#also if they were the ones who BUILT ohtori (which seems likely given their influence over it)

[emberwritesinsight]

I know we all kind of assume Anthy and Akio are Indian because of the brown skin and bindis (Google tells me that while it's less common, men do wear bindis sometimes), and I agree, but also. "Dios" is Spanish, "Anthy" is derived from a Greek word, "Himemiya" is Japanese (I would theorize that her name hasn't always been "Himemiya", though she does seem to have had the name "Anthy" as far back as we're allowed to see into her past), and Akio drives an American car and plays jazz (a style of music that developed in America) over the radio in said car. Also, despite bindis being a Hindu, Jain and Buddhist thing, all the religious shit the two of them have going on (the martyrdom, Akio drawing a comparison between himself and Satan, Ohtori looking like a fucked up Cathedral and Dios appearing to Utena in a church) is Pretty Christian.

I know all of this is probably just a product of the writers not having a concrete idea of where they wanted Akio and Anthy to be from other than "not here" but it implies a lot of travel, which does kind of fit with Dios' whole "trying to rescue Every Girl Ever" thing.

Where do their names come from, anyway? "Dios" sounds like it could have been a name given to him by the people he saved. We never hear hide nor hair of their parents, they're fully irrelevant even by the farthest flashback.

[iztarshi]

Season 1 Flashbacks

I really love the ways Utena uses animation in various memories and flashbacks. There’s both an overall style to them that ties them together and different visual elements used to show the different ways different people remember, from traumatically vivid memories to memories of an event you know happened but no longer remember the details of.

So, I wrote some thoughts on all the season 1 flashbacks, although I’ve probably said a lot of really obvious things.

Episode 1 — Utena’s flashback

It’s very theatrical, right from the start with a curtain going up. The flat shadows on the background make it even more so — it’s not just that the silhouettes replace barely remembered people, the entirety of the scenery is false.

The sudden flashes of accurate animation seem to indicate the few real events that she remembers enough to have built the fairy tale around, but it would be reasonable to assume she remembers they happened rather than actually remembering them in the visual detail we’re seeing. Mistaking Touga for her prince makes much more sense if she doesn’t actually remember he had dark skin and white hair.

The silhouettes, too, are a stylish way to show only barely remembered people, but I don’t think they necessarily mean the only thing anyone remembers is hair colour.

Also, I just like that Utena remembers a totally non-existent horse. Princes have horses, right?

Episode 5 — Miki’s flashback

Miki’s flashback starts out framed like old sepia pictures. It’s a warm look and a very nostalgic one.

The colours become colder and the outlines firmer once it’s the specific story of the concert and not just a nostalgic memory of any and every time they played the piano in the garden, but it’s still heavily stylised. Miki and Kozue both remain silhouetted, suggesting he doesn’t know who either of them were back then. The colours get colder and darker still once Miki is ill and then when Kozue won’t play the piano again. The whole thing is more detailed and real than Utena’s flashback, but still suggests an event that Miki remembers remembering perhaps more than he remembers exactly what happened.

Episode 5 — Kozue’s flashback

Kozue’s image of them makes them both silhouettes, too, casting doubt on whether her memory is accurate either. Her picture is the very nostalgic sepia tone we started off with in Miki’s, even though she’s saying she never enjoyed it and talking about the concert. Her black rose duel kind of gets back into this, that she wants to return to those days just as much as Miki.

There are red rose petals in the background of hers, too, which… I think red can often be associated with desire for something. Red things in Utena are often desirable — the Akio car, Anthy when she’s playing the Rose Bride role, and Touga himself is desired and plays on that a lot.

Episode 6 — Mitsuru’s flashback

You know, I wasn’t sure whether to include this. But it’s still a flashback, it’s an important formative experience for Mitsuru, and it has a bit in common with the episode nine flashback in which some other boys also can’t save a girl.

It’s told in semi-shadows. Not the silhouettes of imperfect memory, but something more like the shock of not being able to take in everything at once. The background is very bright, whited out, and only the bull, Nanami, Touga and Mitsuru are really remembered.

Touga’s age seems a little wrong here for how small Nanami is. Maybe it’s Mitsuru’s hero worship colouring things, but he did apparently just punch out a bull, so who knows.

There’s also a parallel between Mitsuru and Utena, here, in that they’re very devoted to becoming a “prince” or a “big brother” which has nothing to do, really, with becoming royalty or literal family. Mitsuru’s sneakier than Utena, though, willing to put Nanami in danger in order to save her and fulfil the role he’s set himself, making him more — hilariously — a parallel to Touga who will do exactly the same thing to Utena herself.

Episode 7 — Juri’s flashback

Juri remembers the people in detail, but the background is stylised and black and white and the poses are often staged. She remembers everyone involved, but the exact events are lost in the general thrust of the developing love triangle.

