#utena meta

[empty-movement]

Yukio Mishima's House in Ohtori Academy

Lmao Utena fans in 2001 like 'the setting is an anachronistic western style of archi-'

[midnightfox450]

SA Mention //

The cantarella scene in Utena is so so so good and nearly every bit of it has been analyzed over the years (for good reason!). But can we take a moment to talk about how the music skips?

Right after Anthy suggests she poisoned Utena's cookies. The background music starts skipping. It's an obvious loop too, once you hear it, it's hard to unhear. The music doesn't pick back up until after Utena admits to poisoning the tea, AFTER the spinning red rose. It picks back up at "The tea is delicious".

At the most basic level, the skipping is just another method by which RGU creates emphasis.

But it just. It can't help but remind me of the most significant case of music skipping in the franchise. In Adolescence of Utena, right before E-Ko and F-Ko show the tape of Anthy's assault (another scene which has to do with something being put in Anthy's drink).

So then, the skipping could represent honesty. The brutal, uncomfortable bearing of the truth. Statements that ring in the ears and choices that maybe aren't the most delicate or harmless but had to convey the intended message somehow.

(If anyone else has watched seebeees' video essay on transfeminism in utena [which you should, it's really good], it reminds me of their point on the way Adolescence could be using static to represent Anthy's trauma. Records and CDs skip when something has dirtied them. Scratched them. Damaged them).

It could represent repetition obviously, but it could also represent the exact opposite. A breaking of the cycle, a momentary reprieve from the looping record that is Anthy and Utena's lives at Ohtori. When they confess their love for each other in that moment, in such an odd and uniquely utenanthy way, it catches the narrative off-guard. They are cracking the shell of their egg. Their love is forcing itself through the narrative.

[anonymous-gambito]

Word of God/movie backstory aside, it suddenly came to me that there is one other gap of knowledge that has probably contributed to a significant part of the alienation between Touga and Nanami, and it's something that existed throughout all of Nanami's life, so it's given that she wouldn't truly notice it: Touga knows they're adopted, Nanami does not. I think that makes a big difference.

Touga's backstory is bound not to be the exact same as the movie (After all, Nanami isn't even there with him), so I'll let myself speculate a bit. Their biological parents could have died, they could have abandoned them or sold them, or the siblings could have been removed from their care, and unless Nanami was brought in later to wherever Touga was, it's safe to assume that he spent at least 5 years with his original parents. He has memories of a different family, and of losing that family. Nanami doesn't even know about any of it. She doesn't realize there is a side of her brother that she never got to meet.

"Blood" is very important to Nanami. Blood is what Nanami uses to try and reassure herself that the parents who are cold and distant to her, and the brother who's grown cold and distant too, have an eternal unbreakable bond. It's very brittle though. Nanami constantly fears being replaced, discarded or harmed by her family. Most often by Touga, who ironically, happens to be her only blood relative there.

Her anxiety can be very easily explained by her experiences with how she was treated growing up in the Kiryuu household, but I do wonder if there's some subconscious parts of her that tap into these knowledge gaps too. I already felt like it was there, in the way her love for her brother is as protective as it is possessive, and how to protect him from harm, be it real or perceived, she can go feral, often shooting wildly at whoever she thinks is to blame, always hitting the wrong targets; and so maybe, I thought, it is possible that her anxieties are also tied to these repressed early childhood memories. Ones of once having a family, and then losing that world, being thrown someplace unfamiliar. Vague mostly forgotten memories fueling her fear of abandonment, working like a constant little nagging at the back of her head signaling to her how little blood ties really matter in the end.

"Blood" doesn't matter to Touga in the same way. He doesn't hold into a rose colored view of it. He knows by experience how easily those ties can be severed, how fickle they are. That's why when he found a little girl in a coffin, a little girl who spoke of there not being anything eternal, of how those you care about are bound to leave you, and questioning what's even the point of living then, he couldn't give her anything. He couldn't save her. He didn't know the answer for himself either.

[os-eclipses-tamen-son-yuri]

A thing I really enjoy about RGU is how when producing the anime the crew was aware of the budget and limits that often come with TV shows at that time and created their own cinematographic language based on them.

