timepiececlock | Entries tagged with princess tutu

Yeah, Fakir totally wants to be David Bowie. And Ichabod Crane.

Pick up to 10 ships.
Describe them in less than 16 words.
Have your flist guess the ship.

1. In the end, we both get left behind, but I got your back no matter what. -- Kakashi/Sakura, guessed by

flibbergibbet

2. I love you even if you're the evil sexy zombie of my sister in law. -- Lust/Scar, guessed by

_nepthys_ and

redbrunja

3. They rescue each other a lot, and they're the best MSR since MSR. -- Brennan/Booth, guessed by

zebeckras

4. We've been friends, enemies, victims/abusers, drinking buddies, lovers, partners, and done courtly romance too. -- Buffy/Spike, guessed by

goldy_dollar and

zebeckras

5. What happens when the villain accidentally ends up as the epic love interest, cue slow dancing. -- Veronica/Logan, guessed by

goldy_dollar

6. She's supposed to fall for quirky guy A, but she's around quirky guy B too much. Oops. -- Penny/Sheldon, guessed by

tapas_girl

7. They work not because they're opposites, but because they're so similar underneath. And so hot. -- Katara/Zuko, guessed by

misora

8. Role-reversal and fictional reincarnation has never had a sweeter love story. -- Ahiru/Fakir, guessed by

zebeckras

9. They backed away from commitment so quickly they bumped into each other. -- Barney/Robin BroTP, guessed by

tapas_girl

10. How long are you going to stay with me? Forever. -- Doctor/Rose guessed by

goldy_dollar

Current Music: The Magnetic Fields - I'm Sorry I Love You

Princess Tutu fans, go read this one-shot ficlet. Like, now. Read it yesterday. [spoilers!]

I just finished reading The Last Unicorn (oh why did I wait until my 20s to read this?) and later today I'll read its coda, Two Hearts. But I was browsing the back of my hardcover, which has an index of Peter S. Beagle's published work, and what do I find listed under essays but this?---

"The Good Vampire: Spike and Angel", Peter S. Beagle. Five Seasons of Angel, 2004.

OH MY @$&)*#&$*()#&(@!.

So, not only is the book every bit as amazing as I remember the film being, in fact better times about 10 because the descriptions are just as wonderful as the dialogue, and not only was I reading it the whole time thinking of both my childhood, my dreams of how to write fiction well, and how I know somewhere in my bones that at least one of the people who made Princess Tutu must have watched/read this story, but now all that is topped with the pure and untainted joy of realizing that the author is a BTVS fan.

Who wrote an essay about Spike and Angel character analysis.

That was published in a collection.

That I can hunt down and read in the bookstore.

This is a freaking great morning already! I love discovering fellow fans, even if I don't interact with them personally. Just knowing that someone whose writing I now admire ardently also loved my all-time favorite tv show enough to write an essay about it twists the plaits of my heart. So I will top this joyous entry with an icon that calls to mind another great fantasy story with the words of another great fantasy song: truisms both.

ETA: ( some of rasielle's comments on Princess Tutu and The Last Unicorn, spoilers for tLU but not its sequel, spoilers for PT, long ramblings on similarities and reincarnated fictional characters and why Schmendrick=Fakir=Peter S. Beagle in my head. )

Current Mood: like I just discovered candy

Heads Up!

rasielle and I are having a fantastic, spoilerific discussion about gender/sexual roles in fiction and about romantic tropes all centered around the awesomely feminist Princess Tutu! Join us. The part I really like to discuss is in the lower comments, but this is the link to the whole thread so far.

spoilers abound: http://rashaka.livejournal.com/1275650.html

nabbed from

jaina

If you make up titles for stories I didn't write, I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

fandoms covered so far:

Fullmetal Alchemist - Freedom Kittens
Princess Tutu - Reconstruction (spoilers!)
Harry Potter - Lazy Days (spoilers!)
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Nightblindness (spoilers!), Girl With The Weight Of The World On Her Shoulders, Five Buildings Zuko Didn't Burn Down (spoilers!)
Naruto - In a Forest Without Trees

Disc 4:

I used to always go back and rewatch my favorite episodes, so I forgot how good the others were too. Like episode 14, which has the hilarious fountain scene AND the creepy-awesome-disturbing window scene. The way Mytho manipulates Fakir, and their classmates, in the second half of the show is just delicious.

