The Disney Dork

Tangled Bonus Marathon - Rapunzel’s World : The Ultimate Series’ Guide

-6 ◊ May ◊ 2022-

Introduction

While I was gathering books and comics for this review series, I kept seeing this series guide advertised to me by google’s and amazon’s algorithms. Now neither would tell what the book was nor give me any sort of insight into it’s pages, and I never heard it talked about within fandom. It’s not even listed on the wiki with the other activity books.

So out of sheer curiosity, I snagged it used off of Abe Books for less than five bucks. Now this was originally released mid-season and is supposed to be a ‘here’s a who is who’ so far in the story, but I figured it works better as an introduction to the show. I also wanted something short to go between the larger novels and give myself some breathing space.

Content

As I said, this is just a ‘Who’s Who’ book, but with some world building stuff thrown into the mix. Not much though, sadly….

Most of the little blurbs and such, are just things you can see in the show yourself. There’s nothing really here to flesh out the characters or the world; no additional tidbits or factoids, no added story, no activities for what is suppose to be an activity book. It’s kind of bland, and I can see now why the fans don’t really talk about it.

The most interesting thing about the book is what it gets wrong.

Varian, Quirin, and Ruddgier are called the ‘Ruddiger Family’, as if they consciously named themselves after their pet raccoon…

And then they get both Herz der Sonne’s and General Shampanier’s names wrong. Calling them Herr Tazon and General Champagne… I kid you not, It’s Champagne.

If this book was scheduled for a mid-season release, back when Queen for a Day was still intended to come after One Angry Princess, then Under Raps may not have been fully finalized by the time it was published.

Yet most interesting to me, is that The Great Science Expo is implied to be an annual event in the book. But, like, wouldn’t Varian had won like nearly every year then? Yet the judge seems to barely know him? What would have prevented Varian from participating previous years?

I personally would like to think that the Great Expo is a rotating event within the seven kingdoms. Like it does happen every year, but each year its hosted else where. Which would mean that the last time the Expo came to Corona, it was held when Varian was seven and too young to enter.

Now, I’ve nothing to back that theory up, but it seems as plausible as anything else.

Presentation

The art work in the book is very uneven, at best. We get some nice background shots and a few new promotional images of the mains. I especially enjoy the page listing out Rapunzel’s outfits. But then you you also get a lot of repeated artwork that fans see touted in every merch.

Heck, that one image above of Varian is repeated twice within this same book, while the royal family portrait shows up on three separate occasions. Then there’s the fact that all the villain’s models are shown in default mode…

Everyone else at least has their models posing. Even minor characters, like the castle staff and the townspeople, at least were set up for their one promotional image. Yet, this, is lazy. Someone really dropped the ball here and it feels rushed.

Would I Recommend It

I don’t understand who this is for. There’s nothing here that you couldn’t learn just by watching the show or reading a Wikipedia page to catch yourself up with. If this had perhaps been released between the pilot and the first episode, as a way to generate hype, I could understand it, but it was instead a midseason release, so none of this would have been new information to most audiences at the time.

I guess if you lived overseas and couldn’t get the episodes till later, and for whatever reason didn’t have internet access, then maybe this might have had value then…. Only, its even harder to get merch like this overseas anyways so… Not to mention, that none of that is relative now that the series is over with.

I don’t know. I know a few people who like this book a lot, but I personally fail to see the appeal. This is the first thing I’ve come across in the marathon that I would recommend skipping over.

Next Up

We’ll be looking at our second original novel and first series based original novel to boot. Here’s hoping that’s better than the last book. Next is Rapunzel and the Lost Lagoon.