The roses, the frames, the transformation sequences... Not only were they able to use them smartly but also make them reinforce the core themes of the show; that of repetition, circularity, a repeated movement, a revolution.

I personally greatly appreciate when narrative media is -meta- not in a direct way but in its semiotics. Utena creates this language based on repetition and is constantly seen subverting it, adding new "rules".

Episode 33 is cinematographicaly one of the episodes I find most interesting because they literally put the turning point of the story (I personally think of this episode as a turning point because we see Utena finally with her "prince"; except that, instead of the happy "ending" one would expect in traditional stories, it is here where everything comes into place and the grim reality is made perfectly aware. Were Utena a traditional princess story, episode 33 would mark a happy conclusion. Instead it is only the beggining of what lies inside the box and once opened it cannot be closed again) in an episode that is all about repetition. A recap.

Also, for as much as many people gloss over the Black Rose Arc I very much think it crucial to establish all of RGU's symbols. Because Utena doesn't tell us things, it wants us to learn them by noticing the patterns, by seeing the repetitions and where they are being broken, so that we ask ourselves why. The elevator sequence is one of such cases where we learn more of the characterization of these characters by seeing how they act inside of it. It's even a basic screenplay exercise: "how would your characters act trapped inside an elevator".

Mikage itself is a shadow, not just of himself but of Utena as well, an omen forever frozen in time.

Because that's another theme, shadows. And how in a way they are echoes, simplified and distorted repetitions of oneself.

And while shadows are cast in contrast, projections are cast forward. While one is a memory of something, projections are the reproduced illusion of it.

Utena works with parallels and repetitions and understanding their semantics and syntax allows us, the viewers, even subconsciously to feel their weight.

[hatingfromacrackedscreen]

Wakabas character arc, her need to break out of the ‘normal best friend’ archetype, her desperation to feel special and thus have worth in Ohtori, become extra fascinating when you look at her as a spiritual successor of Usagi’s normal best friend from Sailor Moon, Naru.

Naru has a really interesting character arc in Sailor Moon. She is the first person we see attacked, and she’s what gets Usagi to get in her first fight. This is later paralleled in Utena, when Utena gets in her first duel on Wakaba’s behalf. As Sailor Moon goes on Naru gets attacked more and more, but eventually gets relegated to the background as Usagi gains her other sailor friends and they become more important. Naru makes less appearances, and besides being an occasional victim is completely separated from her former best friend Usagi’s special, double life. However Naru doesn’t take her removal from the narrative ignorantly.

In the second season finale a giant evil crystal has been placed by the villains in the center of Tokyo. Naru sees Usagi running towards it and confronts her about it. “You know what this is don’t you?” She asks her.

I love all of this for Naru, but all of it also applies exactly to Wakaba. Wakaba who realizes her friend Utena is special in a way she’s not. Who sees the most visual aspects of the massive machine Akio has running Ohtori, but doesn’t know enough to stop it or change it in any material way. Who lashes out at Anthy in her jealousy at the way she’s the most special person in the school, and subtextually how she is becoming more important to Utena than her. Wakaba, like Nanami, wants anything but to be “another fly in the swarm,” a seeming nightmare for the girls of Ohtori.

Even in character design the two mimic each other. Both have brown hair, with a small bow at the back of their head.

Naru gets to break a bit from her archetypal role at the end, and Wakaba does more so. In the last episode of the series, after Utena has left, we see another girl jumping onto Wakaba and calling her “her prince,” just the same way Wakaba did to Utena in episode 1. It’s not immediate, but Wakabas revolution will come, and she will have her own “normal best friend.”

I really love Wakaba as a spiritual successor to Naru, with Naru’s small insecurities and worry taken to the next level in Wakabas character. And how at the end of the day they may not save or revolutionize the world, but they love their special best friend, and that support is something they hold true until the end.

[eruanee]

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.”

