#official ohtori

[utena-fanmerch]

GOGAI GOGAI‼️New OFFICIAL merch!

Items:

A) Acrylic panels

B) Initialed glasses

C) Small pouches

D) Keychain charms

E) Microfiber cloths

W) Bromide cards ("celebrity photos")

Items are acquired via online lottery, though they might (inevitably) also end up on third-party seller pages sometime.

Original tweet and links under the cut!

🌹🌹🌹

＼✨Release date decided✨／ I wonder, I wonder, do you know? TV anime “Revolutionary Girl Utena” will be released on DMM Scratch! ! Introducing a product lineup that uses newly drawn illustrations.

【Sales period】 2023/12/15 (Fri) 12:00-2024/1/20 (Sat) 11:59 ▼Sales page https://t.co/VPHYGWNNwh — DMM Scratch (@dmm_scratch) December 8, 2023 via Twitter, Google translated from Japanese

[hubristicassholefight]

Round 1 Part 1a

Akio Ohtori (Revolutionary Girl Utena) vs the Entire Allagan Empire (Final Fantasy XIV)

Propaganda under the cut (Spoiler warning!)

Akio Ohtori

Only propaganda was asked not to be included

Allagan Empire

They're an empire and not a character but I just really like to clown on them. Did empire things, performed unethical experiments on... everything, including gods, and a scientist revived one of their dead emperors at one point. Emperor communed with the void/demons, demons needed power to be able to maintain a connection to the world, allagan empire put an elder dragon in a moon to get more power, that was too MUCH power and caused an earthquake that destroyed the empire and caused a calamity. They put a dragon. In a moon. And that moon came crashing down centuries later. Like half the stuff in the game is their fault. Also they have a clown theater kid scientist.

[wygolvillage]

debating changing my icon to anthy because i like her :) blorbo from my shows etc etc

[transmascutena]

ohtori dashboard simulator

🐄 calf-kin Follow

WHO KEEPS LETTING ANIMALS LOOSE IN THE HALLWAYS

🎹 sunlitgarden Follow

Has anyone else noticed that time is really weird?

🧅 onion-princess123 Follow

making lunch for my beautiful boyfriend <33

snail-lover-deactivated011998

just made dinner for my roommate ^_^

girlprince-deactivated121997

i never ever wanna walk up another flight of stairs again in my life once this school year is over

6524771891-deactivated Follow

what the fuck does our student council even do like actually

🌹 touga-kiryuu Follow

If it cannot break its egg's shell, a chick will die without being born. We are the chick. The world is our egg. If we don't crack the world's shell, we will die without being born. Smash the world's shell!

#deep #inspirational #poetry #poetic #quotes #literature #dark academia

🌹 ohtori-official

If you or a friend/loved one is currently attending Ohtori Academy, please remember that you can get a free counselling session in the abandonded building at the edge of campus.

- Souji Mikage

🪺 lonchura-oruzivora Follow

if someone i hate just so happens to fall down the stairs while i'm walking by how is that my fault 🙄🙄

⚔️ kendocaptain Follow

just got my ass kicked by a middle school girl for the third time in a row dhmu..

#sad #vent #delete later

🐄 calf-kin Follow

🐄 calf-kin Follow

Anyone who voted no DNI !!!!!!!

🎭 abc-ko Follow

reblog if you think the chairman should fund the drama club more instead of spending all the board money on sports cars

snail-lover-deactivated011998

Akio Ohtori Call-Out Post

Keep Reading

#in other news i'm dropping out of school #goodbye forever i will not miss any of you

[calypsolemon]

I would love to hear your thoughts about the Black Rose arc: what actually happened in the past, how any of the shit that goes down there actually helps Akio, any thoughts you have to throw at it honestly that arc is still kinda baffling to me

Sorry for taking so long to answer this one anon, I'm currently trying to move apartments! Also this is a DOOZY of a question because the tl;dr is my interpretation of exactly what happened during black rose constantly shifts. Quite frankly, the exactly circumstances of Mikage's past is so nebulous, that "what actually happened" might honestly not even be the right question to ask (but we shall try regardless!). Fair warning, this gets long as fuck.

So, to begin, here are the things I think actually "happened" in Mikage/ Nemuro's past:

A teenaged, socially outcast "genius" named Nemuro is recruited by the equivalent of the student council (100 boys) of the past, without knowing or caring what his work is for. He considers himself incapable of emotion, and seems to even lack passion for his work.

He meets a woman named Tokiko, who is involving herself in this process in an attempt to preserve her terminally ill brother. He also meets said brother, Mamiya. Both leave an impression on him, causing him to suddenly understand his fellow student's pursuit for both emotional connections, and their drive to gain power/ eternity.

