majestic

And now for something completely different. As we talked about liking silly girly stuff yesterday, I went back to browse through the Wikipedia pages of the very thing that ended up reviving this thread: Sailor Moon. Since trying out more of Mr. Ikuhara's work is currently a little off the table (or potentially permanently, unless it comes recommended) I have noticed that Ikuko Itoh, one of the animation directors, chief and key animators and character designers involved with Sailor Moon has a anime creation credit to her name, in other words, an idea she came up with and designed. So, I figured, what could possibly go wrong? Well, nothing... and everything. How can that be? Well, that's what this post is for. My current working theory is that either working on Sailor Moon made people lose touch with reality, or everyone had to be out of step with reality to become a part of the Sailor Moon team. Either way works, and there is plenty of evidence in the form of Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I recently finished - that also featured heavy involvement of part of the Sailor Moon creative team. Including writers and of course the director, Kunihiko Ikuhara. Well, without further ado, I tried Princess Tutu, which quite clearly proves that Ms. Itoh also has a few loose marbles rattling around. Or she secretly came up with that idea when out binge drinking with Ikuhara. Who knows. First, with a name like that, if you expect this to be about girls and ballet, then you're in luck. It kind of is, just not in the way you would think. The protagonist of the anime is Ahiru, which is the Japanese word for duck. Time to reveal what character designs she came up with. This is Ahiru. Remember, before looking, her name literally means duck. Wait, what in the what now? Yes, so this is Ahiru. Ahiru is a duck minding her own business, at least until she meets Prince Mytho and immediately falls in love with his sad expression, and wants to help him. A not at all creepy character shows up and asks her if she actually has the resolve to follow through with her wish to help him. This quite clearly is a face you can trust, right? Mr. Not-at-all-creepy gives Ahiru the duck the magical power to turn herself into Ahiru the ballet student, with the added issue that whenever she does something ducky, she will transform back into a duck. She can only transform back into human form in water (at least so far), and she doesn't wear any clothes when she does (that makes sense, ducks don't wear clothing, do they?). Which she at first doesn't even notice until another not at all creepy character shows up to help her on her quest. Hello, I am Edel and I talk in riddles. This is how Ahiru looks when she's a ballet student: Actually that doesn't look so bad, does it? What is this about, then? Glad you asked. Essentially, Mr. Not-At-All-Creepy wrote stories. His final one was about a dashing prince fighting a demonic raven. However, he died without finishing it, and eventually bored of their neverending fight, the raven and the prince left the story. The prince tried to seal the raven, but in the process his heart shattered into several pieces, pieces that fell into a city and joined with the hearts of the people there, merging dreams with reality. This is told in a storyboard intro that... kind of reminds me of Revolutionary Girl Utena. In fact, that's so similar in style that, even though it has a different story that it tells, I wonder if Ikuhara gets royalties every time this airs somewhere. So who is Princess Tutu then? Princess Tutu is Ahiru the ballet student after she uses her magic gem to transform into ballet dance goddess Princess Tutu. She does this when her gem indicates that a piece of Mytho's heart is near. She then dances with whoever has the shard to free them of it, and gives it back to Mytho. So yes, we're talking anime ballet dance battles. When Mytho falls out of the window in the first epsiode, Princess Tutu saves him by dancing up a large bed of flowers. Yes, really. Anything else? Yes, for some reason, some of the characters are anthropomorphized animals. This is Neko-sensei, Ahiru's ballet instructor. And she is called Anteaterina, and really wants to dance with Mytho. Alas, Ant-Eaters and ballet, well, that's not the most fruitful combination, is it? Should I watch this? How the hell would I know, I've watched three out of the 26 episodes now. It certainly is weird. Ahiru and her friends are also kind of endearing, so that makes everyone infinitely more likable than the characters of Revolutionary Girl Utena, which weren't meant to be that likeable. The rest is about as weird, but at least this is really honest about it being a fairy tale that somehow seeped into reality.

That's me being super unfair to it. I think. The others seem to disagree, at least.

Well, since the cat's out of the bag anyway, more movie spoilers, but be careful just in case you might still want to watch - if you do just don't click and, uhm, yeah... consider it me ranting : Well that's actually not bad. I wondered if this would be 26 standalone episodes, but that kind of indicates that there'll be a bit more than that. CCS:

Vampire Princess Miyu, otherwise known as Guess That Voice Actor! It's incredible how versatile Megumi Ogata is. I almost didn't recognize her. Well, scratch that, I definitely did not recognize Reiha as Megumi Ogata at first. That creepy doll of hers gave it away though, and eventually you can hear her in Reiha too. Impressive, really. I wonder if we'll get a complete Sailor Moon reunion tour, so now that's Mimet as Miyu's creepy pet demon-bunny, Sailor Mizuki as one off character in the first episode and now Sailor Uranus (otherwise also known as Shinji or Yukito ). I'm guessing Reiha will be back, right? That didn't seem like a one time occurance there.

