#(and nanami kiryuu of course)

[anonymous-gambito]

Saw this, thought of the egg speech and now I'm like something something "the difference between the egg being nurtured and provided for so it will grow and someday break out of its shell and take flight" vs "the egg being seen as something only meant for consumption, to be broken and eaten" something something "how children are treated as possessions in our society" something something– [EXPLODES]

[comradekatara]

i think the reason that a lot of people don’t recognize how fucked up sokka is is due to the fact that sokka himself refuses to acknowledge it. he is extremely repressed and operating on so many layers of cognitive dissonance that he doesn’t even realize that he is not in fact “normal” or “mentally stable” or “healthy.” part of sokka being extremely fucked up is also refusing to acknowledge or confront that he is remotely fucked up. so he generally presents like a well-functioning person who, despite being incredibly cerebral, doesn’t have a particularly rich inner life. but that’s only because he’s walled off every single aspect of his existence that causes him (real) pain or sadness or grief, put it in a vault and then buried it. and confronting any of it, even a little bit (like admitting that he felt abandoned by his father leaving, or that he misses his mother, or any other normal expression of pain that katara has no problem communicating) would mean confronting all the harmful logic he has internalized regarding his identity and denial of his own inherent humanity. so even though he seems like he has no filter and loves to complain, he is actually performing pretty much constantly. for the sake of those to whom he feels obligated, but mostly for himself.

[emberwritesinsight]

Episode of RGU where Anthy slips Nanami shrooms and Nanami straight up never notices she's on drugs because

Nanami doesn't know what shrooms are

Nothing she's seeing is that much weirder than the contents of a typical Nanami episode

[heartslobbf]

and what if i mentioned that nanami and juri are the only (special) girls in rgu to not wear the rose bride dress. what then

[bitofthisandthat]

@sayonaradumbass​ [ LUM ]

Nanami has seen A LOT of  s t r a n g e  goings ons in her life, but another girl that thinks she can just waltz right in and take the spotlight from her AGAIN??

Nu-uh. No. No. No. NO. She’s the queen bee around here, she’s the HBIC, She’s the one girls wish they could be, and she’s officially DONE with strange girls getting in the way, grabbing all the spotlight and taking away all her little dregs’ attentions from her. She is NOT going through another ‘weird girl drama’ show--never again. So, the coquettish blonde pulls herself together and fluffs her coiff, pretending to be the social all-powerful entity that she is, and make...nice. Not true nice, but Nanami-back-stab-you-later-and-laugh-about-it-publicly-nice. But there’s no reason to let this pretty girl know that yet. 

“Myyyyyy, I just love your hair, it’s so colorful! I don’t think there’s a single girl here that could pull that look off but you! I hate to be rude, but I’ve never seen you around here, and I just HAD to come over and see who you are. I’m Nanami, I hope you don’t mind me being so forward, but who are you? Hmmmm?”  Saccharine sweet as always, no one ever suspects.

[saionjeans]

ok so. miki’s sunlit garden is the literal sunlit garden where he and kozue played piano together as children. it’s the defining version of this narrative device, and in a way, it’s the most straightforward. miki is leaving the garden and entering the world of teenagers. he is scared of growing up, and he misses the effortless, uncomplicated bond he shared with his sister when they were children, before being inculcated into a world of sexual power and abuse, before his parents divorced and his beautiful nuclear family was rent asunder by real-world complications. i genuinely think every 13-ish year old goes through this grief and a desire to hold onto the past, to remain in this perfect nostalgic bubble through which you view your childhood. it’s probably the most universal and identifiable instance of the motif of the sunlit garden.

then it gets more complicated. nanami’s sunlit garden is her memories of short-haired touga, of her big brother showing her his affection, making her feel special, worthy, and loved. but unlike miki, she doesn’t miss being a part of the ideal nuclear family. for one thing, both she and touga are adopted. of course, she doesn’t actually know that, but it nonetheless problematizes the bioessentialist logic upon which the nuclear family [abuse factory] structure is predicated. secondly, it’s clear that she was always the scapegoat to touga’s golden child. which is why it’s not that she loves her sibling as an extension of her childhood nostalgia, but that her entire value system fundamentally revolves around touga, because he was the only person in her formative years who ever showed her the slightest sliver of affection. and in all her memories of him, he has short hair (like dios, like miki), because subconsciously she doesn’t even want him to be her Prince, her patriarchal savior, she wanted him to be someone who loved her because she inherently deserves love. she does treat him like her prince in the present, but that’s only because it’s how her love for him must take form in ohtori. deep down, she doesn’t want a prince, a lover, or even a brother; she wants a friend who will love her for nothing. but she has no way of expressing that, not in a world that claims true friendship is for fools. so instead she values him for their biological ties, for his status as a kiryuu, for his patriarchal role as the eldest son in their perfect nuclear family. and she refuses to acknowledge how she demeans herself in the process of worshipping him, how she’ll drown herself and cook herself and cage herself, debase herself and dehumanize herself for his illusory love. and that is what the sunlit garden means to nanami.

as for saionji, the sunlit garden also constitutes his memories with touga, of a “before” that is much more definable in the sense that there is clearly a moment where it becomes “after.” one day they are riding their bike through the rain after kendo practice, and they decide to take shelter in a church. and saionji sees touga become someone he fears and also envies. someone who wields the power to project something eternal, to inspire, to save. and he exerts his power in a subtly violent way, by transgressing invisible boundaries. saionji cannot harness that power, so he attempts to exert it clumsily, through immediate, obvious, physical forms of violence. it never quite packs the same punch as touga’s manipulation, no matter how hard he tries. but what saionji really longs for is not to possess touga’s power, but to go back to the way things were before touga decided he wanted power. touga thinks true friendship is for fools, but like nanami, all saionji wants is to be touga’s true friend. and isn’t that just tragic?

