Review for Rozen Maiden: Zuruckspulen Collection

Introduction

I had thought that two seasons of Rozen Maiden, the first and Traumend were all that we could reasonably expect from the franchise, except maybe the odd OVA. After all, Traumend, while it didn’t conclude the main Alice Game storyline, it did end on something of a permanent note for several of the characters. Any follow on series would either have a big reset button, or a drastically reduced cast, and the twist that they pulled bringing back Suigintou in Traumend wouldn’t work twice. So when Rozen Maiden: Zurückspulen was announced a few years ago (immediately rechristened Turducken in my mind, after the festive delicacy of whole turkey stuffed with whole chicken, in turn stuffed with whole duck), I was sceptical of how it might progress the story, and chose to avoid it during its first broadcast/streaming. On reflection, maybe I should have given it a chance. After all, the tale of magical living dolls, battling to achieve their creator’s ideal of perfection had quite some appeal for its first two series, and for this third series, the creators have found a nifty trick to make it work.


Rozen Maiden’s third season takes a leaf out of Sliding Doors’ book, offering a tale of what would have happened if Jun had turned right instead of left on that fateful day, or in this case, if he hadn’t chosen to wind. In the universe of Rozen Maiden, Jun Sakurada was in middle school when he received a letter simply asking if he would choose to wind, or not to wind. It’s when he chose yes, and the Rozen Maiden doll Shinku arrived with a key that he realised what it meant. He wound up the doll, bringing Shinku back to life, starting a chain of events that would lead him on a series of fantastic adventures, where he would eventually encounter all seven of the Rozen Maiden dolls taking part in the Alice Game. This was the battle for each doll’s Rosa Mystica, with the promise that when one doll gained all seven, she would become the perfect Alice, able to meet her creator again. It all unfolded much as it did in the first two seasons, with the exception that instead of meeting the false Rozen Maiden Barasuishou (Rozen Maiden: Traumend), they eventually met the seventh Rozen Maiden, Kirakishou, and that’s when Jun and Shinku got into trouble.


However, there is a world where Jun chose not to wind, and his shut-in nature and depression continued on into adulthood, without him encountering any of the Rozen Maiden Dolls. In fact, by making his choice, this became a world where the magical dolls never existed. When we encounter him he’s still introverted and quiet, but he’s trying to get his life back on track, attending college even though he missed high school, and working at a bookshop where the manager tends to ridicule and belittle him. He feels that he has missed the boat on life, and can’t quite figure out how to rebuild his life, but then one day he finds a returned parcel that keeps being sent to the bookshop, which the manager doesn’t want. He takes it home to find one of those piecework magazines that lets you create a piece of arts and craft on a weekly subscription, “How to build the Rozen Maiden #5 doll, Shinku”. This coincides with a text message from his younger self from that other universe, asking his help in saving him and the Rozen Maiden dolls from Kirakishou. But now that the younger Jun has made contact, Kirakishou is aware of the older Jun Sakurada.

Thirteen episodes of Rozen Maiden: Zurückspulen are presented across two discs from MVM with a seven-six distribution.

Picture

Rozen Maiden gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic PAL transfer with the requisite 4% speedup. The image is clear and sharp throughout, with no significant signs of compression, and strong colour reproduction. It also scales up a treat to an HD panel, which makes the absence of a Blu-ray release in English speaking territories forgiveable. While the character design aesthetic is recognisable from the first two seasons, it’s been tweaked slightly to make more of its adult protagonists, and reflect the slightly more sombre, realistic tone of the story, while the dolls are more doll-like than before for want of a better explanation. There’s less of a propensity to humorous character deformations in this iteration of the story, while the quality of the animation is high, making it the best looking Rozen Maiden yet.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. And yes, Ali Project return for another cacophonous theme song. I’d go with the Japanese audio for this one, as the cast reprise their roles, the performances are engaging, the incidental music is good, and the stereo does a good job in representing the action. The subtitles are accurately timed and free of error. The English dub is a Sentai in-house job, which means for one thing it’s one of their conveyor belt dubs, and for another thing, they’ve recast the show, eschewing the original voice cast from the Geneon releases of the first two series. Shinku’s new voice lacks the elegance and refinement that the role demands.

