#anyways anthy himemiya I would die for you

[cookiesandcantarella]

we r besties

[ID: picture of Kermit and animal from the muppets hugging. Kermit is captioned with “me” and animal is captioned with “the beloved piece of media I would never ever recommend to anyone under any circumstances” end ID]

[sinkableruby]

owarimonogatari ge spoilers. rgu spoilers too i think

himemiya anthy and oshino ougi are both girls who exist for guys

and yeah i hear you thinking what, misogyny ?! toxic masculinity ?! thats not a big part of ougis arc and yeah it isnt and also other gender stuff BUT. the spirit is still there!! and i have to say it in that way first to do anthy's part justice

bc they Are both people who exist solely for others sake. their ability to define their own existences have been taken away from them. they have no agency! anthy obviously but also ougi has never had agency. ougi was created by araragi to do certain things he couldn't do himself, and this was literally the sole purpose of their existence. if ur in that situation what are you gonna do? not do it? and probably like, cease to exist bc the universe's internal coding is a total asshole? you don't have a choice, you just gotta accept the burden.

they're very silly and goofy and sinister and smiley about it of course but like. i'll say it now a lot of those smiles are not happy. i mean you look at the light novels oshino "ppl are so dumb i have to laugh at them but im crying when im laughing" ougi (edgelord ougi confirmed? LOL ok ok not really) oshino 'araragi theorizes her smile was poignant bc she knew how short her life would be' ougi like yeah ok. get a life, literally. lol (note this is also. for those who have read it. what ougi stay is about. and what my next big thing is going to be about. this is what the significance. anyway)

and anthy does the same thing! all this fucked up shit happens around her and To her and she just watches it all with the same smile like nothing's wrong. the parallels are insane you guys you cant make this shit up. anthy smiling like nothing is wrong during the duels before slowly realizing she doesn't want to be separated from utena is the same as ougi smiling while about to be erased forever even though she doesnt want to die. its parallels!!!!!! even where ougi's situation gets a little muddied with her being Literally araragi (even though she is still the part of him that he ejected and pushed all this work onto and still just exists for him at first so i wouldnt say this is a point against my analysis here), it still very much applies. and that part of 'being him' can loop back around and extend anthy if you want it to. she does whatever her fiancee wants her to, is molded to and reflects them. a reflection-- is that not, in a very big sense, what ougi is for araragi? you could even say that for anthy, the fiancee of the rose bride's attempted domination of her is a way to dominate the femininity within them, to quell and control it. (if this doesnt make sense my excuse is that i havent finished watching yet. but i think it does make sense, and a lot of it, actually)

theyve both got their Roles to play, and play them they do. anthy, the rose bride, and ougi, the culprit, the bad guy. i think about that 'bad guy' framing a lot too btw. when ougi is talking about her unfazed appearance when faced with Forever Death Via Black Hole, shes like 'don't you hate it when in mystery novels the bad guy is so calm in the face of their comeuppance? yeah that sucks so just letting you know im terrified 👍. gotta wonder what happens when your matter gets erased completely yk. like whats that gotta be like lol.' (not even exaggerating at all really) (also shes so funny she relates everything to mystery novels bc she loves them thats so sweet and real i love that :)) (and then she proceeded to say 'nah i think the culprit should kill themself instead' but i wont get into it)

theyve also both got those cute little interests come to think of it. anthy loves like animals and stuff and ougi loves their mysteries. are these two the Same Character (joking) (but really they should hang out)

theres a line in one of the short stories that summarizes it really well, describing ougi as 'a puppet who had come to life.' and yeah, basically. it's implied to be after the ougi dark resolution so there i have even more ✨textual evidence✨ but like fr. its an incredibly apt description for ougi. if yotsugi is a doll, then ougi is a puppet, who has gained agency (and thats the thing, rgu and monogatari are giving these agency-robbed characters agency, thats what ougi dark did, and im like p sure thats what rgu is going to do i havent finished it lol but i did get sorta spoiled on the ending so i think its gonna. in monogatari... its more rocky i feel. its not cut and dry, its not like whoops you have agency forever completely now. its like you Kinda have it. you Maybe Mostly have it. it's complicated i'm writing about it)... i wonder when yotsugi will get her agency, but part of me wonders if nisioisins plan is that she wont. because she's a doll, she's too stuck, she's fixed to what others need her for, she can't work by herself. she hasn't "come to life" yet like ougi has (being a corpse might do that to you)

anyway uhhhh i'm right good night

[amatres]

👀 tell me about ur oc's,,,if you so desire,,

happily! this is also going under a read more because it Gets Long lol, i apologize in advanced for my rambling thoughts, it's mainly about her relationship with her shitty boyfriend TM so beware

i'm guessing you're asking about my girl adelaide bc of my last post so im going to ramble about her for a minute. So like, what if you mixed anthy himemiya and sophie hatter into a blender and got a new character from that? wouldn't that be the most repressed and angry person to ever exist? that's sort of how she's ended up with how i've played her lol.