Episode 18, the ghost knight episode, that's still one of my favorites. Besides my obvious shipper inclinations being tickled, I love that we get to see students from the drama department, and other areas of the school as well. It does the show good every once in a while to remind the audience that the world of the town, while tiny, is inhabited by more than just ballet people. This plot and cast is so small and exclusive, so wrapped up in the complications of figuring itself out, that it's easy to forget that they don't all live in a bubble. Or at least-- that the bubble is larger than merely the walk between the dorms and the dance rooms.

The commentary on this disc was more of the informative vein, less of the laughability. I'm enjoying listening to both styles, though. The production staff and the cast all have informative, interesting trivia to talk about with regards to characters, events, or music. This commentary was the new translator and the scriptwriter, and they went into detail about the research they did for the series and the extreme lengths they went to for finding the perfect way to talk about the elements and references properly in the English script. I enjoyed the explanation of using "crow" versus "raven" when discussing the Raven and Kraehe's bird followers. Apparently there's no distinction between the two species in the common Japanese lexicon like there is in English; they'd use the same word for any large black bird, whereas in English a crow and a raven are given distinct names to reflect that they're different. The writer and translator also discuss their decisions not to translate Uzura's name and speech style.

I've grown to like the fact that Ahiru was directly translated as Duck. At first it was awkward to the ear, but I've grown used to it.

Disc 5:

( Read more... )

This episode, with the tree, also illustrates one of my favorite themes of the second series: how Duck and Fakir both must learn to deal with helpless and lack of direction or control. Neither of them know what to do, and they fight each other and themselves as they struggle to deal with the fact that if they want to affect the story, they must change. Who they were before isn't enough anymore, so each must take on a new role. Rue, meanwhile, struggles with the fact that she's gotten her dearest wish but is beginning to realize she might not want it.

Episode 22

Azura: What's Fakir doing zura?
Duck: He's writing a story to protect the one who is important to him.

( And you know who that is. )

EDIT: Just went and updated the PT wikipedia entry to include listings of the leitmotifs [character theme music] for the major characters. I found conflicting information on Fakir's theme so I included both, and I couldn't figure out the leitmotifs for Uzura, the Raven, Pique & Lillie, or Autor. I was able to find Drosselmeyer, Edel, and Mr. Cat's pieces, however.

Disc 2

Episode 6 - the dance of awesome badness, and the fear shard

"You're an eyesore." Hah! He just DROPS her. I'd forgotten about that. ::snicker:: What an jerk. Hm... the dance leader Paulo said that the troop leader/electric eel's "approval rate" when way up for these two as the chosen partners.

This episode also has the sequence of Ahiru selecting the mood symbolism stones from Edel's collection: hope, adventure, mystery, artistic license/author's prerogative.

Episode 7 - tasty bread and the ways in which Fakir is like an onion

I had forgotten about the scene where Fakir slaps Mytho. As I'm watching this series again from start to finish... it once again amazes me how this show has such high levels of sugary sweetness, yet has such a fucked up underbelly. In some ways you can say its comparable to Fruits Basket that way... but it's different too. In Tutu you can't really tell which ones are evil, because the character motivations are constantly being unveiled before you. And there's differences in the negative behavior, too... in Furuba you know why the characters do bad or cruel things, and if it happens then they angst about it or talk it off. In PT... the "good" characters do bad shit and the bad characters do good things, and they don't angst about it after the fact (except Ahiru) because everyone is doing what they have to, to survive the story...or what they think they have to. ( Minor Fakir spoilers ) you know, I kinda forgot where I was going with this.

Maybe I shouldn't say that the characters don't feel bad about bad things they do. Because sometimes they do. Rather, the SHOW doesn't apologize for it. Lots of dark things happen that don't get addressed, weighed, and judged the way a lot of moral decisions/actions are judged in an anime show (usually by other characters.) Everything just keeps going forward, and whether a person is bad or good from last week to this week depends more on how much you know about them, and less on the ways they actually behave. In the first half of the series the characters don't really change at all; it's just what we the audience knows about them that changes.

