Anime / Nutcracker Fantasy

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Nutcracker Fantasy (くるみ割り人形, Kurumiwari Ningyō, lit. ”The Nutcracker”) is a 1979 Japanese-American Stop Motion animated film produced by Sanrio and directed by Takeo Nakamura. If the animation style is familiar, that’s because Nakamura and some of the other animators were key players in many of the holiday specials of Rankin/Bass Productions such as Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.

This film is a loose adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and The Nutcracker ballet. In this version, Clara is excitedly awaiting the arrival of her “friend” Fritz and is given a nutcracker by her Uncle Drosselmeyer, but that night, the nutcracker is stolen and then attacked by a group of evil mice led by the two-headed Mouse Queen Morphia. Clara wakes up the next day with the nutcracker nowhere to be found and is convinced this really happened.

She goes down to the room where the attack took place and sees her uncle going through the grandfather clock, so she follows behind, losing him. On the other side, Clara finds herself in the palace of the Doll Kingdom, where Princess Mary (who looks exactly like Clara in her original form) has been transformed into a mouse and forced into an eternal sleep by Morphia as revenge for the King not marrying Mary off to Morphia’s cruel son, Gar. As Clara seeks to find a way to break the curse, she falls for Franz, the captain of the guard, and her journey will lead her to discover the true meaning of love.

This film contains examples of:

