#THIS IS WHAT WATCHING RGU DOES TO A WOMAN

[hydrajones]

I am in the middle of third Revolutionary Girl Utena watch. My mom (foolishly) agreed to watch it with me, and is having a lot of really cool insights/theories/reactions that I might post about later. But that's not the point rn-

Because as RGU girlies know, each time you watch this high concept doctoral thesis disguised as an artsy anime disguised as a cute lesbian anime, you have DEEP THOUGHTS (tm) about random shots.

TLDR: I am having losing my mind over the goddamm curry episode and I both love and hate it

I have been sitting here for 30+ mins thinking about what the deeper symbolism of the fricking elephant gag in the body swap curry episode becuase I made ONE (1) offhand comment to my mom of "lol maybe that means something about "the elephant in the room" becuase of the Saonji side plot or something". AND I COULD BE RIGHT ABOUT THAT-

Like, Saonji is clearly a ticking time bomb rn that went completely unaddressed and exploded in the next ep but IT GOES DEEPER.

Because the Saionji situation is being influenced by Touga, so it could be about him too (especially with his connections to Nanami). BUT! That's being influenced by Akio- who to be fair, we don't know about yet, but the make it clear that "The End of the World" is doing SOMETHING behind the scenes, so that could work too

And then you have Anthy Himemiya my beloved, who is ACTIVELY helping with both these manipulations, and LYING to Utena constantly. And this episode actually has one of the best examples of this! We find out she's been sort-of secretly meeting with Saionji and writting in his exchange diary. Which she justifies as being okay becuase Utena never told her NOT to write him. Which only happened becuase Utena isn't a possessive asshat who snooped on Anthy to find out she'd been doing that in the first place. So really, ANTHY is the biggest elephant in the room. Especially with episode 12 quickly approaching.

But like, that might not be the only elephant symbolism interpretation. My brain has been slowly weaving yet ABOTHER exhaustive analysis of a NANAMI FILLER EPISODE. Using elephants as symbols of wisdom and/or memory and just-

Someone, send help. Please. My brain is full of nothing but metaphor heavy visuals and iconic leabiams and I will fail my classes-

[daisyachain]

there’s one version of an f/m/m triangle that crops up so often I’m surprised there isn’t at least a tvtropes/vernacular name for it. Miyokichi/Kiku/Shin. Molly/Fitz/Fool. Asuka/Shinji/Kaworu. Futaba/Taichi/Touma. not-really-but-you-could-shove-it-in-here Luthien/Beren/Finrod. Utena/Touga/Saionji is a twisted spun-on-its-head version of it. Specifically comprising:

masculine male character A: either is the protagonist or a character on to which male viewers can project.

female character B: a secondary character and A’s official love interest, often kept apart from A by story/circumstance/gender roles. Shows some resentment of the trials she’s put through by the story in being A’s lover such as being shoved to the side, cut out of his life, or put in danger.

less masculine male character C: another major character, A’s devoted sidekick, feminine and/or conspicuously cold toward women or sexuality, somewhat ill-used by A but not resentful about it, as a contrast to B.

The dynamic is used pretty equally by female and male creators, though probably with different purposes. Outside the story, there’s a clear explanation for how the roles are divided: men are main, women are peripheral. Obviously the female love interest has to be on the margins of the story. Obviously the male main character has to have an ally in-story who can bounce dialogue back. Any human person has to have a best friend (for men, has to be male) and a lover (for men, has to be female). The major character male bestie and the minor character female gf is the minimum character dynamic you need to sustain the main character as a believable construction.

Except within the story, the dynamic begs far too many questions. On B’s part: her other half and love interest uses her for sex once every few chapters and dumps her to go off on another plot-relevant adventure. She’s kept in the dark, talked down to, pushed away, and distrusted. Her place at her sweetie’s side is occupied by Some Dude and no matter how much she puts into their relationship, she’s always going to be a prize for after the mission. Why does she stay with him? What could possibly attract her about this bestubbled grunt machine whose passion for the sword outmatches anything she’s given him?

On C’s part: he gets used as an emotional support crutch, designed to service his best friend’s every need at the expense of his own goals or story. He’s a housewife, he’s a domestic, he does every thankless story task with a smile because he has to provide the exposition/set up the plot/set the plan in action that carries the main male character to victory. He doesn’t have a love interest of his own, meanwhile the most important person in his life is obsessed with a woman he barely speaks to. Why should he care so much about someone who only takes? Why is he committed to this one-way friendship? What does he think of taking the backseat, providing support, submerging his own will for the sake of a person instead of an ideology?