All of this is why the voice-dubbing outtakes bloopers for each disc seem to consist almost entirely of sex jokes or other crudities. It's hilarious. The actor's audio commentary for the DVDs and bloopers/outtakes are suited to an audience about 14+, whereas I think the series itself is fine for someone as young as 10 or less. If you saw the first DVD's set of PT bloopers via the internet, I can tell you that the second set is even ~~WORSE~~ BETTER. The cast definitely realizes how subversive this series is.

Disc 3

From the cast commentary, Jay Hickman / Mytho: "Is there anything more romantic than a nice pas de duex in front of the burning corpse of a puppet?"

Yeah, this demi-finale is still awesome.

A thought on the extras: Each of the discs is loaded with extras, from bloopers to cast/producer commentaries, as well as the etude section, which I JUST NOW AS I TYPE recalled from my high school French classes means "study" (like 24 hours late on that revelation), that very nicely (if a bit fast) goes over each of the main composition pieces used in the show that are borrowed from famous classical music: overtures, ballets, or operas. SO WORTH IT TO BUY THE DVDs.

Very few anime series in these last two years have made me want to shell out and purchase them; the last was Fruits Basket. I've been having the same experience watching PT as I got watching FB on official DVD: it feels new and exciting because I get to hear the English dub voices, which is about the only way you can "re-experience" an anime that you've already seen to the conclusion two or three times. You might never get a second season, but you get an almost Alternate Universe version of the first season by watching it again in your personal native language dub. The DVD extras are just icing on the cake.

The woman who voices Rue, Jessica Boone, who also did the commentary for episode 13 along with Hickman, said that she'd love to see an American professional ballet production of Princess Tutu, that they should make the show into a ballet. YES. JUST. YES. PLEASE.

Am I staying up all night to watch PT and knit? Yes. And yes, I knit now! I started tonight. I'm making a purple scarf. It's great. I can't purle though, the book's explanation just confuses me.

Disc 1

I had forgotten the actual degree of abrupt little asshole Fakir was in the first episodes. I mean, really. He's quite the nasty bitch.

I'm "eh" about Mytho's dub VA; he's alright for the soft-spoken stuff, a little jarring for the louder stuff. Ahiru/Duck's dub VA is quite talented; some of those lines must be murder on your throat. Rue's English voice is lovely and Fakir's is positively splendid. I still wish they had used his actor for Sasuke in the Naruto dub.

I'd forgotten how often, in these first episodes, they repeat the line that the princess is fated never to be with the one she loves. Ahiru says it about five or six times, Drosselmeyer says it twice that often, and even Rue repeats it once. I know how that dialogue reads in the beginning of the show, but having seen the end and knowing how the cards fall... that prediction takes on new tragic meaning, as does Drosselmeyer's fanatic insistence that the audience "never forget that Ahiru, as her true self, is a duck." It's something the audience and Ahiru forget over the course of the series... we start to see her as a girl who turns into a duck, not a duck that turns into a girl. That change in perception (or misperception) correlates with the fact that as the series progresses, Ahiru begins to operate as if it were that way, particularly in her relationships with the other characters. It reminds me so much of The Last Unicorn, as Ahiru is forever changed by being human, and what her true identity is begins to blur as she becomes more than what she was. The transformative aspect of this series is beautiful. The first half of the series we discover who these characters are as pieces of them are revealed... the second half of the series takes those newly-revealed characters and this time transforms them.

Current Music: Swan Lake

I think The Crane Wife would make a beautiful Fakir/Ahiru music video. But it would be tricky... they'd have to cut down an 11 minute song to a workable length, and pick the parts of the song that match best with PT. Still, it could be done! And I'd love to watch the results.

I'm also convinced, thanks to the brilliant

octopedingenue, that "The Engine Driver" is the perfect Fakir song.

I think I'll do a music post soon for The Decemberists, since I am discovering new love for them this week. I don't love all their songs, but I love about half, and half is more than I love for most bands.

