#Revolutionary Film

[luvinaeverdene]

Battleship Potemkin (1925) Directed by Sergei Eisenstein

[demifiendrsa]

English Dub voice actress Rachael Lillis has passed away on August 10, 2024 at the age of 55 due to breast cancer.

Lillis is best known as the original English Dub voice actress of Misty, Jessie, and various pokémon such as Jigglypuff and Goldeen in the Pokémon anime. Her other well-known English dub roles include Utena Tenjō in Revolutionary Girl Utena, Martina in Slayers Next, Micott Bartsch in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Nagi Kirima in Boogiepop Phantom, Yuriko Star in The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Kanaka Ohno in Genshiken, and Ami Kurimoto in DNA².

[himemeiya]

Fuck you *unwhitewashes your Anthy*

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

In an astonishing amount of one piece content, there is a certain mannerism of Sabo that I find very humorous.

In almost everything he is written in, he:

Shows up,

Does what he needs to do,

says hi to luffy,

And then fucks off immediately.

Man does not linger. Mans is a master of the Irish goodbye.

Like I understand he’s just there for a couple seconds of fan service, but it happens so often that at this point it’s just turned into a very funny character trait.

Like okay bye, I guess.

[beaulesbian]

One Piece Stampede (2019)

[aaronstveit]

To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him.

— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

[maoxyi]

The day Luffy became sick and accidentally unlocked something 😔 pt 2

Uta and Sabo having a chat before the chaos started… they’ll never finish the important thing they were talking about 💔💔😞😔

(Ace is rightfully mad at luffy for waking him up and destroying his spine by jumping on it)

[fuc370]

Sabo and Uta, brother separated by cannon

Do Uta and Sabo play music together?Did Uta try to teach Sabo how to sing?

Would Sabo teach Uta dragon moves? She doesn't want to kill anyone, but she's not exactly against punching celestial dragons.

[cyphyree]

I threw together a Show / Movie recommendation template so I can find more stuff to watch!!!

PLEASE feel free to fill this out and reblog from me so I can find more cool shows/films!! (hopefully i'll have time to watch them RIP) Or repost with credit :) Anyone can modify/expand it however they want too! Here are some of my recommendations:

[straws-and-sunflowers]

Can You draw luffy singer and fans hancock shirahoshi viví Rebecca Coby law Ace sabo Shanks fans.

I love You draw Is perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect wow.

This took so long.

[ryuki-draws]

I watched the Witch from Mercury recently and all I need now is Saionji wrecking three mech suits before getting expelled to camping

[beanghostprincess]

sabo is just like a dog, you mention luffy and he goes "!!!"

[sjbattleangel]

Me whenever hacks like Lily Orchard go after Steven Universe, She-Ra, The Owl House, The Legend Of Korra, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Moon Girl, Star Wars, Dungeon Meshi, ect.

(P.S: I am a massive fan of the media mentioned above) (P.S: Yes. I will fight to the end defending Steven Universe, She-Ra, The Owl House, Utena, Evangelion, Sailor Moon and The Last Jedi.)

[gosh-darn-sucking-vacuums]

So, I finally watched the Utena movie after making my sibling watch the show with me. We both loved it and there was something that I pointed out while watching that I wanted share with tumblr because I feel like this crowd would appreciate it.

So, spoilers, in the movie Utena becomes a car. After she becomes a car Anthy gets inside and starts driving, and as they go along, they take some damage and the first thought I had while watching this part of the film was this:

The crumple zone is an integral part of a safe vehicle. The damage sustained in an impact that causes it to crumple absorbing a lot of the force that could harm the person inside. This has become more well known because of how the shitty Tesla tank cars are death traps (or at least that’s why I know about it).

So all I could think as I was watching Anthy drive Utena, taking damage along the way, Is how every dent and scar on that car was keeping Anthy safe. Even when she wasn’t human and wasn’t in control, Utena was protecting her. She was built to protect Anthy.

[norastarfall]

