Rozen Maiden: Träumend

This takes place a bit after the first one and I have to say the character development is actually rather surprising. We have Jun not afraid to go outside anymore, and is actually trying to get into school again. There isn’t much development in the dolls but I guess that’s to be expected slightly. I have a small feeling that their artificial spirits are made to have a certain personality. I’m going to talk more about my theory later on in this review about that. We don’t really see much of the other human characters and so their personalities seem slightly the same. Jun’s sisteris still a caring clumsy girl, Jun’s classmate is a very quiet girl who wants to help sometimes, and there are a few new humans too. During this show, we are introduced two two new dolls, Kanaria and Bara-Suishou. I have different feelings on both these new characters. Where as the fact I love Bara-Suishou as sort of a new antagonist for the dolls in light of what happen to Suigintou (Spoilers for the first series, sorry), I do not really like the addition of Kanaria. Kanaria felt like she was only there for comic relief. Her personality seemed to be similar to Suiseiseki in that she would get into trouble a lot and trying to sneak into the house. She also seemed slightly like Hinaichigo in how childish she is sometimes. With how deep the story gets, that doesn’t stop them from still doing the slice of life type of story arcs. They do end up making me annoyed slightly because there is so much story that can be given to the main idea of the Alice Game, the story behind the dolls and so on but what do we actually do get? Suiseiseki stealing Hinaichigo’s snack again, Shinku sitting reading or watching Detective Kun Kun, and Kanaria’s comedic attempts at going after the other girls. I can understand they are trying to give the characters more personality and show the personal growth of each of them but sometimes there is no growth at all. Then we are left with a kind of pointless run around with the story. Besides the slice of life stuff, the story does get a bit deep and sad. If I told you any more about that, then it would just be spoilers but there were times that tears did fall from my eyes. I said I was going to talk about my theory about the spirits. If you keep watching each of the dolls, it seems they have a bit of a collective soul. What I mean when I say this is that the personalities of each girl don’t always feel whole. Shinku is very proper; almost princess like where as Hinaichigo is very childish. Suiseiseki is a very mischievous girl who likes to tease others while her ‘twin’ sister Souseiseki is a bit more tomboyish. Suigintou is jealousy, and Kanaria is… I’m not fully sure but I think her personality is a bit of the sneaky planner. Sort of the personality of a girl who will sneak around someone to get what she wants or two get back at someone. If you look at all these dolls as personalities, it would seem that if all of them were put together, they would be the perfect being, the perfect ‘Alice.’ My theory of them and of the game they play is the idea that Rozen, their father, wanted to make the perfect daughter he named Alice and that the dolls must collect each part of Alice’s soul in order to become her. I do have another theory though, a back up theory if you want to take it as such… one that might be a very surprising turn of advents if this actually were to be true. My theory is that there is actually no real Alice Game. That the Alice Game was made up by someone to explain why they were ‘abandoned’ by their father. Their spirits though are pieces of their father’s daughter Alice who died at some point in time. In order to save her spirit, he placed parts of it into the dolls. It’s a large grasp at straws here but it’s another idea that I have from watching this series. The artwork is very beautiful when it wants to be and then it can also feel like they didn’t try. It’s much the same as the first series in both aspects. I still get the feeling that there are two different art styles from slice of life to occult in one show. The dolls are still rather detailed when not making funny faces or in a really comedic scene while the human characters feel a little lack luster. I am not sold on the face of Shirosaki, the salesperson at the doll shop in the show. I understand who he is from the moment I saw him (Not spoiling it though) but his face does not look like a humans. In fact, I really thought he might have been a doll himself with the way his eyes were and how his face was. It just looked way to flat and white to be real. The music is something I forgot to talk about in my review before that I will touch here. Both the first and this one have amazing music, most of it orchestra related. My favorite pieces are when the dolls are in some serious mode. That’s when the beautiful and yet haunting melody seems to come out that sounds slightly like a music box. I can’t help but get chills up my spine hearing that beautiful haunting melody. The English dub is basically the same so what I said before goes for this. I’m still not to keen on Hinaichigo’s or Suiseiseki’s voices much. Again, Hinaichigo’s high pitched childish whine is annoying and I really don’t understand why Suiseiseki’s voice has to be that high as well. They did grow on me more though since the first series which I guess works out. As for the newcomer, Kanaria is about as annoying as Hinaichigo’s voice. It’s high pitched and the way she talks reminds me of Naga the Serpent from Slayers. It’s that snarky little announcing voice that will say everything she is thinking no matter what. She hasn’t really had a chance to grow on me as much as the other characters though and maybe that’s why I can’t stand her right now. The story was actually really done and I liked how they dove more into the Alice Game and the story behind it but again they left more questions then answers. They had a very open ended ending that makes me wonder exactly what they mean by it. I still love the story and can’t wait to watch the rest of the seasons.