of course, that’s not all saionji wants. but his desire is complicated by the fact that he clearly also resents the sexual acts he is being put through by touga, even if in other circumstances, it could be what he wanted. juri’s situation, her sunlit garden, is similar to saionji’s in this respect. all she wants is shiori, but she doesn’t want the shiori she is being presented with. she wants the shiori from an illusory idealized past in which they were true friends, before shiori betrayed her and revealed her ugly feelings in the process. like miki with kozue, nanami and saionji with touga, utena and anthy with dios, mikage with mamiya, juri is idealizing a version of the object of her affection who never really existed. shiori’s ugly feelings were always latent. unlike miki’s sunlit garden, nanami’s flashback to touga’s party and sea of photographs, or saionji’s memories of touga tenderly wrapping his hand, juri does not even have memories of shiori that are not defined by her betrayal. yes she has shiori reaching out, holding a rose, saying “believe in miracles and they will know your heart,” but it’s an obvious fiction. juri doesn’t know shiori at all, and the shiori juri knows is not the shiori she loves. the sunlit garden is always a garden of illusion.

utena’s sunlit garden, which opens many episodes, is perhaps the most obvious example of this fact. she completely rewrote her own formative memory to better suit the dominant patriarchal narratives she was forced to adopt all her life. and you can say that akio actively tampered with her memories, but functionally speaking, that’s the same thing. even more so than the others, her sunlit garden is a palimpsest; she idealizes a past and a prince that never actually existed. sure akio and anthy exist, but her “prince” is not either of them. the locus of her will to live, that eternal thing, is a fiction. but her desire to help others in need is genuine. and that is what differentiates utena’s sunlit garden first and foremost. it is not founded on a selfish desire to cling to a perfect past of illusion, but on the selfless desire to keep moving forward in hopes of a better future. they all want to hold onto something eternal, including utena in her desire to keep her parents with her, and all of those desires are perfectly understandable and eminently sympathetic, but utena is different because that day that akio showed her anthy’s suffering, utena’s desire shifted from a memory to a telos.

mikage’s sunlit garden thus becomes a cautionary tale to all the members of the student council who wish to live in a memory, perfectly suspended, pinned in place like a butterfly on display. just as a caterpillar must become a butterfly, a child must enter the world of adults. mamiya is beautiful because he has the luxury of dying young, of being immortalized on a carousel, of never losing his innocence. mikage is what happens to people who idealize eternity through escaping into nostalgia. the world keeps moving on without them, and they become ghosts, trapped in a past that no one can recall.

so what of akio? he uses people’s sunlit gardens against them, he manipulates time and memory, feeds off nostalgia and the grief of lost childhood. he cultivates his garden to resemble golden days, and as he invites you through his gates, ensnares you. so what does that mean, when his goal, too, is to achieve eternity? above all he wants to forge a sword that will break through the closed gates and reinstate his former glory. of anyone in ohtori, he is the one most deeply entrenched in his oh so cozy coffin. for all that he knows his promises to be illusory, he also clings to that logic, he also mourns dios. he longs for his golden days despite knowing that they’re untenable, despite being well aware of the toll it took on anthy. and even fully aware of the extent of his exploitation, of the fundamental illusion of eternity, he still attempts to attain it, he still instantiates himself in a cycle on the carousel, condemned to ghosthood, a butterfly pinned in place.

finally, we must look to the absent figure, the outlier. what, or rather who, is touga’s sunlit garden? the movie tells us it is utena, that he embodied the princely role in the truest sense and that this is his deepest aspiration. but i don’t know if that’s necessarily how i read him. anthy and touga are foils, two sides of the same coin. anthy doesn’t have a “sunlit garden” per se, because she has long given up on the idea of returning to a time when she loved dios, before the swords of hatred pierced her heart. but she has a literal sunlit garden, and her role is to tend the flowers in it and never leave. she has a literal coffin, guarded carefully in the chambers of her heart. anthy knows better than to cling to an idealized past, but still, she cannot find a way to move forward. so she gets stuck in a circular present, where both past and future are illusory concepts. it is not enough to simply know that the past is gone, one must also strive for a better future. it is why utena and anthy’s promise to drink tea and laugh together in ten years is just so powerful within ohtori’s timeless walls. i’d bet anything that touga also doesn’t have an idealized past. if, again, we use the movie to inform our understanding of him, he was always aware of the abuse that pervaded his world, he was never an innocent. but instead of desiring reform, like utena, of wanting to save those suffering, he wants to be the one inflicting that suffering as much as possible. to cope, he accepts his abuse as a necessary consequence of existence, and assumes that anyone capable of abusing him is simply more powerful, and thus deserves to exert their power over him, just as he deserves to exert his power over those less powerful than he is. so like anthy, he doesn’t have a sunlit garden, but he has a coffin, and a garden, and a carousel. and like anthy, he must choose for himself whether he wishes to remain a complicit victim, or to leave his cozy coffin and find a way to move forward. and that, only time can tell.

[blond-jerk-tourney]

Blond Jerk Tourney Semifinals 2

Propaganda from submitters Under Cut

Spike

He is a jerk. He is Spike. Of course he is a jerk. And he is a walking paradox. He was bad, is bad, but got better. No you can't fix him, but you can love him for his efforts.

Nanami Kiryuu

She's the mean girl of the show, and a pretty interesting take on the "bitchy vain school rival of the protagonist" trope. She spends most of her early screentime being a bully and most of her later screentime being both the biggest loser imaginable and deeply sad/troubled (which still does not erase how much of an asshole she can be). She even laughs like your stereotypical mean rich girl. Nanami has so many problems and sucks so so bad. I adore her.

Shes a psychotic bully who seeks to ruin the lives and reputations of any girl who gets more of her brothers attention than she does. Reasons Nanami Kiryuu deserves to win: - she has made many attempts at physical and psychological terrorism against Anthy Himemiya (including a plotted wardrobe malfunction at a crowded social gathering) simply for drawing more of her brother's attention than her - tried to fill Anthy's bedroom with wild animals (a snail, a snake, and a live octopus) to make her out to be a freak only to find that her room was already full of wild animals - she bankrolled an elementary schoolers crush on her to turn him into her personal boyservant - briefly non-personed a member of her bully entourage for sharing an umbrella with her brother - received a luxury cowbell due to a shipping error and smugly wore it to school for weeks flaunting it like high coture - when her bully entourage rebelled against her due to her brothers manipulation she brought them back in line by just straight up beating the shit out of all of them - all in all just a petty, goonish motherfucker (she also does the ohohohohoho anime girl laugh)

she's blond: despite being Japanese her hair is yellow, unlike her brother's. yellow is even her image color. she's a jerk: introduced as a jealous and dishonest scheming bully, she is one of the more outwardly antagonistic characters in a cast where pretty much everyone is a Real Piece Of Work she's the best: the quintessential ohoho-laughing ojou, her fully-realized character arc makes people both laugh and cry even her sidekick is a blond jerk! how many blond jerks have their own blond jerk sidekick?

i don't know what you've heard but she's NOT the kind of girl who lays eggs!

