bakugou + strawberries ; 2.7k
ੈ‧₊˚ for our meet fruit collab ! ‧₊˚✧ ₊˚
mina suggests speed-dating.
first as a joke — you think — after the two of you spend too many weekends in a row watching sappy rom-coms on her couch while crying into a bowl of trail mix, and then a second time, and then a third time, after you refuse.
in her last attempt, she pulls out the big ones: her upcoming birthday. it will be so fun!! she tells you, with her big eyes and bigger pout, looking at you as if you'd hung the stars by saying yes. it's a cheap shot, really, because she knows you or anyone would do pretty much anything when it comes to mina the birthday girl.
— and that's how you find yourself here, sitting in too nice of an outfit to be spending your allotted time listening to a man bash his ex-girlfriend.
you might have found him a bit cuter if he wasn't doing that, or if he showed even an ounce of interest in you whatsoever. instead, he's treating this like a therapy session, and you're not getting paid for it.
when the timer rings, you're more than thankful. irritated enough, even, to spin around the room in search of mina — who is happily watching on as two men grapple with each other for who gets to sit across from her next. you suppose being a top hero is good for that, finding someone who is willing to give you their all.
to yourself, you sigh quietly and turn back to the little bowl of strawberries in the center of the small table, the flutes of champagne on either side of it. mina's bottle, you noticed, is almost totally empty; your last date hadn't even looked at yours, nor did he seem to think to offer you a drink.
it's not that you're jealous. really. you wouldn't even say that you're interested in dating right now, finding your job at the agency to be too much of a whirlwind to balance, anyway. you love mina: she's your closest friend, your home away from home, your cheerleader and personal hero — but working for her is nothing short of a full-time job.
sometimes your bed is a little lonely, when she's not staying the night in it after another rom-com evening, but you really can't think that you'd like someone in it, anyway, much less a stranger. it's hard to explain where your time goes, who it goes with; having to share that with someone, you think, would take more emotional energy than you have right now.
and maybe it also sorta, kinda has to do with the fact that the one and only man you're thinking of outside of work — is the same man you see inside of it every single day.
the very thought of bakugou has your stomach turning, painfully. the image of him in the late afternoons with the sun glowing in his hair, the gentle look he spares you as you wait for the elevator, how he'd looked at you today, when you told him where you and mina were going; you don't know how anyone could make you feel the way he does, at least right now.
the seat across from you is taken up suddenly, then, and you look up into the eyes of someone that looks — nice. a little shy, a little nervous, as they introduce themselves. they decide to pour you a glass of champagne, and they even tell you, openly, voice shaking, how nice you look tonight.
you smile so hard that your cheeks hurt, much to your own surprise.
"i'm actually allergic to strawberries," they tell you with a laugh, gently pushing the bowl closer to you. "that would be a hell of a first date, wouldn't it?"
you agree. "definitely one to remember!"
"well, in that case—" they joke, suddenly leaning forward as if they're going to pull it back towards them, and it's so earnest and sweet that you feel your heartbeat in your throat a bit. "i sound like i'm kissing up to you, but—you have a really nice smile, also."
you have to sit back in your seat, fanning your face dramatically as you both laugh. "wow, i'm not used to someone—"
"time's up, extra."
you blink so hard that your eyes are crossed when you open them, and you look up at the man standing there, waiting for his turn, just as the timer dings and the room comes to life with a bustle. the person across from you only frowns, too timid to say anything in response before they're getting up and casting you a regretful glance. they're barely a foot away before the chair is taken, so aggressively that it scrapes against the floor and shakes the table.
you can't believe what you're seeing. you can't believe bakugou is sitting across from you, right now, ruining everything.
"what—are you doing?" you hiss, though your feelings — with a mind of their own — flutter like butterflies in your stomach at the sight of him.
the scowl he gives you is ugly, as always, but his face is smoother than you remember it being today; freshly shaven, maybe. the cologne he's wearing is strong, woodsy, potent enough that it dizzies you from across the table, that you can only imagine how sweet it smells soaking into the soft skin of his neck. even the shirt he's wearing, you notice, is a button down that you've never seen him in.
