Why Is The Duck The Only One Surprised By All The Animal-People?

[rionaleonhart]

I have now watched the first four episodes of Princess Tutu! futuresoon is entirely responsible for this.

Here are my thoughts: what?

Here, to further illustrate said thoughts, is an exchange I had with my housemate when I was in the middle of the second episode:

Riona: Oh no! An anteater in a school uniform is asking out the boy the duck-girl likes!
th_esaurus: ..

Comments

[futuresoon]

The online subs I first watched the show with had Ahiru, Fakia, and Mute, which I later discovered are not the intended versions, at least not 'Fakia' and 'Mute'; 'Fakir' is meant to be a reference to magic, and 'Mytho' is indeed a reference to mythos, which the show directly mentions at one point. The debate over Ahiru vs. Duck goes on today, and initially I went with Ahiru because it's the one I knew best and it's written down at one point in the show, but honestly, the duck references go on so much better in English if she actually is called Duck. In Japanese, sure, Ahiru, but the fact that we need subtitles at all is a real indicator that we are not Japanese.

There's really no excuse for 'Mute', though. I think those subs later change it, as with 'Fakia' and another character who starts as 'Claire' but whose actual properly translated name might actually be a spoiler so I won't say it. (If you can figure out on your own her real name from 'Claire', I will be very, very impressed.)

It is best to not be spoiled for this show! There are many things in that are WHOA WAIT WHAT JUST HAPPENED, and they would not have had as much effect if I knew they were coming.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm tempted to call our main character Ente, because the series seems to be set in a German-speaking country. LET'S THROW A THIRD ANGLE INTO THIS AHIRU DEBATE.

(I'm not really going to call her Ente. Even though it would be quite a nice name.)

[futuresoon]

There actually are two characters named after German words, mysteriously enough, and not subtle ones either. Plus the animal names are all puns in Japanese (which get translated well enough in English), and 'Mytho' is Greek, and...yeah, the languages of Princess Tutu can be a headache. I usually just ignore them in favor of the magical ballerina duck saving people with the power of dance. That makes much more sense.