#that is everything to nanami in every imaginable way. that was everything to touga but is somehow so faint and unimportant now

[heartslobbf]

have you guys thought about the cat lately. i have. its the way that nanami carries her guilt forever, and convinces herself that every issue in her and touga’s relationship stems from it. its the way that touga clearly cared about the cat (and the one that anthy gifts him, too) but is unable to see it as anything other than a gift, an object, something to be owned by him: this is of course how love works. it is a tiny little animal abandoned and unloved and taken into a home and a family that will kill it even as it is loved. it is favourited and scapegoated at the same time. it’s the greatest gift of all. we should live to help each other, shouldnt we? man oh man. touga protected the cat from nanami but nanami protected touga from the cat. and who even is the cat anyway? something cuter, easy to remember nicer style kitty? juliano? miki and touga’s dialogue in episode eleven about treating your sister well (like a pet cat?). the cat being hidden away in the box, the cat with its wide and innocent eyes that nanami cannot forget. forgive me. forgive me. anyway yeah ive had some thoughts about the cat i guess

[hezuart]

Regarding Utena, I wouldn't use the phrase "sleeping with each other" when most of the sex is outright abuse.

For example, Utena and Anthy are 14 years old, and cannot consent to having sex with Akio, so saying they're just "sleeping with" him frames the issue as if it was consensual and an active choice on their part.

Ah I wasn't just talking about Utena and Anthy. Akio also slept with Kanae (and Touga... I think) Shiori slept with Touga. Touga actually slept with everyone in school. Our main three sibling groups in the show, Akio & Anthy, Touga & Nanami, Kozue & Miki were all incestuous. So that statement was just an overall. Pretty much every relationship in this anime is heavily messed up in some way

Forgive me, I haven't watched Utena in a very long while, so there are some things I totally forgot about, but from my memory, the love square was insane. Utena started dating(?????) Akio, and then found out he was sleeping with Anthy, and then the two of them seem to passive-aggressively fight over him briefly?? This show is absolutely beautiful and started off with a somewhat clear story. A tomboyish girl named Utena joins a strange magical fight club at school for the hand of Anthy. Anthy is maybe under some kind of spell to serve whoever she is betrothed to. Utena doesn't seem to get it, and really only wants to fight for Anthy's freedom and happiness. After living together, the two become good friends and maybe even start to fall in love. Utena loses at one point and falls into a depression, dressing up like a girl again, doubtful and insecure about herself, only to make a comeback. There's a mysterious prince who descends from the heavens to grant her power through the sword she pulls from Anthy's heart. That castle could be real magic, from another realm, or just from her imagination from the prince who saved her as a child- (sike!!! its a projection in the sky?????? guess what, everything is fake!! ??? ....except for the swords pulled out of peoples hearts. Those are real, somehow.)

But yeah once Akio is introduced the show quickly devolves from "Magical LGBTQ+ highschool girl challenges gender roles and relationship norms, saving a princess in the process and falls in love with her," to backtracking, incest, sex, sexual abuse, weird comic relief, manipulations, illusions where everything isn't real yet at the same time it is, shirtless men, driving cars, dead people, etc. The bitter-sweet confusing ending where Anthy is finally free but at the expense of Utena, who in the end realized she could never be a prince, apologizing in despair at her failure, pierced with thousands of swords in Anthy's place...

It still has an interesting aspect parallel of Anthy, a princess, sacrificing herself for a prince who in the end becomes a corrupt shadow of himself. Vs. Utena, a princess acting as a prince, sacrifices herself for the princess who was a shadow of herself to free her. The fact that the thing that saved her all those years ago was her want to save Anthy was really poetic.

