Princess Tutu Vol. #1
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December 28, 2005
by: Vincent Del Vecchio
"The storyline is unique, and the music is wonderful."
Written by: Kristin Segura
Review Hardware Used: Compaq Presario Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology ML-28, 14" WXGA high-definition widescreen display with BrightView technology and 1280 x 768 resolution
Disc Description
A girl named Duck - or rather, a duck who wanted to become a girl - fell in love with a prince. As she paddled around her pond one day, a bizarre old man emerged from the early morning mist and gave her a magical pendant with the power to transform the waddling Duck into the waltzing Princess Tutu.
Cackling, the man faded into the fog making clear the demands of Duck's destiny. Her lonely prince had lost the pieces of his heart, and only Tutu could unravel their mystery. But however she should choose to step, for better or for worse, would shape her tangled story. For those who accept their fate find happiness, those who defy it, glory.
Darkness hid the pieces of her beloved's shattered heart, and time is running out for Princess Tutu to find them. Using the power of an enchanted amulet, she must uncover the mystery and keep herself and the Prince alive. What secrets bind this passionate girl, a clumsy duck with an omnipresent storyteller?
Disc Features
Episode 01
Episode 02
Episode 03
Episode 04
Episode 05
Reversible Cover
Ballet for Beginners
Etude
Outtakes
Clean Opening Animation
Clean Closing Animation
Voice Actor Commentary
Staff Commentary
In the Studio
Disc Review
Content: (This section may include spoilers)
A man whom wrote numerous stories had written one about a prince who was fighting an evil raven. Unfortunately he died before this story was finished, therefore their fight would go on forever unfinished. However the raven decided to escape the story, yet the prince was able to seal this raven using his own heart.
With that story explained the anime then cuts to a duck swimming in a pond. She wishes to dance with the prince, but knows that she cannot because she is only a duck. Apparently she wishes to cheer him up and make him feel less lonely. She wishes for him to smile. Suddenly along comes a man whom gives her the ability to become a human. Yet next thing we know we see the duck, whom is now a human named Duck, waking up thinking how the "dream" she had last night was strange. She explains that perhaps she has those weird dreams, because her name is Duck.
Duck is a young lady whom practices ballet, and is described as weird by her peers. The first episode has Duck going to her ballet class, but accidentally walking in on mytho dancing. He accidentally falls and sprains his ankle. Fakir then walks into the room, he appears to be an older brother, but in reality is simply a roommate to mytho. He's very protective of mytho. She states that he looks just like the man from her dream (the prince); Dancing with her peers. Their teacher is called Mr. Cat and of course looks just like a cat. Mr. Cat seems to be a bit scary, he starts off by declaring anyone who does not follow directions will be forced to marry him; you hear all the students shriek in disgust.
Next we go to Duck whom tries to visit mytho, however Fakir denies her this. We then cut to a scene where Fakir is telling mytho that he just has to listen to what he tells him to do and he'll be okay.
Duck is sitting in her room, when she sees the man, Drosselmeyer, who appeared to give Duck the ability to become human. He talks in riddles to her for a few minutes and then he disappears. Was it really just a dream?
Duck has the ability to transform into Princess Tutu and help people whom appear to be lonely. A pendant that she wears will start to glow when she is around someone else who has feelings of loneliness, and from there she turns into this Princess Tutu. Apparently she can help them when she dances and says all the right things to cheer that person up. When she helps a person out, she gains pieces of a heart shard. In order to really help out the prince, she has to collect all the heart shards. As the series goes on we learn that it appears to be a story within a story. The story about the prince fighting the raven has a connection to Duck and Princess Tutu, one that remains a mystery for the time being.
Video:
The lighting and coloring were one of the first things I noticed in this anime. The lighting in this anime is bright the majority of the time, using various techniques, one which stuck out is the lighting that comes from the sun dropping in through windows, causing shadows on some of the scarier characters, I could say. The coloring in the anime is bright on the students and what seem like the "good" characters. The characters that portray a bit more of an evil side to them, are done in darker, bleaker colors. The animation style itself wonderful, but nothing that would stand out.
