Fairy Tales in Shoujo Anime & Manga
Panel Description: Some works of shoujo anime or manga (works which are marketed to females 10 to 18 years old) incorporate fairy tales. What are your favorite anime or manga that use fairy tales, either Western or Japanese? Which ones take fairy tales and play with them to achieve narrative brilliance? Works such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, and Natsume Yujin-cho may be considered.
Sunday, 2:30-3:45pm
Twitter Hash-Tag: FairyTaleShoujo
Panelists: Lisa Blauersouth (moderator), Kelly Peterson, Megan, Andrea Horbinski, Jackie Lee (me)
These notes are pretty sparse, but I thought posting something was better than nothing! I hope other people took some, too.
There were about 15 people in the audience; this panel was in a sixth-floor room.
LB: Western and Japanese fairy tales are different, but Western fairy tales do get used a lot in anime/manga.
AH: Described premise of Natsume Youjin-chou. It's not about fairy tales, but it is about spirits, it's definitely set in Japan. The protagonist can see spirits. Similar premise to Mushishi, xxxHolic, Kamichu! All of these are set in Japan.
KP: A lot of anime/manga that focus on fairy tales devolve into prince/princess roles, but are not retellings of specific fairy tales. They play with the tropes, not with the stories.
(I forgot who brought this up!): Spirited Away is very Japanese, but still a fairy tale.
Audience: There's a k-drama called Secret Garden that expects the viewer to be familiar with the original Little Mermaid fairy tale - like, it wouldn't make sense if the viewer didn't know it. In the U.S., I think 90% of people would be familiar with the Disney version.
(?): The Ghibli movie "Ponyo" is also a retelling of The Little Mermaid.
Me: (I can't remember where this mentioned, but it happened!) The basic premise of the anime Scrapped Princess is that the protagonist, Pacifica, has a prophecy that says she'll destroy the world when she turns 16. So she's thrown off of a cliff. But in the present, she kind of goes around and her foster brother and sister have to protect her because she actually has no magic powers. I think everyone in the entire series is named after a gun; it's very....like, they're instruments of power. The series is very much about agency. The episode-to-episode writing leaves a lot to be desired, but it's good.
KP: There's this thing that Utena does with repeated scenes that reminds me of how Western fairy tales are told. In Nanami's first episode, this scene keeps playing over and over with slight variations in Anthy's bedroom, where a random animal gets found. Nanami says the exact same things each time, it's a fairy tale structure.
Utena: There is religion in it, but just imagery: the graveyard, the coffins, a church. Utena the series makes up its own fairy tale.
There are also elements encompassing Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty.
The show is a beauty contest, and at the end especially, they're competing to be the prince.
M: Pretear is a series I watched for this panel. It has the same director as Princess Tutu, but it is not a post-modern deconstruction like Utena and Tutu are. It's just a "regular" modern adaptation - the heroine is passive but "kicks ass." (I didn't take detailed notes here, but Megan described the henshin/transformation sequences. The series is based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the protagonist and one of the attractive boys become naked and then merge - it's her source of power. The merging is extremely sexualized, and one of the boys is 4 years old.
LB: Jin-Roh is a really good movie. It's very violent, and it's about suicide. It plays with Little Red Riding Hood, that's its context. In the series, Germany conquered Japan in World War II.
AH: In another panel, Alexis Lothian was talking about how the expectation of a happy ending is oppressive. In anime and manga, the endings are frequently not. The same is true for the source material of Western fairy tales.
(I think AH:) described premise of Princess Knight. Lots of later anime/manga drew on it - Rose of Versailles, Utena, etc.
(various panelists:) describe premise of Princess Tutu.
I think someone in the audience noted that each episode structure of Tutu matches with the Utena episode structures.
(Panelists:) What does the fairy tale structure add? They're not really retellings, but tellings of the ballet version of each fairy tale.
Ahiru wants Rue to have a happy ending, too. It's not enough for just her (Ahiru) to be happy.
Me: On Friday night, I attended the Princesses With Swords panel, which focused somewhat on Disney movies, Lisa, you were on that panel. The panelists struggled with the fact that these retellings sometimes have a heroine like Belle, who's valued for things other than her beauty, but in the end, the stories are still reinforcing heteronormativity. The stories still almost always end in marriage. I think that anime and manga are filling a gap in Western fandoms in that they don't always/often don't end in marriage.
AUD: What about Buddhism?
LB: These series do show that everything ends; things are impermanent.