"the hell do you mean?" he growls, face pinched as he leans closer, so that his voice doesn't carry as it usually does. "'s'it look like i'm doin'? saving you from some sorry dumbass."
"bakugou," you grit, though the room quiets as everyone takes their seats again, and you have to swallow back your annoyance so you don't draw anymore attention to yourself.
you're not dumb enough to think he'd get away without some people fighting for his attention, too, the same way they did to mina, and — as irritated as you are, suddenly, at his appearance — you're not exactly keen on sharing him, either.
"they were very nice, thank you very much,"
"psh," he rolls his eyes, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "couldn't even look me in the eyes to tell me to fuck off—"
"maybe because they were worried you would blast them through the window—"
"and i would have—"
"oh!" you clench your hands into fists and squeeze your eyes shut, trying to will your anger back down. losing your cool isn't a good look, especially in a room of people that are trying to get to know you. "are you serious right now? why are you here?"
"you really wanna spend our five minutes doin' this?"
and there's something about the way he says it — our five minutes — that has your stomach turning in that horrible way it always does, whenever you bite into the softer parts of him. the look on his face is pensive, nervous if you thought that he was capable of being nervous. his shirt, his shaven cheeks, his alluring cologne; he's here, right now, on a date with you. pushed his way into it, even.
you straighten in your seat and sit back, dropping your eyes to the table, ashamed at the fire you've just thrown at him. "can you at least tell me why you're here in the first place?"
bakugou is silent for long enough that you can't stand not to take him in, how appealing he is to look at, how your heart sings when he looks back. one shake of his head has him sighing and then he's leaning back, too, staring only at the strawberries.
"this is her birthday thing, ain't it?"
"yeah," you murmur in agreement quietly, fiddling with your own fingers in your lap as your nerves harden into bitter disappointment. he's here for the same reasons you are, you tell yourself: for your friend, only.
distantly, you try to remind yourself that this nothing out of the ordinary. that you shouldn't be thinking of him this way, getting so hung-up on someone that's never expressed an interest in you to begin with. there have been a few late night conversations in the stairwell, that ran longer than they should have, that revealed more than they should have — but it doesn't make him yours. not in the way you want it to.
in an attempt to swallow down your own sourness, you reach for a strawberry, picking through them until you find the fattest one, and then bite it to the stem. a little stream of juice sprays out, dripping down over your bottom lip as you scramble for your napkin. you lick after it before patting at your face, spreading the sugar, the sweetness.
bakugou leans across the table so suddenly that you startle, mouth twisted like he's struggling to say what he's about to say. "alright, look—"
the timer rings, horribly, but his ruby stare never dims, never leaves yours and yours never leaves his, either, as if you're both suddenly trapped in a weird limbo of in-between; in-between the quiet moments, in-between the loudest ones, in-between everyone else, together.
and then mina notices.
"oh my god, blasty, you came!" she shouts, springing up from her seat to wave at you both from across the room. her earrings jingle loudly, bracelet beads knocking together as she leans too far to the left, champagne-drunk already. it snaps the moment between you and him, worry filling the gaps as you think about how you're going to get her out of here, once the night is over.
bakugou sinks a little further into his chair, as if it will hide him, before grumbling to himself. cheeks reddening, you realize; strawberry-kissed. he heaves a heavy sigh before digging his fingers into his eyes, deep enough that an ache develops in your own, and he opens his mouth to speak again when someone else approaches the table.