The token mean rich girl of the franchise. Does the classic "ohohoho" laugh. Doesn't like either of our main characters. She never actually seems to get her way, and secretly has a lot of her own problems. also she lays eggs and turns into a cow

Absolutely THE quintessential anime mean girl. I mean literally her laughing is THE meme for the hohohoho anime laugh. Needs attention So Badly and straight up bullies anyone she deems a threat to that (so basically Everyone). I haven’t finished RGU but apparently she duels with the intent to kill and drowned a kitten once because it was taking up too much of her brother’s attention? Also she’s 13 which explains a lot

[aroanthy]

i genuinely can’t think about nanami and akio for too long or i do think i will keel over and die but the thing is. when he drives his car into the kiryuu mansion before her car sequence (‘it’s time for your ride’, akio says when he would ordinarily say nothing at this point), nanami says ‘it’s you’. it’s you. obvious interpretation here is ‘you’re end/s of the world’, and that’s certainly part of it. but i think it’s more so like. It’s You. as in, you’re everywhere. you have a hand in everything. you brought me into your home under the guise of protecting me, and in doing so traumatised me, and harmed me, and now you’re in my home, and everyone i have spoken to about you loves you, wishes to protect you, sees no issue with the things that you do. of course it’s you. as much as touga might try to resist nanami’s attempts to sincerely understand him, this moment gives her the first real opportunity she’s ever had to do that. here is a sliver of the ‘real’ version of her brother, in proximity to and aligning himself with this man. it’s you. it’s you. i feel like a rabid dog rn

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Round 2: Nanami Kiryuu (Revolutionary Girl Utena) vs. Ken Amada (Persona 3)

Propaganda below the cut

Nanami Kiryuu:

In a show where major characters regularly engage in domestic violence and sexual abuse, the one character fans hated for decades was the 13-year-old grooming victim who tried to bully her peers to gain some semblance of control in her life. She wasn't even good at it

(Mod note: Please be advised that RGU contains dark themes beyond what has already been tagged if you plan to look into it. A comprehensive list of content warnings can be found here)

Ken Amada:

y'all are all for "murder and revenge plots" until is a 10 y/o boy who watched his mother die and started to become conflicted after realizing his moms killer is a secretly kind traumatized teenager to the point where the 10 y/o boy attempts to kill himself by giving himself up to assassins.

bro he's 10.

----

ken amada is such an interesting character with the unfortunate circumstances of having little screentime and atlus deciding to ruin his reputation forever by giving him a romance choice in the fem protag route. ken is a child who lost his mother at NINE. nobody ever believed him when he said that she was murdered, and that he saw who killed her. hes miserable, and all everyone around him does is give him sympathy while hes suffering and was forced to grow up before even going into middle school. hes angry and determined to get revenge on the person who killed his mother, and he doesnt even see the own value in living anymore beyond getting that revenge. hes more mature than most of his peers, and is desperate to be seen as an adult.but at the same time, he is still a child who likes superhero shows.

----

OH GOD WHERE DO I START

First there's the normal "The fandom hates kids" complaints of "He's so whiny" "he's so annoying" "oh my god kid just SHUT UP" y'know, the typical fandom stuff that makes you wonder if these people have ever talked to a child in their life

Second, there's (spoilers)...

October 4th, and the ENTIRE FANDOM is calling this kid a murderer.

For context, the moment in question doesn't necessarily paint him in the best light but its still understandable. Your team is going on a mission while Ken and another character named Shinjiro are away. In an alleyway, they have a talk where it is revealed that on that night a year priar to the game, Kens mom was killed in that allleyway by Shinjiro's Persona (Which, by the Rules of the Game Lore, basically means By Shinjiro). Ken tried to tell the authorities, the authorities didn't believe him because Magic Reasons and the death was ruled an accident.

Of course Ken is Fucking Pissed and wants revenge

However, because of Talk, he ACTIVELY CALMS DOWN, and realises "Hey, I probably shouldn't kill someone. Despite them, y'know, killing my mom"

HOWEVER REVOLVER JESUS COMES IN AND RUINS EVERYTHING BY SHOOTING SHINJIRO. AND LIKE, IF YOU PLAY P3P YOU CAN /AVOID THE DEATH THING/

AND EVERYONE BLAMES /KEN/. AND ONLY KEN.

And third (yes, there's a THIRD) IS THE FUCKING FEMC ROMANCE THING. WHICH JUST...SHOULDN'T HAVE EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. BUT NOW HE'S "SHOTA BAIT" BECAUSE WE HAVE TO BLAME THE CHILD FOR THE AUTHORITY FIGURE COMING ONTO THEM 😒

[eruanee]

Kiryuu Touga and the cyclical narrative

TW : Discussions of misogyny, emotional manipulation and abuse, sexual abuse and (sexual) child abuse. (Very vague) mention of incest.

First of all, not really as a disclaimer but more as a recommendation, a lot of my thoughts about Touga are shaped by this essay, which is definitely easily one of my favorite pieces of Utena meta. I think I'm going to implicitly or more explicitly reference it sometimes, but you don't need to read it to understand this post.

I have a complex relationship with Touga. He is despicable, yet the more I watch the series, the more I find myself... fascinated by him. This post is a pretty much a synthesis of all these thoughts.

On a purely narrative level, Touga's role is a bit special. He's the antagonist of the first arc. The three duels involving him are all turning points in the series. He's a core character in the development of several other characters (Saionji, Nanami, Utena and Miki on a different level).

Yet, turns out he's only a puppet, just as everyone else is. How surprising. And when it comes down to it, what do we know about Touga ?

He's the Student Council's president. He seemingly can't have a relationship with anyone without manipulating them to his advantage. He sleeps with any girl (and maybe not only girls) who breathe around him in a 1 ft radius. His way of coping with depression is to seal himself in a wide and totally empty room to listen to his own voice on repeat to ponder heavily on his broken hopes and ideals. (Hmm. Hardcore.)

