Review: Prokofiev, Princess Tutu and Subtext

Note: Spoilers ho for the entire anime! Read with caution!

A couple of weeks ago, in a discussion of classical music in Princess Tutu, I mentioned that the animators seemed to be cribbing some of their dance passages from the real-world choreography of (for instance) Swan Lake. These "quotations," along with the soundtrack's appropriation of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Beethoven and so on, add depth to the story by creating subtext for the viewer in the know: if you're familiar with the piece being quoted, you can compare its original form to the use being made of it in Princess Tutu and sometimes see additional meanings in what's going on. My first "aha!" moment in that vein was to see Rue, in her "Dying Swan" dance, perform moves previously associated with Princess Tutu to the major motifs from Swan Lake. This happens just as Rue is beginning to move into the Odette role with respect to Mytho/Siegfried -- a role which Duck/Tutu is simultaneously in the process of abandoning for something else. Ding! It's all symbolic!

That led me to wonder whether Fakir and Duck's pas de deux in episode 25 was borrowing any choreography from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet, which provides the music for it. So I went off to watch the ballet and find out. Short answer: yes, the animators are cribbing again, and in ways that make that scene even more interesting than it already is (to me, anyway). Longer answer follows behind the cut.

( Read more... )

Fanfiction: The Red Rose Is a Falcon (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Title: Drabble: The Red Rose Is a Falcon
Fandom: FMA (manga version)
Character(s): Winry, Ed
Pairing: Ed/Winry.
Rating: G
Word Count: 200 (I needed a double-length drabble for this one)
Warnings: None. Implicitly post-series, but only the obvious assumptions made.
A/N: The title, in case anyone's interested, comes from a sentimental poem by John Boyle O'Reilly, "The White Rose." Crossposted from nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_het, fma_writers, fma_fiction, winrylovers and ed_winry).
Dedication: For lyricnonsense, who asked for an Ed/Winry 'fic in which Winry wears a slinky red dress. Happy to oblige. :-)

---

      Winry knows she can't attend the Führer's wedding in a mail-order frock, but as she vainly tries to hitch the red silk bodice a little higher on her cleavage, she regrets ever having taken Garfiel's advice at the dressmaker's. ( Read more... )