adelaide is one of my pcs who i am currently playing and she's in a game called hand of the queen, and was born to a disgraced noble family who fell a few generations back bc of whatever fucked shit her great grandfather did (which i don't know bc my dm immediately latched onto that and im just now getting hints at what it is. he made some deal with an evil god??? he took a ring with the symbol of that god off a severed hand idk man he's fucking weird) and so all her life she's been pressured to bring her family back to glory but she's a reclusive and and quiet person so she obviously isn’t prime material for being the beacon of social society. eventually the pressure made her have a public breakdown as a child which her parents never let her live down, only becoming increasingly more emotionally abusive to her as time went on and they saw more flaws in her not living up to the ideal they wanted her to be. which only made worse by her being rejected by a majority of her peers for her family's past and her own withdrawn personality.

anyway, she was recruited by the queen among four others to be her personal guard to investigate sensitive matters on her behalf. funny thing is adelaide didn't know this, so she went into this whole thing thinking her abusive family finally got fed up with dealing with her and sent her off to die on a fools errand of investigating a plague for the newly crowned queen with little political backing. so she was like, not doing great and even lashed out at some of her fellow team members out of anger of Everything.

turns out very quickly not to be a plague at all, but a conspiracy by the queen's own advisor to poison the country side and make it appear like a plague, and his method of doing this was by forcing his son to do his dirty work for him as captain of the guard for one of the city gates. turns out, the advisor sold his own son's soul to some evil god (same one from before) a long time ago who is now pushing for the country to be poisoned as well, and because of that he was forced into being an accomplice to the whole thing.

long story short, the hand of the queen captured the advisors son after sealing some fucked up thing called a god child crashed on that son trying to kill the hand of the queen and frame them for the poisonings, but unlike the rest of the group, adelaide knew this dude since childhood and felt something was up and so was trying to be nicer to him in hopes of figuring out what was going on and not wanting to jump to the conclusion he did this all of his own free will.

he latches onto this and even after he escapes from prison, during a ball thrown in the hand of the queens honor of course, he takes the time to sneak into the party to talk to her despite the danger it would bring, spending the night talking to her and even asking her if she believed people could change, before eventually leaving to escape to another country. he even sends a letter to her that night and she hides it from the queen and guard because she wants to give him a chance to prove he's willing to change, and over the course of the following months, he still reached out to her through magic, and slowly began opening up to her more, even trying to change to become a better person now that he's finally free of his fathers abuse. which in turn she starts doing the same because she can see so much of herself in him whether she wants to admit to it or not and they slowly are starting to shift away from being being so embittered by the abuse they were dealt by finally finding someone they feel not only can accept them as they are, but that drives them to want to be better people for the other's sake

now the hand of the queen is in this country he ran away to and he just gave us all the information on his side of things, but now the group are tasked to bring him back for trial which everyone there will be vying for his death, especially bc his shitty dad is dead now so he's only person left they can blame for the poisoning to take out their anger on. which adelaide 100% doesn't want to happen

there's other things too, like how adelaide's older brother was friends with the advisor's son since they were all kids and apparently the dude was trying to court her for years but did a bad job at it because adelaide instead interpreted it as him mocking her, which is just wild. he's tried telling her to stop worrying about him because he doesn't want to drag her down with him and see her get hurt in the middle of the conflict, but it's too late for that because her way of showing love is worrying over people. so she's going to latch onto him and do everything she can to save his life and try to give him the chance she doesn't think she'll ever have, which is to live a life free of others control

sorry about All The Paragraphs but i've been going nuts about this for nearly a year now but pls understand im obsessed

[dopeyapples]

so @holycalf and i were brainstorming a fanfiction neither of us will ever write based off of this post that is just genius so without further ado this is our obnoxiously long interpretation of what would happen if anthy were actually a 1 star uber driver.

anthy himemiya’s uber reviews….

-saionji’s review would be something along the lines of “she was hot and when i said so she said thanks so that was cool but she also accidentally crashed the car into a pole that almost killed me. it was on my side too but like i don’t think she meant it like that it was an accident but not very safe. two stars”

-nanami’s one star review: “what the HELL was that!!!! i thought i was going to DIE!! i can’t BELIEVE this girl!! i gave her my address FIVE times and she kept taking me to different dry-cleaners around the city!! i dont know what point she was trying to make!? and she barely even spoke english!! god she was so stupid!! i was over an hour late to my brothers birthday party!!! should be 0 STARS!!!!!”

-anthy would 100% pretend to not understand english so their interactions would be along the lines of “YOU JUST MISSED THE TURN”

-“:) miss nanami?? dry cleaners??”

-“NO!!!!”