And more importantly, he wants power. A power that would be absolute. But why so ?

And this is the point where it gets complicated.

Touga is barely the main topic of episodes focused on him. He is the center of many obsessions and interests, but it seems we never touch upon him as a person. He can be seen being vaguely vulnerable in eps 11 and 12 and then there's the whole Black Rose arc thing. But where does all this mess steam from ?

Victim status

Eps 35 and 36 are the one going deeper into Touga’s character and yet... we’re barely sure of what’s actually going on in his brain. These episodes always give me a weird feeling because we don’t really get to see Touga express his feelings very clearly or freely... We barely get to hear his thoughts. 

Just like Anthy.

Don’t make me say what I didn’t say, though. Touga gets to have way more agency than ever does Anthy, and he certainly doesn't endure the same dehumanization as she does. Anthy does have agency in a way. But she expresses it in hidden, implicit ways : playing tricks, hitting people in their sore spots, sarcasm, empty eyes and fake smiles. She’s manipulative and Touga is, too. These two share many similarities, though they can’t completely blend with each other, of course. 

We don’t know much about Touga’s childhood. We know he and Nanami were adopted (or “sold”) to the Kiryuu family at a young age. That’s basically it in the canon of the series. Though, Touga’s backstory in the movie, showing him being sexually abused by his adoptive father, was apparently meant to be included in the series as well :

Although the TV series touched upon Touga’s younger days, the film goes into more details – the wound of Touga that was never directly depicted. In his younger days, Touga was a normal kid who enjoyed happy times with his friend Saionji Kyouichi and his younger sister Nanami. However, he came to know his unfortunate fate from the time he was ordered by his parents to wear his hair long. His parents sold him to the Kiryuu family. Although he was an adopted son on the surface, the instinctive Touga knew what that meant. And in order to protect his younger sister, he accepted his lot. Being sold. We did not go into depicting what Touga’s parents obtained by going as far as selling their son. We would like you to think of it as a kind of metaphor. 

And Touga accepted in silence the sexual abuse from his new parents. His personality changed while he made a magnanimous show of enjoying the abuses in order to prevent his personality from splitting. The change took place in a spot so deep in his mind, that even those closest to him did not notice. Saionji and Nanami never noticed out of their innocence. And Touga never told his secret to anyone. It is said that a human being gains whatever he lost in exchange. So what did Touga gain in exchange at that point in time? It was the sense of alienation from being abused every night and seeing his innocent friend and sister during the day. The alienated self.

(Extract of a comment Enokido, one of the writers who worked on Utena, wrote about Touga’s role in the Utena movie.)

Of course, you could argue whether or not the sexual abuse is canon or not in the series. After all, the series and the movie don’t seem to take place in the same canon (even though it is hard to completely disconnect the two). Whatever you choose to believe, I personally think it all makes so much sense. 

It makes sense regarding Touga’s general behavior in the series (but this is more touched upon in the essay I linked above) and it makes his goal and his narrative role much clearer.

Being sold like a mere object, knowing a much harsher truth about life Saionji and Nanami don’t know about, showing everyone a stronger facade in order to not completely lose your mind and keep protecting your friend and your sister from this reality and eventually... letting them know in a painfully gendered way, perpetuating everything this system has forced on you. 

It has all become part of you. 

Keeping the cycle of violence going became part of your blood and flesh. Making clear who is supposed to inflict pain and who is supposed to receive it. Who is supposed to protect and who is supposed to be protected. Who is supposed to act and who is supposed to wait. 

And you ? No, you’re never supposed to hurt anymore. You want a way out of this. For you, the easiest way is to simply reclaim the place that was always prepared for you to take. 

When Touga and Saionji found Utena in her coffin, it feels like Touga knew something Saionji didn’t. Saionji felt it too, but he wasn’t able to recognize what it was. After all, he was still a child. Touga knew about the same thing Utena learned with her parents’ death : they both had a glimpse of what the “adult world” (Akio’s world) actually looks like, shattering their juvenile knowledge of the world. 

A world where people die. A world where the weak lose. A world where the prince should protect the princess. 

Touga already had a coffin. Utena just found hers and was about to find a new one. Saionji was just finding his. 

It all makes sense regarding how obedient Touga is to Akio and why he seeks his validation, his desire to go up in the hierarchy aside. It makes sense because he is “alienated”. Touga got deprived of everything, he knows the burden of being alive and he’s learned, from his early childhood, to be compliant. 

He seems independent during the Student Council arc and a majority of the series, but eps 35 and 36 show he is not the mastermind of it all. He has a privileged position but unlike some other characters, Touga never uses his agency to try to break out of the system ─ he follows its rules and tries to reinforce his dominance. 

Why would you break out from a system serving you so well ?

“I want to become like him. I want power like his.”

Touga is alienated to the system and his only goal is to become what it expects of him. After all, why wouldn’t he ? Being a prince is the best position offered by the system. Being a prince means acquiring an absolute power. With such power, one doesn’t die and is forever out of reach and harm and pain. Who wouldn’t want such a thing ? 

The prince never saves the princess out of selflessness. He saves her because it gives him a reward in exchange. He saves her because it gives him power and control over her and ultimately, everyone else. And so, the princess becomes a "toy" wannabe princes has to win, to conquer.

Does Touga, even during what seems to be his most “sincere” moment in ep 36, ever wish to protect Utena for something else than possessing her ? When could have he learned to know and appreciate her as a person, rather than a princess ? A reward to conquer ?

When did he stop wishing he could’ve saved Utena just like Akio did ? I believe he might be genuine, yet he acts toward Utena exactly like she acts toward Anthy. He wants to save her for his own sake, regardless of her personal hopes and desires. 

It’s truly sad, though. Because all of it is nothing but a childish dream. There was never once a prince in this world. Only boring and abusive adults. 

“Are you really happy with that?”

Well, when it comes down to it, probably not. But was it ever about happiness ? Probably not either. The pursuit of power only ever leads to isolation, to a complete lack of meaning ─ after all, friendship is a fool’s thing. No one can reach what’s behind the facade. 

