Tutu!

It's one of my favourite animes, and the reason why I got into Utena. People said I would love Utena if I loved Tutu, so after hearing that I was very determined to watch Utena and finally did and..

It's so hard for me to pick a favourite character in that show. I love the main four so much, but Ahiru probably just a little more. I can relate to her especially because I'm taking ballet now and.. yeah. Not so good at it. >_> I'm an awkward klutz. But now after I watch more Tutu after taking the classes, I look at the moves Tutu and Kraehe do and go "......ow."

I've always loved ballet as a kid and still do (even if I'll probably never get that good at it), so this anime was a real treat. I love how the first half seems like the perfect little cliche fairytale and then in the second half it turns everything completely upside-down.

Ah, Princess Tutu. Pretty series and from what I have seen, a fair series to start off with if you want to get into Utena. The first episode approaches the almost random wierdness of the Utena movie.... and to me, that really says something.

I saw the first two eps at Utah anime con the other day. . .

It was interesting.

Does it play with the same fairytale motifs that Utena does?

It really takes the first three episodes before you can get a handle on the series. Overall it's not as deep as Utena, (What is?) but it's far more involved than you might think. It's very much worth watching and with more than a few similiarities to Utena.

Rosemary Bats wrote:

Ragnarok wrote:

Overall it's not as deep as Utena (What is?)

As for being as deep as Utena...I think Serial Experiments Lain might actually take the cake on that one. Utena's my all-time favorite, but Lain takes the longest to puzzle everything out. And Evangelion and Haibane Renmei come close to SKU in the depth department.

You have very fine taste in shows, I must say.

After Utena, anything with Yoshitoshi ABe's involvement gets put on a pedestal by me as well.  He's my favorite character designer, and his artwork is just amazing.


...but this thread is about Tutu!  I'll keep it on topic by saying (again) that I intend to see this someday, as I've heard that there are more than a few parallels to Utena as far as characters and motivations are concerned.  I await the value priced boxset to make this prophecy become reality.

Squirrama wrote:

I sadly only discovered Princess Tutu over the summer this year, thanks to an amazing AMV I saw in Anime Boston's AMV contest. Said AMV ended up winning the contest overall, and rightly so. After that, I hunted Tutu down like a girl possessed.

Oh man, that is a wonderful AMV.  I'd been dragging my feet on Princess Tutu-- I had so much other downloaded anime that I was never going to get to-- but watching that totally converted me.  Now my anime club is showing it, which is pretty much the best situation all around.    (Still, I haven't finished it yet, so I should probably butt out of this thread before spoilers start flying.  ;; )

I love Princess Tutu. I have to say it's up there with Utena, if not just a little below. The parallels you can see after watching Utena first (or watching Tutu and then Utena) are amazing, and at the same time, it is very much its own unique story. I am going nuts as a Fakir girl more and more. I love the depth of the characters, the uncertanty of loyalties, and the progression of the story. The music is wonderful, and everything is beautiful, if not tragically so. I think the main character (Duck?) is adorable...not at all like Utena, although they are both very innocent at times. It's just a really great show, and something very nice if you've just finished SKU and are looking for that twisted fairytale anime fix. Unlike SKU, though, Tutu is very, very German. (Which is cool with me. I'm German. )

As a dissenting opinion, watching the first volume of Princess Tutu didn't make me think it was anything like Utena except in the most superficial sense of being colourful and storybook-like. It doesn't really have Utena's design aesthetic, the characters were far more "kiddy" and seemed to lack any real depth or nuance (even taking into account that the depth and nuance of Utena characters becomes more obvious over time as opposed to in the first few episodes), the "battle of the week" is a formula I don't really like and there's nothing really special done with it here to make it stand out, and the main character's personality lends an extremely different feel.

I hear all the time how much Princess Tutu is like Utena; I don't really get it. Even if later on it turned into something more complex, I can't see it ever really being like Utena in theme and tone, because the theme and tone start out so incredibly different. Classical music and bright colours, sure, but that isn't what defines Utena, to me. I'd far sooner compare Tutu to Tenshi Ni Narumon/I Wanna Be An Angel than I would to Utena.

Mind you, I didn't think it was a terrible show, per se... just it's not really at all like Utena (and I didn't have much interest in watching more).

belladonna wrote:

That's all fine, it's your opnion. I saw connections, however. But I saw much more connections later in the series. I didn't think that I'd like it after seeing the first episode or so, and the same sort of thing happened with Utena as well. But I gave both shows a chance, and ended up loving them. That's just me, though.

Oh, of course. I can't make a final judgement on Tutu without seeing it all, and I'm not saying you're wrong to see a connection, I just don't see it myself, even in the things people have specifically claimed to me are similar (I've seen more than one person laud the connection from just seeing the first episode).  Differing opinions make the world go round!

However, one thing I will say, and I'm not sure you were actually intimating otherwise, is that I feel watching the first volume of any series is giving it a very fair chance.