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There is fiction in the space between
Thoughts on Princess Tutu, lj-cut for the traditional reasons. Feel free to comment, if you have seen the anime; I prefer to avoid major spoilers, but I'm fine with premises and conceptual discussions.
I feel like a Rocky Horror virgin; I have seen one episode of Gankatsuo and would like to see more, but essentially tonight's three episodes of Princess Tutu comprised my first foray into the wide and reportedly wonderful world of anime. And, so far, I love it. It doesn't seem to be the kind of show where I'm instantly drawn to the characters, although a few have piqued my interest, but structurally it's making me very happy.
In particular, the layers of story make me happy. As the opening narrative of each episode tells us, each time in slightly altered form, a storyteller died while working on the tale of the prince and the raven; how the prince shattered his heart to bind the raven forever, and all the shards of his heart were lost. But the storyteller's death seems to have freed the characters to take up life in a small town where the real and the fantastic intermingle until no one blinks twice at an anteater at ballet classes taught by a man-sized cat prone to threatening his students with marriage—or a duck who falls in love with a boy she does not yet know is a prince, and who takes on gawky and lovelorn human form to save him.
Except that the storyteller, however dead for centuries, seems still to take an active interest in the lives of his characters. And it's unclear how many of the characters recognize their nature, or indeed how many people in this town were once or still characters. And how many multiple identities are at work. The protagonist, Duck, is simultaneously a duck (who once saw a beautiful boy dancing in the mist) and a girl (who studies ballet at the school where he is a top student) and Princess Tutu (a tragic heroine destined to save him—her prince—at the cost of her own life), and the anime plays with all of these levels far more intelligently than I expected.*
Now for the speculations.
Perhaps not as irrationally as I first assumed, I associate the figure of the old storyteller, Drosselmeyer, with his original creator E.T.A. Hoffmann, who not only authored the short story "Nussknacker und Mausekönig" that became Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, but who died two-thirds of the way through his last novel Lebensansichten des Katers Murr ("Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr"), a bizarre piece of metafiction in its own right—the autobiography of a recurring character's cat written on the back pages of the story in which the character exists. (The novel is subtitled nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen Makulaturblättern, "with a Fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Accidentally Interleaved Pages.") Which doesn't tell me, of course, what he's doing in this story: if everyone knows that he died hundreds of years ago; if his death, for that matter, was the act that unlocked his tale.** Not that he does much, in some ways. Beyond his original decision to grant Duck human form (and the alter ego of Princess Tutu), mostly he advises her at crucial hinges in the story, I assume to make the plot come out the way he wants it.*** I don't yet know what connection he has with the town clock and its mechanical figures that swing out to count the hours, except that the visual likeness of the cogs and gears is too close for coincidence—he is always seen with clockwork ticking away behind him; the machineries of story? Coppelius. He's shadowy.
Then there's the raven. We have a prince; we have a princess; we need a raven. For reasons that have more to do with Swan Lake than character, right now, I am assuming that the raven is Rue, the dark girl who partners Mytho (the pale-haired prince, who does not yet seem to know who he is; only that emotions are alien to him, with his heart in pieces and each piece in someone else's heart, and who recognizes Princess Tutu) and who may or may not be at odds with Fakir, Mytho's brusque protector-jailor-God-knows-what-at-this-point. Besides, she has red eyes. I'm sure there are all sorts of valid anime reasons for this, but it still makes me associate her with the black swan. And if there is a raven, is there a raven's advisor? Is there an equal and opposite to Drosselmeyer? Or is he directing both sides of the action? I wouldn't be surprised.
I won't even touch the organ-grinder woman, whom I most unfairly connect to the eerie Leiermann of Schubert's Winterreise. She, too, seems to know the differences between story and reality and all the places they overlap; she's as unhelpful as Drosselmeyer, though in a more traditionally elliptical fashion. She might be an oracle. She might be working against Drosselmeyer. I can't tell: her name is Edel, and I suppose she could even be one of Drosselmeyer's characters. There's the sense that there are whole tracts of his tale that we haven't even heard yet. In the first episode, Princess Tutu seems an interloper into the story of the prince and the raven, a sort of authorial retrofit so that the pieces of the prince's scattered heart can be collected; by the third, we realize that she's a well-known figure with her own place in the tale.
It only struck me now, as I was writing the above paragraph, that there should be a father somewhere around here, if the Swan Lake pattern is to hold true—I had cast Drosselmeyer in that role, equating storyteller with magician (and indeed, he seems to be a little of both; although his powers are limited, in that he must work through Duck), but he's outside the frame. There should be someone inside, whom we have not yet met or recognized.
Alternately, I could be one hundred percent wrong about all of this. But I still want to watch and find out.
*Oh, and the ballet. I'm left with the sense that before the next showing, I should listen to several dozen more and perhaps watch a few. I can recognize pieces from The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, and I was delighted to spot the "Aquarium" from Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, but that still leaves a good forty-five minutes of music I'm sure I missed entirely. It's used innovatively, too. I was particularly fond of the Nutcracker theme dropped about two octaves and transformed into a dirge so ominous and funereal that for a minute I wasn't sure whether I was listening to a Dies Irae or Dead March.