Like there's a lot of metaphors to be found here, really beautiful, surreal amazing ones, but in my head I can only see it as a horrific confusing tragedy. But the cliffhanger is like "Utena is out there somewhere in another universe! I'm gonna go travel to find her : ) " how and why did that happen and where on earth did she go-

(I don't know how to associate the movie with the anime because those feel like two completely different universes and probably are.) The show mid to 3 quarters of the way went absolutely bonkers. I feel like it kinda lost sight of where it was trying to go for a while. The ending was truly beautiful, but it was so odd due to prior inconsistencies in the story. You couldn't tell what was actually real or not, or how things came to be or why. And things that happened before, like all the sexual abuse is never addressed or brought up again. And it acts like the ending is happy, like there's hope for Utena and Anthy, but it just feels like nothing was really resolved. Anthy leaves the school, which, you know, good for her, her freedom was the point of the anime, it was what Utena was working towards her whole life, even if she didn't remember. But I don't know if she was well and truly saved if Utena was now in her place. Feels like they're just gonna go in a loop. Doomed by the narrative when the narrative itself doesn't really acknowledge that. I just got a "Don't try to be something you're not because you'll succeed but at your own demise" kind of moral from it, which felt like a loss rather than a win when it came to the gender role commentary.

[museenkuss]

Some Utena questions if you feel like it (if not, feel free to ignore ofc 😁) but soooo thoughts about the show? Anything that truly surprised you, anything you weren't a fan of? Best duel? 👀

Oh wow okay let’s go 💆🏼‍♀️🌹!!

Thoughts in general…talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it.

I have so many thoughts on the Utena-myth (so to say) to begin with…it’s so dear to me…I first started reading it when I was about 14 and then finished it when I was in my 20s and then it took me another year until the ending suddenly clicked into place. Every time I interact with the story, it feels like another revolution, a new evolution. Absolutely incredible stuff. But the anime…wow. It’s such a dream, it’s so surreal, it’s so intricate and beautiful. So many things happen at once, folded over each other like petals. And there’s so much that’s said and not said at the same time [which…we do have a saying here — when someone has something harsh to say and sweetens it for the benefit of the person he’s saying it to, he’s saying it “durch die Blume”, “through the flower”]

[im still very caught up in the experience of finishing the last episode so this got a little rambly]

I had so much fun, to make it short.

So right now, I really can’t say that there was anything I truly disliked. I’m a bit unsure how I feel about Akio and Dios (as I did love the Dios reveal in the Manga and while the end result is somewhat the same, I feel like the anime lacked the punch here. Things didn’t shatter as much as they slowly cracked and crumbled, if that makes sense? I’m left to wonder whether I messed up while reading and the implication was the exact same the whole time and I just didn’t catch it?!?!?! But either way, I still remember how I felt the first time I saw Dios slip off that globe. Unparalleled. As much as I loved the concept of Venus is Morning Star is Lucifer here) — most of the things that’d come to mind immediately, like the repetitive nature of the episodes/transformation sequences etc, on second glance just heightened my enjoyment of what I was watching (repetitive character of myths!! Fate is expressed in repetition! Everything is endlessly repeated!!). [except the the filler episodes that just repeated what had happened and the Nanami cow&curry arks. Mostly because I really liked Nanami and I felt bad for her….especially since the curry thing was so truly innocent and stupid in the manga, I was so offended that she supposedly and temporarily got the blame for it…]

What truly surprised me — that’s difficult since I in theory knew the story already but wow the last two episodes did mess with me a little. I’m still not — Akio’s features changing when he promises the life up in the castle was so eerie, I’m not over it. Im also not sure whether I imagined that?! I thought he suddenly looked like Anthy, but it could’ve been just Dios but it could’ve been Anthy still for that same reason but — to make it short It was too much for me.

Oh yeah and fucking. Touga and Nanami. I was SO ready to accept that weak ass, Thorki style “it’s not by blood” thing. Like yeah fine that doesn’t change shit if you grew up together but alright whatever let’s go. And then ?! Double punch back?! I’m not OVER it. Touga I want to study you like a bug. //I am realising in real time right now that he probably did all that, the cruelty(1) and the lies(2), to help her feel better? Either by forcing her to move on(1) or by giving her an out a for her desires(2). Either way I—

[in general I do want to watch it all over again right away and focusing on the side characters. Like what happened to Mickey in the end? I don’t recall HIS ark ever getting a resolution like the other duellists?! Did he and Kozue just make up and call it a day…? (And btw am I imagining the implications of when they put up that birdhouse? Her digging the hole I think? Him hammering it in?? I THINK?i have to rewatch that) Genuine question I wanted to ask you ever since it happened) And ? Saionji just in general. What was going on there (as in…was there another reason for all of that apart from homoeroticism.). Honestly I ADORE the side characters so much]

Favourite duels oh wow. I don’t know. I loved Juri’s last duel, I loved Utena’s duel with Wakaba. Also for some reason the whole concept of the black roses ark just in general killed me every time. But especially Tsuwabuki and Nanami? Him pulling the double blades from her chest…whoa. ALSO! Of course!! Anthy pulling the sword form Utena’s chest killed me every single time. As you said — the slow progression of their relationship, oh wow. It’s so masterful, I loved it.