Saionji was able to confront Touga with his own lies and paradoxes, get as close to his real self anyone probably could. But it wasn’t enough. Saionji himself didn’t go as far as leaving the system entirely, even when it seemed he had cracked it all. Touga sort of did, too. 

As far as I’m concerned, we only heard his own, deep thoughts once.

“Kiryuu Touga, the playboy Student Council President... Is it? "Playboy" sounds old-fashioned.”

Touga weaponized himself. He weaponized his body (sex is only a tool to aim for power). He weaponized his heart (relationships only matter if you use them to your advantage. Those who believe in love and friendship are fools and will be ultimately be used to someone else’s advantage). And for what ? 

I really like the symbolism of the poppy flower in ep 35. I feel like it symbolizes Akio’s power, in a way. I’m incredibly bad when it comes to the language of flowers (so everyone is free to correct me) but please bear with me. In the East, red poppy flowers apparently symbolize romantic love and success (what it probably means for the girl confessing to Touga, as well as Akio when he “eats” it in this scene, since Touga and him are talking about Utena) but it can also symbolize “luxurious pleasures and fantastic extravagance”. In the Japanese language of flowers, red poppies can also symbolize someone “fun-loving”. I feel like both of these work with Akio and I believe that for Touga, they are a symbol of luxury and extravagance. 

Yet another girl confessed to him. Without even thinking about it, he kissed her. He will never read her confession letter, he probably didn’t even notice it. He will probably simply leave it on the floor, without a care. This pursuit of power isn’t even fulfilling to him, there’s absolutely no thought behind it. Only automatic actions, behaviors working in favor of someone else’s greater scheme. He won’t even get to actually possess Utena. 

He will never get what he truly wants. Is there even anything that he truly wants ? Saionji, maybe. In the meantime, he’s just a tool for a system. A system made up by boring adults, based on lies, illusions and unachievable dreams. 

Touga is condemned to go in cycles. He’s given everything to overcome what keeps him stuck and trapped, but it doesn’t do anything. He can only revolve around his own coffin, completing the same circle, again and again. 

He doesn’t know how to do anything else. 

It will never make anything he’s done forgivable. But at least, maybe one day, he’ll realize. Or maybe never. 

We can always create new roads, leading to worlds completely unknown to us, where everything needs to be built. Anthy and Utena are here to show the way, who deserves to follow these new roads is only up to you. 

On a purely personal standpoint... I was never really able to answer this question. 

“No. It's not over until we see it through the very end.”

[ariadnesweb]

Witches in Utena are extremely elusive figures, contrasted and scapegoated by the 'Prince'.

By context, all of the Black Rose Duelists (except for maybe Mikage*?) are witches, existing only in relation as the shadows of their princes. Of course, by the nature of duelists, they are also princes, though noticeably more pitiable and weaker than the student council. Ms. Himemiya, the notable witch herself, is at her most active, vindictive, and empathetic during this arc, helping push and break the other black rose duelists.

Kozue and Shiori are notable even within this array, having a strong presence in the first and third set of duels, and notable for having 'enchanted' their princes through manipulation, leading to an easy understanding of their 'witchiness' in the fandom and the audience. But having done so successfully, they become immortalized as their princes' princesses, who are unwilling to scapegoat the girls. Is this a victory? In the 3rd set of duels the pair return as Rose Brides, having established a solid foothold within the realm of women, either by maintaining an indispensable job (Kozue as Miki's adult counterpart, a bride), or by subsuming her entire character into getting a noble prince to take her (Shiori in her relationship with Ruka, a princess, loyal and bitter to the end).

The other notable witch in the cast is Nanami, Kiryuu Touga's younger sister, and known darling terror of the school. Her abrasive and cold-faced attitude easily places her as the antagonistic jealous counterpart to Himemiya, but this abrasiveness is shortly subsumed. Touga makes Nanami a duelist, and soon after abdicates his responsibilities, leaving Nanami as the Student Council President Pro Tempore for the rest of the series (or until Nanami's last duel - it is her decision, Touga never returns, and the Student Council is never disbanded). Until said last duel, Nanami joins Miki and Juri in the maintenance of the student council theater, theatrically musing on the stabbings and workings of the arena. It takes the events of "Her Tragedy" and "The Romance of the Dancing Girls" to shake her out of her cyclical anxieties, as the growing pains of adulthood snap the idling dreams of princes into perspective; Nanami is Touga's witch, his excuse, shadow, and scapegoat - the thing he uses to keep the other girls at bay, the thing that will never be respected or loved in its anger. The reprieve of a witches power, adult intimidation and sensuality, is only cold misunderstanding to her peers.

Himemiya is Akio's witch, the younger sister he uses to terrorize his fiancee and students, who is terrorized in turn by everyone else in the school.

In lieu of his now-implied-dead fiancee, Akio has no qualms turning Anthy and Utena against each other, functionally leaving them as each others witches. The victory of one is the disappearence of another, and so on.

Though disappearing is its own sort of victory, anyways.

*Mikage is technically Utena's shadow, being the negative chosen one, but due to the nature of princes, he maintains his position by 'Princessing' Utena/Tokiko/Mamiya and scapegoating the other researchers (the ghosts of Nemuro Memorial Hall). The closest Utena has to a proper black rose counter part are Anthy/Tatsuya/Wakaba, who face the emptiness of her idealism.

[onewholivesinloops]

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Higurashi Gou/Sotsu. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of tragicomedy most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Satoko Houjou's queerness, which is deftly woven into her characterisation- her personal philosophy draws heavily from class s yuri, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Higurashi Gou/Sotsu truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Satoko's existential catchphrase "OHOHOHOHOHO," which itself is a cryptic reference to Revolutionary Girl Utena's Nanami Kiryuu. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Ryukishi07's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Satoko Houjou tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎

[comradekatara]

honestly I think the reason why there are so many cases of people completely misunderstanding sokka’s character is because most of you simply have not clocked enough hours around a very specific type of stem bro.

[emberwritesinsight]

Touga is turning twelve, and the Kiryuus have decided, as they usually do, that this is a great opportunity to show off their “son” to their “friends”. Where is Nanami? Trying to find him a present, of course. And Anthy is happy to help.

