The Princess Tutu Cast Party

[wmchichiri.livejournal.com]

The Princess Tutu Cast Party

The big highlight of Ushiko’s Block Party, was the main spotlighted event, the Princess Tutu Cast Party which was held from 5pm-8pm CST on Saturday, January 27 in Austin, TX. For the longest time the webpage had announced a total of 6 guests for the event and the teaser text “More TBA” but it was never updated.

For the uber-geeks among you, you might have received a teasing glimpse of possible guests, had you gone to the webpage and viewed the page 'source' you’d have noticed there were comments embedded in the html code hinting and listing other possible guests. Yet even for me, one of the folks actually running the event, I didn’t know the final answer about the attendance of three of the guests until they arrived about 20 minutes before the start of the event, and one of them was an utter surprise.

Announced Guests:

Ikuko Itoh, the creator of Princess Tutu
Naoki Yanagi, the Japanese voice of Mythos
Nanae Katoh, the Japanese voice of Ahiru/Duck
Luci Christian, the American voice on Ahiru/Duck
Chris Patton, the American voice of Fakir
Jessica Boone, the American voice of Rue

Surprise Guests:

Jay Hickman, the American voice of Mythos
Christine Auten (spelling?), the American voice of Edel & Uzura
Jin Ro Chung, the American Director

And so it begins…

The evening began with some prepared clips arranged by some of the Ushiko staffers. It was meant to showcase the vocal talent and range of all of our gathered guests. For those who may not be so familiar with Tutu, or for those who had only seen one dubbed cast of it, it offered the opportunity for those in attendance to see a bit of the work from those present. The clips took about 15 minutes or so to run.

Gifts

After which, gifts were distributed. corinn, fennelwink and I all distributed the gifts. As we’d all contributed gifts for the guests, it was important to me that contributors be the one distributing the gifts. Jin Ro was truly unexpected so we didn’t have anything for him. (Silly man should have told us he was coming! I at least knew Jay and Edel were vague possibilities still!) Katoh-san received a handmade blanket from fennelwink which was blue fleece with a duck pattern on it (and it was SOOOO cute!). This was also when the scrapbook was handed over.

Who got what
Ikuko Itoh: 2 plush ducks (1 which quacked), a magnetic duck bookmark, candy, earrings & the scrapbook
Naoki Yanagi: a nutcracker, a duck desktop accessory, a duck magnetic bookmark, a cel phone charm, candy, fanart
Nanae Katoh: a plush duck, a duck desktop accessory, a duck magnetic bookmark, a cel phone charm, earrings, candy, fanart
Luci Christian: a plush duck, a knitted pair of slippers, a duck desktop accessory, a duck magnetic bookmark, a cel phone charm, candy, fanart
Chris Patton: a faux leather journal, a duck desktop accessory, a duck magnetic bookmark, a cel phone charm, candy, fanart
Jessica Boone: a black scarf, make-up, a duck desktop accessory, a duck magnetic bookmark, a cel phone charm, candy, fanart
Jay Hickman: a cel phone charm, fanart
Christine Auten: a brass butterfly bracelet, accented with a butterfly and green stones, and a beaded floral key-finder accessory for a purse, fanart
Jin Ro Chung: fanart, *cries* silly man should have told us he was coming!

Please let me know if I missed anything! Or accidentally labeled something wrong, I'm doing this from memory.

Q & A

After gifts, we proceeded onto the Q & A section of the panel. Not very many questions were asked. Unfortunately, it was on average taking around 10-15 minutes per each question, since most of the questions were directed to all 9 guests, and then time was needed for translation back and forth.

I did ask Itoh-san, if Edel was made from the wood of the oak tree from the series, to which her response was quite clearly, YES. (I strongly suspect that's why Edel and Uzura are able to become more than just mere marionettes and seem to develop personalities of their own.)

And um otherwise I don't remember as I was eyeing the clock, trying to keep things moving, and running on lack of sleep, my memory is really rusty. I'm hoping someone with better memory (or who recorded the event) can help me flesh out this section. ^^; I'd like to have one key post with all the info and details.

Thanks to corinn, here's two more questions with answers.

How much of the story was planned....etc From a similar question: Itoh-san put 10 years of careful thought and planning into creating the entire story, consulting a total of six different staffs over that time period, before finally bringing the project to animation. [I think it implies that she was very careful to plan every aspect of the story.]

Re: Inconsistencies in historical setting [i.e. anachronisms] She was a bit vague on this, seeming to be struggling to find the words to express what she was thinking. The striking contrast provided by random appearances of anachronistic items-- items which appear to be out of historical context with the majority of the setting-- were deliberately placed for two reasons: 1. To emphasize the surreality of the town caught in a fairy tale. 2. To highlight the theme of change and character development within the overall story.

During the dinner after the event, I did ask Jessica one of the questions we hadn't gotten to during the panel. Concerning her portrayal of Rue and Kraehe, and was it difficult for her. Her response was that initially it took a while until she got use to the two voices, Kraehe's was lower and deeper in her chest than Rue's. But after she got used to it, from then on it was easy to go into those voices for each of those personalities when she needed to.

On Sunday evening, I was present when fennelwink asked Itoh-san, her burning question. She had recalled seeing in the closing credits the reflection of a person, and usually you never saw their face. But one time she thought she saw a face in the reflection, but never could verify that. Itoh's response was the face was never shown, and the vague person is meant for the viewer to decide who they want to be there.