On A’s part: if he’s a red-blooded heterosexual male character who pursues a woman as is acceptable, why does he dig himself so deep in with his designated ally? Through dialogue and because he has to in order to show the audience, he exposes his heart and soul to C and keeps him in his pocket for as long as we are watching, so why then does he cast him aside so easily? He invests the most time and energy into his relationship with C, cultivating love and loyalty there, but he draws the line so firmly in the sand that the audience is sure he’ll never, ever step aside for one minute to follow the friend. Why does he choose a man for his emotional battery? Why doesn’t he communicate with his supposed partner? Why does he choose to use B and C for sex and solace respectively, and why don’t they ever mix?

The gender dynamics wrap around to simple: women aren’t up to being equal partners to a cool guy, so you need a male wife to do everything for you and appreciate the protagonist’s sick abilities. romance with a man is perverse and impossible, so you need a female love interest to prove that the protagonist isn’t gay and fulfil the audience’s needs. But in-between all of that you could ask some interesting questions of the spoke character, A, the male protagonist whose actions are taken as normal. the question being: bro. what’s wrong with you

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 01

Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story, and it's not an April Fool's prank! The Neon Genesis Evangelion liveblog begins here!

Man, it feels surreal to actually be doing this. This is one of those bucket-list anime series that I thought I should watch just to understand all the pop culture references. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure was one, Revolutionary Girl Utena was another, but those were a lot easier to track down. Hell, RGU was free on YouTube when I watched it. But Eva was a little tougher to get ahold of. There weren't a lot home video releases, and streaming services weren't carrying it. I think that's changed in the last few years, but I'd heard the Netflix version had some changes to the subtitles, and besides, I was busy with other things.

So a few years back I just said "fuck it" and paid too much money for the old ADV DVDs. I think it's out on Blu-Ray now, but I can't take screenshots from Blu-Rays so this is the play. But that's all prologue. We're finally here, and I'm finally watching this thing, so it's time to see what this thing's all about.

Ah, so it's a historical drama, is it?

I could gush about the theme song, which I've enjoyed for years, even without watching this show, but nah, let's just move on to the show itself. You know the words, and if you don't, go look up "Cruel Angel's Thesis" and prepare to rock out.

There's a little backstory in this episode, but the important stuff is pretty self-evident. There's some giant monster thing that emerged from the water, and a big UN military force is desperate to destroy it before it attacks. Conventional weapons are completely ineffective, and a big chunk of Episode 01 is spent on watching this thing shrug off missiles and shells as it strolls towards... someplace. I'm assuming it's a city or a base.

It's fast, strong, and agile, as seen here when it catches a missile in one hand. The missile explodes in its face and has no effect.

While this is going on, a woman named Misato Katsugari is trying to pick up a kid named Shinji Ikari. The monster attack hits right before she finds him, and he almost gets killed when she pulls up in her car. On their way to the base, she sees that the U.N. is deploying a nuclear weapon? It looks like a nuke, but I missed that line, so maybe it was something else. Anyway, it doesn't work either, but it does blow over Misato's car.

When the dust settles, they push the car back on its wheels and continue. Misato calls for some sort of train to pick them up and take them the rest of the way, and it's like some kind of car-carrier train, I guess. Not important.

Since the nuke didn't work, the UN hands things off to the NERV agency, headed by Shinji's father, Gendo Ikari. Okay, so in brief, they call the monsters "angels", and if I remember right, they said there was an attack fifteen years ago, so this is an ongoing thing. NERV was established to combat these angels, but I guess the UN wanted to see if they could hack it on their own first.

Misato works for NERV, and she introduces Shinji to Ritsuko Akagi. They discuss Shinji as being the "Third Child", so it's becoming clear that Shinji didn't just come here to visit his dad.

I kind of glossed over all this technobabble, but I already know where this is going. There's big robots that can fight the angels, and they must need Shinji to pilot one of them, and he must be uniquely capable of doing so or they wouldn't have bothered sending for him.

The ladies give Shinji a NERV manual to read, but when they show him the robot, they tell him it's not in the manual. So why is there a manual at all? I mean, there's not much else to this operation besides the robots, right? Maybe that's why the manual looks so short.

I guess they were going to slowly introduce Shinji to the job, but the angel is attacking the base, so they kind of cut to the chase. NERV needs Shinji to pilot this specific robot, Evangelion Unit 01, to fight the angel. Shinji is obviously untrained, but his dad insists that he only has to sit in the pilot seat. Shinji still hates this idea, and his dad stone cold doesn't care. Shinji clearly doesn't trust his dad, and his dad stone cold doesn't care about that either.

