#feels good to Utena anaylsis

[queen-of-hearts92]

Is Kozue unpopular in the Utena fandom? She's my favorite character and most of my friends also like her but when I tried looking for Utena analyses and theories I found people saying Miki should have left her and another person saying she should have "fallen out of the Akio car and died so Akio could have a redemption arc". I understand not everyone's going to love her, and she definitely has her flaws, but this seems a bit extreme. If the fandom does hate her, why?

I…I didn’t think she was unpopular but this is the fucking Utena fandom, the land of many people missing the point and being extremely sexist and slutshaming, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised there are people that hate her outright out there. 

*Reads the quote* *sarcasm mode* Oh yeah totally, the 13 year old girl who at the worst pushed a child predator down the stairs deserves to die while the adult male rapist who horrifically abuses his sister and rapes kids should get a redemption arc, yeah ok *sarcasm mode end*. Anyways, that sentence you just quoted to me is absolutely awful and disgusting, shame on whoever the fuck wrote that. You’re right, thats extreme as fuck. Fuck that person! >8/

And yes thats a good question why in the fresh hell someone would hate her like that but it has an answer that is actually floating around Miki and Kozue’s story and the show as a whole. It’s cause of the Madonna-Whore complex. Basically society often place women into two categories, the Madonna, which is a pure sexless woman who does no wrong, and the Whore, which is an evil lady who has sex all the damn time and is a horrible sinner. Any lady who fails to be a “Madonna” gets seen as a “Whore”. But it’s a double edged sword, cause woman are also expected to be sexually available to men. Breakfast Club puts it very nicely too. In Utena this is talked about A LOT by using the terms Princess (madonna) and Witch (whore). “Those who cannot become a Princess are doomed to become a Witch”. Many of the female characters, especially the secondary ones, run face first into this issue. I find, out of the secondary characters, that Kozue and Shiori exemplify this the most and Kozue exemplifies this the most most. Anddd this lesson on not doing that to people just flies the fuck over some folks heads. 8/

SO the reason why there are those in the fandom who are hateful of Kozue is cause, she’s sexually active and mildly aggressive (I say mildly cause she isn’t really THAT violent let’s be real here) and yup thats it. Some people think Miki is “better” because he has a kinder disposition than the other dudes in the series and they conveniently ignore the fact that he treats his sister like shit. Like even the dating sim game protagonist picks up on this and eventually turns him down at the end of his route cause his projecting weirded her out and she notes multiple times (if you make dialogue choices where you are not rude to Kozue) that Kozue seems sad around him like you guys.

Now Miki doesn’t treat her poorly as in Touga style but he clearly holds her in contempt cause Miki’s whole thing is he dislikes that Kozue isn’t the “sweet innocent girl” he remembers from their childhood. She isn’t want HE wants her to be. So he projects onto others (like Anthy) looking for the ideal twin sister and the saddest part is Kozue KNOWS this. She is very very aware, she makes it obvious she knows during her elevator scene in the Black Rose Arc. And it hurts, Miki rejecting her really hurts. Their parents literally abandoned them so Miki is the only family she has. Kozue sleeps around because when she does Miki gets angry and that gives her attention, anytime they spend together she’s defensive of cause she knows her brother straight up will ignore her most of the time therefore spending time with him is important to her. Their relationship is a mess to put it mildly and some motherfuckers try and be like “ah this twin is evil and this one isn’t” when that isn’t fucking close to being true at all.

Miki and Kozue still care about and love each other, I really think they do, but as they have grown older they don’t really know how to communicate clearly to each other anymore. Miki clings to the past and refuses to acknowledge that he and his sister are growing up. Kozue is ready to grow up and be more independent but she doesn’t want to do so without her brother and she tries to tackle adult things she probably isn’t ready for (like having a mature sex life at age 13) which just strains their relationship like crazy. 

My point being is there are people in the fandom that take Kozue’s bravado at face value forgetting that she’s a 13 year old who likes pretending she has her shit together and she gets hate cause fandom sexism because to them Kozue deserves bad things because she’s not perfect or pure. A lot of folks in the fandom for some ungodly reason forget that the majority of the characters in the show are literal children and they do act their age. You have the middle school kids (Miki, Nanami, Kozue, Utena, and Wakaba) who all have various degrees of fake confidence and are extremely confused all the time, as many kids their age do/are, and you have the high school students (Juri, Shiori, Saionji, Touga, Kanae) who range from I def know what I’m doing (Touga and Saionji) to I have zero idea what I’m doing but all I can do is scream internally (Juri, Shiori, Kanae) and ofc you have Juri and Shiori doing the gay panic dance but thats a different discussion all together lol.

Basically, fuck people who hate Kozue. She’s an excellent character and deserves good things all the time! I personally really like Kozue and I’m happy she’s your favorite dude! Keep loving her! Ignore the hateful motherfuckers! I’m speaking as a Shiori fan when I say I understand your struggle dude. There are always gonna be ignorant and hateful fools in the fandom, it’s best to just ignore them really. Here! I made this years ago but I think you’d like a Kozue defense squad gif! ^w^! I made one for all the Utena ladies! If you want me to talk about more utena things just let me know!

Side note: I did a analysis about Kozue in 2013 and I still agree with what I wrote more or less, give it a read if you like! Also I created an Utena analysis blog years ago if you would like more analysis stuff! I (nor my partner) haven’t updated it in awhile but I think it’s still got good shit on it!