#touga vs utena

[utenarevolusionaria]

[transmascutena]

thinking about how akio sees his younger self in utena and wondering if there's any fondness there. doesn't change the horror of what he does to her obviously but i do wonder

[aroanthy]

(anthytouga voice) why would i be compassionate to nanami ew disgusting nanami’s literally the worst nanami is a cockroach i hope she dies she’s so fucking stupid oh my god being compassionate to nanami is the worsttttttt so what if the worst things ever happen to her and it’s my fault that’s just lifeohhhhhhhhhhh oh? utena is experiencing the worst things ever and i helped? and i helped? oh well i should just kill myself. oh well i should just kill myself and save her because actually utena is Good. and stupid. but Good. unlike nanami lol nanami was born cursed to suffer haha nanami’s got that karmic punishment coming lollllll But Utena Does Not <3

[arabhamlet]

i watched adolescence of utena for the first time today and something i really enjoy personally is how it can simultaneously be read as a) a retelling of the anime b) a sequel c) a prequel d) a strange purgatory sequence e) the real world equivalent to the anime’s fairy tale f) the end of a time loop and all of those things hold up depending on what specifically you’re looking at. very fun and appealing to me (time loop and metanarrative enjoyer) to make a followup work in a franchise that entirely eschews fitting into the canon timeline but of course what else can you expect from rgu at this point

[regallibellbright]

Someone poke me at some point to try and cohere my thoughts about G-Witch and Utena and Guel and Saionji and also Shaddiq into something comprehensible. They aren’t gelling but there’s definitely SOMETHING there.

[squiiids]

i think my favorite part of watching through utena for the first time is realizing her and touga kin the same guy and have crazy beef over how differently they interpret him

[dulcieseptimus]

hmmm thinking about utena vs the locked tomb again but specifically coronabeth & ianthe vs miki & kozue as bastardizations of healthy sibling relationships and how systems of power are reinforced through the family, even between brothers and sisters

[chadlesbianjasontodd]

the way that bud of the white rose manages to hold not just the entire first season of utena but the essence of the whole show (since they didn’t know if they’d ever get to do a sequel) while also making it genuinely new and fresh.......!!! you get to actually see anthy’s own feelings, something that the tv show spends most of three seasons building up to. utena’s insistence that anthy “wants to be a normal girl” is tied in so closely with utena’s own second duel with touga to “take back [utena’s] own normal” that it’s clearly about anthy having the freedom to be herself.

the retooling of anthy and utena’s relationship, especially in via the main theme song, is incredible: the duels as dances (and fights!) between anthy and utena, directed by the unseen malicious god akio!! utena and anthy as “the rose garden, and you, the rose bride.” anthy saying (singing) directly that they’re headed towards a future where they will be able to let go of each other’s hands, and when they’re separated, she will still have utena’s love with her!!!

the musical is very good at those, the things that not only add to the musical but expand beyond the scope of the show as well. in “zettai unmei mokushiroku” anthy is at the center but both the student council and the ordinary students are actively participating (in, by extension, akio’s duel system) as well. the role of ‘the prince’ in the opening scene is shared between members of the student council, indicating his unreality -- but anthy, unmasked, is also present and thus physically there. similarly, the again-masked actors physically pass around the doll that represents young utena, but it clearly belongs to both utena and anthy. anthy is physically inside the utena vs touga duel!! (as juri and miki are, with each other’s.)

touga feels like a hugely serious threat, on a level much closer to akio’s --- particularly in the way he heavily leverages utena’s desire to meet her prince again, and her conflicting draws to ‘prince’ and ‘princess’. it feels very episode 38.

i really want to know who did the music for this show -- definitely not seazer. but the main song “absolute darkness: the rose garden” feels very much like the show’s first ending song “truth”.

[empty-movement]

you know the stereotype about utena fans

well

let's take a specific sequence and compare the four primary translations of Utena that I know of. why this one? because i know we changed it and also sequences with these two had a lot of minor telling differences from one effort to the next

Revolutionary Girl Utena, Episode 25, Our Eternal Apocalypse

1998, UTP fan project:

Touga: You're driving quite fast. Akio: She's purring nicely, don't you think? Care to take the wheel? Touga: What? But I still don't… Akio: You're too strict… Touga: That was a rather indecent proposal, Mr. Chairman.

