amelia_petkova | Entries tagged with princess tutu

My mother and I were watching the pre-Olympics figure skating last night and she brought up the Bolero Routine from the 1984 Olympics. This inspired me to mention Princess Tutu--"It's an anime about a ballet school"--and the dance contest in Season 2 where the sloth who's in love with Neko-sensei has a Bolero routine reference. I couldn't find a clip of the scene online so I promised to show it to her from my DVDs sometime.

You guys, I didn't mention the part where they're all animals. I'm going to have to explain Neko-sensei to my mother.

Happy birthday to The Nutcracker! Today is the anniversary of its first performance. Reminds me that I still need to write that Princess Tutu fic where Drosselmeyer and Tchaikovsky meet.

I've started building a playlist of all the classical music used in Princess Tutu. You guys, I've only made through the second episode and THIS PLAYLIST IS ALREADY AN HOUR LONG. I can't even guess how long it'll be by the time I get to the end of Season 2.

SO MANY damn reasons to love Princess Tutu.

ETA: My playlist of the classical music used in the show is featured below. I was able to assemble it thanks to the entries under the "spot the reference" at

princesstutu. The entries in "spot the reference" also describe the scene when the song is featured, which I found helpful when I wanted to make sure the show was using the same song I was about to select from my music library. Fair warning, this list is REALLY LONG. I mention each song only under the episode in which it first appears, not in every episode where it's featured.

( playlist behind cut )

A couple weeks back I marathoned Season 2 of Princess Tutu. You guys, I've watched it several times now and I still spend the last five or so episodes curled up in a ball on my couch because I'm so excited and then happy crying at the end.

I had forgotten how much of an utter asshole Autor is the first time he really encounters Fakir. Also, he's such a Drosselmeyer fanboy! Autor's the only student we meet from the musical division, so we have no idea what his classmates think of him. Is he That Weird Kid, the one they all try to avoid? "Shh, don't make eye contact with Autor or he'll drag you off to look at his Drosselmeyer clubhouse." ( spoilers for Autor and Rue )

Drosselmeyer and Akio. No way in hell should those two ever get together and cook up schemes.

The other night I was watching figure skating with my mother. The phrase "Teenagers are so bendy!" was uttered more than once. I love looking at the skaters' costumes, even though some of them are ridiculous. And then, Samantha Cesario skated onto the rink, wearing this costume. (Apologies for the poor quality video.) Now, a lot of the Black Swan costumes from productions of "Swan Lake" are going to have similar elements, but this one is almost identical to Princess Kraehe's costume on "Princess Tutu" and I started gleefully babbling. (My mother put up with this well, given that she's never watched "Princess Tutu".) It really is a striking resemblance--the only difference I can notice is that Rue's costume didn't have feather gauntlets and Cesario's does. The skating routine hasn't begun yet and I say, "She's dressed like Odile! Wouldn't it be great if she skated to music from 'Swan Lake'?"

The music starts. It's "Swan Lake".

You know what it looks like when Kermit is excited and flailing madly? That was me on the couch during the entire performance. During the routine one of the commentators revealed that Cesario designs her own costumes. Could she be a Tutu fan?!?! I can only hope. There was even a little tiara around her bun! Sadly, I did not see any skaters in white swan costumes who also performed to "Swan Lake" music. That would have been the BEST.

ETA: I love tutus. You can see photos of some gorgeous ones here.

Seriously, that series is my crack. It's like the creators took everything I love best about stories and fairy tales and classical music/ballet and put it together in a blender just for me.

I'd heard about Mark Reads a year or so ago when he started blogging Harry Potter but didn't pay much attention to it. Then I heard that he was going to be watching Princess Tutu.

YES! So I hopped on over there and (after reading all of his entries so far on the Tortall books) read his post on the first episode:

"HOLY SHIT, WHAT DID I JUST WATCH???"

And now we get to the part where I will never ever stop laughing because that was absolutely my reaction when I watched that same first episode. I love that he talks about the different worlds. I love his thoughts on the music. I love his reaction to Neko-sensei because let's face it, we all had the same reaction. I love his ranting about how Fakir is such an asshole. If you ever have the chance to watch the DVD extras for this series do it, because it includes commentary on the first episode from the dub actors for Ahiru and Fakir, and they talk about these same things. I can't wait to see how Mark reacts to the rest of the series.

Now I want him to watch Utena.

Holy shit, he "read" The Princess Bride as well?!?! Forget the job hunt, there goes the rest of my afternoon.

Last night I saw the original Dracula movie, starring Bela Lugosi for the first time. Some thoughts:

The atmosphere in this film was great, although I thought some of the pacing stunk. After Renfield arrives at Dracula's castle the brides turn up almost immediately, Dracula leans over Renfield (but not seen biting him; according to imdb trivia, the studio wasn't allowed to film an attack because of perceived gay subtext), in the next scene, crazy!Renfield and Dracula have already boarded the boat for England. Also, I think Dracula attacking Lucy was a "blink and you miss it" scene because I have no memory of it whatsoever.

Interesting detail: wolfsbane is constantly used as vampire repellent and garlic is never mentioned.