I’m a right mess is what I’m saying. Just a complete scatterbrained mess. I’m thinking a lot of thoughts very fast.

[jewlwpet]

@palaceperspective had the idea that someone could make a post about just the snippets we see in the series of Touga’s and Nanami’s childhood. I think that’s a really neat idea. I was going to make this part of the general post on Touga I’m making, but I think that’s long enough as it is; I’ll just include a link to this post in that one.

I tried, at first, to leave creator commentary out until the very end, because I know some people prefer to reject certain parts of it regarding the Kiryuus’ past; however, I couldn’t do this because.it simply makes too much of a difference regarding the flashbacks in episode 10. Still, there’s a lot in the scenes that stands regardless of that, which I talk about plenty.

The specific piece of commentary I’m thinking of is this bit from Yoji Enokido, scriptwriter and planner for the series and movie. Aspects of the movie are discussed in there, so do expect discussion of childhood sexual abuse.

Touga’s birthday cake has 12 candles, so it’s likely, though not certain, that this was his twelfth birthday. It’s very obvious that this household is very rich and decadent: No surprise. I don’t know what kind of flowers those are; I wonder if they have any special meaning. It probably doesn’t represent his birthday: His birthday is June 6. The birth flowers for that month are the rose and honeysuckle; this I find in English-language and Japanese sites alike. Japanese Wikipedia also lists birth flowers for each individual day of the year (pretty cool); June 4 corresponds to the evening primrose (Oenethera), the ice plant (Lampranthus), and pink baby’s breath (Gypsophila). This doesn’t look like any of those.

Touga is sitting on what looks like a throne, but he seems to be on display for the guests (all adults) more than anything else. They’re peering at him like a museum display or an animal in a cage. One of them holds a bouquet of white roses, which generally represent innocence and purity... also, according to one site I’m looking at, “new beginnings.”

Nanami arrives at Touga’s party late and covered in dirt.

No comment that she’s late, only that she’s dirty. No one cares that she was missing... which, in hindsight, makes a lot of sense, because a child with much adult supervision surely won’t find an opportunity to drown a kitten.

I really don’t know how I haven’t thought about this before, but Nanami just says she “brought” this kitten. I have very little doubt at this point she spent a good portion of the day running around the no doubt extensive estate grounds trying to capture a kitten.

I’m not sure what to think about Nanami calling this woman Mama. I figured these were all strangers or servants, since they were saying “Touga-sama” and “Nanami-sama.” Touga still has short hair, so they’re still living with their original parents. I wouldn’t expect Nanami to have any memories or photos from that time, but it seems she does, just not going back far. But all of the adults here are faceless, none singled out. I’m not sure if the original parents are here, or if she just... assumes that the servants who have interacted the most must be her mother and father, and they never corrected her. Either way, she ended up forgetting them.

I want to note that not only are all the adults in Nanami’s memory are faceless silhouettes, they only interact with her to scold her and take away things that are precious to her and that she worked hard for. I think that’s probably how it was for her, growing up.

I think he’s in earnest here. It makes sense that he’d be pleased by Nanami’s gift, seeing as she’s the only one who was actually trying to make him happy... it showed that someone, at least, cared. Given how extremely weird and creepy this party is, it seems like... maybe it was an auction. Except, it must not have resulted in anything, if it was his birth parents who originally forced him to grow his hair long... maybe Nanami arriving late, covered in dirt, and carrying a stray kitten in a box had something to do with that. In which case... No wonder Touga’s happy about it.

"His smile was something for me alone.” You know what, I can believe that.

Similarly, his annoyance with Nanami, when he yells at her to leave him alone, also seems genuine.