Part 2 of Playdates. For those unaware, I made a fun (debatable) little AU where Akio is buddies with the Kiryuu parents, and they all leave the children they're responsible for to keep each other busy whenever they see each other, so they grow up kind of childhood friends.

[originalwinnercheesecake]

Future Career Headcannons for the Characters from Revolutionary Girl Utena, after they escape Ohtori

Anthy Himemiya: Work in/ own a flower shop. Utena suggests this to Anthy herself in the show after Anthy tells her that she only wishes for a future where she can keep tending to her flowers. Anthy smiles at the suggestion.... IF not that... well I got the idea for this after reading a fanfic where Anthy is a veterinary. That would make a good second option for Anthy since animals, like flowers, where her comforts during her imprisonment as the Rose Bride. Also of course she would find Utena, and they could be together without Akio and the games getting in their way,

Utena Tenjô: A Securtiy Gaurd. So in the show Utena is very Chivalrous and wants to protect people "to be like a Noble Prince". Her intentions come from a good place and are not necessarily bad in of themselves. An active job, where she could protect/help people would be good for her. But she also has difficulty sometimes understanding the complexity of others problems, and is prone to being manipulated. I decided against suggesting "Police Officer" because then she could be manipulated again, by a more corrupted Chief/Head of Squadron. I think a security guard would be a better job for her because there is more structure and a clearer (necessary) objective. Observing a surrounding putting a stop to any fight/trouble that break out suits Utena more than investigative questioning or arresting bad guys does.

Touga Kiryuu: I believe Touga is alive in the Anime and head cannon that he grew up into a: Hairstylist. He was a bit of a hard one because I could only really think of one time in the show where he seemed like he genuinely liked or was happy doing something; and that was when he was playing with the kitten. Now he can foster stray cats on the side as a hobby/volunteer work (probably the only volunteer work he would ever do) but it won't pay his bills. So I had to think harder. Now apparently his abusive relationship with his adoptive father is cannon across the board (shudders because no one deserves that). That man is the one who made Touga grow his hair long, and one thing the fandom seems to universally agree Touga should do for himself if/when he is finally able to get away from the bad people in his life is to cut his hair short. Well I actually think that once he is free learning about all different ways to cut and style hair would be something he would really enjoy. It might also be theraputic to be in an enviroment where he gets to exsursize this knowledge/activity regualrly. Lastly hair stylists at shops can sometimes be flirty and chatty to customers, and some will act flamboyant too. I imagine Touga's chair would be pretty popular. Don't date your customers Touga

Kyouichi Saionji: A cook. Saionji might be the most unstable character in the duels. He actually got kicked out of the duels and the school,saw the world outside...came back to Ohtori on his own. Met a girl he could have a happy and healthy relationship with. Decided that was wrong/to much for him, and left her to rejoin a system he knew just wanted to abuse and manipulate him. He is both the dumbest character show and the most aware: From the upside down castle, to the more dangerous parts of loving someone, to Touga's BS, to Akio... Saionji knows it is all fake but always clings to it... except for one breif episode where he took a break and did some pretty positive things for himself... In episode 27 "Nanami's egg" Saionji decides the moon and weather are "beautiful" tonight and that he will leave school grounds on his own and go camping. He also decided to cook (a traditionally feminine role... made all the more feminine by him dawning a frilly apron) his own food. He is out of school, he unconcerned with appearing all powerful and completely masculine. He is relaxed and smiling. Nanami came up to him and tried to instigate a fight, which Saionji responded to by remaing calm and trying to gently talk her down. You have this one moment where Saionji is being completely non-toxic and its peaceful. He is still far from perfect (At least one, and possibly all, of his eggs he found on the forest floor. Not very hygienic). But still, teach the man what a grocery store is and let him cook more meals (and wear more frilly aprons). Maybe he can camp more when he has time off

.... On that note I do ship TougaxSaionji in season 3, and post show. So if they go camping together they will need a pet-sitter for Touga's foster cats. Maybe Nanami can do it? That would be a nice way for her to make up for and show growth after killing Touga's kitten from their childhood.

Nanami Kiryuu: I just mentioned Nanami so I might as well do her next. This girl is gonna want to be a T.V. Reporter. Possibly a weather girl at first, but most likely her goal would be to be a event "gossip" reporter. She is one of the most difficult ones to for groups/people to impress. and many of her questions an comments are super random and outlandish and their is no way to be prepared for what she might say/do. Her viewers though it eat it all up and consider her to be the funniest personnel on T.V. Working as the shows Lead Producer Nanami's long time, platonic, childhood friend: Mitsuru Tsuwabuki. Yeah I don't really ship these two as anything more than good friends..Their show ages aside, I notice that their relationship mostly becomes unhealthy when one tries to make it romantic. But do show genuine care for each other in a platonic sense and are kind enough that you hope their friendship lasts. So yeah instead of them becoming husband and wife with 2.5 kids, make them partners in "crime" (a.k.a buisness) with Nanami being the face and Tsuwabuki being the brains, just as it was between them in the show (as opposed to Nanami's relationship with her cronies where it was flipped).

Miki Kaoru: A math teacher/professor. I very much do not want Miki to grow up to become a concert pianist. The piano is a beautiful instrument and playing it is a wonderful skill. Since teachers do not make that much, Miki can always have a secondary side job tutoring kids in playing it on the weekends. But do not let the piano continue to be the center of his life when it is also such a symbol of his own nativity, and how he has been manipulated into serving others. Both Touga and Akio use the Piano to get Miki to do what they want in the duels. But we also learn that his father used to exploit him and Kozue as publicity tools (which sadly broke them apart). Notice that "The Sunlight Garden" is such a famous piece that even Utena has heard of it, but no one has heard that Miki is the one who originally composed it. He got no credit. He also admits that he kept playign as he started to grow up mostly out of nostalgia for when he and Kozue were younger and had an easier time getting along. Miki's academic success has always felt "just his" in a way that the piano did not, and it has more to do with his present and future than his past. Math seems like it's his best subject, and he is able to be both an effective teacher and develop a positive relationship with Utena and Anthy, when he agree's to tutor them in it. (Up until Anthy has to go and start playing that piano song.) So in adulthood I hope Miki can, not necessarily give up the piano (forget his early childhood), but give his other talents (other stages of his life) some more focus. Math Teacher/Professor Miki, who maybe tutors in music on the side.