-nanami never catches on and ends up making anthy pull over to catch a different uber because obviously she can’t drive herself

-“I DEMAND A REFUND” “miss nanami? :) i’m sorry, i don’t understand?” “GOD WHATEVER”

-juri’s would be like “Honestly…horrible service. Please, save your money. This woman yanked me by my necklace and banged my head against the dashboard, said it was an accident. Then she proceeded to drive me to a gay bar (not my location) and invited me to come in with her. I obviously refused, so she left me to sit in the car. She brought back several women that hit on me…I did not sign up for a dating service. I honestly don’t know how one person could be so incompetent. To make things worse she played some noise very loudly…said it was called “gecs” and I think the volume was at 100. Truly humiliating. One star.”

-one of the very few 5 star reviews is from kozue: “felt like i was going to die the whole time. it was awesome >:) also had some craaaaazy sex so i didn’t even have to tip!!”

-somehow miki sees it and is like “S*X??? While she was driving?? Excuse me she needs to be reported.” he has no idea it’s the same driver that he gave a three star review two days before saying, “Kind of unsafe, and all of the seatbelts were cut off? But she was very nice I actually liked her a lot :) Would definitely drive with again given she fixes the seatbelt issue.”

-also somehow anthy hacks the system so she’s always nanami’s uber and every time nanami’s like “NO!!!!!! HOW IS THIS HAPPENING”

-wakaba gives her five stars but then once she thinks about her experience she changes it to one star “she was so nice and pretty but kind of weird she didn’t talk to me even when i tried to make conversation. actually it got to the point where i felt like she wasn’t even listening. actually then she started playing this song that me and my ex boyfriend used to listen to (he ended up being gay :( ) and i started to cry so i asked her to change it but she turned it up louder? and then she dropped me off at his house, actually, and i begged her to let me go home but she just smiled and said “i’m sure he’ll let you in” and drove away what sort of monster does that also she’s not pretty i take it back actually one star. im not homophobic but one star.”

-utena leaves a two star review that just says “ummmmmm…” but then changes it a month later to a five star review with the comment, “:) love her!” thats it

-irl utena’s like “maybe you should look into a new profession, anthy” and anthy is like “but it makes me so happy utena”

-nanami sees them and is all “OH MY GOD! IT’S THE UBER DRIVER THAT TRIED TO KILL ME ONCE!” and utena’s like “HEY!!!! she’s just doing what she LOVES! take your negativity and hatred somewhere else!!”

-touga has a one star review that’s really nasty but the more you keep reading it the more obvious it is that it’s just nanami on his account

-rival uber driver akio says “ride with me instead” and everybody recognizes that its gross and his review is removed after it gets reported by utena

-also he gets run over by anthy ;) five stars from me

-shiori’s uber experience with anthy would probably just be complete silence until anthy drops her off at the local dump and shioris like -_- but she cant even argue so she just gets out of the car anyway and walks home

-but she’d leave a five star review not even mentioning it: “i paid her 20 dollars to bang my friends head against the dashboard and she did”

so. that’s what we came up with. you’re welcome

[grlfriends]

revolutionary girl utena review

ep 1-5

the plot is actually kinda different from what I thought ?? in my mind the plot was: utena was a girl in a princess school who each and every princess would be "conquered" (for a lack of better words rn) in a ceremonial duel by a prince who fancied them, maybe she didnt wanna wanna marry anyone or she liked Anthy already but anyway in my mind utena showed up in the ceremony with duel clothing and then, in a very brave tm like-scene, she would openly declare she refused to be conquered by anyone and tbh I'm not even sure how Anthy would come into the plot... but back into what actually happened in the episodes everything so far is very introductory and just showing what mechanics will be explored further down the line I think?? the op is really good too

also every boy so far reminds me so much of knights of the zodiac?? maybe it's just the design I guess...) and nanami can get these hands, jealousy is a disease and she's the sickest person on earth for all I know

dont ask me why bit I just feel like room of mirrors - gfriend has a very well fitting vibe for it but I'm not exactly sure why hm.... 🤔🤔

ep 6-12

ok so why does this school just have random animals around 😐 I could understand the horse but a bull and a kangaroo?? what ...

touga just says the most random dramatic things and then just casually says anyone who believes in friendship is a fool ?? the guy wouldnt last a day in the naruto universe tbh, he kinda irks me in some way but I'm not sure why so I'll live with this strange feeling for a while I guess

↳ okay so watching ep 10 made me especially kinda creeped out, I know I've watched only 10 eps so far but like can he fall downstairs and break a neck or something already ...

also haha what if I watched that bet on it fmv and gave myself a bunch of spoilers would that be funny or what 😍 this is why i cant have nice things yall.... hope my memory goes to shit when sleep so I dont remember about it this week while I finish it

I feel like the main thing on the episodes are parallels, one way or another I always feel like they're setting up parallels and giving me clues for a bigger picture and a deeper plot arc that is still to come and the bet on it fmv just made this impression stronger, also I wanna say it's done in a good way, one that is both mysterious (??) and "honey you've got a big storm coming" at the same time 🤔🤔 much to think about honestly