It makes sense that, even before Touga begins deliberately manipulating Nanami, she would develop an unhealthy obsession with obtaining his affection, because based on what we see in this, she probably has no other source of affection in her life.

It also makes sense to me that this might grow really frustrating for someone who is constantly being made into a spectacle and showered in invasive attention (and according to what Enokido said, that’s just the beginning).

Ikuhara’s commentary for this episode really hits home when the scene is given a close examination:

When I was a child, the center of the party always seemed to sparkle.

I was always standing on the sidelines, gazing at that sparkle from afar. I thought the sidelines were my place. Surely I could never approach the center of the room.

But then, I was chosen! I touched that sparkle in the center of the room, and no mistake. Still, I know full well that it’s something that won’t last forever.

The day the contract ends, I’ll turn into an “unchosen girl.”

So I’ll go back to the sidelines again, eh?

--Smash the egg’s shell.

For the revolution of the world.

“The center of the party” was/is both figuratively and literally where all the worst things are happening, and Nanami, without knowing it, is striving to get there, next to Touga, before anyone else can take that place by his side, and that’s what her whole story is about.

I’m just going to say, on that note... it’s super messed up to read "in order to protect his younger sister, Touga accepted his lot” and then think about the fact that he ended up using her as a pawn anyway, was already at that point by the beginning of the series, and ended up actually sexually assaulting her in episode 32. Just. Nice going. Ugh.

The other major flashback we have is from episode 9. It seems to be slightly later.

"See, it’s pouring down! That’s why I told you we should have quit after the tenth match!” “I couldn’t help it. You’re the only one I know who’ll let me practice on them.”

And here we see the beginning of Touga’s habit of making excuses for everything he does... no. I don’t think this means anything; it seems innocent enough. This Touga has grown his hair out, and he has a friend, Saionji. They appear to be very close.

His reaction to hearing the funeral bells is interesting, though. He looks very interested and not at all disturbed.

Touga says nothing when some adults come by to ask about a missing girl whose parents have just died. When Saionji keeps talking afterward, Touga doesn’t respond but is looking into the distance very intently.

When Saionji brings him back to reality, he starts walking towards the church they had passed earlier. He explains to Saionji that he thought he saw three coffins there before. Generally I think the assumption then would be “someone else died too,” but Touga is led here by the story of the missing girl. He strides over to the coffins very quickly and immediately starts opening one, despite Saionji’s protests. Sure enough, a voice is heard telling him not to open it, but he doesn’t anyway. The next part is interesting: he tells her that people are looking for her, and she asks if he’s going to tell them where she is.

I don’t think I’ve seen any analysis of this scene other than “Even as a kid Touga thought nothing of fondling this complete stranger’s hair.” Which is an interesting point and brings up the question of where he learned this from. But I think it’s equally interesting that he was just going to leave her to die and that this, to him, is “being an ally to girls.” Being “feminist,” even though I’ve read that in 1990′s Japan it was common for that term to be misused.

...It occurs to me that this is actually very different from how he treats girls later: well-intentioned and absolutely wrong, but in pretty much the opposite way from how he treated Utena later at the end when again he claimed to be looking out for her. That Touga tried to take control of her in order to “save” her. This Touga basically goes, “Well, if this seven-year-old wants to die, we should let her, because that’s her choice.”

The camera pans back to him when she says that living on just makes her sick.

The next pan to Touga happens when she says, “I’ll never come out into the sunlight again.”

Saionji thought that Touga must have shown her something eternal so that she was motivated to keep living on. In reality, Touga didn’t have anything to offer her. I have a feeling he suspected he was right. But clearly, he wasn’t that far gone yet; he wasn’t at the point of stopping everything, of no longer going through the motions of life. But it seems like he could get there. So why didn’t he? What changed? It turns out Ikuhara wrote about this in his commentary on this episode:

When he was young, he met a girl. She said things like “Everyone is alone” and “There’s no such thing as eternity.” A deep despair: He couldn’t save the girl. But the next day, there she was in the sunlight, with “something different in her eyes.”

Something had saved her.

He wanted to know the true nature of the “miraculous power” that had done it.

When he met her again, he tried to “rule” her heart. His thinking was that only “the joy of being ruled” could save people. He believed that was wherer the “power of miracles” dwelled.”