**I also wonder who the outer storyteller is—the voice that we hear before each episode opens, recounting Drosselmeyer's death and the actions of his characters since. If he himself is a character, then the whole plot thickens by several orders of magnitude; is he behaving in accordance with his author's intentions? Or I'm overanalyzing.
***And so I wait for his characters to realize that they don't like the ending he has planned for them, and to change it . . .
I feel like a Rocky Horror virgin; I have seen one episode of Gankatsuo and would like to see more, but essentially tonight's three episodes of Princess Tutu comprised my first foray into the wide and reportedly wonderful world of anime. And, so far, I love it. It doesn't seem to be the kind of show where I'm instantly drawn to the characters, although a few have piqued my interest, but structurally it's making me very happy.
In particular, the layers of story make me happy. As the opening narrative of each episode tells us, each time in slightly altered form, a storyteller died while working on the tale of the prince and the raven; how the prince shattered his heart to bind the raven forever, and all the shards of his heart were lost. But the storyteller's death seems to have freed the characters to take up life in a small town where the real and the fantastic intermingle until no one blinks twice at an anteater at ballet classes taught by a man-sized cat prone to threatening his students with marriage—or a duck who falls in love with a boy she does not yet know is a prince, and who takes on gawky and lovelorn human form to save him.
Except that the storyteller, however dead for centuries, seems still to take an active interest in the lives of his characters. And it's unclear how many of the characters recognize their nature, or indeed how many people in this town were once or still characters. And how many multiple identities are at work. The protagonist, Duck, is simultaneously a duck (who once saw a beautiful boy dancing in the mist) and a girl (who studies ballet at the school where he is a top student) and Princess Tutu (a tragic heroine destined to save him—her prince—at the cost of her own life), and the anime plays with all of these levels far more intelligently than I expected.*
Now for the speculations.
Perhaps not as irrationally as I first assumed, I associate the figure of the old storyteller, Drosselmeyer, with his original creator E.T.A. Hoffmann, who not only authored the short story "Nussknacker und Mausekönig" that became Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, but who died two-thirds of the way through his last novel Lebensansichten des Katers Murr ("Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr"), a bizarre piece of metafiction in its own right—the autobiography of a recurring character's cat written on the back pages of the story in which the character exists. (The novel is subtitled nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen Makulaturblättern, "with a Fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Accidentally Interleaved Pages.") Which doesn't tell me, of course, what he's doing in this story: if everyone knows that he died hundreds of years ago; if his death, for that matter, was the act that unlocked his tale.** Not that he does much, in some ways. Beyond his original decision to grant Duck human form (and the alter ego of Princess Tutu), mostly he advises her at crucial hinges in the story, I assume to make the plot come out the way he wants it.*** I don't yet know what connection he has with the town clock and its mechanical figures that swing out to count the hours, except that the visual likeness of the cogs and gears is too close for coincidence—he is always seen with clockwork ticking away behind him; the machineries of story? Coppelius. He's shadowy.
Then there's the raven. We have a prince; we have a princess; we need a raven. For reasons that have more to do with Swan Lake than character, right now, I am assuming that the raven is Rue, the dark girl who partners Mytho (the pale-haired prince, who does not yet seem to know who he is; only that emotions are alien to him, with his heart in pieces and each piece in someone else's heart, and who recognizes Princess Tutu) and who may or may not be at odds with Fakir, Mytho's brusque protector-jailor-God-knows-what-at-this-point. Besides, she has red eyes. I'm sure there are all sorts of valid anime reasons for this, but it still makes me associate her with the black swan. And if there is a raven, is there a raven's advisor? Is there an equal and opposite to Drosselmeyer? Or is he directing both sides of the action? I wouldn't be surprised.
I won't even touch the organ-grinder woman, whom I most unfairly connect to the eerie Leiermann of Schubert's Winterreise. She, too, seems to know the differences between story and reality and all the places they overlap; she's as unhelpful as Drosselmeyer, though in a more traditionally elliptical fashion. She might be an oracle. She might be working against Drosselmeyer. I can't tell: her name is Edel, and I suppose she could even be one of Drosselmeyer's characters. There's the sense that there are whole tracts of his tale that we haven't even heard yet. In the first episode, Princess Tutu seems an interloper into the story of the prince and the raven, a sort of authorial retrofit so that the pieces of the prince's scattered heart can be collected; by the third, we realize that she's a well-known figure with her own place in the tale.
It only struck me now, as I was writing the above paragraph, that there should be a father somewhere around here, if the Swan Lake pattern is to hold true—I had cast Drosselmeyer in that role, equating storyteller with magician (and indeed, he seems to be a little of both; although his powers are limited, in that he must work through Duck), but he's outside the frame. There should be someone inside, whom we have not yet met or recognized.
Alternately, I could be one hundred percent wrong about all of this. But I still want to watch and find out.
*Oh, and the ballet. I'm left with the sense that before the next showing, I should listen to several dozen more and perhaps watch a few. I can recognize pieces from The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, and I was delighted to spot the "Aquarium" from Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, but that still leaves a good forty-five minutes of music I'm sure I missed entirely. It's used innovatively, too. I was particularly fond of the Nutcracker theme dropped about two octaves and transformed into a dirge so ominous and funereal that for a minute I wasn't sure whether I was listening to a Dies Irae or Dead March.
