DVD Review- Rozen Maiden
I’m afraid this review will be a bit truncated thanks to Gohan, who is having some colic issues…but really, there’s not too much to say about this show anyway.
Rozen Maiden: Traumend is the second season of Rozen Maiden, one of the series Funimation rescued from Geneon when they distributor went under. But after seeing their complete box set of Traumend, I have to wonder why Funimation bothered to rescue it at all.
I haven’t seen the first season, but it wasn’t difficult to puzzle out. The Rozen Maidens are seven bisque dolls created by a master dollmaker and imbued with a Rosa Mystica- something like a soul. They are sentient and animate. They are all Maidens, and refer to each other as Sister- even the one who looks like a boy, sounds like a boy, and wears pants (exceptionally frilly pants, but pants nonetheless). But it seems the Maidens’ creator was a sadistic fuck who decreed that his dolls should participate in the Alice Game, in which the dolls battle it out with various ridiculous magic items like watering cans and violins, while wearing a variety of corsets, ribbons, frills, and Victorian button-up boots. The last one standing gets to literally meet her maker, Rozen, whom they call ‘Father’.
So, basically it’s Highlander minus the cool swords and plus a bunch of pint-sized Gothic Lolitas.
Apparently in the first season the Alice Game never actually got going. As Traumend opens, moody teenager Jun and his sister Nori (unsurprisingly, they have no parents) are playing host to two Maidens, Shinku and Hina-Ichigo, an insufferably cute little thing. Shinku is the most mature of the Maidens, and has created a pact with Jun in which she can use his power to battle the others, if the Game ever gets started. They are frequently visited by two other Maidens, the twin sisters (except one appears to be male) Souseiseki and Suiseiseki.
But there are three other Maidens out there who aren’t so cozy with the rest. Kannaria, a disgustingly adorable and arrogant Maiden who is out to win the game- until she meets the others- and Suiginto (apparently defeated by Shinku in season one) and Bara-Suisho, the seventh and heretofore unseen Rozen Maiden. The last two are out for blood.
But not for a while. First the three newcomers have to show up. Suiginto has to make a pact with a dying girl. The Maidens have to learn to make cookies, write and mail letters, watch their favorite TV show, etc. Jun has to flirt with his classmate Tomoe and do homework and visit a mysterious doll shop. Everyone has to flounce around in insane amounts of lace. They also fly about in suitcases, argue, and eat lots of sugar and drink massive amounts of tea (how a doll’s digestive system works is not something I recommend pondering too long).
Finally, eight episodes into the twelve-episode series, the Alice Game starts up. There are four frantic episodes of not-really-Highlander action, then the end, which I admit is nicely bittersweet. But it’s like one of those long fantasy novel series that runs for ten volumes, gets really slow in the couple books, then wraps everything up in the last two hundred pages, as if the author got tired of it right at the end and tried to finish it up too quickly.
The problem with Rozen Maiden is that it’s trying to be two shows at once: a fighting series, and a cutesy EGL not-quite-harem show. The two concepts don’t really mesh. Not to mention to creepy almost-romance between Jun and Shinku, who is about as high as his knees. The show extols the sort of virtues common to both genres of anime: the power of friendship, loyalty, protecting those you love etc, etc. Nothing new here.
The animation looks great, and if you’re into the Gothic Lolita culture, the character designs and especially the costumes will be right up your alley. The voice acting isn’t bad at all, in Japanese or English.
Rozen Maiden might be a treat for EGL fans or for ambitious cosplayers, but everyone else will just be confused and bored.
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