Juri Arisugawa: Own a bowling Ally. Juri's three main extra curricular in the anime are fencing, modeling, and bowling. Fencing is her main one. She is acting head of the fencing team. My reasons for not making "Champion Fencer" her career are similar to the ones I gave for not making "Concert Pianist" Miki's. It was an talent and hobby of Juri's that was exploited by both the games and others, and is surround by so much negativity. She took up her sword to prove that miracles do not exist, even though she wishes she believed in them. Also Miki was her only friendly relationship on that Team. All her other subordinates feared her, and she was terrified of Ruka, who was known to be stronger than her. I also rejected Modeling because then Juri would work for an agent and model products that a designer or company wants to make money selling. I definitely think Juri should be her own boss, just in a less hostile environment than Ohrito's fencing team. I like what she said about bowling in "Nanami's Egg": how she does it just because she "thinks it feels good". In what I think was episode 37 Juri states "I used to only think about myself... now I cannot stop think about myself". To me her statment implies that she wants to start thinking more about things that make her happy rather than sad. Juri has got to have some money saved from modeling gigs and Fencing tournaments. Let Juri use that as Seed money to open up a bowling ally, that she can make into a play where she and other can go, and play, and just feel good/happy doing so. Make that Juri's miracle to believe in.

Kozue Kaoru: A School Guidance Counselor. For her I am going the route of "be the person you needed growing up". Kozue is protective of people. You see that in her pushing down the teacher she thought was groping Miki.... except that the teacher was not groping Miki, he was trying to ease Miki's worries. He had his arm around Miki elbow, not his backside like Kozue thought; and Miki was laughing because of a joke not because he was being flirted with. (Has Kozue ever seen her brother try to flirt/react to flirting? Miki is a panicked shaking mess). Both Miki and Kozue were used in a way by adults when they kids, and then again in the duels as teens. Kozue seems to understand that they were used for others pleasures (social/status pleasures first, then other ways) in a way Miki did not. But, she also continuously seeks out relationships where she will still be used and craves, yet rejects, more emotional ones. Examples being how she is mentioned to have several boyfriends that she is physical with but does not have any kind of emotion to them. She yells that she does not need her parents, and then goes out with an adult man the night she learns her dad is getting married again. Lastly she refuses the homemade milkshake her brother makes her saying "I cannot have anything that sweet", does she mean the milkshake or the gesture? The PoBaW comment "We accept the love we think we deserve" really fits Kozue and how she allows other to love her. But she has moments of stepping away from this "I only deserve to be loved as a tool" mindset, Like when she let Miki take care of her at home after "fainting from anemia" or the couple times she goofs off at the piano; when it is just her and trusted friends, who do not care if she is plays the key sloppy. She is making baby steps towards a healthier mindset on relationships in the show. If she can build on that, post Akio and Anthy, then maybe, like Utena, she could use what she went through to keep protecting the "Inocent children" she relates her past too.

Also Maybe she and Miki could work in the same school (NOT Ohtori, but a good school) ,and that way they could still have time together, while also doing their own thing.

Shiori Takatsuki: Well the first thing I want her to be is as far away from Juri as possible. Sorry to people who ship them, but give me one healthy or not toxic moment between them? One moment after their early childhood where one makes the other happy? One moment were being around the other doesn't make them remember just how miserable and angry they are? Pretty much every relationship in the show has some kind of skill/wealth/power imbalance between them, and some kind of love and hate balance too. Utena and Anthy are the main ones, but all the secondary characters were meant to have relationships that mirror certain aspects of UtenaxAnthy. If Touga and Saionji (who at least have some moments of working through their issues together) are a parallel to Utena and Anthy, than I always saw Juri and Shori as a warning sign to them... that if you are not careful and do not work on things then hate, jealousy, and toxicity can destroy once loving relationships. So for these reasons I do not want her to be Juri's business partner, or even run a similar business as Juri's Bowling Ally. Shori would always see Juri's establishment as better, because she saw everything Juri did as better than her, and would never be able to enjoy her own work. Instead maybe she could find some enjoyment in a completely different field. One that maybe doesn't really suit Juri in the long run. Shori is just as pretty as Juri, a little more girly, very social, and she likes being part of a team and relying on others. I think she would be a good model period, not just in comparison to her old rivial.

Wakaba Shinohara: A Nurse. Do I really need to explain this one? Wakaba is like the most caring soul imaginable. She has wonderful optimism, great bedside manner, and is not afraid to call people out on not taking proper care of themselves. Plus I could see her having romantic fantasy's about some rich and successful man coming to stay at the hospital while he was sick, and falling in love with her due to the excellent care she took of him. Let her have her day dreams. The girl would be a fantastic nurse either way.

Keiko Sonoda: It is late and I so not want to pretend Keiko was that deep or complex of of a character. She was a lackey to the queen bee. She hated being a lackey but liked being a bully, because she kept doing that even after Nanami lost her crown. Underneath all that she falls really hard for her crushes, and likes to dress up... So either she can be a housewife to a (hopefully) nice man, or maybe she can go into clothing design.

Tatsuya Kazami: A therapist/Life Coach. The Blackrose tried to manipulate his unresolved feelings for another into making him duel. Something they have sucessfully done to more than 100 others before. But despite Tatsuya's pain over learing his crush loved someone else, and Mikage (a.k.a Akio and Anthy) doing everything that has worked numerous times before, Tatsuya is able to calm himself down. He changes his persepctive and decides "You know what? I don't need to be this upset. My crush liking someone else right now isn't the worst thing in the world. They probably will not date forever. I care about her enough to stay friends and wait for her to decide to give me a chance." Tatsuya did not need a sword. He beat Mikage, depression, despair, and anger all down, with just a few minutes and a handful of sentences.

Mamiya, Mikage, Kanae, and Ruka:.... Well they all die, so they will not grow up to be anything. Very tragic. I suppose not everyone was going to be able to leave that school alive.

[paxesoterica]

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury reminded me that I actually do enjoy watching anime, and since I have a bit of a backlog of ones I’ve either watched a few episodes or haven’t started at all, I was inspired by this post to make a scorecard of anime that I intend to watch over the course of this year.