Misato is the only one here who's even a little sympathetic to Shinji's predicament here, but even she pressures him to get in the robot, because they're all going to die if the angel gets any closer. She says something about how Shinji needs to "confront" his dad and himself, which Shinji seems to understand, like he's known for a while now that this day was coming. He still can't bring himself to go through with it though. So Gendo goes with Plan B.

Plan B is Rei Ayanami, a girl about Shinji's age who piloted another NERV robot, Unit 00. I guess she fought an angel recently, which is why she's so badly hurt in this episode. They have to wheel her in on a gurney. The NERV staff are somewhat incredulous about this, but as Gendo puts it "She's not dead", and if Shinji won't fight, this is all they have left. Despite her condition, Rei agrees to do it, although it's pretty clear to everyone that she's in no condition for this, if she ever was.

While Shinji is still processing the implications of sending Rei in his place, the base is rocked by the angel outside, and it's enough to knock over Rei's gurney and send some stuff crashing onto Shinji... until Unit 01 raises its hand to mimic his own instictive motions. Improbably, Shinji is so in tune with the robot that he can control it from the outside, without even being conscious of it. So this sheds some light on why Gendo wanted him to pilot the thing so badly.

So between this and the pathetic state Rei's in, Shinji agrees to pilot the robot and defend the base. There's a lengthy scene of him getting put inside the robot and sending the robot outside, but I'm not going to do into that.

Gendo's second-in-command asks him if he's sure about this, and he points out that if they don't defeat the angels, then they have no future. As cold and indifferent as he seems, he does have a point. If Rei and Shinji are the only ones who can pilot the robots, what choice do they have? But I'm pretty sure the rest of this series will show that it's not that simple...

And that's the episode. I'm a little surprised they're saving the actual fight for episode 2, but at this point it seems like a foregone conclusion. If Shinji can't win, they all die, and I have a feeling the kaiju battles are kind of secondary to the rest anyway.

The way I understood it, this show started out like a fairly typical Sentai/Kaiju/Whatever-You-Call-It TV series. Kids in colorful suits, they hop in giant robots, which are the only thing that can stop the giant monsters, it's been done a million times. But as the series progresses, it turns into this introspective psychodrama or something. Also, it plays up how messed up it is to send teenagers into a war zone like this, but I think we just saw that happen already, so it looks like the social commentary hit the ground running.

I don't really have much more to say here since we're just getting started. There's not much point in trying to figure out Gendo, even though that's clearly the guy we're supposed to be wondering about. Better to wait for more information and go from there. So I'll see you next time.

[blueiight]

re: choose violence meme Utena answer, I don't want to drag you into the wretched discourse lol, so no pressure to answer, but... okay so I haven't watched IWTV but from what little I see. you seem SO TAPPED IN to what's going on w interplay of the book VS the tv show's handling of race, gender, etc. so I am wondering... penny for your thoughts on Ikuhara's handling / not handling of race (and / or sexuality)... and / or the fandom's takes... orz