I also plan to make a music post of my New Orleans mix CD, containing the best of the music that I listened to when I spent 4 spring-summer months there. If only I had a copy of "Cupid Shuffle"... sadly that's the one song that WON'T be on my fanmix. I actually danced, in a line, to that song in the middle of Bourbon street, next to a Daquiri shop and a gay club. If anyone replies and tells me that there's no daquiri shop near the only gay club on Bourbon, I'll... congratulate you on your sobriety.

Current Mood: complacent
Current Music: The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 1 And 2

Oh my.

The boxset for Princess Tutu is out.

I never thought they'd finish dubbing it! And It's only $27.50! I want it so badly! Aack!

I am rapidly becoming obsessed with this song. Particularly the third verse.

The Decemberists

"The Engine Driver"

I'm an engine driver
On a long run, on a long run
Would I work beside her
She's a long one, such a long one

And if you don't love me let me go
And if you don't love me let me go

I'm a country lineman
On a high line, on a high line
So will be my grandson
There are powerlines in our bloodlines

And if you don't love me let me go
And if you don't love me let me go

And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
My bones
My bones

I'm a money lender
I have fortunes upon fortunes
Take my hand for tender
I am tortured, ever tortured

And if you don't love me let me go
And if you don't love me let me go

And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
I am a writer, I am all that you have home
Home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
My bones
My bones

akavertigo caved to my manipulative whining and finally watched all of Princess Tutu.

YES! ::dramatic fist in the air::

One more down, only five billion, nine hundred and ninety eight million to go! (and she totally ships the same ship, too...)

edit: In case anyone was interested, a long time ago I compiled a brief list of PT fic recommendations. I wish it were longer, but the actively creative fanbase for PT is quite small, unfortunately.

I'm now exactly halfway through The Time Traveler's Wife.

I think I'm in love with Henry. And maybe a little in love with Clare too. Can I be in love with both of them? And in love with them together?

-- but really, Henry. I mean, my god. A sexy hot librarian who also can do an assortment of illicit and dangerous things and runs around jumping through time and space? Who can do illicit things and run around in time and quote famous literature to you while doing so? How could anyone NOT be in love with Henry, I ask.

Though I admit I don't know if I'd want to be his wife. That would be hard. I'd be his girlfriend, though.

EDIT: My brain just did a fantastical leap of fandom (as brains are wont to do) and now it (my brain) is trying to think of ways that Henry could be compared to a grown-up Fakir from Princess Tutu. Is that weird or what?

::gapes::

Wow.

Wow.

Anyone on my friends list who's seen Princess Tutu, that most fabulously meta and literary of animes, YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS MUSIC VIDEO.

It's 4 down from the top of the page, labeled "Hold Me Now". The song is in some kind of foreign language (German?---I looked it up. Swedish.), and...guh. It's not only the best PT video I've seen (there's very few), but it's one of the best videos I've seen period when it comes to timing/transition of character movement across the screen. The anime is about dance, the story is about dance, and this video is a dance. A crazy, dark, sordid dance that crosses pairings and characters and captures everything I loved so much about PT. Also? Spoilery like hell.

The site says it won "Best Action" and "Best in Show" at Anime Boston 2006 and "Best Free Form" at Fanime 2006. If I'd still lived in San Jose and gone to Fanime, I'd've voted for it.

donna_c_punk, if you've decided never to finish PT, watch this video. If there's even the tiniest sliver of hope in your heart that you might continue it later, then ignore this and when you've finished the show I'll find the link for you again.

EDIT: I watched it again. I still love it so much. And I'm amazed that anyone managed to make an award-winning action video out of Princess Tutu, which, while dark, is not usually what I'd call "action". "Interpretive Action" maybe. ;)

octopedingenue is taking multi-fandom drabble requests and she wrote me a Rue/Ahiru/Fakir episode 2 drabble. ALL MY LOVE.

Now if I could just get her to write Avatar fanfic...

Current Mood: loved

Hey guys!

I thought I'd poke around Wikipedia, and ended up spending an hour playing with the Princess Tutu entrypage. I added an entire new section: Themes and Arcs.