2003, Central Park Media DVD:

T: We're really flying down the road... A: The throb of the engine feels good, doesn't it? A: Care to take the wheel? T: Hm? But I'm not old enough.. A: Such a strict boy. T: That wasn't a fair proposal, Mr. Chairman.

2011, Nozomi Blu-ray, edited from the CPM translation via a fan led project that was us and you and it was awesome:

T: We're really flying down the road... A: The throb of the engine feels good, doesn't it? A: Care to take the wheel? T: Hm? But I'm not old enough.. A: How upright of you. T: That was an indecent proposal, Mr. Chairman.

2023, Some-Stuffs fan translation project:

T: You're flying down the road. A: Exquisite vibrations, no? A: Care to take the wheel? T: Huh? But I'm still not... A: Well, aren't you stiff? T: That was rather inappropriate, Board Chairman.

Do you like what you see? Is this level of ridiculous exactness interesting to you? Do you think these decades-spanning comparisons add anything to the discussion?

Well join our forum, Something Eternal, then. Because in the time it took for me to type this up for the Tumblr post, forum member xenofem dropped this in the thread about comparisons of the text with other examples already there broken down by color look just go

Looking at that exchange in episode 25 line by line: Touga: 随分飛ばすんですね。 The subject of this sentence is elided, which is what's leading to the discrepancies around we vs. you. The verb, "tobasu", is literally "to make something fly" or "to send something flying", but can also refer to driving a vehicle fast, or moving fast through things. The object is also elided, the literal meaning is clearly the car but there could also be room for innuendo here.

ok no but seriously, so much amazing stuff has already happened on this babby ass forum that I can barely keep up, we have birding threads and Baldur's Gate 3 threads and new fans posting their reactions as they watch for the first time threads and terfs are banned on sight

[saionjeans]

obviously there is a lot to be said for the kozue and anthy vs touga foilage as victims of incest and how they respond to discourses of sex and power as a result of that, but the shiori and touga foilage might be even crazier actually???? like, obviously they are paired together in the movie, which I think a lot of people chalk up to touga and ruka being one single character in a narrative sense, but there’s also just the fact that it makes perfect sense to pair these characters together, because they are the same. shiori is the touga to juri’s saionji (sorry to break this to you juri, but if you want to beat the pathetic gayass clown foil allegations you’re gonna have to stop slapping anthy!) with the key difference being that shiori is a Girl and thus wields less structural power. touga never gets his own black rose elevator, but through shiori’s explication of her insecurities, we can glean that touga similarly torments saionji out of a deep rooted insecurity and fear. like shiori with juri, he needs to hurt saionji so as to prove that saionji hasn’t hurt him. the fact that saionji has almost definitely beaten touga in at least one student council duel before certainly doesn’t help matters, because it gives him tangible proof of saionji’s superiority over him. it’s no coincidence that juri is fencing captain and saionji is kendo captain. they are the best duelists on the student council (i would argue that juri is the best by a mile), and honestly touga is probably the worst. he has to resort to underhanded tricks because he lacks the skill to best utena on prowess alone, and he can’t even beat saionji, period. he wants to humiliate saionji as saionji humiliated him, and because he has akio on his side, he is very effective in that quest. but that “power” he exerts belies his deeply pathetic, crushing insecurities. the duels are not just a game, just as love and friendship are not just a game, but nonetheless, shiori and touga want to win.

[utenarevolusionaria]

🎃happy halloween month🎃

[transmascutena]

why is utena's uniform black? within the show, the color white represents the prince, or the idea of princehood, which is why utena wears a white rose in the duels, and why dios' (and akio's) uniform is white, and by extension why the student council uniforms are too. so the fact that the main color utena wears is the opposite of that is significant. i think the black of utena's uniform is mainly meant to stand in contrast to the student council, to show that she's not like them, that she's an outsider. it's also important that it's in contrast to the prince's uniform; she's playing a role she can never really fill. she cannot become a prince, and she doesn't really, truly, want to either. or she wouldn't, knowing what it really means. her uniform is a way of expressing her masculinity, and whether she realizes it or not, the way she does that does not entirely line up with being a prince. it exists outside of that. this is of course a good thing.