oh yeah im down& i appreciate the compliment!<3 im hesitant to over-speak, but i know ikuni & saito have explicitly said anthy is based off lalah sune from mobile suit gundam.. lalah is from bombay (mumbai) & was trafficked into the flannigan institute (2d space military experimentation) as a means to experiment n find the answer on newtypes, which r basically an esoteric arbitrarily defined concept from gundam to gundam thats exploited in the space age military apparatus. lalah sune in the uc gundam series is used as a plot device: its one of char’s greatest mistake/s in his culpability in lalah’s situation, therefore once again violating his father zeon’s revolutionary precepts on what the newtypes were for, and one of amuro’s greatest mistake/s in that he made a brief but rather profound bond w/ such a ~kindred spirit~ n ended up being the one who killed her. she ends up haunting both of them in char’s counterratack & while i thought that was enjoyable to watch.. its laughably easy to read lalah as a pretext for amuro + char’s later fixation on eachother (& tomino even encourages it). ultimately, lalah’s own characterization, much less any story arc on how she was the means to introduce newtypes in the gundam series is tertiary to what she represented to amuro and char. now why am i talking about lalah here? bc ikuni+ saito r explicitly inspired by her in making anthy n ima try to say my piece in how ikuni, and the rgu narrative in both animanga treat anthy (& akio, as a result of being her brother)’s racialization. a lot of shoujo animanga period always has the trope of the character or two at the most who r noticeably darker than the pale-skinned cast, yet theyre never really clearly defined as who or what they are much less is this used to supplement their characterization. with rgu, as u have discussed before, ikuni nem use eternity as a motif. like what does it mean to be eternal? n all. u have anthy and akio, these two darker skinned (indian) characters like lalah, being seen as the vanguard , the introduction to and the disseminator of this esoteric concept that ever eludes the rest of the cast. u have these indian characters who play into these new-age stereotypes , namely how the new age has coopted a lot of the indian faiths & refuse to see yalls cultures as something that actually evolves, but is stagnant + ‘eternal’. the modern world is outside, ohtori headed by akio is the cycle of life repeating over& over n over again. when it comes to the vitriolic protracted abuse + projection anthy faces thru the series, its implicit that this is bc shes a darker skinned girl in a sea of lighter skinned people & abused by her older brother. i cant say if it was ikuni nems intention in doing this but the canon is ample for this argument n how i read this idea of being the rose bride , the ultimate target for humanity’s hate to be a commentary in part on what it means to be a girl/woman of color. dios having the burden to save all of humanity is the archetypical prince, and the expectation on boys of color to prematurely ‘rise up’ n ‘be the man’ so & anthy pulling her brother away from this burden made her a target to all of Humanity, metaphorically for refusing to play the martyr. n ive faced shit in the past for articulating such& bc im a bw, ppl have seemed to misinterpret me saying this as saying ‘anthy is black’ LOL. the fandom is woefully reluctant to tackle this, bc there is no immediate white (european) involved. they want to say utena tenjou n em are ‘white’ bc theyre so eurocentric that this is the only way they can think. when these are japanese creators , creating characters n r relying on stereotypes of indian spirituality + people to define them in relation to the japanese characters. like its a reason they made anthy , the rose bride, the witch, based off lalah sune & not like. utena or shiori yk? the question of sexuality tied to this is rly weighted too, esp bc anthy (+ akio?) sport the marriage colored bindi, but i feel like that was the most intentional they went there

[strawberryjamsara]

Hello. Sorry for just coming into your ask box and I don’t mean to start drama although I’m aware it could be interpreted as that so feel free to ignore if this feels too insinuatory, but awhile ago I saw this person that said, revue starlight is everything revolutionary girl utena wants to be and I have just been haunted by it ever since because I have no idea what that could mean and you’re the smartest person on here who’s into both so I wanted to ask if you had any clue what it could mean. Again feel free to ignore this, I don’t want to bring drama to your page or anything, I just wanted to hear another person’s point of view on it

Huh…… I don’t really like drama, but as someone who likes both shows, I can see a few reasons someone might like one more than the other

For one, Revue Starlights higher budget and modern animation makes the battles pop a lot more. When I first watched it I could see the inspiration from Utena in the duels but they were far more exciting and beautiful to watch, that I was waiting with bated breath for each one.

Speaking of battles the songs they sang in each one were excellent. I never jived with the ‘Utena is a musical’ comments I heard because the characters were never singing the duel songs, but a chorus, and the same chorus each time, but here, I can confidently say Revstar is a musical.

But a very likely reason is that Revue Starlight is much more palatable for a lot of people, since RGU deals with a lot of really heavy subject matter and revstar is a lot easier to take and doesn’t require a massive trigger list. That isn’t a condemnation of either show, but I can see how Revstar would be more outwardly appealing, especially since a lot of Utenas reputation nowadays is ‘soft sword lesbians’ which is NOT the case (and it leads to some… interesting takes when people watch the show and realize it is not that) and Revstar does have a lot more of a comfy vibe. Everyone in that show is friends with each other and the duels are treated as friendly competition (for the most part) while everyone in Utena has some sort of beef. I would not call revstar a simple show, far from it, but it has a far more welcoming atmosphere that people turned off by Utenas harsh vibes may be happier with. Utena is very much about the experience of being a woman and it shows every kind of gendered violence, and yeah, some people are not going to like that. Is it hashtag problematic? I mean nothing is free of problems, and honestly for an anime in the 90s it handles its subject matter better than some things today handle those things. But it’s inevitably gonna face backlash.

[sneakydraws]

Okay, I’d like to go through this point by point because there’s a lot going on.

“You’re leaving out Akio and his intentions” - If this is about the original essay then, well. To be blunt, I left Akio out of it because it is not about him at all. If I had had the freedom to write however much I wanted, maybe I would have included him in my discussion about Anthy’s characterisation more, but with the strict word limit - which I’ve mentioned repeatedly - I had to stick to the topic on hand very narrowly.