I added the following subsections:

-Storytelling, Writing, and Meta
-Free Will vs. Destiny
-Transformation, Anthropormorphism, and Existential Identity
-A Prince With Two Princesses, A Princess With Two Princes
-Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends
-Ballet, Opera, and Classical Music

I filled in the entries for "Free Will vs. Destiny" and "A Prince With Two Princesses, A Princess With Two Princes", and I started a bit on the ballet entry, but I had to stop since I actually know very little about ballet except the ability to identify it when I see it. There's a SPOILER WARNING for the entire "Themes & Arcs" section, so be warned! I didn't spoil the ending of the series, but the PT entry as a whole includes several spoilers for the end of season one and quite a bit of the plot of season 2.

Anyway, I was hoping you guys might step up and fill in some of the sections! Because I'm tired and need sleep, and plus I'm pretty sure any attempt I could make at a coherent explanation of "storytelling, writing, and meta" in Princess Tutu would make absolutely no sense and jump around like crazy.

Oh, and feel free to edit the sections I already did, if you think you can explain it better. It's now 2:00 am for me, so it's likely that you'd be right.

Under the discussion of anthropormorphism, it'd be really cool if anyone knew about the Japanese mythological character of the cat spirit who seeks a bride. I believe Neko-sensei is a combination of that character and Puss In Boots. The cat spirit who is searching for a bride has shown up in other anime series... the one I remember most clearly is from Ranma 1/2. Unfortunately I have no idea what the story behind that is, but if someone does that'd be a cool thing to include--- I know that people I've spoken to who've seen the series always ask why Neko-sensei is threatening his students with marriage.

P.S.

octopedingenue, if you aren't already worn off the subject what with your thesis and all, your imput on these sections would be awesome. I know you probably know seventeen times more stuff about it by now than the rest of us do.

Current Mood: wikipedia-ing

FINALLY. Someone makes a Princess Tutu fan music video with a song that actually fits the moods and themes of the series. [warning: major spoilers...but so lovely!]

::bad rap attempt::

Don't you wish your nails were pretty. like. me.?

::shows off pretty nails and toenails:: [/end bad rap attempt]

And that only took me like an hour and half. No wonder I almost never do it.

Actually caught the dub of episode 31 of Full Metal Alchemist on live tv tonight, instead of the internet.

"If you won't do this brother, I will."

God, I love Al.

And I love how the brothers trade off being the tough one and the sympathetic one. That's why they're such great partners-- where one is weak the other is tough.

Next episode: "Dante of the Deep Wood". YAY! Dante! ::cough::EVILBITCH::cough:: YAY!

One more thing-- I swear to the non existent god that Wrath's dub voice is Ahiru's dub voice. That's really fucking with my head. Princess Tutu =/= Wrath. Not in any universe. Except the dubbing verse, apparently.

Anyway, I checked imdb.com, and it listed Tutu's VA as "miscellaneous voices" or whatever for FMA. And Wrath's VA wasn't given a separate listing. So... I'm thinking it's the case.

Which is weird and all kinds of wrong.

Okay, Princess Tutu fans on my flist, you remember the short little clips of animation being passed around that weren't from the series, but were very OMGWTF especially with regards to chin-stroking and hand-grabbing and shippyness?

I NOW HAVE THE ENTIRE CLIP.

It's two and a half minutes of bliss, at least for this fan who had despaired of the fact that the series had to end. Not that this is new canon or anything-- but it's new animation! Relatively. To me. And I am getting a few iconning urges.

So go click on the link above! And revel in the squee that is sure to follow.

Also,

chirachira transcribed the Japanese in the comments here:

( Actually, my fangirl Japanese is getting good enough that I understood, like, at least 12 words of this. WATCH. OBSERVE THE SLASH AND THE HET AND THE DANCING. )

I dunno what this is really from because it's labelled "DVD 1 intro", but that must have been the Japanese DVDs because I've seen the first dub DVD, and while it was full of yummy and funny and pretty extras, it didn't have this.

EDIT: Comments now contain SPOILERS FOR UP TO EPISODE 26! And some lesser vague spoilers behind the above cut also, because I babble and squee and PT can never have too much love on my journal. Nevah!