[cyborgghost]

Just finished the Second Sex by Beauvoir and there's so many ideas from the book that are explored in RGU, especially when it talks about the rejection of femininity in childhood, lesbianism and how women have been historically kept from achieving transcendental things (in Utena's case, "something eternal") and so they search it vicariously through the men in their lives (Utena looking for his prince), ultimately losing their personhood and becoming an object or "the other", even in their own eyes (in the end all girls are like the rose bride)

The book is outdated in many ways but it's still a great read!

[bonni]

saionji and utena have the funniest relationship and some of the most twisted parallels. yes meeting you as a child permanently altered the course of my life but now you're trying to steal my girlfriend so I hate you. I think you're laughable for not performing gender presentation in the way that you should but really that's just projection because I'm doing the same thing. you are everything I hate about myself so I find you repulsive. we both have a short temper but my anger is righteous and yours is toxic. touga has a weird psychological hold on both of us and I'm strangely jealous of you for that but I won't admit it because I also hate touga and want him to leave me alone. wakaba is just a friend; it's okay for me to ignore her feelings because you are the one she really likes. you're not good for himemiya, she needs me. I love himemiya, so it doesn't matter how I treat her. and she loves me too, okay? I'm different from the rest of you. I'm different.

[fairymascot]

rewatching utena for the first time in about a decade and it is truly the funniest show ever.

we just finished the black rose arc, the last ep was truly a mindfuck. mikage completely succumbing to his delusions and unable to tell memory from reality, finding out he's been frozen in time for decades, mamiya has been dead all this time and anthy was pretending to be him. mikage is defeated and expelled/set free from ohtori, the existence of his life and of nemuro memorial hall wiped from everyone's memory.

then the following episode is a recap. and maybe you're thinking, whew, this arc was a doozy, it'd be nice to have it broken down into a nice, digestible 20 minute episode that'll really help me understand and process things! AND THEN THE ENTIRE RECAP EPISODE IS ABOUT NANAMI AND HER GOOFY SHENANIGANS OH MY GOD.

'wait so what's real and what isn't, how long was mikage trapped there was anthy the one orchestrating this all along--' 'HEY REMEMBER WHEN NANAMI WAS BEING CHASED BY SURFING ELEPHANTS IN INDIA???' it is so POINTEDLY and MALICIOUSLY unhelpful, it is truly the most king shit I've ever seen. it's broadcasting the clearest message possible that if you went into rgu expecting it to explain anything to you, it's not gonna happen. you are getting elephants instead. fuck you.

(this post was brought to you by @not-the-blue who is watching the show with me for the first time and has no idea what's going on, i just turned her frustrated-amused rant into a post❤️)

[knifeeater]

this ohtori arc elevator sequence is very reminiscent of an analogue film strip running through the projector. spectacle and simulation. architecture as framing device, the spatial ordering of life lines.

The lines we follow might also function as forms of 'alignment,' or as ways of being in line with others. We might say that we are orientated when we are in line. We are 'in line' when we face the direction that is already faced by others.

Sara Ahmed Queer Phenomenology

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

akio and the coffin

it’s fascinating how akio both literally IS the coffin of ohtori academy and, simultaneously, is trapped by it. ohtori academy is in many ways a manifestation of the ugly side of adolescence, of clinging on to something in your past and refusing to move forward in your life. every character has something they continue to hold on to despite the fact that they ought to let it go for the sake of growing and maturing. for example, saionji has his inferiority complex regarding touga, his refusal to let go of the simplicity of their childhood together when he felt that they stood on the same ground, and that touga saw him as an equal. everything he does in the series is an attempt to make himself feel as though he is finally on equal grounds with touga. if he would only stop tying his self-image to the perception that touga is somehow above him, that touga looks down on him, then he would be able to let go of that sense of inferiority and move on. but he can’t. juri refuses to let go of the pain she feels regarding her past with shiori, and continues to see shiori as someone who is “innocent”, albeit cruelly - someone who is unknowing of the pain she causes juri through her actions when in fact, shiori in seducing the boy she thought juri loved was deliberately acting to hurt her. if juri would only realize and accept the true intentions behind shiori’s behavior, then she could get one step closer to understanding shiori, to being understood by her, and moving past the pain of shiori’s betrayal. but she can’t. 