Akio eventually approaches him with a letter and a ring, commanding him to do something that is not clarified to the audience, officially letting him in to the "council" of 100 boys.

Some time after this, Mamiya dies. Nemuro burns down the building they were conducting their experiments in, which he defends as necessary. Tokiko rejects this action, and shortly after leaves Ohtori.

These are pretty much the things i can say with like.... 99% certainty are actually true of the past. But obviously, that leaves quite a few gaps. So let's talk about the whole of black rose and the symbolism and meaning it presents, and try to see if we can work backwards from there.

Black rose is, mainly, an exploration of the first arc's duelists through their various foils and related side characters. Each black rose duelists not only expands on previously minor character's desires and flaws (setting them up nicely to pair with the final set of duels), but highlights the main duelist's own by contrast. This being said, it is clear through both visual similarities and spoken ones, that Mikage is intended as a foil to Utena, and through him we are intended to understand Utena and her motivations for fighting these duels more deeply.

It is also the arc which begins to introduce the audience to the more abstract nature of Ohtori - where before you could mostly excuse time and spacial inconsistencies as silly magical girl hijinks, now the series forces you to see itself as less of a coherent sequence of events, and more as a collection of symbols presenting an emotional truth about its characters. We begin to understand the idea of "what exactly is happening" is less important than "what is this character feeling and thinking? What is the world through their eyes?" Which again, serves to have us understand our main duelists on a deeper level.

So what understanding are we gleaning from this arc? Well, I would say the main idea we can draw from this arc is that human memory is incredibly malleable and prone to deterioration, and the pursuit of the perfect preservation of memory (eternity) is essentially a fool's errand. This was already an idea introduced to us in the first arc - most obviously, I'd say, through Miki and his idealization of his past with his sister - but it becomes even more blatantly true in this season as we watch a literal dead man walking become so thoroughly manipulated by Akio that he doesn't even remember the face of one of the only two people he's ever claimed to care about, despite his motivation of preserving said person.

Throughout the two episodes that end the black rose saga, we see a distorted version of Nemuro's life, one cut up and pasted over to focus on things that will ultimately drive him to the actions Akio wants him to take. Seemingly, Tokiko is the one he falls in love with, and is the one to motivate him to reach eternity (the fingers point to her, her cup with the lipstick stain, her kissing Akio instead of Nemuro), and yet Mamiya is the one whom Nemuro pictures by his side, whom he kisses on the bleeding fingers, who he tells is suited to the role of Bride. He reconfigures his burning of the Hall as a grand sacrifice at the hands of Mamiya, a necessary step towards reaching eternity like they both want, and yet it was he who started the fire, Mamiya having been long dead, and having clearly stated before his distaste for the stasis of eternity.

These inconsistencies parallel Utena's own, to the point that they essentially serve as foreshadowing to her own end. Utena (Mikage) reconfigures her childhood concern for Anthy (Mamiya) into a more traditional, heterosexual crush on her prince (Tokiko), which motivates her to become part of the dueling system. Utena (Mikage) wishes to help Anthy (Mamiya) but she disregards Anthy's (Mamiya's) personhood and plays into Akio (Tokiko's) desires instead. She refuses to confront inconsistencies in her memories, or the possibility that the meaning and goals she gleans from them may be harmful, because they carried her up until now - this is blatantly said in the conversation between Mikage and Utena, and it is true for both. Their precious memories leave both in a state of eternal adolescence, constantly seeking their glimpses at eternity, but unable to see how they are being used for it.

That, I believe, is the core of the arc and its purpose and the general gist of what happened. I suppose that really leaves the question: what was it all for, exactly? And to that end I say... what is any of the dueling system for? Akio's purposes are just as vague as anything else in the series, and its because he himself is a seeker of this empty "eternity." His main goal is to keep everyone in the same stasis he is in, so he can maintain his position of power, while toying with the idea of returning to his own idealized past self. Most of what he does is cruelty for cruelty's sake, with a thin veneer of "purpose" behind it to justify it to himself and others. It's only when Mikage and Utena both confront the truth of their memories and let go of those implanted ideals, do they graduate from Akio's influence, a "death" in the eyes of those unable to look at the world outside Ohtori.