"okay, time to switcheroo!" he sings, grinning too cheerily at you, enough to make you laugh at his enthusiasm.
it darkens bakugou, considerably; "piss off," is all he says, scooting his chair further into the table as if to claim it. he barely gets another word out before the man is starting to protest, and the look he gives him then is awfully viscious: nostrils flared, looking up from beneath his long lashes and furrowed brow, as if this stranger had pissed in your champagne. "i said, fuck off, before i howitzer you through the—"
"okay!" you interrupt, reaching across the table with both hands to close one of bakugou's. his fingers are curled dangerously, and you swear you can see little sizzles of steam slipping between your linked fingers. "let's just—do an extra skip this time, okay? how about you just gives us this one, and you go to the next table?"
the man frowns — which is a bit flattering — but ultimately takes the lifeline you offer, trailing away without another word down to the next table. you can feel the couple on the other side watching you and bakugou now, a little open-mouthed, and your heart quickens at the worry that they're noticing him, that your new five minutes are going to be wasted, too.
—but his hand hasn't moved from yours and his eyes have returned, full to the brim with some emotion you can't read. if you had to guess, you'd say regret, maybe, but you aren't sure how to take that, and so you don't.
you should let him go, literally and figuratively, but the solidity of your logic is no match for the soft beat of butterfly wings in your gut.
"what are you doing?" you ask him again, softly, surely, because you want to hear the answer whatever it is. he either needs to deny you, here and now so you can move on — or he needs to acknowledge the confliction on his face, the soft intertwine of his fingers into yours.
bakugou looks at you now the way he does in the stairwell, the way he does when the sun is painting you warm, too. "i told you," he murmurs, "savin' you from some dumbass."
"but why do you even care?"
another heavy sigh falls from him and you can feel your glass-fragile heart breaking when his hand slips from yours, a little roughly. it surprises you when he grabs the champagne bottle from the center of the table and pours himself a small glass, downing it in one, bitter go before filling up your flute, too.
liquid confidence, maybe; his cheeks darken, noticeably, before he's running a rough hand over his face, still struggling to wash out the words.
"why the hell do you think?" he finally says, though his harsh question lacks the abrasive tone his voice usually has; instead it's gentler, more sincere, bakugou — katsuki — in his rawest form. "why d'you think i do—any of this shit?" one hand waves around to gesture to the span of the dining room, but you know he means more than that, much more. "you think i spend that much time after work just 'cause i have time to waste? jesus."
"i don't know," you say, earning a flat look. "why do you?"
"why do you?"
you take the glass from the center of the table and peer down into it, how it bubbles. maybe you're playing dumb and maybe that's what's really bothering him, but — someone like bakugou deals in absolutes, and you need him to do it now.
the struggle is clear, though, across his face, thickening how he swallows and turning down his lips that much more. you feel a bit bad in the silence, when the timer rings and the muscle in his cheek jumps again.
before anyone can even approach the table, he simply sticks his hand out, and the man beside you was definitely watching on, because he doesn't spare you a glance before going around.
and maybe, you think, decidedly, that's enough.
"because i don't want to go home yet," you tell him honestly, trying to ignore the blood rushing in your ears with his mouth twists and he starts to squirm at your truth. "because i'd rather spend the night with you in a stairwell, than anywhere else."
there's a ludicrous amount of tension that leaves his shoulders then, so much that you didn't notice it until it was gone, and he slumps back into his chair with pink ears, now. the sight makes you smile, widely, as if the sight is a confirmation.
maybe for him, it is.
"yeah, well," he grumbles, eyes dropping to the strawberries before darting away, as if he'd thought of something he shouldn't have. "that's what 'm sayin', too."
"no, you're not!" you laugh, nose crinkling when he side-eyes you with a frown. "you're not hardly saying anything!"
"i'm here, ain't i?" he argues, huffing like a bull. "makin' a damn idiot of myself just to stop you from—"
"—going home with some dumbass?"
"well, yeah!"
"so you want me to be going home with you, then?"