most of the characters, except utena and anthy of course, remain in ohtori by the end of the show. while they’ve all made progress in “maturing” thanks to the events they experienced throughout the series - both saionji and touga’s as well as juri and shiori’s relationships have gotten visibly better, as shown in the final medley of scenes - they still have more growing to do, hence why they remain in ohtori academy until their time comes. one day, the show suggests, they might also revolutionize their own worlds - their own selves - and finally leave the coffin of ohtori behind as well. 

so where does that leave akio? i think he can be said to literally be the coffin of ohtori in that he is explicitly shown to try to manipulate others into remaining stagnant, to clinging on to whatever toxic things they are struggling to process and come to terms with, though this is of course only shown via the characters he most directly interacts with. naturally it comes across most clearly with anthy, although i think utena and to a less direct extent, touga, are the other two people who are the most straightforwardly influenced by him. when it comes to anthy, she clings to her love for the person her brother used to be, the older brother who, at least as she perceived, was kind and caring and wanted to protect people. to protect that older brother, she willingly took on the hatred of the world, and continues to endure the pain of it to this day for what is implied to be centuries. but akio has shown time and time again, through the repeating dueling cycles, that if he was ever kindhearted and genuinely caring, those parts of him are gone now. i do believe he cares about anthy to an extent even now, but whatever affection he has for her is paltry in comparison to his desire to reclaim his power as prince dios. it’s for that purpose that he set up the entire dueling system, for which he freely allows duelists to treat anthy like a prize and an object. and additionally, because anthy is so integral to the power he has now in ohtori, he uses emotional, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse to keep her tied to him. he’s willing to not just let her wellbeing come last, but puts it at the bottom of the list of priorities, and actively tears it down himself for his own benefit. anthy knows all this - but because she still holds onto that love that she had for who he used to be, she stays with him and does his bidding. and that’s what akio wants. he is the coffin, wishing to keep people in their states of despair, conflict, and pain, therefore ensuring that they are compliant and vulnerable to his manipulation. 

at the same time, akio is trapped by the coffin like everyone else. he, like all the other characters, has something that he ought to move on from for his own sake as well as the sake of the people around him: his goal to reclaim his powers as prince dios. akio has failed in this goal every single dueling cycle that happened before the show’s events, and as displayed in the final episode, he definitively fails the one that takes place during the show as well. he can attempt the cycle over and over and over again, redo and tweak and modify the dueling system however many times and in whatever ways he wants - it’s all useless. there is no sword that can break open the rose gate. there is no way to reclaim his powers. they’re gone, that part of his life is over, and if he accepted that fact, it would allow him to move on and heal from what he experienced. but he can’t. at the very end of the series, right before anthy leaves ohtori for good, he’s typing away just as diligently as he ever did and, completely oblivious, tells anthy that he’s rewriting the rules of the rose crest, that he’ll be counting on her again. and i didn’t pick up on this until rewatching the episode, but it really just hits you then how utterly stupid he looks, working so hard and speaking so confidently about the upcoming dueling cycles as if any of them are ever going to matter in the slightest. i love anthy’s response to him too; i love the subtle but at the same time so blatant scorn in her words: “you really don’t know what’s happened, do you?” because once again, throughout all this, akio has learned nothing. he hasn’t realized it’s useless, what he’s trying to do; he hasn’t realized all the effort and pain and anguish he’ll cause in people for yet another dueling cycle will never make any difference. he is unable to come to terms with the reality that he will never have his powers as prince dios back. he refuses to move on. 

akio is the coffin of ohtori, wanting to keep others in stagnation and regret. he’s also trapped by the coffin, incapable of maturing past his own stagnation and regret. and it really, really says something that all of the other major characters of the show, who have been in ohtori for far shorter a time than he has, have been able to make visible strides in their growth. anthy, who is the only one comparable to akio in terms of duration at ohtori, revolutionizes her world and leaves. meanwhile akio, as deluded and self-unaware as he is, hasn’t made a single step of progress in all this time. the only thing he does is call in bewildered desperation after anthy as she finally leaves him behind, still totally clueless as to what has happened. 