The actors who did the best job were Bela Lugosi and the actor who played Renfield. Lugosi exudes atmosphere and Renfield absolutely nails the insane facial expressions. I have to say that the main characters are stupid: Renfield escapes from the asylum on a regular basis and turns up at the heroes' mansion several times, just wandering around while they make no attempt to stop him! Also, in one scene a maid who sees Renfield's leer faints dead away (very funny when you see it) and he starts crawling towards her, implying to the audience that he wants to attack her. Just as he gets close, the scene changes to the other characters. We never find out what happened to the maid!

( I do not believe in putting up spoiler warnings for a book this old but I will do it for part of the film conclusion )

On a lighter note, I was surprised to hear one of the themes from "Swan Lake" used during the opening credits. Since I now automatically associate Tchaikovsky with Princess Tutu, I kind of want vampires in Princess Tutu.

I want to write a "choose your own adventure" type story for Princess Tutu. Assuming that I actually get around to it and manage to not get the multiple endings screwed up, this is going to be the most meta fic ever meta'd.

(Seriously, it's been a crappy month and I like having something that makes me laugh.)

Current Mood: giggling madly

Yesterday I was able to catch up with one of my friends from high school, J. We had a couple hours to kill in between the ending of a wedding and beginning of the reception for another one of our friends, so we went to my house. She's always liked anime, so of course I asked if she'd heard of Princess Tutu. She said she knew only a little about it. My well-reasoned, adult argument started like this:

Me: Princess Tutu is the shit.
J: (starts laughing)
Me: fairy tales, classical music, great animation, voice actors, etc.
J: That does sound good.
Me: We have at least a half hour before we need to leave...want to watch it?
J: Okay!

We had time for the first episode and first set of outtakes. I am happy to say that she liked it and I think she'll look for the rest of the series.

Title: Passing Notes

Fandom: Princess Tutu
Word Count: 100
Summary: Hermia and Neko-sensei
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Princess Tutu.

( MARRY ME! )

Title: Doctor’s Orders
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Genres: Humor, Hurt/Comfort, post-canon
Summary: Ahiru is sick and Fakir makes soup.
Word Count: about 220
Disclaimer: Fakir and Ahiru are the property of Princess Tutu. (Well, they’re Drosselmeyer’s property, but anyway.)

Author’s Notes: I stayed home sick from work today and watched several episodes of Princess Tutu. Things progressed to the natural conclusion. ( more notes containing spoilers for the series end )

( Fakir really should pay attention to detail )

( additional author notes )

I finished watching Princess Tutu again this morning and naturally was crying like a baby by the end of it. It reminded me that I've never gotten around to reccing the vid that got me into it.

Title: Hold Me (Hall Om Mig) by Marisa Panaccio

It's full of spoilers and I watched it before even seeing the series, but I had no context to put the video clips into, so it turned out all right. One of the best vids I've ever seen.

5 things that happened in a fandom of mine that I know are true, even though there is little or no canon evidence.

I think the original meme requests 10 things but I have trouble coming up with that many! Spoilers follow.

( Avatar: The Last Airbender )

( Princess Tutu )

Holy shit, I finally finished it. Here's my last fic for

au_bingo. Thank you to everybody who gave me comments and feedback along the way; for the rest of you on my f-list who aren't so into fan fiction or the fandoms I was using, thanks for putting up with me rambling about this for almost half a year.

Title: The Case of the Raven’s Daughter
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Word Count: approx. 5,800
Summary: Ahiru is a private investigator who goes undercover at Kinkan Academy to investigate a student's disappearance. This being Princess Tutu, things naturally become more complicated.
Disclaimer: I do not own Princess Tutu.
Author’s Notes: Written for the “Other: Detectives” square on my bingo card.

( I pretty much listened to The Nutcracker and Swan Lake nonstop while writing this )

I'm in love with Archive of Our Own tonight. I was browsing through the fandoms--the archive's still small enough that it's easy to go through them quickly--and came across a Princess Tutu/The Last Unicorn crossover!!!

"and a pale moon is rising" by Nina (10AlliraDream84).

I thought, "There's no way this can work." But I read it and devoured the whole thing. It's sweet and the characters fit together perfectly. Warnings: has major spoilers for both fandoms.

I may end up cross-posting more of my fics to AO3 when I have time, to make it easier for readers to find what they want.

I'm a few episodes into the second season, watching them between school work, and am having a blast.

( spoilers through Episode 19 )

I don't want this series to end but I can't wait to find out what happens.

I adore YouTube: you can find just about any movie or series posted on there. The only trick is that you have to finish watching it before it gets removed for copyright violation.

I'd heard briefly about the anime Princess Tutu but had never watched it. For lack of something to watch, I looked it up and found that a couple of users had posted most of the episodes. I have to admit that at first I wasn't too sure about the premise: There's a duck, who turns into a girl, who turns into a superhero ballerina?! Like many magical girl anime it's somewhat silly, but there's lots of good material in it. I don't think any of you have seen it but I'd recommend it. Episode commentaries for the first season behind cut.

( Warnings: good-natured mocking and spoilers through Episode 13 )

Oh, I forgot! I don't remember which episode it is at the moment but one of the characters breaks the fourth wall within the story to talk to Drosselmeyer and he flips out. I couldn't stop laughing.

I'm looking forward to the next episodes.