Audio:
The background music was probably the best part of the audio that I heard. It's all instrumental and more on the classical side. It's very easy to overhear the music itself, but it works wonders. It's very soft and typically not music you would often hear in anime. The music does not overlap the dialogue at all so you can still hear everything perfectly. I could definitely find myself buying the OST to this anime.
Menus:
The main menu is very beautiful, featuring Princess Tutu with some feathers and glowing stars surrounding her. To the left of her is a small window that presents a few images from the anime. The background music is the opening theme song, but just the beginning instrumental part, which is incredibly beautiful to listen to. The special features menu has the same window to the left of the screen that features some different images from the anime. Behind the window you can see what appears to be the sky with a sun and a rainbow of rays shooting out. There are again some feathers and sparkling stars which will glow every few seconds. The background music was for this menu was also instrumental and classical.
Extras:
The clean opening animation was wonderful. It goes along with the anime so well, and the animation to it was incredible. The song is mostly instrumental with lyrics sung very softly. The clean closing animation is also a fantastic piece of art. The music is again mostly instrumental with lyrics sung softly. I was amazed at how well both the clean opening and closing animations went along to the anime and how I could just sit and watch them numerous times. I always love outtakes, especially in anime because they always have so much fun with it. The outtakes were a nice length, definitely worth checking out for anyone that loves a good laugh. Ballet for Beginners is basically just a bunch of clips from the anime put together where Mr. Cat goes through and describes some terminology used in ballet; A bit useful for understanding ballet a bit more. In the Studio pretty much shows the voice actors speaking their lines to the anime. This was a bit on the dull side, as it was them trying to get their lines to match the "flaps" (when the characters move their mouth).
The Staff Commentary starts off with an introduction of the staff members and what else they've worked on. They then start talking about translations of the names. They talk about translation and how it's normal for fairy tales to translate names of animals, whereas character names are kept the same, for example Duck is translated yet Mytho isn't. The staff commentary goes on to talk an awful lot about fairy tales and folk tales, so it is educational for those who are interested. The voice actor commentary starts off by the voice actors introducing themselves, and then they go on to talk a bit about Full Metal Panic (as both of them worked in that series as well). This commentary is a bit more humorous than the staff one, but not much educational aspects of it.
Dialogue:
The character voices were a bit irritating at times; particularly Duck's voice. As she's the main character, we get to listen to her the majority of the series. Fakir and mytho seem to have been cast the best in the series so far. Their voices do well at portraying how the characters act, with mytho being a bit shyer, as his voice is softer. Fakir is bossy and controlling and his voice is loud and stern. The rest of the cast seems decent, but it could have been better.
The Bottom Line:
The storyline is unique, and the music is wonderful. The DVD is packed with extras, which I think partially makes up for the poor dialogue. The extras give you a lot of insight into fairy tales, voice acting, the Japanese language, and more. With such an amazing storyline, it's unfortunate that the dialogue and animation aren't better. Only check this title out if the storyline sounds like one you would enjoy.
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Content |
A combination of animals and humans as characters in this strickingly unique anime. A cute storyline sure to please mainly females. |
9.0 |
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Video |
lighting and coloring. The animation could have been better. |
7.0 |
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Audio |
The background music is wonderfully done. Classical music is a unique twist to an anime OST. |
10.0 |
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Menus
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Background music added to the beautiful layout of the menu. A bit more effort was put into making this menu as opposed to the typical menu. |
9.0 |
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Extras
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Seems like they spent just as much time putting together the extras as they did in making the anime. Packed with tons of stuff, both educational, humorous, and just fun to watch. |
9.8 |
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Dialog
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A bit grating on the ears at times. Only a few characters stood out as having appropriate voices. |
5.0 |
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Verdict
Wonderful storyline and excellent audio and tons of extras. Yet they could have put more work into the dialog and video aspect.
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8.0
[not an average]
+ The music in this show is wonderful.
+ Plentiful extras. Very enjoyable to watch.
+ Very good menus. Great effort was used.
- The dialog could have been better planned out.
- Animation quality could stand to be a bit better.
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