If this is not about the essay, but rather about my reply to your initial comment, then yeah, I didn’t mention Akio’s agenda because, again, that just wasn’t the topic of discussion. You specifically took issue with my idea that Anthy took some amount of pleasure in making herself seem antagonistic to Utena, so I explained why I thought that was the case. If the topic at hand was the ways in which her relationship with Akio influences Anthy’s behaviour, I would have talked about that.

“Personally, it kind of stings to hear people act like Anthy is just ~loving~ showing off how she’s sexually involved with her brother. I personally see Anthy’s witch status as very related to the stigma and trauma of incest, but that entire angle goes unmentioned in your analysis, where witch just means “evil sexy manipulative woman.””

The angle of witch as tied to incest goes unmentioned in my analysis because I have not read enough sources that connect the two together to be able to confidently say there’s a connection. Of course, in RGU incest is a major theme and it influences Anthy’s “witch” status, and in the “I’m your little sister; you could not make me a princess” stage play the two are tied together, but in my essay I talked more about the preconceived notion of “witch” that the audience would bring with them to the show and then connect to Anthy, and less about the notion of “witch” created by the show itself. If the essay was more generally about the roles of Princess and Witch as portrayed in RGU, then I probably would have contrasted the Witch in RGU - where it is explicitly related to incest - with the Witch as seen in (pop)culture more widely. Again, this is a case where I don’t mention something not because I don’t think it exists, but simply because I did not talk about every single angle the topic could be discussed from. 

“I think Anthy’s possessiveness over Akio is massively overstated and the idea that she’s “showing off” her relationship with him to Utena makes me sick to my stomach.   when I was first watching the show, I definitely thought they were meaning to paint Anthy as possessive over him, but if you pay attention, who actually acts out possessively over their sibling? isn’t it Akio? that’s not to say that Anthy doesn’t have any possessiveness (I have an essay I’ve been working on about that), but I think that even the framing of Anthy as the ultra possessive one is another example of scapegoating--she takes the blame for all the faults of the prince.”

Maybe you’re talking about a general attitude you’ve seen in the fandom, but given that it’s a reply to my analysis specifically, I really don’t appreciate how you seem to be putting words in my mouth. “The framing of Anthy as the ultra possessive one”? When I bring up Anthy’s possessiveness, I immediately downplay it, specifically because I did not want anyone to think I was overemphasising that part of her. You yourself imply that you think Anthy has “some possessiveness”, so I don’t understand why you take my very restrained mention of it as “massively overstating” the case. 

I also resent the wording of “the ultra possessive one”, as if my mentioning her possessiveness carries with it the implication that Akio’s less guilty in this regard. Again, just because I didn’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t think it exists.

“As Anthy stares across at Utena, she is in pain. she’s telling her, here I am, I’m a witch, this is the real me--but I don’t see it as Anthy “reveling in portraying herself as a villain.” Anthy according to Enokido and Ikuhara is a “symbol of reality.” so she is showing Utena the reality of Akio, Akio’s relationship to herself, and Akio’s relationship to Utena.”

Yes, Anthy reveals to Utena the reality of her relationship with Akio, with all that implies. There is nothing actually evil about being sexually abused by one’s brother, but within the confines of the unfair princess/witch or madonna/whore dichotomy, it does bring her into the villainous witch/whore role. You know, because those roles are unfair, and condemn actions that aren’t actually wrong. I thought that was a given before, but maybe I should state it clearly.

Also, when I talked about Anthy “almost reveling” in portraying herself as the villain, I wasn’t actually referring to the reveal in ep36 itself, but rather to her behaviour afterwards (the next ep preview, breakfast, post-date scene, etc)

“What about Utena’s role in all of this? in that preview clip where Anthy says she’s always hated Utena, Utena says “I just can’t forgive what you’ve done.” well, is that what happens in episode 37?” 

I don’t really see your point here? Yes, Utena’s words were untrue? 

“Is Utena painting herself as a villain by saying she can’t forgive Anthy?”

No, in fact I think she’s painting herself as the victim. I guess this is a matter of subtle differences in interpretation, but I see the phrases “I can’t forgive what you’ve done” and “I’ve always hated you” as carrying very different emotional implications. The first is technically a neutral statement of one’s feelings, but the tone is accusatory, and I hear in it an implied “what you’ve done to me”. The latter would come across as antagonistic even on its own, but with the added context I do perceive it as Anthy painting herself as the villain. The fact that she’s acted friendly towards Utena until this point comes together with this statement to imply that she’s been lying to Utena, which has obvious connotation to the literary/cultural role of “villain”.