tldr; i once saw an author say one of her characters represents inertia, in fact he is inertia. i think that’s a spot-on explanation of akio, at least in terms of what he symbolizes in the story. i want to beat him in the dick with a cactus

[empty-movement]

Welcome to Something Eternal: A Website Forum in 2023 wtf lmao

It's 2023, and a single belligerent rich guy destroyed one of the primary focal points of uh...global communication. Tumblr is, shockingly, kinda thriving despite the abuse it gets from its owners, but that I will call the iconic refusal of Tumblr users to let Tumblr get in the way of their using Tumblr. Reddit killed its API, removing the functionality of mobile apps that made it remotely readable (rip rif.) Discord, our current primary hangout, has made countless strange choices lately that indicate it has reached the summit of its usability and functionality, and can only decline from here as changes get made to prepare for shareholders. (NOTE: WROTE THIS POST BEFORE THEIR MOBILE "REDESIGN" LMAO)

The enshittification is intense, and it's coming from every direction. Social media platforms that felt like permanent institutions are instead slowly going to let fall fallow incredible amounts of history, works of art, thought, and fandoms. It kinda sucks!

A couple years ago, I posted about a new plan with a new domain, to focus on the archiving of media content, as I saw that to be the fatal weakness of the current ways the internet and fandoms work. Much has happened since to convince me to alter the direction of those efforts, though not abandon them entirely.

Long story short? We are launching a fucking website forum. In 2023.

If you remember In the Rose Garden, much about Something Eternal will be familiar. But this has been a year in the making, and in many ways it's far more ambitious than IRG was. We have put money on this. The forum is running on the same software major IT and technology businesses use, because I don't want the software to age out of usability within five years. It has an attached gallery system for me to post content to, including the Chiho Saito art collection. It has a profile post system that everyone already on the forum has decided is kinda like mini Twitter? But it is, fundamentally, a website forum, owned and run and moderated by us. We are not web devs. But we have run a website on pure spite and headbutting code for over twenty years, and we have over a decade of experience maintaining social spaces online, both on the OG forum, and on our Discord. Better skilled people with far more time than we have can and will build incredible alternatives to what is collapsing around us. But they're not in the room right now. We are. And you know what? Maybe it's time to return to a clunkier, slower moving, more conversation focused platform.

You're not joining a social media platform with the full polish of dozens of devs and automated moderation. Things might break, and I might need time to fix them. The emojis and such are still a work in progress. Because e-mails no longer route in reasonable normal ways, the sign-up process instead happens within the software, and has to be approved by mods. Design and structure elements may change. Etc. The point being, that the forum isn't finished, but it is at a place where I feel like I can present it to people, and it's people I need to help direct what functions and things will be in this space. You all will shape its norms, its traditions, its options...choices I could try to make now, but really...they're for us to create as a group! But the important stuff? That's there. Now let's drive this baby off the damn lot already!

Come! Join us!!

PS. As always, TERFs and Nazis need not apply.

[anonymous-gambito]

Revolutionary Girl Utena AMV - Dona Dona

Look, I'm in dire need to find some people who have not watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, but who are interested in media analysis, have them listen to and watch this AMV and see what interpretations they'll come up with

(content warnings for incest and csa if anyone actually sees this)

[jenatwork]

I finally finished my Utena re-watch yesterday, binging the last three episodes and Adolescence in one evening, and I am Having Thoughts. Mostly about the story from Akio's perspective, surprisingly.

I don't know if I've ever read anyone's exploration of the story from his pov, so I'm going to brain-vomit about it.

From his pov, he's the one who's trapped. The Rose Bride sealed Dios away from the world, whether for his own good or to keep her brother to herself, or both. The princely part of him, Dios, is trapped, leaving only the human part of him, Akio, out in the world, trying to regain what he's lost and cope without what he sees as his 'real' power. 'The power to revolutionise the world' is, for him, the regaining of his heroic princely aspect that made him something close to a god among mortals, a natural leader, the greatest warrior.

So what is he left with? What does a regular human man have with which to find his place in the world? What is his role, if not a prince? Is he a ladies' man? An intellectual? A fighter? A logical realist who denies the 'miracles' the prince could perform to keep people safe?