• Adorable Evil Minions: Except for Morphia, the evil mice are quite adorable.
• All Just a Dream: Clara comes down with a fever early on, suggesting the whole film was this. There are a few things that suggest it may not be so straightforward, however…
• And You Were There:
  • Franz looks exactly like Fritz, which is why she becomes smitten with him instantly.
  • The trope is also dealt with in an unusual way with Drosselmeyer. Rather than meeting just one person like him in the other world, Clara meets three different characters who seem to represent different aspects of Drosselmeyer’s personality and professions, these being the Street Singer, the Puppeteer, and the Watchmaker. They don’t look or act alike, but they all share Drosselmeyer’s kindness towards Clara. In both the Japanese and English dubs, all four of them are voiced by one actor.
• Bowdlerise: In the original Japanese version, Clara and Fritz were cousins. The English dub changes Fritz into being a friend of Drosselmeyer and Gerda. The dub also tries to somewhat downplay the young Clara’s attraction to the clearly older Fritz, changing the dialogue between Clara and Gerda in one scene where Clara asks her aunt if she’s become more “ladylike” lately into Clara reaffirming that she doesn’t believe in the Ragman.
• Coming of Age Story: Clara starts off as a girl with a childish crush on Fritz, but the story’s events cause her to mature and learn that love requires a lot more than just attraction.
• Company Cross-References: During the scene of Clara meeting with Franz in a dream sequence near the end, one of the toys seen resembles both Kitty and her sister Mimmy among the other toys.
• Composite Character: Fritz/Franz is a combination of the Nutcracker and Clara’s brother, Fritz.
• Dragon Their Feet: Gar survived the battle between the mice and the dolls and shows back up at the end to take revenge on Franz for killing his mother.
• Dub Name Change: In the original Japanese dub, Morphia was named Madame Mouserinks, just like her counterpart from the original Hoffman story, while Gar was named Shururu.
• The Executioner: A hooded man who sounds uncannily like Vincent Price putting on a goofy voice hops into the middle of the wise men’s council offering to chop off Morphia’s heads, but he admits to fainting at the sight of blood.
• Forced Transformation: Princess Mary was turned into a mouse by Morphia, who refuses to change her back or wake her up unless the King finally lets Gar marry her.
  • In her dying moments, Morphia transforms Franz into an inanimate nutcracker.
• The Good King: Almost literally since the king is named Goodwin. He loves his daughter very much, and his refusal to let Gar marry her kicked off their current predicament. However, he clearly spoiled Mary, and he doesn’t push back against her when she treats Franz horribly despite him having broken her curse.
• Happily Ever After: The adult Clara confirms that she and Fritz got together and lived this way.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Clara gets stabbed by Gar to protect Franz. This wakes her up from her dream and causes her to realise what some of the other characters meant about true love requiring sacrifice.
• In the Hood: The Street Singer wears one that completely covers his face. Despite his unsettling appearance, he turns out to be helpful to Clara, telling her how to meet the Queen of Time.
• Living Toys: The grunt soldiers of the Doll Kingdom are wind-up toys, while the King, Mary, Franz, and the Chamberlain seem to be some other form of doll.
• Magical Romani: The Queen of Time is a fortune teller who shows Clara the Shell of Darkness and gives her the Sword of Pearl so she can choose who should defeat Morphia.
• Magical Weapon: The Sword of Pearl is the only thing that can destroy the Shell of Darkness, but it can only work if the wielder is pure of heart.
• Multiple Head Case: Morphia has two heads, and the movie can’t seem to decide if she’s two separate people sharing one body or if she’s one person who has two heads.
• Non-Standard Character Design: While all the other characters are stop-motion puppets, the Queen of Time is a live-action actor wearing a mask over her face to give her a doll-like appearance.
• Nostalgic Narrator: The adult Clara narrates throughout the whole film.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: A council of wise men from all over the world is assembled, but they each have their own different solutions for dealing with Morphia and devolve into arguing.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Clara chooses Franz to give the Sword of Pearl to because she believes he’s pure, and she turns out to be right.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Christopher Lee puts on a Scottish (or maybe it’s supposed to be Irish?) accent for the Watchmaker and it’s… not good. However, this is subverted in that when the Watchmaker speaks more seriously to Clara about what she needs to do, his voice changes to sound exactly like Drosselmeyer, suggesting that the two are connected in some way.
• Or Was It a Dream?: The first time Clara wakes up from her dream about the mice, she sees a bleeding cut on her hand and arm from the night attack, but it could be chalked up to this scene being a dream as well. However, at the very end, after she recovers from her fever, the nutcracker is still gone, and Drosselmeyer possibly hints that he's aware of what Clara went through, telling her that dreams can come true as Fritz enters the room.
• Parental Bonus: The stereotypical Russian wise man anachronistically rambles about five-year plans.
• The Power of Love: Clara is told this is what she needs to give Franz in order to break his curse, and the final act is about her trying to figure out what exactly that means.
• Related in the Adaptation: Drosselmeyer is Clara’s uncle instead of her godfather.
  • In the English dub, Gerda is Drosselmeier's wife, making this one of the only Nutcracker adaptations to present a married Drosselmeier. Clara is visiting her aunt and uncle during the events of the story. In the original Japanese, Gerda is simply Clara's nursemaid, with her only relationship to Drosselmeier being that of a servant.
• Royal Brat: Princess Mary turns out to be this once she wakes up, refusing to marry (understandable considering the age difference) or even give thanks to Franz (less understandable), who has been transformed into a nutcracker, because she thinks he’s too ugly for her.
• She's a Man in Japan: The Street Singer was called a granny by Clara in the Japanese dub, though she was voiced by a man. The English dub makes her a man.
• Soul Jar: Queen Morphia’s heart is in “The Shell of Darkness”, a nut-like container said to be impervious to almost anything.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The Ragman is a boogeyman-like figure said to punish children who stay up past their bedtime by turning them into mice. Clara doesn’t believe in it.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Fritz is Clara's brother in the original story.
• Vague Age: Neither Clara nor Fritz’s ages are specified, at least in the English dub. Clara is clearly still a child, while there's one line in the Japanese dub where Gerda mentions that Fritz recently graduated from university, which - depending on when he went - would put him in his late teens at least.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: An example that only applies to the English version, the Ragman is given a lot of focus in the first act, even seeming to appear in the flesh before Clara at one point, scaring her. He disappears completely afterwards. In the Japanese version, the Ragman showed up one last time after Clara protected Franz from Gar, and although Clara is up past her bedtime, he doesn't turn her into a mouse, meaning he sees that she's matured past childhood.