Anime Rozen Maiden

[Dagger]

[b]Rozen Maiden[/b] (together with its sequel, [b]Rozen Maiden: Träumend[/b]) is a about seven Victorian-style dolls who walk, talk, drink copious amounts of tea and have magical powers that tend to be rather useful in battle.

One by one, the dolls gather around Jun Sakurada, a sullen middle-schooler with a mild persecution complex and an addiction to buying informercial-type junk online. The big highlight of the first season (along with the development of his relationship with Shinku, the main doll) is how he works through his fears. I was actually quite surprised by how well the writers handled that, even though it was a little clumsy at times.

Rozen Maiden features a somewhat kooky mixture of shrill, SD-heavy comedy and serious, surreal action/drama. Many of the best scenes in the first season take place inside various characters' dreams. There's an interesting mythology behind the show, although it hasn't been fully explained yet... the one doll who manages to defeat all the others is supposed to become Alice, the most perfect and beautiful girl imaginable. The Lewis Carroll parallels grow even more blatant in Träumend, when an eerie white rabbit character is introduced.

My favorite doll is probably Shinku, but I also like Sousei Seki quite a bit (I thought the first season improved immensely when she was brought in). I find the constant bickering between Hina Ichigo and Suisei Seki irritating--and Hina Ichigo herself is barely tolerable. But despite a lot of those kinds of minor annoyances, there's something charming and mysteriously fascinating about Rozen Maiden. I'd like to see it get licensed. Tokyopop seems to think the manga will do extremely well, so hopefully the anime will follow it over here at some point or another.

~Dagger~

[Nomura]

When was it made, and how visually good is it?

[Dagger]

[url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4463][u]Rozen Maiden[/u][/url] started airing in October 2004. [url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5087][u]Rozen Maiden: Träumend[/u][/url] started airing in October 2005.

Here are some examples of what the doll character designs look like, to give you a feel for the show's art style. Character names are given in order from left to right.

[IMG]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=24897&stc=1[/IMG]

[Shinku, Sousei Seki, Suisei Seki and Hina Ichigo]

[IMG]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=24898&stc=1[/IMG]

[Hina Ichigo, Shinku and Kanaria]

I can't claim that Rozen Maiden has the best visuals ever or anything like that; more often than not, the animation is just adequate. However, it does have a certain flair to it, and the character artwork, surreal dream backgrounds and so forth are quite well done. Some of the battles aren't bad, either.

I just finished episode 5 of Träumend. It was another comedy-heavy episode, but I actually found it to be genuinely funny and entertaining, which surprised me. Especially given how much of it centered around Hina Ichigo. Something else that impressed me was how Suisei Seki and Jun's relationship was handled in episode 4. It's really, really sweet how she [spoiler]becomes all embarrassed about liking him. I loved her blushing throughout the episode as well as the reading scene at the end.[/spoiler]

~Dagger~

[Nomura]

Thanks for giving a pic, Dagg... It looks to me like I would actually like this Anime, even if it is less or more a Shojo anime... Can't wait for the Manga! :animesmil Have you got any samples of the manga yet?

[DeathKnight]

[color=crimson]Rozen Maiden is pretty friggin' awesome if I do say so myself. My favorite doll is Suisei Seki. Her personality is really cute and amusing to me, even if she is the devil incarnate at times.. especially to Hina Ichigo. The story in the first season started off kind of slow and ended superbly.. and Traumend is building upon that nicely. I'm wondering if we'll see some more neato scenes within the dream world. That was really entertaining for some reason.

Am I a bad person for not particularly liking Kanaria thusfar? :animeswea[/color]

[Dagger]

[quote name='Nomura']Thanks for giving a pic, Dagg... It looks to me like I would actually like this Anime, even if it is less or more a Shojo anime... Can't wait for the Manga! :animesmil Have you got any samples of the manga yet?[/quote]
Actually, Rozen Maiden is shounen. The manga is done by the duo called Peach-Pit (whose other work includes the manga version of DearS). Here's Tokyopop's [url=http://www.tokyopop.com/dbpage.php?propertycode=ROZ&categorycode=BMG][u]page[/u][/url] for the manga series, which is supposed to start coming out next year. There are some notable differences between the anime & manga... for example, in the manga, Sousei Seki is [spoiler]evil and apparently dead.[/spoiler]