AUD: Twelve Kingdoms series. The protagonist isn't a princess, she's a king.
Sakura Hime manga mentioned.
As is Night Parade of 100 Youkai, which people mentioned could be found on Kickstarter or Amazon.
Sunday, 2:30-3:45pm
Twitter Hash-Tag: FairyTaleShoujo
Panelists: Lisa Blauersouth (moderator), Kelly Peterson, Megan, Andrea Horbinski, Jackie Lee (me)
These notes are pretty sparse, but I thought posting something was better than nothing! I hope other people took some, too.
There were about 15 people in the audience; this panel was in a sixth-floor room.
LB: Western and Japanese fairy tales are different, but Western fairy tales do get used a lot in anime/manga.
AH: Described premise of Natsume Youjin-chou. It's not about fairy tales, but it is about spirits, it's definitely set in Japan. The protagonist can see spirits. Similar premise to Mushishi, xxxHolic, Kamichu! All of these are set in Japan.
KP: A lot of anime/manga that focus on fairy tales devolve into prince/princess roles, but are not retellings of specific fairy tales. They play with the tropes, not with the stories.
(I forgot who brought this up!): Spirited Away is very Japanese, but still a fairy tale.
Audience: There's a k-drama called Secret Garden that expects the viewer to be familiar with the original Little Mermaid fairy tale - like, it wouldn't make sense if the viewer didn't know it. In the U.S., I think 90% of people would be familiar with the Disney version.
(?): The Ghibli movie "Ponyo" is also a retelling of The Little Mermaid.
Me: (I can't remember where this mentioned, but it happened!) The basic premise of the anime Scrapped Princess is that the protagonist, Pacifica, has a prophecy that says she'll destroy the world when she turns 16. So she's thrown off of a cliff. But in the present, she kind of goes around and her foster brother and sister have to protect her because she actually has no magic powers. I think everyone in the entire series is named after a gun; it's very....like, they're instruments of power. The series is very much about agency. The episode-to-episode writing leaves a lot to be desired, but it's good.
KP: There's this thing that Utena does with repeated scenes that reminds me of how Western fairy tales are told. In Nanami's first episode, this scene keeps playing over and over with slight variations in Anthy's bedroom, where a random animal gets found. Nanami says the exact same things each time, it's a fairy tale structure.
Utena: There is religion in it, but just imagery: the graveyard, the coffins, a church. Utena the series makes up its own fairy tale.
There are also elements encompassing Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty.
The show is a beauty contest, and at the end especially, they're competing to be the prince.
M: Pretear is a series I watched for this panel. It has the same director as Princess Tutu, but it is not a post-modern deconstruction like Utena and Tutu are. It's just a "regular" modern adaptation - the heroine is passive but "kicks ass." (I didn't take detailed notes here, but Megan described the henshin/transformation sequences. The series is based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the protagonist and one of the attractive boys become naked and then merge - it's her source of power. The merging is extremely sexualized, and one of the boys is 4 years old.
LB: Jin-Roh is a really good movie. It's very violent, and it's about suicide. It plays with Little Red Riding Hood, that's its context. In the series, Germany conquered Japan in World War II.
AH: In another panel, Alexis Lothian was talking about how the expectation of a happy ending is oppressive. In anime and manga, the endings are frequently not. The same is true for the source material of Western fairy tales.
(I think AH:) described premise of Princess Knight. Lots of later anime/manga drew on it - Rose of Versailles, Utena, etc.
(various panelists:) describe premise of Princess Tutu.
I think someone in the audience noted that each episode structure of Tutu matches with the Utena episode structures.
(Panelists:) What does the fairy tale structure add? They're not really retellings, but tellings of the ballet version of each fairy tale.
Ahiru wants Rue to have a happy ending, too. It's not enough for just her (Ahiru) to be happy.
Me: On Friday night, I attended the Princesses With Swords panel, which focused somewhat on Disney movies, Lisa, you were on that panel. The panelists struggled with the fact that these retellings sometimes have a heroine like Belle, who's valued for things other than her beauty, but in the end, the stories are still reinforcing heteronormativity. The stories still almost always end in marriage. I think that anime and manga are filling a gap in Western fandoms in that they don't always/often don't end in marriage.
AUD: What about Buddhism?
LB: These series do show that everything ends; things are impermanent.
AUD: Twelve Kingdoms series. The protagonist isn't a princess, she's a king.
Sakura Hime manga mentioned.
As is Night Parade of 100 Youkai, which people mentioned could be found on Kickstarter or Amazon.