Again, it sounds to me like you misinterpret my words. I don’t think Anthy is “THE villain” in her relationship with Akio, and I don’t think I ever implied that. In fact, neither the original essay nor my initial response were actually about her relationship with Akio, and they didn’t aim to comment on who was the more possessive one, or the abusive one, or the villainous one. If they were about Anthy’s relationship to anyone, it was to Utena. Though really, that wasn’t the main topic either - the topic was the ways Anthy is characterised to the viewer through referencing fictional tropes/archetypes, and the ways in which she behaves towards Utena were part of that because Utena is the audience surrogate for a good chunk of the show. 

You say that you feel as if my reply “flattens” and “waters down” the complexities of Utena and Anthy’s relationship, but it was not meant as an exploration of every single aspect of that relationship, just a very narrow and specific part of it.

Lastly, I hope this post wasn’t actually about me - since, like I said, I never characterised Anthy as “dominant and somehow the abuser” in her and Akio’s relationship. I didn’t write anything like that in either my essay from last year or my response to the first comment. Maybe the post is just about a general experience with the western fandom, the timing of it just makes me a bit suspicious.

[imthemuthafuckingcricket]

I was tagged by the lovely @somewheremeantforme

10 Favorite female characters

What? Only 10? Alrighty then…Potential spoilers and rambles. Here we go.

1.Angrboða [Poetic Edda/Norse Mythos]- I don’t know if she counts as a character, but considering she is not a real person that is alive and breathing I’ll add her to the list. I have always found her fascinating and her lack of media presence just fuels me to do more research and gdi I should just write/draw her more, but I can never get her right. And dammit Angrboda deserves, nay demands perfection.  Anyways I feel as though Angrboða doesn’t get enough respect. Grief bringer? Mother of Monsters/Wolves? Hag of Ironwood? Chief?? Yea she’s badass and is worth more than her relationship to Loki(e)…I could go on…

2.Integra Hellsing [Hellsing] - I don’t know man she’s just cool. I wish I could be that cool.  

3.Princess Carolyn [Bojack Horseman]- Oh where to begin, this is one of the best female characters I have seen written. PC is at her core the stereotypical “I don’t need a man, I don’t need anybody all I need is my career. Oh no I’m almost 40yrs old and I’m lonely” character, but still the show gives her so much more beyond that. She is working hard to adopt, she genuinely cares about her friends/loved ones and will do anything to help them, when Diane wanted an abortion she was upset that Diane was willingly giving up what she could never have but still at the end of the day didn’t vilify Diane and talked to her (this whole episode btw was amazing and dealt rly well with abortion) I also enjoy Diane as a character and her flaws, most of the female characters are written really well, I’m getting sidetracked here but yea watch Bojack Horseman. Anyways, PC is a strong person (cat?), but we get to see her at her most vulnerable “It's…just…really hard to need people” and her struggles. PC can be pushy and one-sighted and yes her helping people is not completely selfless and in some way it benefits her. Besides wanting children, I never thought I would related to a pink cat wearing a fish dress so hard.

4.Lady Eboshi [Princess Mononoke]- In many ways she is the villain and the main antagonist (I say this bc there are multiple villains) of the movie but I find her interesting in that she is not wholly evil.  Though she is horrible to the environment and the animals/spirits living there she is a fair leader, who has helped the unwanted and worthless of society and gave them work and a home. Her people genuinely love and care for her. Which is another reason I love this movie because it hints at “Humanitarian vs. Environment” Lady Eboshi being the personification of this argument, also Lady Eboshi highlights how one person can do excellent work/relief in one area and be a completely shitty person in another area. Does her bad deeds cancel out all the good she has done? This is a favorite argument of mine, just in a general sense.

5. Evelyn O'Connell [The Mummy]- Come on I made a post specifically about how I wanted to be like Evie when I got older. Super brave and intelligent woman that could read Egyptian( I think she knew multiple other languages as well) studied/worked in Egypt,  got to go on a magical adventure in EGYPT. When I was a kid I was majorly into Ancient Egypt (I haven’t quite outgrown that). I also had a big thing for Lara Croft too and I think that goes hand-in-hand with Evie. But most importantly… “ I AM A LIBRARIAN!”

6. Haruka Tenou [Sailormoon]-  Baby gay [me] was gay way longer than she anticipated. Also...A E S T H E TI C

7. Medea [The Medea]- Countless essays have been written about Medea that would go way deeper into her complexity as a character than what I can do right now. Yea, she’s an interesting character that is by all means not a hero, but it also a victim herself. And one of the few stories from the classics that revolves around a woman, that isn’t two-dimensional.