I think that says a lot about Touga. It probably took some time to get there, though.

The new manga is, of course a different continuity, but I want to take a moment o cover it because it explores how the scene might have gone if Touga and Saionji had found Utena just a bit later. The subtext of Touga feeling that the girl in the coffin is perhaps right is made explicit in this.

Utena: Living on makes me sick. Touga: You’re right. Life is so unreliable.

He says that outright. And I think that anime Touga was likely thinking it. So when this Utena says she’s decided to live on, Touga is surprised.

He hangs onto every word she says and seems especially moved by the phrase “revolutionize the world.”

Back to the anime. The anime doesn’t have any more scenes from the Kiryuus’ past, but of course we get some insight in episode 37. I’ll start at the beginning: Nanami says that the two of them used to share everything. There are some pictures we see to represent that:

“But now Big Brother doesn’t care about me at all.”

I’m going to use the empty movement gallery for the next couple of screenshots because these photos went by v. fast:

As you can see, these are all Short-Haired Touga... also, none of these seem to be much older than that flashback of Nanami’s.

We catch some more glimpses when Nanami notices the lack of photos from Touga’s early childhood and is desperately rifling through all her pictures with him.

I would comment on the fact that we never see him in the regular (non Stu-Co) Ohtori uniform in these, but then, Nanami isn’t wearing the normal uniform in any of these either, and we know she used to be a normal student... so I think it’s just because we don’t get to see all of the photos.

[queen-of-hearts92]

Have you ever seen Utena fans make outright false claims about characters? Like, objectively wrong? Because I've seen people say all sorts of weird and untrue shit, like that Anthy raped Akio when they hid from the angry mob and later they were "raping and abusing each other", or that Shiori wanted to out Juri in front of the school and later got Ruka hurt Juri when her plan failed. Where do these ideas come from?

Ohhhhh yeah I’ve seen many of those (including the ones you mentioned)! I recall one time I had to patrol the t.v tro.pes utena character page cause someone kept dropping fake info like that. It stopped after a month but man that was annoying (I still check the page sometimes, luckily there hasn’t been an issue for awhile so thats good). -.-;

I think the simple answer to where these ideas come from is two fold. One, confirmation bias. If someone wants to see a character/thing a certain way they’ll justify it however they can. Even if it’s nonsensical and untrue.

Two, people take advantage of the show’s ambiguous nature to create untrue narratives that suit their own bizarre theories. Defenses like “well THERE ISN’T A WRONG ANSWER CAUSE ITS UP TO INTERPERATATION!” end up being used. Which is a lame and awful excuse, there is wrong answers. There always is, Utena has a fucking narrative you guys. An odd and surreal narrative but it has one. Utena has objectively true and not true things about it. It’s like saying “Utena doesn’t play sports”, thats 100% untrue because we see her play sports several times on screen and its not like. Hidden or anything (besides it being made to look fancy cause this is a shoujo anime EVERYTHING MUST BE FANCY) it’s something Utena does. On screen. It’s mentioned by other characters, it’s talked about a few times and Utena herself has talked about it. Saying that she doesn’t play sports is straight up untrue and no amount of bullshitting can change that. I know this is a mild example but I’m thinkin you get the point. It’s just people being narrow minded in the end.

Whoops I rambled about the particular “theories” you mentioned a lot. My bad. 8`D

Side note: Gdi anyone saying that Anthy raped Akio at ANY point in time is one dense motherfucker. And just another attempt at demonizing Anthy. Like. Y’all did u miss it when the show is like “HEY YOU SHOULDN’T DEMONIZE ANTHY.” and then these people proceed to demonize Anthy. 

