Aphrael (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silverthunder) wrote2008-01-16 12:30 am
silverthunder) wrote2008-01-16 12:30 am
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Princess Tutu Manga
I just bought and read the Princess Tutu manga. I did this despite numerous bad reviews from fans of the anime series, basically because of a combination of my love of the story and the fact that I had read two *good* reviews written by people who made some decent arguments.
Yeah. Needless to say, I didn't care for the manga.
That doesn't surprise me much. The reviewers who like the manga seem to be people who didn't care for the anime. The reverse was true for the reviewers who gave negative reviews on the manga. I adored the anime, so I can't say I really had high expectations for the manga. Plus, I knew in advance that they had completely removed the fact that Ahiru was actually a duck in reality. She was just a good-hearted but graceless girl who got to become a pretty ballerina-magical-girl, which took a lot of the individuality out of the story.
Basically, like most of the reviews said, this manga reads like your fairly typical magical-girl series. Clumsy girl becomes pretty magical girl. The hero is a handsome prince. In the anime, he is actually a real prince, and he just came out of a story into real life, which is cool. In the manga, he's a random bishounen with a heart that grants wishes (not too clear on why this is - it's just one of those things, I guess). There's a rival for the prince's affections and a side male character who acts as his protector. The motivations of Rue (the rival) and Fakir (the protector) are not as compelling as in the anime. I would say they are watered down versions of themselves. The end is fairly stereotypical: love conquers all, Ahiru gets to dance with Mythos as herself, and everything is bright and happy and gushy. Which I wouldn't mind if I didn't know what a brilliant ending the anime had.
It's sort of like Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, but in reverse. My favorite aspects of the anime were removed or altered in ways that I don't like in the manga.
One of the things that I really didn't like was the manga version of Edel. I suppose I could just treat her like a new character who happens to have the same name, which would make a lot of sense. In the anime, Edel is a puppet brought to life, one of the oddities that the author includes as support for Ahiru (really just to make sure she is doing what she's supposed to). She is also the character who begins the alteration of the story. She saves Fakir from his pre-ordained death, which in turn enables Ahiru to avoid *her* fate, and starts the ball rolling for the second season. Despite being almost a non-character, she was a really neat (and completely essential) addition. Manga Edel is in no way similar to anime Edel - she is a human servant of the raven and the true villain of the series. Her motives did not seem very compelling.
There's only one more thing I want to mention. One of the positive reviews I read for the manga stated that he/she felt Drosselmeyer was a weak point in the anime. The reviewer thought that it was just an annoyance factor and that the series really didn't *need* an author cackling in the background as the story should move itself along without this. Obviously, this person hasn't watched the whole series (they admit this - and why should they, if they don't like it). Drosselmeyer may not have been necessary in the first half of the series. But in the second half (the really interesting half, in my opinion), he is more or less essential, because more and more towards the end of the series, they are rallying against him. And this is really what I love about Princess Tutu. The author loses control of the characters - and by extension, the story itself. While the author was bent on tragedy, the characters pull an improbable happy ending out from somewhere. It's not what you'd expect, but it was thoroughly satisfying.
I really can't say the same for the manga, because it seemed to be the same old formula with no real exciting twists to make it more than mediocre.
Yeah. Needless to say, I didn't care for the manga.
That doesn't surprise me much. The reviewers who like the manga seem to be people who didn't care for the anime. The reverse was true for the reviewers who gave negative reviews on the manga. I adored the anime, so I can't say I really had high expectations for the manga. Plus, I knew in advance that they had completely removed the fact that Ahiru was actually a duck in reality. She was just a good-hearted but graceless girl who got to become a pretty ballerina-magical-girl, which took a lot of the individuality out of the story.
Basically, like most of the reviews said, this manga reads like your fairly typical magical-girl series. Clumsy girl becomes pretty magical girl. The hero is a handsome prince. In the anime, he is actually a real prince, and he just came out of a story into real life, which is cool. In the manga, he's a random bishounen with a heart that grants wishes (not too clear on why this is - it's just one of those things, I guess). There's a rival for the prince's affections and a side male character who acts as his protector. The motivations of Rue (the rival) and Fakir (the protector) are not as compelling as in the anime. I would say they are watered down versions of themselves. The end is fairly stereotypical: love conquers all, Ahiru gets to dance with Mythos as herself, and everything is bright and happy and gushy. Which I wouldn't mind if I didn't know what a brilliant ending the anime had.
It's sort of like Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, but in reverse. My favorite aspects of the anime were removed or altered in ways that I don't like in the manga.
One of the things that I really didn't like was the manga version of Edel. I suppose I could just treat her like a new character who happens to have the same name, which would make a lot of sense. In the anime, Edel is a puppet brought to life, one of the oddities that the author includes as support for Ahiru (really just to make sure she is doing what she's supposed to). She is also the character who begins the alteration of the story. She saves Fakir from his pre-ordained death, which in turn enables Ahiru to avoid *her* fate, and starts the ball rolling for the second season. Despite being almost a non-character, she was a really neat (and completely essential) addition. Manga Edel is in no way similar to anime Edel - she is a human servant of the raven and the true villain of the series. Her motives did not seem very compelling.
There's only one more thing I want to mention. One of the positive reviews I read for the manga stated that he/she felt Drosselmeyer was a weak point in the anime. The reviewer thought that it was just an annoyance factor and that the series really didn't *need* an author cackling in the background as the story should move itself along without this. Obviously, this person hasn't watched the whole series (they admit this - and why should they, if they don't like it). Drosselmeyer may not have been necessary in the first half of the series. But in the second half (the really interesting half, in my opinion), he is more or less essential, because more and more towards the end of the series, they are rallying against him. And this is really what I love about Princess Tutu. The author loses control of the characters - and by extension, the story itself. While the author was bent on tragedy, the characters pull an improbable happy ending out from somewhere. It's not what you'd expect, but it was thoroughly satisfying.
I really can't say the same for the manga, because it seemed to be the same old formula with no real exciting twists to make it more than mediocre.
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