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Information of Anime

Rozen Maiden Träumend is the second season to Rozen Maiden & is a direct sequel.  Jun Sakurada is going back to school, but he spends his time at the school library to catch up on his studies.  Shinku has been suffering a bit emotional after defeating Suigintou.  This concerns Jun & the others.  Two new Rozen Maidens appear, which now completes the Rozen Maiden lineup.  This concerns Shinku, Suiseiseki, Souseiseki, & Hinaichigo as it tells them that the Alice Game is about to begin.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I have seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Two new Rozen Maiden dolls are added to this series: Barasuishou & Kanaria.  Barasuishou is determine to play the Alice Game to become Alice, while Kanaria has a different purpose.

Throughout the show, we see Shinku suffering emotional about making Suigintou into Junk in the previous season.  In her struggles, she meets Barasuishou in the N-Field.  As time passes, Shinku realizes how much she misses Suigintou & manages to tell her in her dreams that she isn't Junk, but an important sister to her.  This changes Shinku as she is determine not to play the Alice Game.  This actually appears in Suigintou's arc.  Also throughout the show, Jun goes to a antique doll shop where he meets Enju, the shop owner.  Enju shows Jun a lot of the dolls & give him a lot of advice when he sees Jun feeling troubled.  At times, he lets Jun go to the back room to see the dolls being created & being with the dollmaker of the shop.  Over time, we learn that Enju knows about the Alice Game as he has connections with Barasuishou.

In the meantime, which is the next arc, Suiseiseki is determined to find a medium for herself.  She wants Jun to be her medium since she likes him.  However, she can't express her feelings to him & convince him as she continues to act all mighty.  She manages to make the contract with Jun when they fight Barasuishou in a N-Field.

As the show moves on, we see Megu, a girl in a hospital who wants to die, make a contract with Suigintou who happens to be alive.  Megu mistakes Suigintou for an angel & asks her to take her life away.  In that arc, we learn that Suigintou was fixed by Father according to Barasuishou who also tells her that she died from fighting Shinku.  After hearing Shinku's words about her not being junk, Suigintou has a change of heart.  But her attitude remains the same.

In the next arc, Kanaria appears & tries to get all the Rozen Maidens.  Her purpose was to actually get them to be put of her medium's Rozen Maiden collection.  She fights for this purpose until Shinku asks why she's fight them.  Shinku decides that they should all visit Kanaria's medium since the problem was simple.

The story finally gets going at the end of Kanaria's arc when Souseiseki sees Father in the mirror.  Travelling in the mirror, she sees Father in emotional pain.  Barasuishou tells her that Father is suffering because he can't make Alice, the perfect Rozen Maiden.  Because of this, Souseiseki is determine to play.  This concerns the others as this means that six of them will be gone.  Suiseiseki tries to concern Souseiseki out of it, but fails.  At the same time, Suigintou is determine to get Mystic Rozen when she learns from Barasuishou that it can help save Megu's life.  In a N-Field battle, she is defeated by Suigintou & loses her Mystic Rozen.

As Sugintou gains Souseiseki's Mystic Rozen, she tries to use it to heal Megu.  However, it isn't enough.  In the meantime, Hinaichigo is starting to lose her Mystic Rozen since she lost it to Shinku in the past.  Concern, Jun takes Hinaichigo to Tomoe Kashiwaba, her original owner.  After remember their memories together, Hinaichigo finally stops moving as her Mystic Rozen goes to Shinku.  Receiving the Mystic Rozen, she, Suiseiseki, & Kanaria enter into the dollshop & meet Jun there.  Enju reveals himself as Lap lace ma & the dollmaker as Father, Rozen.

Rozen declares the Alice game to held & all the dolls agree, including Shinku.  However on the day of the Alice game, Shinku, Suiseiseki, & Kanaria do not fight.  Instead they want to stop it.  Even Jun tries to convince Rozen to stop.  As the game progresses, the doll fall one by one as their Mystic Rozens get taken away.  In horror, Shinku decides to fight.

After Barasuishou defeats Suigintou, it comes down to Barasuishou & Shinku with Barasuishou as the victor.  In shock, Jun discovers that Father isn't Rozen, but an apprentice of him.  The apprentice created Barasuishou to become a better doll maker than Rozen.  However, the Mystic Rozens inside Barasuishou is too strong which causes her to crack.  Thus all the Mystic Rozens inside her are set free & a slight glimpses Father suddenly appears to repair the Rozen Maidens.  However, Rozen could only repair the maidens that were defeated by Barasuishou.  So Souseiseki & Hinaichigo are gone.  Father leaves a message that becoming the Alice Game isn't the only way to become Alice, but he still dreams of the day Alice will be born.  The show ends where Jun & Shinku leave the N-Field to return home.

My Personal Review

Rozen Maiden Träumend continues on with the Alice Game.  I found this season to be better than the first.  It's more enjoyable to watch & has more of the Alice Game plot.  You definitely need to watch the 1st season, Rozen Maiden, to understand what's going on.  I don't think it's possible to understand what's going on without any background of the series.

Animation

It's the same as the first season.  But for some reason, I like it a lot.  I never had that feeling with the first season.  The Rozen Maidens seem to be more cuter, especially Souseiseki.  There are a lot of those SD like drawings of the characters & it's pretty cute as well.  In fact, I think there are a lot of more of it here.

The colours are not too dull, but colourful.  It wasn't bright & the tones are well balanced.

The animation movement is pretty good.  It was smooth & flowing.  The running & flying are realistic.  For some reason, I still can't get over the fact that these Rozen Maidens can eat & cry.  I'm not sure if the writers are trying to display some sort of symbolism idea to the dolls as being real human beings.

Sound       

The sound effects are very cute most of the times.  Some of the sound effects are realistic as in real life, but a majority of it is cute sounds.  They are well used in creating those comedic scenes.  Also, the volume is well balance with no signs of fuzziness in the explosion or N-Fields being opened.

The voice actors are the same from the previous season.  Shinku's voice seems to change a bit at times.  It's probably because the voice actress couldn't get into character at times.  The voices for the new characters are very good & fitted their roles well.  Megu's voice really has that feeling that she wants to die.

Some of the music here are reused from season one.  The new ones still capture that gothic-like feeling.  I really like the ending theme song.  The uses of the instruments really capture that dark energy

Story

The storyline gets into a lot more detail about the Alice Game.  It's not bad & written quite well.  But there's something interesting about it.  It actually drags & I didn't know it.  When I was watching episode nine & saw how the Alice Game is actually beginning this late in the show, that's when I realized how long the show took to get to the main plot.  All those comedic moments & small arcs really threw me off course in realizing this.  Initially I was concern on how the ending will be as the show starts to pick up, however it looks like it's moving well.  In fact, the pace was perfect.

For the ending, it tied up the show well.  But, it really feels incomplete.  I'm pretty sure there will be a third season of this series in the future.

Overall Conclusion

Rozen Maiden Träumend is an enjoyable season filled with comedic scenes.  Also, the Alice Game is explained more & the game play is there.  I highly recommend watching this series if you have seen the first season already.

Rozen Maiden Träumend gets an 8.5/10.  The storylines are well written & flows very well together.  So well that I didn't know it was actually dragging until there are three more episodes left.  The pacing is surprisingly well done.  The ending, however, seems to indicate a possible third season as it was not complete.  However, it was satisfying.

Last updated on January 14, 2008