↳ just saw ep 11 and even though I already knew this was coming sooner or later it still felt like crap seeing utena lose to dick head, at the end of the episode when he says anthy was always just reflecting utena's own wishes for himemiya (in another way bc I dont remenber the exact words) it felt like 😐 bc yes I knew that (the way she was working her thoughts was simply a copy and paste of what utena was saying) at all time I kept those essays about anthy in my head, I dont think theyll be truly relatable to what I'm seeing rn but yeah anthy rights (even though I know you betray/cheat on utena down the line bc of the bet on it fmv but I'm sure you had your own motivation)

↳ saw ep 12 bc I just couldnt handle being in a cliffhanger and yeah it happened what I absolutely thought it would lmao not that it was that difficult to foresee but yeah, I kinda liked how utena did it for her instead of being like "oh I wanna save anthy from touga" and treating her like a damsel in distress (I know that's kinda her position as the rose bride for what I've been told so far and that this is a subject spoken about in many many essays on tumblr but yeah) bc so far she's been treated as a trophy and a way to get something else, for the green haired guy it was a way to see something eternal, for miki it was a way to hold on into his "shining thing" and for touga it seems (so far) like a way to manipulate (just like he does with nanami) and just mark his position as above everyone else as he seems to view himself?? man I might be saying random stuff rn but it kinda does makes sense in my mind with the information I've had to this point

ep 13-25

honestly 😐😐 through 9 whole episodes I felt like they were trying to make the side characters deeper and show their hidden face and motivations but it felt so shallow...... not even actually shallow, just not deep enough that it would make me care about these characters and the fact there was no actual build to showing us why we're getting to know these characters backgrounds was just kinda meh too, didnt really help that all episodes had all the same formula and the same timing just for the developers made in those episodes be forgotten at the end and also just that pink haired guy could be like "ah failure again", it felt like watching the same episode over and over again, it was really tiring and like?? girl help I do not care about these characters at all, I feel like it could have been done well (like the keiko ep in comparison to the furuba chapter that deals with the yuki appreciation (??) club president graduating.... the way this ep was done and setup didn't really bring me any emotions) overall not to my taste and tbh I feel like I could have skipped all those episodes except for maybe the miki and juri one so 😑

all nanami focused episodes are the worst so far, she's so boring and I cant stand now annoying she is, the diary episode?? the cow episode?? the episode when tsuwabiki fuels with utena?? honestly I know they're trying to show me a better and different side of her but it just doesnt!! work!! bc i feel no sympathy for her, my biggest wish rn is her and touga just disappearing and no more filler episodes🗣🗣

I thought akio was utena's prince?? but apparently he's just anthy's brother and like.. I'm do done with his little talks with utena and yadda yadda, I just wanna see their duel is that too much to ask I'm dying over here (if this lenga lenga continues until ep 25 i will be so mad bc why were so many episodes wasted on such boring and and not necessary side characters backstories?? idc about them at all man aaaaaaaaaa)

↳ ep 25 was good finally we got what we deserve boys 😭😭😭😭😭 can utena just beat up akio already I'm tired of his ass, he exhales both "I'm a feminist I even take women studies classes #herstory" and "if she breathes she's a thot" energy also he has 0 style that mullet is simply horrible I bet there's a hairstylist community who considers him a criminal bc like 😐 it is simply so bad (q bit less when it's tied up but when it's all lose jesus Christ)

also touga thinks he's suuuuch a genius, sooo smart like king, I do not care about you at all can you shut the fuck up please and can we tall about the pink haired guy episode?? wack. honestly thought it would be more emotional or something, I binge watched 12 episodes with his ugly haircut face and did not even feel a thing he can choke I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANTHY TAKING A SWORD OUT OF UTENA'S CHEST??? OSCAR WORTHY KINGS❗❗❗and then her lame ass brother being like "oh ho ho idk idk" shut up no one cares no one cares I swear to you no one cares shut uuuuup

ep 25-39

first of all, ep 25 was good but kinda reminded me of the nine episodes (13 until 21) where absolutely nothing interesting happened so I hope I'm wrong also can I just say just seeing the preview of the next episode made me roll my eyes so bad I almsot saw my brain?? bc yeah I'm fucking tired of nanami fosuced episodes she's so annoying oh my god nobody cares about a goddamn egg and much less one coming from her let her die or something pls she's so annoying there's nothing I've learned about her that was not against my own will I'm basically rotting over here 🤒

↳ ep 30 has me thinking Akio has a foot fetish or something 😐 bruh leave utena aloooooone I already know your plans and schemes you're not fooling anyone that's embarrassing for u and also... utena you're not very bright are you.... you start seeing every duelist you face with the same exact car and then when you see akio has the same car you didnt even stop to think about it that 1+1 equals 2 ... girl help yourself 😐

↳ yet again another nanami focused ep 😐😐😐😐😐 even though I do understand her better now I still don't find her particularly enjoyable to watch, call me a woman hater but like. idk she's still a bit annoying to me (but touga is straight up evil and is manipulating her so I feel bad for feeling like that tho.....)

