Rozen Maiden: Träumend #1 & #2
A lot has changed since the end of the first season of Rozen Maiden; Jun has overcome his fear of leaving his home and is now studying hard to catch up to his classmates over the summer. In addition, Shinku’s attitude towards the Alice Game and what it entails has altered. However, as Shinku begins to doubt her ‘father’s’ wishes for the dolls to battle each other, the last two of the Rozen Maiden dolls awaken from slumber and the beginning of the game draws near.
Rozen Maiden: Träumend (German for ‘dreaming’) is the second season of the Rozen Maiden anime and is noticeably darker than its predecessor as the episodes are more plot-driven and feature many mature themes such as death, sacrifice and suicide. This season’s story focuses purely on the Alice Game, a plot point made in the first few episodes of Rozen Maiden, but doesn’t take centre stage until now. The chain of events starts off with the seventh doll, Barasuishou, who is noticeably straightforward compared to her sisters. Unlike Hinaichigo and the others, she has no interest in negotiating around the game or making friends; her only desire is to defeat her opponents to win their Rosa Mysticas and become the Alice ‘father’ dreams of. This sets the plot in full swing as the other sisters debate whether to fight (which they were originally created to do) or to continue their simple, yet happy, existence living with Jun. Even the heartless Suigintou begins to develop wishes beyond becoming Alice, making the thought of battles between the dolls the more emotional. As time passes however, it becomes clear that their ‘father’ is working behind closed doors to fulfil his own desires and the dolls run out of options to fight their ultimate fate.
As all twelve episodes contribute to the big battle towards the end, Träumend is a much stronger season in terms of character development, plot progression, and being enjoyable as a whole. Much more background detail is included, adding clarity to the grey areas created by the first season. Although sadly not all plot elements are carried over from the first season (Jun’s power to repair dolls is never brought up again), not all plot threads are tied up, and the ending is a little unsatisfying (obviously they were holding out for a sequel that never emerged), the finale does accomplish more compared to the first season where even less had been resolved.
However, Träumend’s greatest weakness lie in its comedy: a lot of the gags recur from the first season, including the Kun Kun Detective show and Shinku slapping Jun for looking at her inappropriately. But compared to the darker material of the plot, the comical side of the show comes off as childish instead of fun. Do we really need to see Kanaria fall off the roof of Jun’s house multiple times in episode three? It wasn’t funny the first time; it’s certainly not amusing any other time. Sadly the comical side of the show drops in at inappropriate moments and often in full force between serious conversations and battles, interrupting the natural flow of events. It’s not uncommon for the dolls to discuss the Alice Game one minute as if the apocalypse were approaching, then suddenly switch to light-hearted banter over tea and cookies.
Character designs are still as nicely detailed as before, with beautiful colouring and style that will appeal to those who like the Lolita look, yet there is a noticeable drop in quality with more use of static images, presumably due to a drop in budget. Voice acting for both the Japanese and English dub has improved, as actors from both sides of the pond grow more comfortable in their characters. Music contains mostly recycled melodies from the first season, but new tunes include Gregorian chants and a nice ballad ending theme provided by Kukui. Speaking of music, I’d like to point out the laziness in the DVD menus in using the first season’s opening theme instead of updating the track to match the content of the disc.
DVD extras are non-existent on disc one but the second disc provides the standard textless opening and closing, TV commercial and trailers for Romeo x Juliet and Mahoromatic.
Fans of the first season will follow suit and find much to enjoy in this latest instalment as well. Those on the fence about the anime may find Träumend more appealing due to its tighter plot structure but it won’t convert those who were turned away by the moe character designs or the personalities of the dolls.