Extras

It seems that Madman who authored these discs are going the same way as the big studios when it comes to standardising their production techniques. Having seen this and Outbreak Company, you get the discs presenting their content with static menus, merely listing the episodes numerically on the main page (no titles) and the audio set-up on a different page. The Madman disc authoring credits are a thing of the past, and each episode is now a separate title on the disc, instead of a chunk of chapters in one big 2 or 3 hour long title.

Disc 1 just offers the static menu with episode listing here.

Disc 2 has the textless credits and trailers for Patlabor OVA New Files, Log Horizon, and Love Live! School Idol Project.

Conclusion

Since I started watching this show, I have learned that Zurückspulen isn’t based on the same manga as the first two series, but rather a retelling of the story, which goes some way to explaining the differences in continuity that crop up even before Traumend went off on its non manga way. That’s all to the good, as while I enjoyed the first series and Traumend, it wasn’t without reservation. You have this dark, depressing storyline, effectively about living dolls having to fight to the death to attain the ultimate goal of meeting their father. Only one survivor will attain the prize, which made the show something of a porcelain Highlander. Except that this dark storyline unfolded in the backdrop of something that was unremittingly light and occasionally goofy, making the contrast in tone sometimes jarring. In structure the Rozen Maiden story was actually quite conventional, dolls showing up one by one, increasingly giving the protagonist Jun reason for annoyance, a whole lot of comedy in the early episodes, before venturing down a more serious path for the more climactic episodes.


Zurückspulen isn’t like that at all. Instead this show offers more of an adult, meaningful storyline, complex and character focused enough for this to be worthy of a noitaminA strand. You do have to get through the opening episode first, which is really just a quick recap of young Jun’s adventures with Shinku and the other Rozen Maiden dolls in his world, not all that satisfying in terms of the story. But then again, this series is about the older Jun, from a parallel world where he didn’t choose to turn the key, where the Rozen Maiden dolls never entered his life, and where he never had any of those fantastic adventures with Shinku and the others. Instead he remained a dropout for most of his school years, before finally deciding to make something of himself, attending college and getting a job. When this story begins, the problem is that he still carries the emotional baggage of the shut-in years, he looks down on people as well as envying them, and his communication skills are non-existent. He hates his job, and he hates the college he attends, so life is just a drudgery that he has to live through.


And into his life comes this living doll, Shinku, sent by his younger self from a parallel world, seeking help against the astral seventh doll Kirakishou that is wreaking havoc there. It seems that Shinku is back to square one with the older Jun though, and though she has a deadline, she starts by training her new temporary servant up. You can appreciate this show in two ways. There is the usual Alice Game storyline that unfolds, as Shinku isn’t the only doll to come to this world, and they’re all soon embroiled in Kirakishou’s plans. But for once, even the most hardened of the Rozen Maiden dolls starts to question the Alice Game, wondering just what their father wants from them. This aspect of the story still has the formulaic, fan pleasing sense to it, for those who revel in jargon, and the intricacies of the rules of this particular story world.


Far more rewarding is the other tack that the story takes, watching Jun’s growth as a person over the seven days that he knows Shinku and the others. For the means of Shinku’s arrival in this world actually depended on the older Jun’s creative talents. For the first time in what is probably years, he obsesses about something, devotes his energies into creating something, and that is the moment that starts his life finally changing. It isn’t easy at first, his lessons in college still aren’t rewarding, and his manager at the bookshop where he works is something of a jerk. But a co-worker in the shop, a young woman named Saito notices his creative talents and starts engaging with him more, drawing him out of his introverted shell. Slowly, he starts relating to the world, stops pre-judging people, and improves as a person.


There’s a more adult tone to Zurückspulen, although the odd moment of comedy still does occur. But this show has dispensed with the more frivolous aspects of the earlier series, there are no Detective Kun-Kun interludes, and the comedy always works in service of the larger story. Rozen Maiden: Zurückspulen is a far stronger show than its predecessors, and it’s relatively standalone (although knowledge of the first two series will help). It also leaves you wanting more, although given that the cliff-hanger sees older Jun now in younger Jun’s world, that story has the scope for more of the original frivolity. I wouldn’t be averse to a fourth series though.