Unfortunately Chris was unable to stay for the entire event, so midway through the Q & A he had to leave. As he was walking out the door to try to squeeze in autographs before he left, I'm so thankful I remembered to call him back in so we could have a group shot of the cast and crew all assembled. Everyone was grouped as a bunch for a couple of minutes while folks took multiple shots of everyone, and then Chris left to sign outside, and those who really wanted his autograph went out during the Q & A to get it. Of course I wanted it, but had to run the event, so vashalla was kind enough to get it for me.

I do remember that during the Q & A, Luci and Katoh-san had a Quack Off, which one of the attendees posted.

If you check out Mikayla'sgallery the last few entries are actually videos, where Katoh-san, and Yanagi-san recited key lines from the series during the Q & A.

Moving Right Along... the Trivia

Keeping my eye on the clock, and feeling like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, with an internal soundtrack in my head of "we're late, we're late" running in my head, I moved to the trivia contest. Originally I had plans of trying to get the voice actors versus the fans (and if the va's had actually beaten out the fans, they could pick someone to give the prize to). But after such a long event already, I felt it best to give them a break before the autographs. This worked to our advantage, as it enabled other event moderators to start working on how things would st up for autographs while I began stumping the brains of the Tutu fans in attendance.

When Itoh-sensei had heard we were doing trivia, she decided we needed prizes, and so had made 5 original illustrations for us to give away: Ahiru/Duck (as a girl), Princess Tutu, Mythos, Fakir, and Rue. corinn has an image up of at least one of these, does anyone else have images of them? These shikishi also were ultimately signed by the voice actor who portrayed the character, in the case of Mythos and the Ahiru/Duck and Tutu shikishi, since both the Japanese and American voice actors were present, they were signed by both of the voice actors. The others only featured one voice actor signature.

Of those desiring to play the trivia game, I had them move to the front, handed out notecards and pens, and the first round consisted of 6 questions. After going through the questions, contestants traded with a neighbor who "graded" them (like in grade school), before returning them to you. No one got all 6 right, but 4 people did get 5 right, and those 4 people automatically won. For the remaining shikishi, I only quizzed those who had gotten 4 of the 6 right the first go round. (And anyone who had gotten less than 4 correct in round 1 were automatically eliminated, and encouraged to go head for the autograph line).

We had a handful of people still competing, and so gave a series of newer questions, it elimianted a couple more people, but I still had a few left. So I came up with the ultimate tie-breaker question... I had a hard time phrasing this question so it didn't give away the answer, and so instead of having the neighbors grade it, looked at everyone's answer, some were getting there but not quite there, and when I said be more specific either couldn't be, or completely went the wrong direction. Ultimately, only one person got it right, and they were the new winner. ^.^

The Questions: These aren't necessarily in order of how they were asked

1. When Ahiru transforms into Princes Tutu, she becomes temporarily encased in what?
   -an egg
   
2. What animal is in the stained glass window at the ballet school in Princess Tutu?
   -A swan
   
3. Where is the last heart shard of Mythos found?
   -In Tutu's necklace
   
4. Kinkan Town (or Golden Crown Town), the town in Princess Tutu, is based on what real city?
   -Nordlingen
   
5. Of the following ballet, which was NOT referenced in Princess Tutu: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty.
   -Alice in Wonderland
   
6. The character of Drosselmeyer originates from what famous ballet?
   -The Nutcracker
   
7. In the anime, what color are Duck/Ahiru's panties?
   -white
   
8. What is the name of the ballet song, first used for Mythos in the anime?
   -Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy
   
9. The ballet Coppelia is based upon what short story?
   - The Sandman
   
10. The character Femio appears only in one episode. But in that episode he is often shown with a bull, and accompanied by music from what famous work?
    -Carmen
    
    Tie-breaker question:
    
11. In the anime, the character Drosselmeyer is often associated with clocks. Describe the specific reason/source (and it does not occur in Princess Tutu), that explains the source for this connection.
    -Drosselmeyer appears with the clock at midnight, in the Nutcracker. (It marks the beginning of the "fairy tale" type story found in the rest of the Nutcracker.)
    

Autographs & DVD's

While the trivia game finished up things were being set up for the autographs. ADV also set up a table (before you reached the guests) to sell their DVD's. They had an awesome sale, $10 per DVD, OR all 6 volumes for $40, cash only. The demand superseeced the supply. ADV in my opinion dropped the ball on this one, they had people clamoring to buy more once the supply was gone. Considering they've had trouble selling Tutu, I would have thought it would behoove them to take down the addresses, or offer some sort of coupon code for those who weren't able to buy what they needed... but nope.

Everyone who stood in line got an autograph from each and every of the guests they wished to. Although we did limit things to 1 autograph per person (not sure if a few people didn't try to squeeze in more than 1 autograph though). Itoh-san was more than willing if given paper, or shikishi or something with room to draw on to do original sketches as well in just simple black sharpie of the character of your choice. I'd love for folks to post images of sketches or their autographs!

After everyone had their autographs it was a mad scramble for the dinner reservations for the guests across town. Everyone from ADV packed up, with the exception of Jessica Boone, and drove back to Houston, only Jessica remained to go out to dinner with the Japanese guests.

Cosplay

Overall we only had 3 people in cosplay: an awesome Kraehe cosplay from a very determined girl who came from new Jersey for the event, a really fantastic Drosselmeyer, and the matrimonially obsessed Neko-Sensei who was really Itoh-san's husband. :)

Photo Galleries:

Since I was running the event, I didn't have much chance to take pictures, but here are the few photos I did take. And here's some other photo galleries: Photo Thread on the Ushicon BBS (there are only a handful of photos from the actual Cast party, the rest are from the entire weekend), Mikayla's photos, & Corinn's gallery.

I'll put together at least one other vast post, or some smaller posts detailing my individual days during my vacation. ^.^ Look forward to it. :)