Also yeah I’ve heard the ones about Shiori too (I’ve heard legit everything dumb people say about her at this point, fuck). Shiori outing Juri can’t be true or correct in the slightest cause a. everyone lost all their memories of the Black Rose Circle stuff and this includes Shiori so therefore it can’t be something she plans to do cause she doesn’t fucking really know whats in the locket anymore. b. her elevator scene clearly indicates that she’s pleased she discovered that Juri is keeping a secret and thinks to let Juri know that she knows that she has a secret (it doesn’t matter what the secret is, “perfect” Juri has one and thats all that matters to her. It could’ve been that Juri was secretly a furry and she would have been just as pleased) and gives no indication that she’ll tell anyone besides keeping it between the two of them just to continue their petty gay teen drama bullshit. And c. even if that thought DID cross her mind Shiori straight up doesn’t have the guts/drive to do such a thing (unless u thinking movie! Shiori but thats a DIFFERENT thing all together) cause judging from her dialoge and how Juri talks about her and how others talk about her gives every indication that she’s pretty shy/timid around social situations and isn’t one for large groups of people or a lot of people having attention on her. And recall that proof that Juri is gay is literally her in a locket so any outting of any sort would drop a fuck ton of attention to her as well and I can imagine thats not something she’d really want at all. She wants like validation in the form of some1 close to her, not a bunch of people she doesn’t know that ain’t what she seeks like ya can at least understand that much.

Lastly Shiori is actually really terrible at coming up with “schemes” at all like, unlike say Touga or even Nanami all her attempts at doing everything and anything like that have been done entirely on impulse and terrible guesswork and with very little actual thought and planning involved. Like look how the shit with Ruka turned out and all that shit with the boy when they were in middle school was done on a wrong assumption and only worked on even hurting Juri because she’s too gay to function and is a bit on the salty side. Like imagine that if Juri wasn’t bothered by Shiori dating some1 else? She’s like “ok congrats im happy for ya” like good job Shiori you entered a random ass relationship for absolutely nothing (granted she’s like fuck I fucked up later down the line either way but yeah)! Like even in the elevator scene she can’t even commit to her terrible idea cause she’s like “fuck everything leads to disaster. Why can’t shit go back to normal ffff?!” Lol why does everyone assume she’s an evil mastermind, she’s a salty 15 year old with zero actual power she’s not charismatic like Touga or a 3,000(?) year old god who’ve been at this damn school too long like Anthy and Akio like, you guys.

“later got Ruka hurt Juri when her plan failed.“ Fuck people who blame RUKA’S actions on her! Like what the fuck, fuck you. All of Ruka’s actions are his choice and his choice alone, it’s painfully obvious like where did any indication come that Shiori could even manipulate him like bruh other way around. Fuck, I hate people who say such vile shit like that. God. Fuck. It makes me tired lol.

[some-triangles]

PART 3

The following morning: it’s art class.  Utena is spacing out because she was up too late last night ballroom dancing in rose space. Anthy takes her by surprise and they have a bit of a chase sequence through 20th century architecture’s greatest hits. Hey, it’s the Guggenheim!

They finally make it to the erstwhile chairman’s residence.  Utena is knocked out by the view.

Who’s that girl and her girlfriend?  Standing right where her brother used to stand?

Utena sketches Anthy and thanks her for everything she did last night.  Anthy brushes it off with an “I’m engaged to you, after all.”  Utena takes her ring off and says she wishes Anthy would cut it out with the whole engagement business and just be honest with her, so they can be real friends.  (The jolt of emotional intimacy she got last night really hit the spot.)  Anthy essentially says “you first.”

So Utena strips. Anthy was possibly not prepared to have her bluff called in this instance.

Anthy begins to sketch Utena, very, very slowly.   Utena summons up the maximum amount of princeliness she can muster while naked and says “it’s not fair if I’m the only one doing the modeling.”  Smooth! Or would be, if she wasn’t trembling so much.   Anthy gets up and takes off her uniform.

Utena can’t look at her. (This is Anthy’s response to the “why didn’t you just say something” critique. Who’s going to listen?  Who can listen?)  She turns away and looks at the paintings instead.

Akio’s paintings, in fact.

And the subject.

Something inside Anthy is missing.  There’s a prince where her heart should be.

To find out why, we’re gonna have to go back to the shadow puppet girls.  They present a brief filler interlude (featuring Nanami’s only appearance in this film, in cow form – Anthy never did like Nanami, did she?)  before delivering the goods.

Anthy’s version of Akio is a sad clown.  He’s got his sex car but he lost the key, so he has to take a taxi.  (Poor Kanae!)  Seems like the only thing that really turns his crank is painting pictures. Pictures of his drugged sister, specifically, starring in her own Henry Darger afterworld.