8.Leslie Knope [Parks&Rec]- I’m going to say it, Leslie knope is the reason that P&R is far superior to the Office even though the writing team is practically the same and the humor at its base is also the same. Leslie Knope is not Michael Scott, Michael is pretty bad (tbf I haven’t finished the series, so we’ll see), But despite Leslie’s many flaws she’s still endearing, hardworking w/ high goals, loves her friends/job and her community. Again, I’m not saying she is perfect because she has such high standards/expectations that she expects everyone to meet her at these impossible heights, often ignores her friends’ advice/complaints even if it’s all with good intentions, can be mean and so forth. Ill admit it, she makes me want to work harder and the character Ron Swanson was great at balancing her out.

9. Rosa Diaz [B99]- Rosa is a cool character with a cooler jacket and I enjoy watching her, I don’t have a deeper reason than that.

10. Anthy Himemiya [Revolutionary Girl Utena]- Anthy is a character that has more questions than answers within the context of her own story. She has done many horrible things and should be held accountable, however, Anthy has been the victim of abuse for years and as a character we must take that in consideration. But where do we draw the line for guilt/personal responsibility? How much physical/emotional abuse can really mess a person up and drive them to these terrible acts? Also, I thought she had the most character growth in the series, which made the ending all the more powerful because of what she went through and the choices she had to make to get there. However, I would literally die for all the women in RGU so…

Bonus: Xena the Warrior Princess, Medusa

Mutuals/followers please feel free to do this and tag me in your post!

[retro-friki]

Utena manga recap: To Plant (part I)

In this episode, Utena gets a new outfit. This is the best part of the whole thing, really.

For lots of fans of the “Revolutionary Girl Utena” anime, Juri Arisugawa is one of the most beloved characters of the series. She is in fact a formidable rival for the protagonist and possesses a complex psychology and backstory that has made many people feel identified with her. However, if you have only read the manga you wouldn’t believe anything that I just wrote, since manga!Juri is a completely different character. I’ve known about anime fans that refuse to read the manga because they’ve learned that one of Juri’s most prominent traits was changed, I’m sorry to inform you that this is in fact, correct. But this isn’t the only change, if you’re interested to find out, then keep reading this story I want to call:  

To Plant Part I or Unappealing Juri

Last time on the RGU manga, we finally got some plot, we were introduced to the main characters, our hero attained the Super Saiyan Pink transformation and consequently got engaged with Anthy Himemiya, then some boring stuff happened and now Utena’s about to get sliced by a rather unstable Saionji. That escalated quickly as it’s the custom in Ohtori… (seriously, no one there has any chill).

So Utena gets damseled for the second time now only to be saved by valiant prince Touga who seems to be more concerned for the goshdarned dress than for Utena herself.

God forbid anything happens to the dress that HE chose for her! That would be a tragedy!

Why are we supposed to care about this guy, again?

Touga gets hospitalized and it will take him 3 months to recover from his injury, meanwhile, Saionji, who smuggled a weapon and hurt a fellow student  with said weapon on an attempt to kill a defenseless eight-grader…only gets a two-week suspension. Makes me wonder what do you have to do to get expelled from that hellhole of a school…

With the main guys from the Student Council out of the scene, it’s time to focus on the other two members of the Student Council that we know nothing about: we’re talking about Juri Arisugawa and Miki Kaoru, of course! All this volume will be about them and then they’ll go back to obscurity, but for know we’ll let them enjoy their time in the limelight.

As we see, both Miki and Juri are talented members of the fencing team, Juri is particularly skilled and, unfortunately for our protagonist, she doesn’t seem to like Utena very much. After Touga gets injured, Juri doesn’t do anything but antagonize Utena, she slaps her (take a drink), trows away the bouquet that Utena bought for Touga, stabs Utena’s baseball…

Yes, seriously…

And generally acts as a petty girls from elementary school.

Utena being at Juri’s level of maturity doesn’t know how to react, meanwhile, Anthy couldn’t care less.

Utena is confused because she can’t imagine why Juri being a woman, would want to duel her to claim Anthy (seriously, Utena? You don’t have any idea?) Anthy says that there are always other reasons.

Now, if this manga had a better storytelling, then all of Utena’s rivals would have compelling reasons to antagonize her, that would turn them into stronger characters and we as readers would be conflicted because sometimes we would even be cheering for the rivals or at least we would feel bad for them. This isn’t exactly the case of this manga since Juri’s reasons for hating Utena are limited to mere jealousy. That’s right, Juri has been jealous of Utena ever since Saionji told her that Touga might be in love with our pink haired protagonist.