It's clear from the Black Rose arc, and from the final scenes, that Akio has repeated the duels in some form many times, assuming that he needs the right sword to open the Rose Gate and access his old power. He holds this 'might makes right' belief that physical strength or a warrior's weapon is the key to power. When Utena, just a girl, succeeds as the winner of the duels, at first he tries to persuade her to stand down, because how could a girl's sword possibly be strong enough to open the Gate? I wondered, during this watch, if this cycle was the first time that any girls had taken part in the duels, and whether that was by design or accidental. In the Black Rose arc, it's 100 boys who are drawn in to find the power or the eternal something. In this latest cycle, it's the student council, a power structure that represents intellectual masculinity: Juri, as a lesbian in a uniform closer to her male counterparts than to the other female students, might possibly have been the first girl to join the duels, an unintentional outcome perhaps inspired by Mikage, who was more easily tempted by a boy than by that boy's older sister. She still represented an aspect of masculinity in her own way, as the logical realist who denies miracles. Likewise, Nanami joins the duels initially to stand in for her brother, and leaves when she is confronted by how damaging the system is to the very people it's supposed to protect.

I wondered if perhaps Utena was never meant to join the duels. If Dios had meant to find Touga and Saionji on that particular day, and stumbled on Utena because they did. If Utena joining and winning the duels was never part of Akio's plan, and that's why he, and all the others, are so perplexed by her and never figure out how to get the better of her. Akio tries to force her into the role of 'Girl' because all he knows is playing the role of 'Man', and what else is a man supposed to do with a girl besides protect her or seduce her?

Utena succeeds because, for all her talk about wanting to be a prince to rescue girls, she gives up that roleplay and acts of of genuine love and compassion. She succeeds in besting the Rose Bride's curse because she doesn't approach it like a man, trying to seduce, fight, or logic her way through, but by loving Anthy and by having the compassion to want to end her pain.

Utena is still very much about smashing the patriarchy (literally in the case of Adolescence), but in its own way it also artfully deconstructs the ways in which patriarchy hurts men too, by limiting the roles available to them. Utena offers an alternative to the masculine roles of warrior, lover, intellectual and cynic, as well as to the feminine role of princess. The student council recognise it in the end, but Akio never does, because he is so utterly stuck in his role. That's why Anthy gets to leave at the end, telling him he's the one that's trapped, because Utena showed her that she, and we, can choose our own roles.

[talesofsymphoniac]

It's interesting to me that Akio/Dios are portrayed so differently in the movie vs the anime. Broadly speaking, in the anime Akio is a menacing figure (albeit charming at times) and Dios seems more benevolent.

Whereas in the movie Akio is kind of a joke?? His flipping over the car hood is silly and dainty and frilly instead of this display of sexual power, he's full on panicking because he doesn't have as much control over Anthy as he thought, he's lost his keys, he falls out of his own window.

And in the movie, it's Dios who is scary, and appears at the end of the car chase to intimidate Anthy into going back. Dios is the final boss.

And since I interpret the movie as from Anthy's POV/in her headspace, I see that as a reflection of how she views Akio in the present vs Dios in the past.

Akio, as of the end of the anime, is not someone who Anthy respects anymore. He's foolish, because he didn't see the meaning in Utena's actions, and she sees that all his posturing is just that: posturing.

Dios, though? Dios is the one she loved, and cared about, and did everything she ever did for. Dios was Anthy's prince, and to leave the school isn't just to leave Akio, it's also to leave behind this idealized memory of what he was-- and, by extension, what Anthy was with him.

It's important to note that Anthy never really wanted to be saved from Akio. She wanted "a prince she could believe in," and that was Dios until he "became" Akio (however you choose to interpret that). Later, she saw Dios in Utena-- a new prince she could believe in, even if she couldn't bring herself to do so until the last moment.

But I think the point which the anime alludes to and which the movie hammers home is that Dios is NOT Anthy's savior, he's a piece of her prison. She needs to overcome and outgrow him as much as she needed to overcome Akio.

[eruanee]

i made a thing (first amv ever)