↳ ok last 2 eps to go but listen. I thought the akio duel would have happened much sooner, maybe on ep 33 max but well didn't this age well lmao ngl, it did seem a bit too slow paced for my personal taste but also I feel like there's a certain level of drama that comes with slowing the pace down....

↳ aaaaaa yall I'm kinda 😢😭 over the ending omg........... even though it took the best of me to keep going in some parts I still enjoyed the ending aaaaa I thought i wouldnt really like it bc I just usually dont enjoy this type of ending but stil 😢😢😢😢 wait for me utena 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 girl I cried and then anthy walking in the end god utena and anthy holding hands 😭😭😭😭 akio can suck my dick

there's obviously many things I've missed or that I kinda didnt really pay attendance to so please dont take this serious, I was just writing as I watched the episodes so it's more like a thought compilation than anything, still I can see why there's many essays written about it and why it is held as a masterpiece by so many people

[retro-friki]

Utena Manga Recaps: To Plant Part II

 To Plant Part II or Anthy’s Malice Part I

As you may remember, in the first part of this volume, we got introduced to manga!Juri who, as all girls in “Utena”, had terrible taste in men. Now, we will meet the Student Council member who everyone knows as the one that’s most likely to be the only decent guy in the story. Unlike Juri and Saionji, Miki is not interested in the duels, and because of that he is rewarded with a hug.

“Finally! Someone with common sense!”

And speaking of common sense, someone that lacks it in spades is our protagonist, who can’t stop thinking about Touga and her prince.

Anthy is tired of all this nonsense and she just nopes away from the story (it’s not like the plot needs her or anything).

Miki is supposedly worried about Juri (and I say supposedly because he doesn’t talk about her again) so he really wants to investigate Touga, Utena decides to join him because… you guessed it, she wants to know if Touga is really her prince.

Anyway, Touga’s house is known as the “White House” because he’s the Student Council President and he gets all the privileges of an actual Head of State. This is like a 100 times more ridiculous than Ouran and we’re supposed to take it seriously.

Utena tries to climb into a window, while Miki simply opens the door with  a key he took  from Touga’s locker (this kid could be dangerous) It’s so in character for both of them, I love it!

Miki tells Utena that Touga is the only one that’s in communication with End of the World and now she’s convinced that Touga is the Prince. Ok, but considering that End of the World is the one that came up with all the Rose Bride business (something that Utena sees as inherently bad), wouldn’t that make Touga/her prince a bad person? This is so simple and yet she doesn’t see it!!

While rummaging through Touga’s office, Utena finds a photograph of Nanami. If you haven’t watched the anime, let me tell you that Nanami is Touga’s little sister and the anime’s One True Protagonist.

It’s funny that Utena finds her pretty, wonder what Nanami and anime!Utena would feel if they knew this (I’m pretty sure anime!Utena thinks the same but will never say it).

Miki and Utena discover that Touga has a secret Homestuck themed room inside his closet with a clock that indicates the duels. Apparently Miki and Utena are scheduled to fight next month. But why?

And speaking of the devil, Touga makes his dramatic appearance. Jeans, black jacket and a t-shirt with “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” written on a dull font. Touga Kiryuu: fashion icon, people.

Also, he states his dominance as an alpha male by displaying a totally homoerotic kabedon on Miki.

Utena ends up trapped on a room with that jerk, this is in no way a good scenario, at least the manga acknowledges it, since Miki gets terrified by this.

WHY!  THE HELL! ARE YOU FRAMING! THAT PANEL! WITH ROSES!!???

Touga tells Utena that they’ll duel soon. I’m still waiting for Utena to punch him in the face, but that will never happen.

After that, our protagonist faces the very complex concept of “twins”.

“There are two Mikis!” Utena pls.

“There are two Dippers!” - Utena, apparently.

Kozue is Miki’s little sister who is so clingy that she literally wraps herself around him and she doesn’t let any girl get near him.

Meanwhile, Anthy comes back to remind us that she exist and to inform us that she also has a big brother (this will be important later on, but for the time being we can happily ignore it).

Turns out that Utena failed her tests because lately she’s been distracted by your usual teenage banal problems, namely Avoiding Getting Stabbed by the Student Council. Fortunately Miki’s here to help her study. (Anthy has better things in mind, and she nopes out of the story again).

After studying for a while, Utena conveniently gets tired and takes a nap in Miki’s living room. Turns out Miki has a crush with Utena, so he takes this perfect chance to kiss her.

That trope stopped being romantic a long time ago.

Kozue catches Miki and proceeds to blame Utena because Kozue is a Jealous Harpy (ugh), Miki assumes the responsibility (good), but then he slaps Kozue, declares his love for Utena and says that he can date her if he wants to (bad manga, bad). Shocked by this, Kozue runs away.

Utena appropriately scolds him for mistreating Kozue like that, and he says that he won’t kiss her again without her permission. At least the kid learned about consent… but that’s not the problem we’re having at hand, Miki!