**I also wonder who the outer storyteller is—the voice that we hear before each episode opens, recounting Drosselmeyer's death and the actions of his characters since. If he himself is a character, then the whole plot thickens by several orders of magnitude; is he behaving in accordance with his author's intentions? Or I'm overanalyzing.
***And so I wait for his characters to realize that they don't like the ending he has planned for them, and to change it . . .
no subject
I haven't seen this Princess Tutu series, but you've really piqued my interest. That I haven't seen it comes in spite of the fact that I've seen lots and lots of anime. But, then, anime series seem to be multiplying these days at a supernatural rate.
If you want some recommendations, I'd start by saying stay very, very far away from 99.9% of English dub versions of anything (you may have seen my recent journal entry about how Neil Gaiman's script for Princess Mononoke makes it one of the only English dubs I can tolerate).
But some of my favourites include Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Rumiko Takahashi's older stuff (Urusai Yatsura, and early Ranma 1/2), and Hayao Miyazaki's movies are almost invariably good. Studio GAINAX seems to make some consistently fascinating things, including FLCL and Gunbuster.
There are lot of anime series I've been watching lately that haven't been brought over to the U.S. yet--my friend downloads them from Bit Torrent sites. If you're able to utilise those, I'd recommend it since an anime habit can get very expensive, very fast.
no subject
I did. Fortunately, I try to avoid dubbed anything, anime or not—and so I'm pleased to report to you that Princess Tutu is subtitled.
(Urusai Yatsura, and early Ranma 1/2)
I've read some of both of those in their manga incarnation; I've never seen the anime. Are there great differences between the two?
If you're able to utilise those, I'd recommend it since an anime habit can get very expensive, very fast.
Fortunately, I have a householdful of friends who own serious amounts of anime. My current plans are to sponge off them for everything I can watch.
Thanks for the recommendations!
no subject
A good policy. In the case of anime, it's not just the translations that tend to be bad, but the voice acting is usually terrible.
Voice acting is a highly respectable profession in Japan (see here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiy%C5%AB)). It's an ultimate goal for actors to aspire to in that country, while anime in the U.S. tends to be handled by the same couple Canadian companies whose small cadre of actors tend to give almost toneless performances with trite affectations. There's really a world of difference.
There's even an episode of a series called Excel Saga where one of the characters makes fun of his English voice actor counterpart. In that case, the English version had so completely misinterpreted what was funny about the character as to give him a completely inappropriate voice.
I've read some of both of those in their manga incarnation; I've never seen the anime. Are there great differences between the two?
Urusai Yatsura had some deviations from the manga, but mostly they were approved by Rumiko Takahashi. Ranma 1/2 was a very different story.
Ranma 1/2 came after a hugely successful anime series based on Takahashi's Maison Ikkoku. The Maison Ikkoku anime was almost precisely like the manga, so it was decided, for the first season of Ranma 1/2, to do the same. Unfortunately, the series wasn't nearly as successful as anticipated, so subsequent seasons have progressively bad animation and deviate further and further from the manga to move into the realm of crap (in my opinion).
no subject
Clearly the translators-for-dubbing were being rather more liberal than the translators-for-subbing.
no subject
no subject
Tangential: have you ever read Somtow Sucharitkul's "Fiddling for Water Buffaloes"? Although the story is primarily (and humorously) about alien invasion, a main plot point revolves around the small-town Thai movie theater where the narrator and his brother show and dub American films with much improvisation:
The American ones were funniest—especially the James Bond films—because the dubbers had the most outrageous ad libs. I remember that in Goldfinger the dubbers kept putting in jokes about the fairy tale of Jao Ngo, which is about a hideous monster who falls into a tank of gold paint and becomes very handsome. The audience became so wild with laughter that they actually stormed the dubbers' booth and began improvising their own puns. I particularly remember that day because we were waiting for the monsoon to burst, and the heat had been making everyone crazy.
I've also read some Maison Ikkoku; again, never seen it. Do you recommend?
no subject
No, but it sounds interesting. Of course, you know my dilemma with books. After all that talk of Ursula LeGuin, I ended up reading a copy of Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground that I've had for about a decade, that I'd completely forgotten about. Though I've also been reading a bit more of Singing Innocence and Experience, too (still enjoying it).
I've also read some Maison Ikkoku; again, never seen it. Do you recommend?
I've read all of the manga, but I've only seen one episode of the anime. It's really hard to come by these days.
I thought it was pretty decent, though I thought Yotsuya's voice was too whiney.
no subject
So in another ten years, you'll get to Le Guin!
(I have never read Notes from the Underground. How was it?)
Though I've also been reading a bit more of Singing Innocence and Experience, too (still enjoying it).
Cool. I'm very glad.
no subject
Heh, I hope she comes sooner than that.
I have never read Notes from the Underground. How was it?
I haven't finished it yet, but it is good so far. I like Dostoyevsky a lot.