You'd think the premonitions going on for a while would get stale, but they don't, and there's always just enough new to keep your interest piqued. Plus they're really creepy. Granted, they'd be creepier if Dream had not shown Sakura her future self telling her that everything will be definitely all right, but I guess a few concessions here and there to the actual target audience is fine. Not that you'd expect something terrible to happen from the anime anyway, at least as an adult, but as a kid? Yeah, possibly. By the way, since you mentioned this getting strangely Utena here with Sakura's princely appearance, try going back to episode 14 now that you've seen Utena. Does that remind you of something?

I might be at fault for the Madoka fiasco (sort of), but harping on and on and on about CCS sure was something worthwhile, in the end. I'll comment on the other things soon(ish). I'm guessing you figured out who Yue is then? edit: Look how I posted this before you added a guess to th edit. Yeah, uhm, not going to say anything, of course. Final last hint that was mentioned ages ago but never came up again: Also... Sakura sure is a little dense at times, and has trouble figuring things out (when it comes to herself, at least). It's a common theme for her and will also be commented on*. So, yeah, no wonder she didn't figure out what Kero meant. Well, as long as the Earth doesn't explode, things should be fine, right? Right? *Mild spoiler:

The only thing I think I know him from is scoring Satoshi Kon's Magnetic Rose, and though I liked the film (and I plan to re-watch it at some point), I've listened to the soundtrack a dozen-plus times, so I can't disagree with your analysis, . She also composed the music for Cardcaptor Sakura's third opening credits, incidentially the one I liked the least. Here's the actual song, linking the intro would be bad. It's dark and full of spoilers.

Me too, and I'm only two episodes in, but that's okay. It's not like the anime is unfair in what it is. I also absolutely love the atmosphere, and I enjoyed Miyu having some interactions with someone else who isn't some form of demon or creepy magical girl pet variant. I know I've been harping on about this for a while now, but I've also tuned in every week for The Outer Limits for like seven years, and that ended in tragedy too, more often than not. And even when it did, at best you'd get a bittersweet ending. Scotty, in La Forge's engine room. Kes in Borg space. Kes, sparks flying in anger. Translation: Besides, and as much as I am at fault for starting this in the first place, it's incredibly exhausting to come up with these. I'd rather not write an essay in the Obsidian dialect of Tamarian.

Look at Shady lurking in the thread again.

Shouldn't you be joining me in watching all things Sailor Moon then? Join me, and face the true tragedy of Crystal. It can't be any worse than the Sailor Moon manga, and unlike that you're not very likely to find creepy more than implied incest stuff or sexual assault in there that is perpetrated by characters you like on characters you like. I mean, yeah, apparently it makes Minako deal with a lot of, uhm, not so great stuff at times, but I'm sure it's not going to be on the level of BRACK RADY. At least... I kinda hope. Second episode of Vampire Princess Miyu. Yes, this indeed does have the same feeling and tone as many of The Outer Limits episodes (and an ending to match). Just with a regular core cast of characters. Miyu makes some friends, which will most likely end in some sort of tragedy. There is no way this doesn't end in tragedy, right?

Did you munch on your coffee chewing gums again?

That just kidding was only there because you called out an AMA and then said "nah, I can't answer anything anyway". Thanks for the information, so I'll probably not go check out the manga any time soon. Ah, well...

That's just for anime on Netflix, because the German subs are better - overall, just not always - than the English ones, and Netflix neatly pairs sub settings with language settings. It takes until episode three for noticable changes to happen to Violet. While I really liked the second episode (and the first one), there are a lot of watchers who didn't, and almost dropped the anime - or actually did - because of them. How does the manga compare to the OVA and the TV show, is Miyu noticably different, and would you recommend the source material over the adaptation? How does the artwork compare, and most importantly... The only way you could suck at it was if you were going in the wrong direction. If that's a fan-translation or an official one that did not change the reading direction it's a bit weird to deal with at first.