"yeah! no! i mean—" he scowls when you laugh again, lip pulling up over his teeth as if he means to bite into your softest parts, too. the thought is more thrilling that you're willing to admit — at least for now. "quit laughin'!"
but it's not just you; across the dining room, you realize mina's giggling, too, turned around in her seat, ignoring the chatty man that wouldn't shut up about his ex. when bakugou turns around to glare at her, she nearly tips out of her chair by throwing her head too far back, and when he moves to stand up like he needs to help her, all she does is wave at him to turn back around.
and he does, to you, cheeks flaring as he grabs the bottle of champagne again, pouring himself his own glass to glare into. he mutters out another quiet, "jesus" before slamming both his elbows on the table, rudely, and holding his glass up for — what you belatedly realize is — a cheers.
behind him, the afternoon sun has long since set, replaced now by nightfall and stars that shine through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows — but he glows regardless, and the look he gives you is just as warm.
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Something I both love AND hate about FF7 (the original game and everything after, including the Remake trilogy) is that it is just ambiguous and/or player-driven enough that no matter which side of the love triangle you fall on (assuming you do in fact ship Cloud with one of the girls), the majority of fans for that ship are 100% CONVINCED it's the correct/canon option.
Like, certain scenes are definitely up to interpretation, and people are going to thus have varying reads on those scenes and the characters/relationships the scenes are about. It doesn't help that several scenes change depending on the player's choices, which acts as a confirmation bias as you naturally get more time and romantic moments with the girl of your preference. It really seems to me that MOST people who ship Cloud and Aerith have one solid interpretation (with a plethora of supporting evidence) of the series and the romance, while most people who ship Cloud and Tifa have their own solid interpretation with plenty of evidence that is VASTLY DIFFERENT from the Clerith reading of the game.
This is not a case of "one ship is clearly, explicitly canon and fans of the opposition just like their pick better and/or think it made more sense narratively and WISH it was canon" - for an example of that, look to the Avatar the Last Airbender shipping wars. This is a case where both sides literally interpret the story just differently enough that they come to entirely different conclusions about which girl is Cloud's true love. And if either side reaches out to try and explain their viewpoint to the other, they're just met with "uh, no. You're wrong." Try and explain what Cloud might be thinking in a given scene with one of the girls, why he acts a certain way... "That's not it at all, where are you getting this? Are you delusional?"
Like, I am a Clerith shipper. I have played all the games in the compilation and watched Advent Children. I tried to be as completionist as possible, even. And I came out on the other side of really digging into the story of this game loving Cloud and Aerith's dynamic and pretty firmly convinced they were canon. Or as canon as possible in the timeline where she died.
As any Clerith fan who participates in the fandom would know, if you try and explain your interpretation of these characters and the romance to a diehard Cloti supporter... you're met with a lot of "you're misinterpreting! Cloud and Aerith were just friends! She loved Zack to the end and Cloud loved Tifa since childhood and never stopped! Also Aerith is actually BAD for Cloud because she's too pushy/abrasive. She's not helping him open up, she's just forcing him to go along with her and making him uncomfortable!"
All of this is of course infuriating, but I'd like to think I'm self-aware enough to know we are kind of guilty of the same thing. The majority of Tifa fans are SO happy about the kiss in Rebirth, while we're over here dismissing it because, one it's optional, and two Cloud is "obviously" using Tifa as a rebound or settling for her since Aerith is seemingly unavailable. But that's not how Cloti fans see it at all.
We can talk until we're blue in the face about how TIFA deserves better than Cloud because she shouldn't be the second choice - the one he settles for. But I think most people who really love Cloti genuinely don't see it that way. In their eyes, she's NOT second-best. Cloud loved her all along and this kiss is finally confirming that. And nothing we say will dissuade them, just as nothing they say will actually change OUR minds about Clerith.
It is honestly really difficult for me to try and see the story and romance the way Cloti fans do, but I know the reverse is also true. Both groups of fans interpret the characters and relationships differently. The compilation ALLOWS us to interpret them differently. And this is why the ship war for a game from 1997 is still raging on.
Because both camps are certain they're right, they defend their position viciously. Sometimes that means invading the "other side" to tell them how wrong they are. This discussion/rant was prompted by a Cloti fan on a Clerith vid who wanted to debate MY comment about how wonderful the ship was and how good they were for each other. He was "confused" and "concerned" because Clerith fans were reading the story wrong or warping it to suit our ship.