[arielluva]

finished the after the revolution manga bc i somehow found it at barnes and noble yesterday?? (i never thought i would see utena merch just out in the wild like that, it kinda jumpscared me. it was also the only copy there) and it was. it was ok

i just kinda of took it as a 'its hard to leave behind your past' (or i guess your coffin) kinda thing given with how the student council all get lured back to ohtori academy again 20 years later, end up in their old uniforms and dueling again, like they're falling back into old habits after leaving.

i think i liked touga and saionji's story the best though, they kinda go back to their old ways, find the painting of anthy, stab akios ghost and kill him a second time (big fan of akio dying in any way) and then said painting of anthy changes to one of anthy and utena together

so idk. i think it was fine for an anniversary thing. im just glad i have another official utena related thing now, considering how sparse merchandise for it is

[gamesception]

let's read the utena manga, chapter 3

Ok, I gotta pause a second. This fan translation is... not great. I don't mean any disrespect to the translater, they were a fan doing a tremendous amount of work for free out of the passion in their heart, it would be unfair to expect a super polished professional style job from that. But wasn't there an official professional English translation of this manga? Surely that must have ripped and uploaded at some point? Yet I've looked everywhere I could and have only been able to find this fan translated version. The physical books are all out of print as well - I'm a big enough fan that I would have happily purchased the us$50 hardcover version, but I can't find that for less than $200 used now, which is simply out of my price range for this project.

I guess for now I'll keep going with what I've got, but it's getting distracting, and there's already at least one plot point that I'm kind of confused on. If anyone who sees this happens to know some way I can access the official translation, please let me know.

So, anyway, where did we leave off? Oh, yeah. Utena hasn't even gone to Ohtori yet, and Wakaouji Aoi (who is maybe manga Akio?) is here, in her house, dating (?) her aunt, and borderline hitting on her.

so yeah, we've careened way of the rails here.

But Utena is still Utena enough to, like, immediately confront Wakaouji about it, asking him about the ring, directly asking about the letters...

But just then a convenient distraction outside...

As the vase that the rose Wakaouji brought ~just happens~ to be knocked over "by the wind", which he immediately uses both to cut off Utena's questions and to set up this moment between them, which also just happens to direct her attention to the scent of the rose, which matches that of the letters and her memory of the prince.

Some very Akio-esque circumstances and behaviors from Aoi, here.

Regardless, Utena's fully convinced that Wakaouji is peropero-kun, and, like the kid she is, the next day she's bragging about it to her friend and rubbing his face in how wrong he was.

Friend-kun, I know you're like 13, and therefore a dumbass, but having a ring and gifting roses to ladies are not the parts of the story that make "Prince Licky-Licky" a pervert.

Though he does slightly more intelligently bring up that Wakaouji never explicitly said he sent the letters.

He fails to bring up that, if Wakaouji is in college, then he's at most, what, 22? Which means he would have been 15 when 6 year old Utena met her prince? A 15 year old probably wouldn't have been able to save her from the situation she remembers, and even if he had sending mysterious romantic letters once every year to a girl he met one time when she was 6 is extremely unlikely behavior for a 15 year old.

Of course, having watched the anime, we can be confident that this dude has been at most 22 for a long, long time.

But there's more pressing matters for Utena and Friend-kun to think about...

Yeah, Utena's leaving the country soon, and even if she's coming back in two years, like, they're 13? 14? Two years is a long as time when you're 14. They are not going to be the same people after that. And while Utena has this lifelong romantic mystery adventure aspect to it to be excited about, Friend-kun is basically just losing his friend and crush entirely.

But Utena, again being the kid she is, doesn't just want to brag that her Prince was real after all, she wants to show him off in person.

Only...

Prince Licky-Licky is kind of preoccupied with Utena's aunt.

Good on you, Friend-kun. No, Kaidou. Kaidou is his name. He deserves that much respect at least for this bit.

Aw, poor girl.

Harsh. Very easy for Utena to be hard on herself. I don't relate to her a lot, but I relate to that much at least.

Also the exact same perfectly-child-sized hole in the fence is still there, unfixed after 7 years. And wouldn't you know it...

There just happens to be another lost little girl the same age Utena was wandering around near the dangerous hole in the fence.

Utena tries to lead the girl away from the hole, but they fall through anyway, and chapter 3 ends on a cliffhanger.

A lot of stuff going on. This is all still entirely pre-Ohtori Academy, and could more or less work as an expanded prequel to the events of the anime, but yeah I'm still don't really know where this is going yet.

[weirdgirltournament]

💥 ROUND 0....FIGHT!!

Nanami Kiryuu vs. Anthy Himemiya as Ohtori Academy's weirdest girl!!!

(for context: a user submitted character contrasts admin's personal submission so i think its only fair to leave it up to the people on which utena girl gets to compete in the tournament!)

this is NOT the official tournament, which still has spots! every character is user submitted so please send in your favorite weird girls and check my page for the rules/criteria and an up to date character list!

[prodigaldaughteralice]

Current status of my pin bag! 