The German subs on Netflix very clearly state "made of silver" (well, Silber, as it were). The German dub, funnily enough, uses "Adamant" which in German is just an archaic word for diamond or any other really hard but otherwise unspecified substance, unrelated to X-Men's Adamantium. I get why the dub is like that when you're trying to lip sync, but for animation, uhm... yeah, it's not like Violet actually forms her words accurately. Dubbing teams ain't what they used to be, man. Damn shame, damn shame. The actual voice cast is pretty good though. Would be interesting to see what the Blu Ray subtitles have there. They are different from what I've seen in videos about the show. German subs on Netflix generally do a good job of transporting what is meant, as long as they're actually made from the original Japanese. Because sometimes you get subtitles that were hastily slapped together from an English source, and then you end up with the literal meaning of "die Fackel tragen" (carrying the torch) in your subtitles, and you only really know understand what's going on when you realize this is a literal translation of an English idiom. Which for me isn't an issue, in such cases I just switch to the English subs, but eh, that's not entirely the point of having native language subtitles in the first place.

While Violet really does say "adaman" in the Japanese original, she uses it to describe the metal her arms are made of, not to specify the metal they are made of. That is actually "gin", which just means silver. She said her arms are made of hardened silver (literally adamant silver, or adamantine silver - both of which are somewhat clumsy). Silver isn't a terribly sturdy material in itself, but it is mostly safe for medical use, unlike other metals. I mean, fully functioning prostheses in a late 1910s setting aisde*, the fantasyland aspect isn't really meant to be there. If anything, that piece of information conveys that her arms are most likely unfit for actual miltary use, neatly explaining why the setting doesn't have cyborg soldiers and why she was discharged. The joys of translation. Talk about taking the original meaning and turning it upside down. *They are mostly used as metaphor anyway, even though it might not look like that after just the first episode.

Hm, now that's something I haven't seen in a long time. Might read the book perhaps. I wash my hands of it, I shan't be responsible for another fiasco like the last one.

Violet Evergarden: The Movie will come to Netflix eventually. It should have been released a long while ago, but the pandemic delayed the theatric release in Japan. It only just started playing in cinemas in Germany, and in none here. So yay. Well, techincally incorrect, as it does play on and off in a small indie theatre which, next Saturday, will show Perfect Blue. Which sure would be nice to see in a theatre, but it's really remote, and... yeah, not going there alone, nah. Blu Ray coming out in three months, I think.

The episode about the opera singer is what should have gone between 4 and 5, by the way. Did you like it? The 90 minutes movie is already the first step to what I said the movie did wrong: It feels less grounded and more like a soap opera, but was still good. Movie, movie... movie. *cough* That one is only available on a Russian streaming service right now. Yeah. *cough*

It only gets like that occassionally, indeed. I wonder if you'll also think that the Sakura Card arc needs a couple of episodes to establish itself. Maybe I was too harsh on the first few episodes. Then again, maybe not. I wouldn't either. Here's the rub, I'd probably pack two earlier episodes into the top 10 list that maybe don't belong there because they each made me realize something. The first is of course, and I've probably said that a hundred times now, the episode where Sakura and Tomoy clean the house and have a "dangerous", uhm, "battle" with a tree and a bit of rain. The other one is where Sakura accidentially destroys her father's work, because that really sold me on her voice performance. Wait, no, the university episode is probably really top 10 material. Ugh. Top 5 is easy though: 16, 43, 56, 60, 66. Not necessarily in that order.

That reminds me of something older I saw back a ways:

Poor Meiling. Called back to where she came from, a place outside the manga. Did you know that she wasn't in the original material? Nanase Ohkawa created her just for the anime. I'll do my best Kaho impression and pack it in a spoiler. What did you think of the episode overall? I mean... aside from Meiling leaving. I'm kind of curious because that one wold probably make it into a top 10 or so list for me.

Tomoyo is quite the boss at times. Did you watch the preview at the end of the episode?

I'll see soonish enough. I got some free time on my hands now, after all. Atom Eve is probably the only character I really like, but she comes with the package of being involved in that soap opera grade "love" plot. But who knows, maybe the how will surprise me and not go where I think it will, but if that really turns into another Otis/Maeve situation I'm going to delete my Amazon account (not really, just an empty threat ). That's going to come up a lot. Because really, how could you get close to the first arc of CCS? You can have more appealing themes (but that's subjective), perhaps, characters that are a little older to make the character interactions carry a bit more weight or deal with more mature topics, or give them different backgrounds to explore something else, but in terms of pure writing quality, that's really going to be very tough beast to beat. Heck, the original team tried and failed miserably. Plus the show isn't just well written, but otherwise great overall - I mean, as long as one does like mahou shoujo anime. Which I do, obviously. I get that. I mean, being compared in tone and feel to The Outer Limits remake is something very positive. Maybe not for everyone, but when it comes from me that's pretty good.

I have had that account for a while, but like I said, the verification thing seems to be broken. I contemplated subbing for a bit, but that was before Netflix jacked up the prices and I added Disney+ to keep my Nephew away from my Switch at least part of the time he's here hogging my stuff. I can watch episodes like that, just not sure how many or if there's going to be ads or whatnot.