I wanted to tell him, "buddy that's what YOU'RE doing". I wanted to write a goddamn essay explaining why Clerith is canon actually. But considering in my INITIAL comment that he first responded to I'd already brought up why I thought Clerith was great, and he was IGNORING that... I knew it would be pointless. There is nothing I could possibly say that would change his mind. There is nothing he could possibly say that would change my mind.
As long as both sides of this war are fully convinced they're right, this war is going to be endless and brutal. And that's why my absolute biggest fear for part 3 is an open, ambiguous ending regarding the ships. Maybe it will canonize nothing. Maybe it will canonize BOTH by having the actual ending change depending on which girl the player favors.
Either route will offer no relief to this eternal battle. I would honestly prefer for Cloti to explicitly and unambiguously win than an ending where neither girl does. Because I can accept a loss. I can accept being told that actually I WAS interpreting the story wrong, but I'll only accept it from the text itself. If anything, a Cloti ending might encourage me to go through the entire compilation again trying to view it with that canon couple in mind. I'm sure I'd see things differently, even if I'd always have a place in my heart for Clerith. And I sincerely hope that if Clerith were to win that Cloti fans could do the same.
All I know is that I'm sick and tired of this ship war. I personally have never gone after Cloti fans or engaged in Cloti content with the intent to debate or hate on the ship. But I don't speak for all Cleriths. I'm sure at least a few fans of my ship are guilty too. I have seen many obnoxious Cloti fans invading our spaces to disparage us - mostly on YouTube and Twitch, less here on Tumblr - but I KNOW there are plenty of kind Cloti fans who just happily enjoy their ship and leave us to ours as well.
At the end of the day, regardless of how part 3 ends things, I just wish we could live in peace. Please enjoy your ship. Your interpretation of the text and romance is valid. But so is mine. If neither side can agree, then the best thing to do is leave each other alone.
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Kiryuu Touga and the cyclical narrative
TW : Discussions of misogyny, emotional manipulation and abuse, sexual abuse and (sexual) child abuse. (Very vague) mention of incest.
First of all, not really as a disclaimer but more as a recommendation, a lot of my thoughts about Touga are shaped by this essay, which is definitely easily one of my favorite pieces of Utena meta. I think I'm going to implicitly or more explicitly reference it sometimes, but you don't need to read it to understand this post.
I have a complex relationship with Touga. He is despicable, yet the more I watch the series, the more I find myself... fascinated by him. This post is a pretty much a synthesis of all these thoughts.
On a purely narrative level, Touga's role is a bit special. He's the antagonist of the first arc. The three duels involving him are all turning points in the series. He's a core character in the development of several other characters (Saionji, Nanami, Utena and Miki on a different level).
Yet, turns out he's only a puppet, just as everyone else is. How surprising. And when it comes down to it, what do we know about Touga ?
He's the Student Council's president. He seemingly can't have a relationship with anyone without manipulating them to his advantage. He sleeps with any girl (and maybe not only girls) who breathe around him in a 1 ft radius. His way of coping with depression is to seal himself in a wide and totally empty room to listen to his own voice on repeat to ponder heavily on his broken hopes and ideals. (Hmm. Hardcore.)
And more importantly, he wants power. A power that would be absolute. But why so ?
And this is the point where it gets complicated.
Touga is barely the main topic of episodes focused on him. He is the center of many obsessions and interests, but it seems we never touch upon him as a person. He can be seen being vaguely vulnerable in eps 11 and 12 and then there's the whole Black Rose arc thing. But where does all this mess steam from ?
Victim status
Eps 35 and 36 are the one going deeper into Touga’s character and yet... we’re barely sure of what’s actually going on in his brain. These episodes always give me a weird feeling because we don’t really get to see Touga express his feelings very clearly or freely... We barely get to hear his thoughts.