My self-imposed rules are I will not start any other anime before I have finished these 16 (with the exception of Witch from Mercury, see below), I will be watching them with Japanese voice acting and subs, and that, gvien my experience with watching Witch from Mercury on a weekly basis, I won’t try to binge and instead watch an episode or two each day, since that will fit better into how busy life can get, and also give me more time to really think about what I just watched before moving on.

The shows above are listed in chronological order of release (1979-2023), but not the order I’ll necessarily watch them in (I like having the freedom to pick and choose), with additional notes below:

1.) Mobile Suit Gundam (1979; dir. Yoshiyuki Tomino): A more experienced Gundam fan who is also fond of Revolutionary Girl Utena recommended this and War in the Pocket (see below) if I was curious about other Gundam shows. Since I’ve been meaning to watch some older anime for awhile anyway, this seemed like a good series to start with, especially with its historical importance to the medium. I have previewed the first episode and I think it holds up well so far. I will only be watching the 43 episodes of the original anime at this time, so not the movie compilations or the sequel series like Zeta or ZZ (yet).

2.) Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989; dir. Fumihiko Takayama): I mentioned that I would permit myself freedom to choose the watch order, but since War in the Pocket is a side-story set around the same period as Mobile Suit Gundam, I feel it would be better to watch the former after the latter, so that I’ll have a better understanding of the setting.

3.) Goldfish Warning! (1991; dir. Junichi Sato): Goldfish Warning! has an interesting history, in that it’s something of a predecessor to Sailor Moon: the latter would reprise the former’s timeslot, much of its staff (including the director and his assistants, among which was a young Kunihiko Ikuhara), and a similar style of slapstick comdey. As a bonus, I’m 99% certain that one of the leads, Chitose Fujinomiya, would serve as inspiration for the Revolutionary Girl Utena character, Nanami Kiryuu. I will be watching both the 45 episode anime series and its accompanying film.

4.) Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995; dir. Hideaki Anno): The thing that piqued my interest in this show was a short review that I read years ago (don’t remember when or where), and that may have been translated from Japanese iirc. The review talked about how gender roles in Eva were inverted compared to mecha shows that came before it, such as how Shinji acted more like stereotypical female characters from such shows, while Asuka acted like what you’d expect from stereotypical male characters. I don’t know how true that observation is, but it stuck with me, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for that. I will be watching the original 26 episodes as well as the End of Evangelion film. I’m debating if I also want to include the Rebuild of Evangelion films, but I’m currently leaning towards watching those sometime later.

5.) FLCL (2000; dir. Kazuya Tsurumaki): I watched the first four episodes at a con, but never finished, so I’ll be doing a rewatch from the first episode. I’ll be watching the original OVA series, but leave the sequel seasons for another time.

*6.) Princess Tutu (2002; dir. Junichi Sato & Shogo Koumoto): I needed to watch this anime after watching an amv of it titled Dance of Death (it’s got spoilers, including for what I’m assuming are the last episodes, but if you don’t mind that or have already seen it, I highly recommend giving it a gander). I watched ‘til around episode 16~ until real life interrupted, so I’m starting over and watching it from the beginning. This is the first of the three shows I’m currently watching, and up next is Ep. 02.

7.) Michiko & Hatchin (2008; dir. Sayo Yamamoto): Multiple reviewers I trust said it was good, the setting and premise sound pretty different from anime norms, and I’m intrigued by the bit of trivia that apparently the director made it explicitly for office ladies to enjoy after coming home from their shift.

8.) Star Driver (2010; dir. Takuya Igarashi): Pretty sure I learned about Star Driver from this chart tracing the work of some of the members of Be-Papas (not *everything* anime-related comes back to Revolutionary Girl Utena, but a lot of it does, yeah  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). I’ll be watching the series, but I’m not sure about the movie since apparently it’s a compilation film, so I’ll have to think about it.

9..) Penguindrum (2011; dir. Kunihiko Ikuhara & Shouko Nakamura): I’ve heard mixed opinions on this one, but it’s an Ikuhara-directed anime so I want to watch regardless, and form my own opinions about it. I’ll watch the 24 episodes, but I’m not sure about the Re:cycle films that came out recently.

10.) Mob Psycho 100 (2016; dir. Yuzuru Tachikawa, Takahiro Hasui): Someone made a vhs recording of the show’s first OP that ran on loop, and that was apparently enough to lodge itself in my brain. I watched the first season and a couple episodes of the second, until real life interrupted, so I’ll start fresh and watch all three seasons, plus the two OVAs that were apparently made.

11.) Sarazanmai (2019; dir. Nobuyuki Takeuchi & Kunihiko Ikuhara): Another Ikuhara-directed anime. I was halfway through before real life interruptions, but watching 11 episodes should be relatively easy.

12.) Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (2020; dir. Mitsue Yamazaki): In retrospect, I slept on this show, as I hadn’t realized it was another comedy by the director of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, not to mention that the premise is a nice subversion of a classic fantasy trope.

13.) Shadows House (2021; dir. Kazuki Ouhashi): I dug the gothic fantasy vibe I got from the review I read. I will be watching both seasons.

*14.) Bocchi the Rock! (2022; dir. Keiichirou Saitou): Repeatedly saw the protagonist compared to Suletta Mercury due to social anxiety, and am staying for the show’s willingness to experiment with animation. This is the second of the three shows I’m currently watching, and up next is Ep. 05.

*15.) Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2022; dir. Hiroshi Kobayashi & Ryou Andou): The whole reason I started watching this show was this post. And now I have brainrot am perfectly normal about this show. Starting with Ep. 02, I watched this show every Sunday it was out, and intend to resume doing so in April. It is possible that I might not be able to finish this show in 2023, since previous Gundam shows have run about ~50-ish episodes, and this show’s predecessor, Iron-Blooded Orphans, was initially slated to run only 25 episodes, only to reveal that the show length had been doubled in what would have been the last episode. So, I’ll finish Witch from Mercury in either 2023 or 2024.

*16.) The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady (2023; dir. Shingo Tamaki): Another lead compared to Suletta, this time due to rescuing a bride from her jerk fiance and being really gay. This is the third of the three shows I’m currently watching, and up next is Ep. 04.