This is the first time a flashback comes with an associated photograph. One of the memories takes place during a class photo shoot — did Shiori really whisper that exactly then, or is Juri imposing it on a moment she has reason to be especially well able to recall?

As a side note it feels weird to see the student council in normal Ohtori uniforms, a reminder that they’ve been in Ohtori longer than they’ve been in the duelling game. Given that Ohtori has an attached elementary school and Miki, Kozue, Touga and Nanami appear to live locally enough for their actual houses to be within Akio’s sphere of influence, I wonder if they have any sense of how weird any of this is? Have their whole lives just been mildly surreal?

Episode 9 — Saionji’s flashback

This and Nanami’s flashback are the most intense, probably because Saionji and Nanami seem actively traumatised by these events. To the point both of them attempt to lash out and kill Utena while caught up in reliving them.

The first thing that’s interesting about this flashback is that Saionji is telling it to Utena, who remains completely unaware that she appears in it. The two of them have made such different stories out of the memory that they can’t reconcile them at all — Utena doesn’t even remember Touga and Saionji were there and he can’t recognise her as the girl they wanted to save.

Saionji’s first flashback image is a warmly sepia coloured picture in which he and Touga appear as silhouettes. Incongruously it makes him scowl and declare he won’t lose to Touga. Like Miki’s sunlit garden, it appears to be a nostalgic image of something they did a lot rather than a memory of a specific scene.

They start out as greyscale faceless silhouettes, with Saionji’s bandage standing out white, and then are suddenly lit into colour when Touga sees the funeral and stops. It’s a neat effect, as they go from a general memory of something they’d done dozens of times, the hurt hand the only unusual thing about it, into the vividness of a specific and traumatic memory.

It’s only himself and Touga that Saionji remembers clearly, though. The adults in the memory remain silhouettes and Utena herself is one, recognisable by her pink hair.

It’s not clear whether the background is greyscale or whether it’s just the darkness of the storm, but the coffins are not, and the red roses on them stand out especially. Juri’s flashbacks tend to black and white with orange standing out, Saionji and Nanami both have flashbacks where red is the dominant colour.

Nothing about the memory is stylised or staged, though. Saionji may not understand the people involved, but he seems to recall the events very accurately. The fact that Touga spends the memory behaving rather strangely only makes it more plausible.

When Saionji flashes back again after hearing the word “kamikakushi” he can’t see anyone’s faces, as if he’s no longer sure who he and Touga were back then either.

Not a flashback, but I really appreciate the way the greyscale picture of Touga in bed with a bandaged chest echoes the grayscale picture of Touga and Saionji on the bike with Saionji’s bandaged hand.

Episode 10 — Nanami’s flashback

Oh, Nanami.

The shot of the birthday cake gives us a much more fixed time for this flashback than any of the previous ones. It’s Touga’s birthday, and you can count the candles to find out that he’s twelve. You can also see this is the same mansion they’re living in now, the vaguely threatening shot showing layers of empty halls and doors is virtually identical to the later one where Touga is telling Nanami why she shouldn’t be a lesbian. (If there’s a connection, I’d guess it’s that Touga is becoming one of the adults who shuts her out and doesn’t try to understand her.)

The adults are certainly threatening here, a faceless, colourless mob, where you can’t even really pick out Nanami’s parents. Touga and Nanami are the only ones in colour — they’re also the only children present. Touga seems to be both enthroned and surrounded, people are calling him Touga-sama and kneeling, but is this really the kind of party a twelve-year-old would want?

The way Nanami reacts when her father tries to grab her, and how quickly — and adultly — Touga intervenes just makes the adults seem more of a threat. You can see why Nanami misses being sure her brother was on her side when she’s never had anyone else.

Interestingly, when Nanami resumes her flashback for the more traumatic part, she and Touga are now greyscale. The only thing that stands out is the red of the apples he won’t help her pick. Something Nanami wants, but needs Touga to gain.

Honestly, I think getting angry with Nanami for hitting his cat is the most emotion we see Touga display, ever? Even in Saionji’s memory, his emotions are very guarded, here he’s reacting far more like you’d expect a child to react. Although Nanami’s response to it suggests that she’s not used to this kind of reaction from him. She’s taking it as a serious rejection, not as her brother being upset with her right now.

Nanami is now standing in front of her own memory, as if it’s a cinema screen and she can watch it all unfold over again.

In the last section of her flashback her dress and hair are yellow again, for the first time her own colour is the one notably present in addition to black and white. (She was in colour earlier, but wearing pink and red.) The part she most associates with herself is the worst part, the kitten’s death and her own remorse.

There are also a few flashes of green in bits of her memory, an adult’s suit and the leaves Touga was playing with the kitten with. Jealousy?

The way her killing the kitten and regretting it is interspersed with her attacking Utena suggests she really did intend to kill Utena but, like the kitten, would have regretted it immediately if she’d succeeded.