Just like Anthy.
Don’t make me say what I didn’t say, though. Touga gets to have way more agency than ever does Anthy, and he certainly doesn't endure the same dehumanization as she does. Anthy does have agency in a way. But she expresses it in hidden, implicit ways : playing tricks, hitting people in their sore spots, sarcasm, empty eyes and fake smiles. She’s manipulative and Touga is, too. These two share many similarities, though they can’t completely blend with each other, of course.
We don’t know much about Touga’s childhood. We know he and Nanami were adopted (or “sold”) to the Kiryuu family at a young age. That’s basically it in the canon of the series. Though, Touga’s backstory in the movie, showing him being sexually abused by his adoptive father, was apparently meant to be included in the series as well :
Although the TV series touched upon Touga’s younger days, the film goes into more details – the wound of Touga that was never directly depicted. In his younger days, Touga was a normal kid who enjoyed happy times with his friend Saionji Kyouichi and his younger sister Nanami. However, he came to know his unfortunate fate from the time he was ordered by his parents to wear his hair long. His parents sold him to the Kiryuu family. Although he was an adopted son on the surface, the instinctive Touga knew what that meant. And in order to protect his younger sister, he accepted his lot. Being sold. We did not go into depicting what Touga’s parents obtained by going as far as selling their son. We would like you to think of it as a kind of metaphor.
And Touga accepted in silence the sexual abuse from his new parents. His personality changed while he made a magnanimous show of enjoying the abuses in order to prevent his personality from splitting. The change took place in a spot so deep in his mind, that even those closest to him did not notice. Saionji and Nanami never noticed out of their innocence. And Touga never told his secret to anyone. It is said that a human being gains whatever he lost in exchange. So what did Touga gain in exchange at that point in time? It was the sense of alienation from being abused every night and seeing his innocent friend and sister during the day. The alienated self.
(Extract of a comment Enokido, one of the writers who worked on Utena, wrote about Touga’s role in the Utena movie.)
Of course, you could argue whether or not the sexual abuse is canon or not in the series. After all, the series and the movie don’t seem to take place in the same canon (even though it is hard to completely disconnect the two). Whatever you choose to believe, I personally think it all makes so much sense.
It makes sense regarding Touga’s general behavior in the series (but this is more touched upon in the essay I linked above) and it makes his goal and his narrative role much clearer.
Being sold like a mere object, knowing a much harsher truth about life Saionji and Nanami don’t know about, showing everyone a stronger facade in order to not completely lose your mind and keep protecting your friend and your sister from this reality and eventually... letting them know in a painfully gendered way, perpetuating everything this system has forced on you.
It has all become part of you.
Keeping the cycle of violence going became part of your blood and flesh. Making clear who is supposed to inflict pain and who is supposed to receive it. Who is supposed to protect and who is supposed to be protected. Who is supposed to act and who is supposed to wait.
And you ? No, you’re never supposed to hurt anymore. You want a way out of this. For you, the easiest way is to simply reclaim the place that was always prepared for you to take.
When Touga and Saionji found Utena in her coffin, it feels like Touga knew something Saionji didn’t. Saionji felt it too, but he wasn’t able to recognize what it was. After all, he was still a child. Touga knew about the same thing Utena learned with her parents’ death : they both had a glimpse of what the “adult world” (Akio’s world) actually looks like, shattering their juvenile knowledge of the world.
A world where people die. A world where the weak lose. A world where the prince should protect the princess.
Touga already had a coffin. Utena just found hers and was about to find a new one. Saionji was just finding his.
It all makes sense regarding how obedient Touga is to Akio and why he seeks his validation, his desire to go up in the hierarchy aside. It makes sense because he is “alienated”. Touga got deprived of everything, he knows the burden of being alive and he’s learned, from his early childhood, to be compliant.
He seems independent during the Student Council arc and a majority of the series, but eps 35 and 36 show he is not the mastermind of it all. He has a privileged position but unlike some other characters, Touga never uses his agency to try to break out of the system ─ he follows its rules and tries to reinforce his dominance.
