As Gold Crown Town falls under the shadow of the Raven, and Rue is drawn back into her father’s malevolent clutches, I still can’t help but feeling total elation at how far our heroes have come, and how fully they have surpassed their roles in Drosselmeyer’s story. Rue has broken free of the raven’s influence, and declared a love for Mytho so sincere that it broke him free of his own shackles, and reversed his transformation into the Raven’s puppet. Fakir has accepted his role as storyteller rather than knight, and guided his friends towards an ending he hopes might save them all. Mytho has rejected the narrative of falling in love with Princess Tutu, and instead pledged himself to Rue at any cost. And Ahiru has accepted she might never be with the prince, but can feel only the slightest tinge of regret at that; after all, her feelings of distant adulation for Mytho were only ever the pangs of adolescent infatuation, combined with her own desire to express herself so freely and beautifully.
Tag Archives: Princess Tutu
Princess Tutu – Episode 25
After twenty-four long episodes of painstakingly restoring the prince’s heart, and a cruel turn where the raven’s poison saw Mytho transforming into some kind of hateful, raven-crossed beast, it is ultimately not Ahiru’s efforts that see Mytho freed and restored. Instead, on the cusp of submitting to the raven entirely, it is Rue’s honest expression of love that frees him. Though Rue was told merely to trick Mytho, her feelings of obligation eventually shifted to affection, and ultimately honest love. Even our lies can contain partial truths, and a lie which is believed can change us until it becomes truth, for better or for worse. Rue’s curse is of the same kind that has tormented Mytho, the same lie that has hung grimly over all our characters, fostered by their creators – the lies we also know as “fiction.”
Princess Tutu – Episode 24
With only three episodes remaining, the time for cryptic allusions and shrouded metaphor is largely behind us. Princess Tutu’s latest opening monologue emphasizes that clearly, as we are greeted by the image of a grave scattered with pages, and a pendulum swinging in the background. The narrator tells us, “once upon a time, there was a man who died. The story the man wrote was about a happy prince who loved everyone and was loved by everyone. The people fought, each wanting him to love them and them alone, and an evil raven pecked at their loving hearts one after another. The more the prince loved them and tried to save them, the more the people’s love just fed the raven. In the end, the raven thought ‘I’d like to try eating the prince’s heart, the most delicious one of all.’”
Princess Tutu – Episode 23
Our twenty-third episode opens with a cradle viewed through bars, and a story that speaks to all of Princess Tutu’s misbegotten heroes. “Once upon a time, there was a princess who was held captive. She was imprisoned in the demon king’s castle. And with her freedom taken from her, she had no choice to dance like a puppet to the tune set by the whims of the demon king. One day, a hero came to fight the demon king, seeking to save the princess. However, there was no way the hero could win against the demon king. The hero did not know, you see, that he himself was a puppet created by the demon king.”
Princess Tutu – Episode 21
Princess Tutu’s twenty-first opening monologue commences with a familiar line: “once upon a time, there was a man who died.” This is the same line it used to open its first monologue, before introducing the founding myth of the prince, raven, and Tutu herself. In that monologue, after describing the story, the narrator went on to speak of how the characters lived beyond their author’s death, and ultimately escaped their pages – only for the author to ultimately reappear and signal his approval. So how does this new version of the tale compare to that first story?
Princess Tutu – Episode 20
Though Princess Tutu is a story about the nature of narratives, and how stories sculpt our lives, its sympathy has mostly been limited to the players within those stories. While characters like Rue and Ahiru try their best to write their own stories, they are ultimately constrained by the whims of their author – and Drosselmeyer himself isn’t sympathetic at all. Drosselmeyer has never hesitated in inflicting hardship upon his characters; he seems to believe they exist entirely for his amusement, and that he has no responsibility to respect their feelings or dreams. But here in its twentieth episode, Princess Tutu at last reveals that it fully understands the plight of the author, and the heavy responsibility of holding characters’ lives in your hands. Princess Tutu’s characters struggle even to choose their own paths, but if they are to succeed, they will have to embrace the power of authorship, and the responsibility of writing a happier future.
Princess Tutu – Episode 19
We open Princess Tutu’s nineteenth episode with a familiar story, one this show seems to have been telling all along. As we peer over blooming flowers towards an eternally closed window, our narrator tells us that “once upon a time, there was a maiden in love. ‘I want to tell my beloved how I feel, but my love might be over the moment I say it.’ Every day she suffered, agonizing this way. She took no meals, and she was unable to even sleep. And finally, she died without ever having been able to communicate her feelings. But the man she loved married another woman and lived happily ever after, without ever even knowing the maiden had existed.”
Princess Tutu – Episode 18
A beautiful shot opens Princess Tutu’s eighteenth episode, as our latest fairy tale opens on an array of candles and swords, a shrine framed with the silhouetted town in the distance. The first words of our framing tale imply this will be a Fakir-focused episode, as we learn that “once upon a time, there was a knight.” Sworn to protect his kingdom, the knight “never faltered in his duty, no matter what it was. He did not even falter in taking the life of his lover. That was what he took pride in. But the knight could not do anything but carry out his duty, and even after his death, he still seeks a duty to carry out. They say the knight, who became a ghost and now haunts this world, holds in his hand the blood-stained sword that pierced his lover’s breast.”
Princess Tutu – Episode 17
We open Princess Tutu’s seventeenth episode with yet another strange, thematically resonant image; a rose standing alone, captured in either a mirror or a picture frame. “Once upon a time, there was a young man with a beautiful face” our untrustworthy narrator explains. “The people loved the handsome young man, but he never showed any interest in loving anyone. This is because all he loved was himself. When the young man, who had neglected to love anyone and sought only to be loved, found someone he truly cared for, he realized he had lost even the words to express those feelings.”
Princess Tutu – Episode 16
After a half-dozen episodes of escalating tension and epic climaxes and dramatic board-flipping, I’m almost relieved to announce that Princess Tutu’s sixteenth episode is a very normal episode of Princess Tutu. The aftermath of Ahiru and Fakir’s battle with Kraehe has been largely settled, and the show has established a new episodic mode centered on Kraehe’s efforts to find a sacrifice for her father. This episode embraces that focus while returning to the sturdy, predictable narrative arcs of the show’s first half, arriving at a subtly menacing tone that evokes something like Revolutionary Girl Utena’s black rose arc. “We won, but the substance of our world only continues to fray” is an evocative concept, and Princess Tutu’s second half is happy to embrace that tonal energy.