So yeah, in the manga, Juri Arisugawa is in love with Touga Kiryuu, of all people. I have so many questions. First, if manga!Juri knows that Touga is a playboy who sees all people as pawns and whose moves are always calculated towards getting what he wants, why is she still in love with him?! She knows that the chances of him changing are very unlikely, however, she’s filled with jealousy when she starts thinking that Utena might be That One Girl That Will Win The Bad Boy’s Heart. This isn’t reason enough for Juri to act the way she acts and we don’t get to go deeper on her feelings for Touga. Does she hopes that Touga will eventually figure out that she’s Not Like The Other Girls and will reciprocate her feelings? Or maybe she’s sure that he’s a terrible person but she feels irremediably attracted to him and that’s tearing her apart? And while we’re at it, how on Earth did she fell in love with him in the first place? Surely his playboy act didn’t work with her… so why is she so obsessed with him? We will never know because the story doesn’t really care about Juri.

Meanwhile Touga is taking as much advantage as he can of the situation. I believe that Touga didn’t plan to get injured while saving Utena, Saionji’s attack was unexpected and that forced Touga to do something that wouldn’t benefit him at all. As Saionji said, this kind of actions are unusual for him and he might be falling for Utena, however, he still has other ambitions and this means he will try to turn everything to his own advantage.

Touga makes his move and takes Utena to the dueling arena in the middle of the night. 

This is supposed to be romantic and I guess that it actually is because soon enough, Utena opens up to him and reveals everything about her prince.

Great job hero, know he knows your weakness.

Utena is surprised when Touga tells her the same words that she heard from her prince many years ago. This prompts Utena to start wondering if Touga might be her prince, because she’s not very bright, you know? However, when she’s about to ask him about it, she’s interrupted by Juri who is very jealous and very angry.

Juri challenges Utena to a duel and if Utena loses she’ll have to give up the Rose Bride but also, she won’t be able to talk to Touga ever again!!

Who cares?

Utena has grown fond of Anthy, and knows that she won’t be able to help her if she loses, so she’s determined to fight with all her might.

Just kidding, Utena’s main motivation for fighting this duel is that she wants to ask Touga if he’s really her prince. Such high priorities you have there, girl.

Predictably, Utena’s pure-hearted determination prompts her to get possessed by her prince and win the duel.

Juri faces an humiliating defeat and to add insult to injury Touga tells her coldly that it’s all her fault.

What did she sees in him? We will never know.

Miki confronts Touga for acting like such a jerk even when he knows that Juri is in love with him. However, Utena interrupts them because she just has to know if Touga is her prince, you guys!

Priorities, girl! Priorities!!

Sigh. And this is all for today. I have no idea why they changed Juri’s character in the manga, but it was a change for the worse. I don’t want to tell you the deal with anime!Juri because I’d prefer that you find out, I will only say that if you really want to meet Juri Arisugawa, you should watch the anime.

Notes:

*I’m using the scanlations to illustrate this recaps, but sometimes I put the dialogues from the Viz edition because they are better. If you’re going to read the manga, I recommend you to get the printed version, the scanlations are terribly translated.

*At the end of this month we’re getting a new manga by Chiho Saito in which Juri would be the protagonist, it seems that this Juri will be more like in the anime. We’ll see how this turns out.

[blueiight]

if you must know i was looking for an rgu post. so I've had rgu downloaded for over a year but didn't get round to watching it. then i saw you post a lot about it and some posts relating to iwtv so i decided I'm going to watch. I'm on episode 1 and was wondering what a rose bride is and I remembered you'd posted about that

oh thats lovely i love that for u. im happy ur starting! utena is an amazing work of television. the first 7 episodes & the show itself do rely on the viewer being familiar w / 90s shoujo tropes [& i love it] yet that can be something that can drive ppl away from it.. by ep10 on i feel like thats where u could be primed to the parallel thematic concepts to iwtv [& even to the wider chronicles] .. theres a watch guide somewhere for utena that also warns for the sexual violence entailed in the narrative& none of it is actually graphically shown on screen short of moments in s3 [i can say a scene in ep33 unsettles me, and im teflon don!] but i can understand if ppl have different boundaries/capacities in what they want to engage with in fiction .. i do hope u enjoy the show it really does mean a lot to me. ziska said it & i agree in that anthy’s situation as the rose bride is more genuine and is truly a terrifying level of disempowerment enforced on her as young woman[or immortal witch punished for ‘refusing’ to let the prince act, but still trapped in a physically immature form nonetheless] of color from her abusive brother + the duelists competing for what anthy represents rather than who she is even. the thematic beats persist nonetheless.. they both ask what do eternity mean to u+ all dat