Why would you break out from a system serving you so well ?
“I want to become like him. I want power like his.”
Touga is alienated to the system and his only goal is to become what it expects of him. After all, why wouldn’t he ? Being a prince is the best position offered by the system. Being a prince means acquiring an absolute power. With such power, one doesn’t die and is forever out of reach and harm and pain. Who wouldn’t want such a thing ?
The prince never saves the princess out of selflessness. He saves her because it gives him a reward in exchange. He saves her because it gives him power and control over her and ultimately, everyone else. And so, the princess becomes a "toy" wannabe princes has to win, to conquer.
Does Touga, even during what seems to be his most “sincere” moment in ep 36, ever wish to protect Utena for something else than possessing her ? When could have he learned to know and appreciate her as a person, rather than a princess ? A reward to conquer ?
When did he stop wishing he could’ve saved Utena just like Akio did ? I believe he might be genuine, yet he acts toward Utena exactly like she acts toward Anthy. He wants to save her for his own sake, regardless of her personal hopes and desires.
It’s truly sad, though. Because all of it is nothing but a childish dream. There was never once a prince in this world. Only boring and abusive adults.
“Are you really happy with that?”
Well, when it comes down to it, probably not. But was it ever about happiness ? Probably not either. The pursuit of power only ever leads to isolation, to a complete lack of meaning ─ after all, friendship is a fool’s thing. No one can reach what’s behind the facade.
Saionji was able to confront Touga with his own lies and paradoxes, get as close to his real self anyone probably could. But it wasn’t enough. Saionji himself didn’t go as far as leaving the system entirely, even when it seemed he had cracked it all. Touga sort of did, too.
As far as I’m concerned, we only heard his own, deep thoughts once.
“Kiryuu Touga, the playboy Student Council President... Is it? "Playboy" sounds old-fashioned.”
Touga weaponized himself. He weaponized his body (sex is only a tool to aim for power). He weaponized his heart (relationships only matter if you use them to your advantage. Those who believe in love and friendship are fools and will be ultimately be used to someone else’s advantage). And for what ?
I really like the symbolism of the poppy flower in ep 35. I feel like it symbolizes Akio’s power, in a way. I’m incredibly bad when it comes to the language of flowers (so everyone is free to correct me) but please bear with me. In the East, red poppy flowers apparently symbolize romantic love and success (what it probably means for the girl confessing to Touga, as well as Akio when he “eats” it in this scene, since Touga and him are talking about Utena) but it can also symbolize “luxurious pleasures and fantastic extravagance”. In the Japanese language of flowers, red poppies can also symbolize someone “fun-loving”. I feel like both of these work with Akio and I believe that for Touga, they are a symbol of luxury and extravagance.
Yet another girl confessed to him. Without even thinking about it, he kissed her. He will never read her confession letter, he probably didn’t even notice it. He will probably simply leave it on the floor, without a care. This pursuit of power isn’t even fulfilling to him, there’s absolutely no thought behind it. Only automatic actions, behaviors working in favor of someone else’s greater scheme. He won’t even get to actually possess Utena.
He will never get what he truly wants. Is there even anything that he truly wants ? Saionji, maybe. In the meantime, he’s just a tool for a system. A system made up by boring adults, based on lies, illusions and unachievable dreams.
Touga is condemned to go in cycles. He’s given everything to overcome what keeps him stuck and trapped, but it doesn’t do anything. He can only revolve around his own coffin, completing the same circle, again and again.
He doesn’t know how to do anything else.
It will never make anything he’s done forgivable. But at least, maybe one day, he’ll realize. Or maybe never.
We can always create new roads, leading to worlds completely unknown to us, where everything needs to be built. Anthy and Utena are here to show the way, who deserves to follow these new roads is only up to you.
On a purely personal standpoint... I was never really able to answer this question.
“No. It's not over until we see it through the very end.”
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