Meanwhile, Kozue gets kidnapped by a mysterious entity. Who could that be?

You take your eyes off her for two minutes and she’s already kidnapping a student, classic Himemiya!

Miki gets a card in which he’s informed that he must go to the duel arena if he wants to see his sister again. And so, Utena and Miki must battle each other.

Cool art tho

At first Utena is determined to lose on purpose, but for some sheenanigans, Kozue can’t be rescued unless Utena activates her sword, however, if Miki loses, Kozue will die.

Turns out that this was a lot of B.S since Utena wins and Kozue is safe and sound. In fact, she wasn’t kidnapped at all, Himemiya was the one that told her to do that so she could see if Miki really loved her.

Later that night, the manga remembered that Utena and Anthy are supposed to have some sort of relationship. Our protagonist asks Anthy what was the deal with the fake kidnapping thing, she actually isn’t mad at Anthy, in fact she wants Anthy to trust her because they are friends. Anthy’s surprised by that.

Utena gets suspiciously flustered when trying to be honest with Himemiya. Cute! (This manga is only giving me scraps and I’m gonna gobble them up).

Utena doesn’t know how to frame questions: “You couldn’t have possibly done that on your own, right?” “Someone made you do it, right?”. Naturally Anthy only tells Utena what the former wants to hear and explains that End of the World made her do it. (Himemiya must be rolling her eyes by how easy it is to fool this girl).

Anyway, the manga can’t afford giving us more Utena/Anthy interactions when there are more important things to focus on. Later on, Utena receives a letter from her Prince in which he tells her to meet him at the Rose Garden. The girl runs there, heart racing in anticipation. Finally, after seven years of wait, she’ll have the encounter that she awaited for so long…

Turns out it’s Touga (or so he says). Well it’s not too late to reconsider all your life’s decisions until now, kid.

If you like what I do, please consider buying me a ko-fi

[some-triangles]

It’s the end.

Endings are terrifying. Change is terrifying!   But which is scarier – the change that happens quickly, or the change that happens slowly?

The castle isn’t real. Immortality isn’t real.   You will grow old, here in your coffin or out in the world.

The coffin isn’t safe. Suffering isn’t safe.

The status quo isn’t safe. You will die a captive or you will die free.

It’s the end, whether you like it or not.   We can do it all again, or we can have a revolution.

Anthy throws away her own sword and takes Utena’s.

We head back to the balcony, where the duelists are having a barbecue, which somehow doesn’t detract from the gravity of the situation.  Juri tells a story about a dead boy – he threw himself into the water to save a drowning girl, he drowned himself in the process, and now nobody remembers his name, not even the girl he was trying to save.

So, we know what to expect, now.  Things aren’t looking so hot for our hero.

Akio asks for the sword. Anthy hesitates.  Akio somehow manages to make the stabbed girl lying on the floor all about him.  Moved by his display of affectless, solipsistic suffering, Anthy hands the sword over, and Akio heads over to stare at his living room wall.  

Dude, I’m pretty sure – I’m pretty sure you just finished telling us that this is your living room, and that is at best a supply closet, and at worst nothing. Nevertheless, all this business has somehow managed to summon the million swords of human resentment, and so the rose bride is going to have to do her job now.

Utena really doesn’t want Anthy to get stabbed a lot, but the subaltern’s gotta do what the subaltern’s gotta do.  The bride abandons her dress and ascends the crucifix.

The final dueling chorale plays as the swords rise from the depths, carrying with them fear of change, lust for power within the system as it is and acceptable anger at the acceptable target.  The following diagram is labeled crabs_in_a_bucket.jpg:

Note how the colonizer remains miraculously unharmed!

Utena is speechless, horrified, and (possibly metaphorically?) bleeding out. Akio explains using small words.

Unmoved by the carnage above, Akio finally puts the final piece of his plan into place.  All the duels – all the manipulation – all the lies, all the necromancy, all the fucking, all the massive tailoring bills and the license fee for whatever the planetarium-based equivalent of Autodesk is, all of it, comes down to this moment.

He is going to stab a wall with a sword.

Whack, he goes!

Whack, whack, whack.

Just straight up… whaling on that thing.  

That’s how you open a door, right?  By hitting it with a sword?

Anyway, it turns out that the swords are one of the less illusory elements of this escapade, and he’s actually smashing Utena’s heart into the wall, over and over again.   This is not pleasant for her, but she has priorities more pressing than getting him to stop.

Unfortunately, Akio is too busy whacking to help Himemiya.

If he won’t, maybe Dios will?

No – he can’t save this princess.  He’s dead, for one thing.  Also he has detected that she is engaged in unauthorized princess activities.

He will kiss her ring, though, as a consolation prize.

Finally unable to put up with any more of this condescending bullshit, Utena smashes her ring into the ground, dispelling the illusion and achieving at last Borgesian Unity.

Genuine chills. 

We go to the ad break.