The two NaNoWriMo pins are from fundraising stuff, the skeleton-and-bunny is The Birthday Massacre merch, the carnation is Hadestown merch, the Lewis head is Mystery Skulls Animated merch, and the Delta Rune is Undertale merch— those all come from the official shops of their respective creators

The Wolf and Red hands cameo is by The Creeping Museum

Bismuth Casual and Rebel Gem are by @gracekraft

The rabbit skull, death’s head moth, and two-headed raven are all by @pangur-and-grim

The Sappho quote is by @rosefinchie

There Are Always Storms is by @starsalts

The BATT mask is from themysteryshack.com

The Owlbert is by BusinessBirdsStudios on etsy

The Tulip and Atticus pin is by potinsgoodsfactory on etsy

The Poison: Max Strength bottle is from LunaPatchesPins on etsy

One Flesh, One End (bitch!) is from PendragonsShop on etsy

The Infinity Train door is by pocketspellshop on etsy

Ohtori Academy Girl Gang and Stab the Patriarchy are by @foxflightstudios

The Selkie Conservancy was from the Creature Conservancy kickstarter

Let Me Be Perfectly Queer I think is from donnellycolt.com though I don’t see it on their page now

I cannot remember who I got the beheaded Alice from, it was an artist at FanimeCon a couple years ago, if anyone recognizes it please let me know!!!

The bee is NYT merch and was a gift from my mum, Santa Cruz Mountains was also a gift from her and idk where it comes from, Persist/Resist was also a gift from her but I think it’s from jubly-umph

Both vampire mouths were gifts from my sib @melloproductions so I do not know their provenance either lol

The Drink Me bottle… I don’t remember where I got it I’m sorry

[jutsei]

Last 30 minutes! Let’s finish this up-

- I’ve officially entered the car part of the movie (I know the metaphor of Utena turning into a car means she’s the vehicle to get Anthy out of Ohtori)

- I didn’t expect the Shadow Girl control center or Sega type track

- Shiori fucking died???

- I’m a car now Tuesday

- I also didn’t expect The Absolute Destiny Apocalypse to play during the CAR WASH TRANSFORMATION SCENE Even though it’s Utena’s transformation theme

[malachitinous]

[utena-fanmerch]

GOGAI GOGAI ‼️

Seiko x Revolutionary Girl Utena Special Collaboration Watch is available and purchasable through Buyee for international folks!

Watch face features lovely details such as:

Sword of Dios second hand

The Castle

The Dueling Arena

[to-revolutionize-my-world]

[wygolvillage]

bonkers thought process i had during my shower

any girl who cannot become a princess is fated to become a witch. thinking about how utena rejected the role of princess and *failed to be the prince* too because this whole binary is a cycle reinforced by violence. thinking about how the swords of hatred went straight for her too. thinking about how the swords also never touched akio, even actively avoiding contact with him, hes this untouchable example of the coersive power of the cisheteronormative gender binary. thinking about how defying this power, with self expression, with love, earns you the hatred of society. but you have to love defiantly anyway even if it makes you a witch in their eyes, to be despised and hated by the world. its the only way to make it out of that world and to build your own roads

utena is as much a witch as anthy is; in the end, all girls are like the rose bride.

anyway you ever think abt this one bit of official art. its so silly but its what initially got me thinking about utena being technically a witch within the gendered rules of ohtori lol

[transmascutena]

i agree with the interpretation that ohtori is a world created and controlled by akio and anthy, but one key part about this that i can never quite get to fit in my head is, where do the ohtori family fit into this? akio's position of power as chairman hinges entirely on his relationship with kanae. her mom tells him as much: engagements can be ended, he can be discarded at any moment. so if the dueling game has been going on for as long as we're led to believe, if there have been many previous cycles, how was akio still the one in power then? it complicates things further if you believe the idea that kanae was previously a victor of the duels and that was how she got engaged to akio in the first place. what role did he play in that cycle? maybe he was chosen for the arranged marriage and adopted into the family before the engagement was official, this would make sense, but that can only go so far back. so maybe the duels haven't been going on for very long? but then how does nemuro and the 100 boys fit into that, when it seems to have happened 20 or so years ago, before kanae was even born? it's just interesting to me. why, if akio (with anthy's help) did make this world, did he not just make himself the leader of it, inherently? why does he need to be engaged to kanae and poison her dad and sleep with her mom in the first place? does he just like the scheming of it? it's probably for thematic reasons, because that's way more important than realism, but i'm not quite sure what it means that his position of power is so... tenouos. especially if he chose for it to be that way

[calypsolemon]

honestly appreciating how After The Revolution refused to explore Anthy and Utena post-series. It just feels fundamentally Right to me, that there is not and will never be an "official" representation of what happens in their lives after they leave Ohtori. They have escaped the narrative and that's the way it should stay.