the red accents are interesting too, because it's a color very heavily associated with akio and anthy (and touga, obviously, but i don't think that's directly relevant when it comes to why utena wears it.) in this way utena's outfit also works as a sort of inversion of akio's outfit when he's not playing prince: red vs black shirt, black vs red pants (or shorts in her case.) then there's the red of anthy's rose bride dress. red accents are present in the white uniforms of the prince and the student council too. the dresses utena wears in episode 3 and 33, as well as the girl's uniform, are also white (or very close to it) with red accents. the sweater she wears in episode 37 is entirely red. utena's rose bride dress does not have any red on it, unlike anthy's, and it isn't white either; it's pink, a combination of the two colors, like her hair. i'm not completely sure what all this means, but it's interesting that the moments utena wears colors closer to white, to the prince's color, are the very moments she's the least masculine and "princely" (the two are seperate, but in these cases connected.) perhaps white is not just the color of the prince, but the princess as well? is red the color of the witch, then?

in the movie, utena's uniform is both black and white and does not have any red until she's in her dueling outfit, where she gets red stripes between the black and the white, as well as on her epaulets and shoes. and here anthy's rose bride dress is no longer fully red, but mostly white with red accents like utena's uniform (if white is the prince's color, does this reflect anthy's more proactive role in the movie? is she not playing utena's saviour in many ways here?) an important part of the movie's ending is anthy and utena both shedding their clothes entirely, and their roles along with them. so whatever meaning the colors may or may not have held, they're free of that now.

[elevatortherapy]

"The widely-adored Student Council members didn't get along very well. In fact, they had a tense relationship, almost to the point of discord."

objectively the best part of the first light novel is how much the student council all* hate each other's guts so i made a little compilation for anyone who doesn't feel like reading it <3

*juri & miki are buddies :) also touga derives enjoyment from being hated so i'm not sure to what extent he really hates the others back lol

juri vs saionji:

1) "His swordsmanship was his only strong point."

2) "A 'mistake'... is that really all it was?" Arisugawa Juri spoke softly, but still loud enough for Saionji to hear.

"What!?"

"You lost because you're so infatuated with our mysterious Rose Bride. It's made you rusty."

"Interesting. Why don't we test that theory?" Saionji said, bristling in response to Juri's criticism. Touga made no move to stop them. On the contrary, he looked amused at the situation, a smile playing about his lips.

saionji vs touga:

1) "What's normal varies from person to person. For instance, why don't you try to unravel these mysteries, best friend?"

Saionji, the target of Touga's words, glared at him with undisguised distaste.

2) "The two of them had been childhood friends, but now they got along terribly. Or, more accurately, Saionji harbored a deep one-sided hatred of Touga."

miki vs touga:

1) "He stopped writing, and glared at Touga."

2) "Touga-sempai! Did you... is this one if your plots!?"

"I don't know anything about it. It's 'The Ends of the World's doing."

"You liar.

juri vs touga:

1) "Don't get cocky, Touga," Juri said grumpily, from across the table.

2) "Touga, you're full of bullshit. I doubt you've said a sincere word in your whole life."

"My, such harsh words." Far from sounding hurt, Touga seemed like he was enjoying himself.

3) [afterword] Manga Juri is in love with Touga, but Novel Juri doesn't even like him. Actually, it would be more accurate to say she detests him.

bonus juri & miki palate cleanser:

"This is unlike you. What are you so worked up about?" Juri protested to Miki. But her voice held none of the iciness she'd shown when speaking to Utena and Saionji.

[aroanthy]

everyone reading atr for the first time vs me who read it for the first time three years ago and has been insane about it ever since. (guy who loves the painting motif) the paintings!!!!!!! also i think it’s neat that akio and ruka die again even if juri’s chapter is a bit wobbly wrt dunking on that guy. i dont consider it canon in the strictest sense, primarily bc if touga was 37 years old before he had an ounce of growth it would kill me, but i think its ideas and messaging are largely scrumptious. i deeply enjoy the baby-utena-spectre thing and the utena-prince thing and how transparently and directly the stuco’s perceptions and understandings of who utena was have shaped them; in turn, how that has trapped some remnant of utena in ohtori, as ‘prince’. also shout-out anthy bc the way she functions in atr ohhhhhh it makes me crazy. what chiho saito says about not seeing an aged up utenanthy about seeing only a previous form of themselves that maybe isn’t all that real at all, ohhhhhhh it’s incredible 10/10 no notes on that front for me. we’re still storytelling within ohtori and that is sososososo important. it’s not as good as the movie manga imho, but atr is like. it just holds a special place in my heart for being such a compelling and mixed bag of Stuff. great food for thought. i think everyone should read it honestly im baffled that people are choosing not to

[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.