When we get back, Akio takes a mighty final whack and shatters Utena’s sword.

No big deal – she’s been operating with a broken heart this whole episode.  

She stumbles forward, and Akio catches her as she falls.  We are not about him right now, though, so Utena proceeds.

Utena reaches the door and starts pulling on it, like a sane person would. (Why did Akio not try this?  When all you have is a sword, everything looks like a vagina, I guess?)   As she works, Akio talks, and talks, and talks, making his way through the whole depending on people is morally wrong routine and arriving finally at a stirring defense of the One Percent:

Utena does not appreciate the difficulties that come with being a job creator.

Akio continues to demonstrate his privilege and complacency – literally lying on the ground drinking a pink cocktail with a slice of pineapple in it, in a gesture which tiptoes right up to the line of the ridiculous and threatens to capsize the entire mood, which is I’m sure part of the point.  Behold, the professional revolutionist speaking on how it is what it is and you can’t fight city hall.

It’s looking pretty bleak until Utena says a true thing to herself: “Himemiya – you don’t know how happy I was when we were together.”  

The point being that her grief here isn’t for herself, broken heart and all – it’s for Himemiya, who didn’t understand, until the end, that she was loved.   That’s the tear that falls; that’s the sum of the sadness.

Hilariously, it is the echoing of Akio’s straw slurp in the ensuing silence that clues him in to the fact that something has changed.

The metaphor, for one thing. It’s resolved itself into something more spatially reasonable.

The swords hang frozen in midair and then churn madly as their quarry is denied them.  Akio bleats in terror. Utena opens the coffin. 

The first bar of the main theme starts looping, because the piece isn’t quite long enough to peak right where Ikuhara wants it to.  Is it wrong to want to drop a beat at this moment?  Yes, probably.

Anthy is deep, deep inside the coffin.  The music builds.  Utena reaches out for her.  The music surges.  Anthy tells her to run away – the swords are going to get her.  The full orchestra gets into the swing of things.  Utena won’t leave. The bongo guy is really tearing the house down.  Anthy finally, finally reaches out.   The penultimate fanfare hits.

Then, as we finally crash into the main theme, the whole spatially dubious edifice Anthy was trapped in quits its perpendicular floating and falls the fuck off the cliff into the clouds below.  Soaring music continues to play as Utena realizes her failure, admits defeat and is immediately destroyed by the combined stabbing of a million angry swords.

That’s it.  That’s the end of the story.

Cut to Wakaba.

The whole arena gets fucking pulverized and we’re out.

After, business at the academy continues as usual.  

Miki is teaching Tsuwabuki how to keep the minutes.  (Or how to be a tsaddik – it’s unclear how deep that particular wormhole goes.) Juri continues to fence with Shiori. Nanami’s makin’ the tea. 

The patriarchy is in the end too big a rock to lift.  

We are stuck in this world.  People who step up get slapped down, and the safest thing is to stay quiet and muddle through.

The only hope is to keep repeating the old rituals, to preserve our institutions and hope for better results.

Under threat of total erasure, from history and from the living world, we will behave and take what we are given.

Or:

[retro-friki]

Shoujo Kakumei Utena Manga Recap: To Till or The Plot Actually Happens

Last time, we read the introductory arc of this manga, however wether you only saw the anime or this humble post is your first contact with “Revolutionary Girl Utena”  it doesn’t really matter if you haven’t read the introduction, the characters and most plot threads that appear there are never spoken of again so if the manga doesn’t care about them, neither should you (unless you want to take this quiz). The real story starts here. So first allow me to present you to the main characters:

Utena Tenjou: The protagonist, she was saved by a prince when she was little and now her dream is to to find him and emulate him. Not very bright, but at least she’s good at basketball.

Anthy Himemiya: She’s supposed to have a protagonic role but the manga often forgets that she’s a character. We could describe manga!Anthy as a total cutie with mysterious powers. What kind of mysterious powers? We’ll find out soon.

Wakaba Shinohara: Best friend ever, 1000 times better than Utena’s other “best friend” from the introductory arc. If the universe was fair she would be Utena’s girlfriend, but we are in the worst timeline and Wakaba has a terrible taste in men.

This douchebag (A.K.A Kyouichi Saionji): He’s a total asshole and would probably die alone unless he hooks up with…

This other douchebag (A.K.A. Touga Kiryuu): He’s the reason of like 69% of my frustration with this manga. I even wrote an essay about it.

These other two members of the Student Council: Are not important… yet. Let’s wait till next volume to learn more about them.

Anyway, let’s go straight to the story. Naive tomboy Utena Tenjou enrolls in the prestigious Ohtori Academy hoping to find her beloved prince that saved her many years ago. Meanwhile, the Student Council of Ohtori –– a very exclusive group formed by misguided teens –– dedicate their time engaging in sword duels in order to “win” the Rose Bride, a girl called Anthy Himemiya who has the legendary Sword of Dios inside her…. literally.

Quite, literally. (Also, what’s wrong with Saionji’s face?)

