Princess Tutu....Is it like Sailor Moon?

[Sugei]

Ok well I netflix'ed volume 1 and I've seen the first three episodes on the dvd so far...

Overall the series is nice. I love the music and the characters and the overall storyline...

However, I am noticing a villian of the week pattern in which Tutu must deafeat to collect another shard.

I know that I am simplifying it a bit and that there's more to it than that but that seems to be the basic pattern I've noticed thus far.

*sigh*

I've been reading alot of good things about this series but that has me a bit concerned because the whole collecting shards each episode from a new person thing is well pretty boring IMHO.

Was I expecting too much?

[DKL]

Cross-posting from another post of mine on another board:

Preferably, you should at least get to episode 13 *which is all of what ADV has released thus far, with the new DVD coming out this month*

It’s 26 episodes, but you could see the first 13 and still feel like it was an entire series (and should you not want to continue, you’d at least have that much down ).

What happens is that they made a VERY good ending this far in given that they weren’t sure if the show would go on after 13 episodes… in other words, they wrapped it up nicely at that point just in case they got canned by Kids Station (the channel that aired it).

… that’s what I heard anyway. But anyway, it’s good that they kept moving and made the rest of the series.

So to be precise about the pacing, the buildup happens for about 9 episodes, first few episodes dealing with basic, but well thought-out and expressed, interpretation of some emotional ideas. Episodes 6-9 is where the overarching plot moves and a lot of revelations happen. But the cream of the crop is episodes 10-13 where it all ends with everything climaxing at the same time. It’s pretty impressive considering that this isn’t even the best part of the series (for me anyway).

Anyway, if you’re gonna “give it a shot,� give it all 13 episodes; we’ll worry about the rest later. When you go and check around (Anime circles anyway, like animeondvd.com and animenewsnetwork.com), people were generally skeptic of its reputation and were wondering how the production staff was gonna tie everything together with all that stuff they were throwing around, but by the time it rolled into the third disc (episodes 10-13), they were thoroughly impressed.

So yeah, bottom-line, 13 episodes is the way to go… I’ll just hope for the best and that you enjoy.

About the art though, I actually liked the art-direction and found that Ikuko Itoh’s characters, while simple in design, went well with the scenery and helped contribute to the series’ surreal setting; not only that, the animation was consistent (for the most part), and was really well-choreographed during the ballet scenes.

Oh yeah! One more thing... it's actually very possible to enjoy the series even without all the knowledge of ballet and whatnot (I mean, I’d be the last person to know anything about ballet)

Although, if you do get to view ADV’s DVDs, they have some nice extras where they have the dub cast teach the viewers about ballet and ballet music; it’s divided into two sections:

-First being “Ballet for Beginners� which has Mr. Cat (TJP) discussing the various moves used by the characters.

-The other extra is called “Etudé� which is discussed by a different pair of characters every disk; they expand on the ballet themes and music used in the show and also give a brief summary of the history behind them.

It’s good, educational stuff (yay).

[EmperorBrandon]

[ QUOTE ]
Sugei said:
However, I am noticing a villian of the week pattern in which Tutu must deafeat to collect another shard.

I know that I am simplifying it a bit and that there's more to it than that but that seems to be the basic pattern I've noticed thus far.

*sigh*

I've been reading alot of good things about this series but that has me a bit concerned because the whole collecting shards each episode from a new person thing is well pretty boring IMHO.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you're only worried about the repetiveness of the "shard-of-the-week" in particular, then there shouldn't be any problem. Once you're into Vol. 2, that aspect isn't very important. To give you an idea, with only very minor spoilers, <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>eps. 7-8,11-13 have no "guest character dance" and even though 9-10 have some, the story's focus is quite different from what it was in the first six episodes</span>.

The second story arc (comprising the second half of the series) also has a bit of a usual "of-the-week" repetitive magical girl theme at the beginning that wears off about halfway through it. It's quite different from the "shard-of-the-week" pattern from the beginning of the first story arc, so it's actually quite fresh when you get to it.

I do like the first parts of the story arcs a lot, though I guess some are a little more wary of the magical girl repetitiveness. Princess Tutu manages to do this kind of magical girl theme much better than other shows like Sailor Moon, having it tie better into the main story and also avoids excessive repetiveness since the circumstances for each bearer of Mytho's heart shard are quite different.

[Miss Amii]

Episode 6 is pretty much the last episode where Tutu does the heart shard collecting of the week bit. Afterwards, heart shards still crop up, but the focus is more on the drama between the characters. I'd give Tutu at least until the second disk to impress you. I wasn't too thrilled with the first disk either, but by the end of sixth episode I was completely sold!

[DanielJr]

I was sold from episode one. Even with the weekly monster thing. :p It's the whole storybook/fairy tale theme that made me enjoy it so much. Glad to know it gets better though. I've only seen the first six episodes on the AnimeNetwork.

[bci110]

I'm with everyone else here in saying that the meat of the story in Princess Tutu gets better from Episode 6 onward. The "monster of the week" format (which IMO basically plagued Sailor Moon) is virtually nonexistence once you get past the sixth episode. Stick with this series and eventually you'll fall in love with it.

And I second what DKL posted about the two extras - Ballet for Beginners and Etude. I don't know a thing about ballet and I completely fell in love with this series. The extras are very educational and helps understand some of the technical aspects of Tutu, and that's good enough reason for me to advise you not to buy Tutu in thinpak format if/when ADV converts the series in that format.

[JackProton]

There's more to it than Princess Tutu just collecting heart shards. Most fairy tales have some dark themes running through them and Tutu is no different. Don't call 'em Grim's Fairy Tales for nuthin', eh. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[DKL]

[ QUOTE ]
bci110 said:

And I second what DKL posted about the two extras - Ballet for Beginners and Etude. I don't know a thing about ballet and I completely fell in love with this series. The extras are very educational and helps understand some of the technical aspects of Tutu, and that's good enough reason for me to advise you not to buy Tutu in thinpak format if/when ADV converts the series in that format.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I'll have to strongly agree with this

Usually, I'm all up for saving money and whatever, but I found the ETUDE (can't do the accent on a MAC) and BALLET FOR BEGINNERS extras to be incredibly useful (I mean, REALLY useful)

I really like that Jin Ho Chung decided to turn them into sequences as opposed to inserts, good job!

Oh yeah, I also want to go on the record to say that I have the best advertising campaign for the series... right here... yeah! [img]/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif[/img]

[itsuka]

I really agree with everyone else that the second disc of the anime is where the greatness of the story starts to shine through. Shard collecting may still continue for a while, but the plot goes into high gear as it really turns into a dark fairytale. Tutu was never designed to be one of those endless monster of the week shows, it has too much progression in the story line itself and the characters for that. That's why it's one of my top 10 anime.

[ QUOTE ]
DKL said:
ETUDE (can't do the accent on a MAC)

[/ QUOTE ]

"É" that accent? Yeah, I couldn't seem to do it in here, either, but alt-e works just fine in TextEdit (then cut'n'paste). ^_^

alt-shift-e gives an accent, but I can't readily figure out how to put an "e" under it in here...