[quote name='DeathKnight][color=crimson']Am I a bad person for not particularly liking Kanaria thusfar? :animeswea[/color][/quote]
Nah. Although I thought she was pretty cool in episode 7. [spoiler]I was shocked by the strength of her attacks; they reminded me of something you might see in Melody of Oblivion. Her weapon is pretty awesome too. I guess I wasn't expecting her to be at all competent.[/spoiler]

Episodes 6 & 7 were excellent. Megu-chan is [i]so[/i] emo, haha. [spoiler]Suigintou's return[/spoiler] was handled very well, and I particularly enjoyed the [spoiler]dream conversation between her and Shinku.[/spoiler] Character development is really one of this show's strongest points, and that became especially apparent in these past two episodes. I'm also looking forward to finding out more about Father, since it seems like episode 8 will be about him. I was very surprised when he was revealed to be [spoiler]a young-looking bishounen kind of guy... I had expected him to be some kind of crazy old geezer.[/spoiler]

Also, on the subject of episode 7: Holy crap, cuteness overload.

[IMG]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=24908&stc=1[/IMG]

I swear my teeth started rotting. (Best moment was when Suisei Seki slapped Hina Ichigo awake, though.)

~Dagger~

[Nomura]

Dagg...I'm confused! Shounen's like boys fighting and stuff right? Gosh...Please fill me in!

[Dagger]

[quote name='Nomura']Dagg...I'm confused! Shounen's like boys fighting and stuff right? Gosh...Please fill me in![/quote]
Shounen means anime/manga that target young males. It can be anything from romance (Love Hina & Chobits are shounen, for example) to your typical fighting stuff (e.g. Naruto) to super-cutesy fare (like Pita Ten), etc. You can usually determine whether an anime is shounen, shoujo or whatever by going back to the manga on which it's based. If the manga runs in a shounen magazine, then it follows that the anime is also shounen.

Just to make things nice and confusing, though, there are cases in which the manga is one thing and the anime is another (like Princess Tutu). But that only really happens when they're released concurrently or in reverse, rather than having the anime actually be adapted from the manga.

And anyway, Rozen Maiden has plenty of fighting. :p

~Dagger~

[dragonkeeperkid]

i didn't really think i'd like this anime taht much till i got obbsessed with it :animesigh oh well ^^ it was fro teh best i guess. it's super kool but i didn't like how hinaichigo and sousesuki don't get their [spoiler]rosa mystica back at teh end of traumend [/spoiler] :animecry: but there are rumors that theres going to be a third series, but vol. 1 of teh manga came out yesterday! ^^

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][SIZE=1][INDENT]I added spoiler tags to your post [B]dragonkeeperkid[/B]. Not everyone has seen a particular show so instead of revealing what happens, use spoiler tags. Take a look here to see how to use spoiler tags: [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=46199][COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][B]Spoiler Tags[/B][/COLOR][/URL] If you have any questions feel free to pm myself or another member of the staff. ~Aaryanna[/INDENT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[dragonkeeperkid]

[QUOTE=dragonkeeperkid]i didn't really think i'd like this anime taht much till i got obbsessed with it :animesigh oh well ^^ it was fro teh best i guess. it's super kool but i didn't like how hinaichigo and sousesuki don't get their [spoiler]rosa mystica back at teh end of traumend [/spoiler] :animecry: but there are rumors that theres going to be a third series, but vol. 1 of teh manga came out yesterday! ^^

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][SIZE=1][INDENT]I added spoiler tags to your post [B]dragonkeeperkid[/B]. Not everyone has seen a particular show so instead of revealing what happens, use spoiler tags. Take a look here to see how to use spoiler tags: [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=46199][COLOR=DarkSlateBlue][B]Spoiler Tags[/B][/COLOR][/URL] If you have any questions feel free to pm myself or another member of the staff. ~Aaryanna[/INDENT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/QUOTE]


oi thank you i didn't know that :animesigh sorry. I also had a lot of spelling errors.

yes rozen maiden is great and I am greatful that [spoiler] sousesuki and kanaria and sougintou came back in the end [/spoiler]

[Meggido]

I loved the first season of Rozen maiden. I haven't yet seen Traumend yet. ANyway my favourite character would have to be Suiseiseki. She had to lead the way in what was my favourite episode of the first series.