that is really weird. I mean, I suppose that's not the only thing the series has going for it, but it's pretty much the main reason anyone watches it...

He was boring and repetitive. When will his freaking eyes fall off already?

@ Shay Guy, They're not the same story, but he's still the author of them both. You could say theres TP&TR, Drosselmeyer's Princess Tutu, and Meta Princess Tutu, and Drosselmeyer's and Meta start merging.

Edit: @ Nyktos, I also watch it because I love each and every character and everything about them. The meta stuff is the "legitimizing excuse."

edited 25th May '10 4:58:39 PM by CDRW

I still love every single other thing about the series, though.

Xcept Femio. What nationality is he supposed to be nayways?