Legend has it that whoever possesses Anthy and wields the Sword of Dios will have the Power to Revolutionize the World. If you have never seen the anime and all this mess confuses you, let me warn you that this isn’t the weirdest part of “Revolutionary Girl Utena”.

At the beginning of the story, Anthy is engaged to Saionji (the douchebag), how did this happen? not even the most cultivated utenologists know for sure, so don’t ask me. As we have stablished before, Saionji is a total jerk and treats Anthy badly (he claims he loves her even if he slaps her frequently) however, this isn’t what prompts our local hero Utena Tenjou to kick his butt, turns out that her best friend, Wakaba, was in love with him and Saionji broke her heart and humiliated her publicly. Utena proceeds to challenge him to a duel which he accepts because he wrongly thinks that she’s after the Rose Bride.

The ring that the prince gave Utena when they met is actually a key that allows her to enter the very secret Dueling Arena where the Student Council hold their very secret duels. The place looks really cool actually.

(Notice the castle in the sky? This is normal in “Revolutionary Girl Utena”)

Even if she doesn’t know anything about this Rose Bride stuff, Utena manages to beat Saionji by using a broken wooden sword no less, because sometimes she can be a badass like that. Thanks to this, Utena earns the Sword of Dios, which causes her to go all Super Saiyan Pink.

(what? you thought I was joking?)

Touga –– the Student Council President and also a total creep–– was watching the duel in secret and gets very surprised when he sees Utena wielding the Sword of Dios. Apparently Utena is the only one that has managed to activate the sword’s enormous power. He gets so excited that he jumps into the dueling arena and declares that he could be falling for Utena. The girl feels flustered and gets out of there as fast as she can…leaving Anthy behind. Good job, hero.

However, running away doesn’t mean that Utena is free from all this mess, soon enough she learns that she’s now engaged with Anthy and that both of them have to live together in the East Hall dorms (alongside Anthy’s weird “monkey”). Anthy explains that now that they are engaged more Student Council members are going to keep challenging her to duels on an attempt to win Anthy from her. Utena wants none of that nonsense and she decides to investigate, however. she gets distracted when she finds someone that looks like her prince at the rose garden. Just when she tries to get to him, Touga appears out of nowhere and kisses her…

Ugh...

For some reason this particular kiss scene keeps appearing again and again in other iterations of the story like the musical and the light novels. In the manga there’s two pages of this and the second one is beautifully framed with roses. This is supposed to establish Touga as the charming playboy he is…but actually, the whole thing is annoying at best and gross at worst, not even the protagonist herself is happy with getting her first kiss from that guy…however, to be fair, it’s better than getting kissed in the seat of a car by a guy who doubles your age while your friend is watching… so yeah.

After that unpleasant experience, Utena asks Touga what’s going on. He explains that all the Student Council members get a ring just like Utena’s that helps them to access the Dueling Arena and fight in order to win the Rose Bride. They do this under the orders of a mysterious entity known as “World’s End” who only communicates with them via letters and who has assured them that having the Sword of Dios that lies within Anthy will grant them enough power to accomplish whatever they want. Yeah… sounds legit. Touga invites Utena to a dance and promises to tell her more about “World’s End”, however, the girl refuses.

Shortly after, Utena finds Saionji slapping Anthy AGAIN (this happens a lot in the story), she stops Saionji and tells him that if he has any problem with Anthy being engaged to her, then he should duel her again. Anthy is surprised that Utena is now getting involved in the duels. Utena says she’ll keep fighting until she finds out what’s really going on.

That night… (or some night, the manga isn’t good at telling how much time has passed), the girls receive a package from Touga with a pair of dresses for the dance, Utena still doesn’t want to go but she wants Anthy to socialize with more people and anyway, the plot needs them to be there so off they go.

Utena takes this opportunity to ask Touga about “World’s End” but the guy doesn’t tell her anything because he only wants to talk about how pretty she looks in the dress that he got her. Utena just wasted her time and she didn’t help Anthy at all since she left her behind. Meanwhile Anthy is being bullied and slapped, again. Look, if you’re taking an introvert to a party you MUST hang out with them and ensure that they are comfortable at all times! This is Handling your Introvert 101, Utena! Get a grip! To make things worse, Saionji appears, takes Anthy with him and tells her that he chose the dress she’s now wearing. Now I wonder if buying dresses for girls is Touga’s signature move and Saionji, being the big loser that he is, attempted to imitate him.

Our hero tries to rescue Anthy but, in a total dick move, Saionji keeps Anthy away from Utena and then proceeds to attack with a sword. Utena is defenseless because she can’t get the sword of Dios and also the plot has decided to turn her into a damsel in distress again. Now, I’m not expecting the hero to be a total badass who can win a fight with her bare hands (although that would be awesome), it’s ok if Utena is defeated sometimes, however, what really bugs me from this particular development is… well we’ll find out next time.

(If the manga can end on a cliffhanger so can my recap).

See you.