So, we’ve got an updated take on what those tiny paintings from the opening credits were about.  They’re the remnants of the old academy, capsules containing the entire rose bride mythos. They persist even after Akio is gone.   They are not literally Akio’s work – one of them, after all, depicts his fall from the tower – but they remain inside Anthy, coloring the way that she sees herself.  This movie is about her setting them on fire, one by one by one.

(Good save?  Good save.)

Anthy shows Utena the secret of the rose bride, but we don’t get to find out what it is, cause this is the point where time starts to dissolve.

Holy shit what happened!

Utena and Juri are dueling now.  OK!   Juri says Utena’s not gonna beat her playing half-prince, so Utena swaps her bichrome outfit for the full white Dios suit and wins.  No time to soak that in, though, as revelations are flying thick and fast.  It turns out that the significant thing Anthy showed Utena up in the tower wasn’t the hole in her chest, but the castle in the sky, which is a shame, because we get from that lie to the actual truth within about five additional minutes of screen time, and it would have felt like a more complete gesture if everything had actually come out up there in the mutual nudity zone.  Instead, another cavalcade of compressed rigamarole has to go down, of which this is the most significant element:

The crime of the Rose Bride: her complicity.   This is a problem because Akio can only “find his key” if he thinks his sister is innocent. Knowing that she’s willing to go along with it all because she loves him deflates his boner completely and he ends up doing a bit of a murder/suicide. 

(Anthy gets better.)

She’s blamed for his death, of course, and flees.  (This is happening now, rather than in flashback, because cause and effect collapsed pretty much entirely after everyone got naked.)  Utena has the presence of mind to run after her, but ends up in the Black Rose Arc somehow, except where you’d expect to find pointy fingers there are road signs.  Utena runs into a Do Not Enter but the distant beep of a car horn tells her where to go next.

I’m going to be honest with you: it is at this point that it becomes difficult to pretend that anyone other than Ikuhara is calling the editorial shots.  You can feel the hypomania ramping up.

Utena stumbles across the elevator of truth and prepares to Go Deeper.  What personal delusion could she possibly have to address?  That Touga’s still alive, of course.   (The fact that this is a delusion she shares with Shiori is not addressed.  Maybe Shiori’s also a ghost?  Which makes Juri, maybe, a half-ghost?  We definitely saw Anthy get murdered, also, and nobody seems to have a problem with that.  It is ultimately difficult to tell if anyone in this story is actually alive or not.)

Touga’s ghost tells her she can stay in this world with him forever if she wants to.  Utena declines, saying there never really was a prince.  Her memories are coming back, you see.  It turns out that Touga gets to be the rape victim and the drowned boy in this version of the narrative – meaning that he takes the suffering of the female characters upon himself, rather than the other way around.

We’ve figured out a way to atone for toxic masculinity!  Get buggered in a cabbage patch and drown.

Having cured Utena of her prince complex, Touga swims away.  He kind of pulled a Ruka here, startlingly enough, as he returned from the dead just long enough to fix his ex-girlfriend’s brain by manipulating her into swordfights.   (Assuming he’s an actual ghost, and not a figment of Utena’s imagination.)  This is the problem with Ikuhara’s habit of returning endlessly to his thematic hobbyhorses: every time he goes back to the well he seems less and less critical of what he finds.

Whatever.  You were a relatively decent phantom this time, Touga, and we’re going to interpret you as a Jungian combo of Anthy’s guilt and Utena’s masculinity, both now integrated and put to rest.  Godspeed.

The basement elevator goes down so far that it arrives at the top of the tower, and Utena steps out into the rose-infested dusk.  Anthy says Utena’s now the prince of this academy and all the shiny things she wants are hers forever, as long as she stays here.  Utena, fresh off having been healed by a dead boy, says:

“Let’s go outside!”

These, unfortunately, are the magic words which activate the machinery of the denouement.  It’s time for… oh, jesus

If all of this felt a bit rushed to you – the unpacking of Anthy’s abuse, the explanation of the nature of the academy, Juri’s entire arc, the revelation that Touga and possibly a few other people have been dead all along, Utena’s internal unraveling of the prince myth as it applies to her – understand that it is very important that we save an entire half hour for what happens next.