Musica Luffy aka Uta and Luffy Swap au aka the Luffy can sing au

🌠BACKSTORY

After years of holding off finding someone to eat the ‘Gum-Gum fruit’ and Sing-Sing Fruit, shanks finds himself on a small island. Specifically, Dawn Island is home to two significant people. Monkey D Luffy and Portgas D Ace, one with a voice to inspire others and the other with the blood to lead a new generation. These two hold the power and determination to destroy the world government and free countless people. When Shanks finds them (or specifically his daughter befriends them) he first gives Luffy the SIng- Sing Fruit. The child is naive and quick to trust the newfound family of pirates, while Ace is warry. Despite Shank's good intentions and actually caring for the boy a lot. After the accidental destruction of Elegia at the hands of a possessed Luffy. Shanks leaves Luffy on Elegia and takes on the blame for the destruction, leaving Luffy to believe the Pirates betrayed and abandoned him. After years of training his voice, he can finally sing for the world's people, digitally broadcasting his voice to anyone who wants to listen. Through this, he can learn about the outside world he was shielded from. Creating a black and White moral of the world. Pirates Evil- Marines good. However, one night, he stumbles upon the truth of what happened. The night he was abandoned. How Shanks fought the Demon that possessed him and saved him. And how he (Luffy)- was the one that destroyed Elegia. He feels lied to, not by the Sanks and the others but by the people! How could they tell him how evil Pirates were when Shanks saved him and tried to save the island Luffy destroyed! Resentment and Self-hatred begin to bubble- and along with it, a plan.

The Plan

If Luffy can't convince normal civilians that pirates CAN be good, he'll just convince everyone that anybody can be WORSE.

Things i forgot to point out: 1) When planning this trip to Elegia, Uta didn't want to go and Ace stayed behind on Dawn, Luffy was the only one who went. 2) When Shanks returned, Uta was saddened but Ace was furious, having just met Luffy and bonded with him like a brother. 3) Sabo exists, he just hasn't been super important in this au, he is practically the same as he was in the OG series. The fire happens, and Ace is alone until Uta and Shanks return. 4) The only reason Ace comes around to trust Shanks and Uta, is because they know his lineage and don't hate him for it and because Shanks tells him Luffy is still alive. He's just found a new passion. (a lie) 5) Uta stays fruitless, however, is incredibly trained in Haki. Having stayed on Shanks Crew as their musician. Is the one that learns the truth first about what happened on Elegia. 6) Ace is our universe Luffy. Of course a lot more serious and and older, but he still holds the same humor he did in the past. He stays on Dawn Island a little longer, leaving when he turns 20. He has the gum-gum fruit. Deuce is on the crew- along with the og Strawhats and more. Except Deuce has the flame-flame fruit. 7) Sabo is the same, a revolutionary. The only difference is that he recovers from amnesia by listening to Luffy's singing. 8) Shank's hat is still on Shank's head. Ace only wants to be remembered, but Luffy still wants to be the pirate king.

Film red 💥: Everything is almost the same- Ace and Uta specifically fall for Luffy's trap. Luffy is still gonna try and unalive himself trapping everyone in his sing world. The only difference is that he's specifically targeting civilians. Proving to everyone anyone can be evil. However, due to selfish reasons, he lets Ace and Uta stay cause he missed them and he honestly thought he'd never see them again.

Anybody he obviously deems a threat- gets trapped the same way in the movie. So the movie is practically the same- but instead of finding out what happened later in the movie, Ace finds out through Uta pretty early on.

Sabo and Shanks are still on the other side,the real world, fighting against marines. Everything continues until Tot Musica is summoned. Luffy is tired due to fatigue and having to stay awake in the real and sing world. Not thinking straight, he thinks if he summons Tot Musica and lets the demon possess him again. If they (Ace, Uta, sabo, Shanks, and all the other pirates) destroy Tot Musica, they unalive him. He's willing to do this and summons Tot Musica, the fight goes as normal, and they're even able to save Luffy.

The movie ends the same way in the Og. He's saved from the demon, shanks officially, and verbally adopts Luffy. Luffy- (who's been taking wake-wake shrooms (Which keeps a person awake but shorten their life span) is given the cure after he releases everyone from his sing world.

Ace, Sabo, Luffy, and Uta reunite and promise to keep in touch via letters and den dens. Luffy is given the strawhat when he finally announces his dream “To be the most free man and free other people with his voice” and to be the freest, you have to become the pirate king.

His first pirate crew (even though Ace offers for him to join his crew- Luffy immediately refuses since “if I'm going to be pirate king, then i have to be the captain” argument.) consists of Uta and og strawhat crew (Ace has a giant pirate crew- and thought people with big dreams should stick together, so he sent them to watch over his little brother).

[empty-movement]

I remember seeing a post floating around on Tumblr about a 1980s anime movie that had some strong parallels to utena (especially with the rose bride and rose related imagery I think) but now I can't remember the name or find the post. Since you're the resident utena expert I wondered if you have any idea about what movie that could be or if you knew of any other stuff that might have had influence on utena and would be worth checking out. If not no worries and thanks for all the great work you do.

I'm going to guess the movie you're thinking about is Belladonna of Sadness, though that's much older, at 1973. Note: EVEN THE TRAILER HAS EXPLICIT NUDITY AND STYLIZED BUT HONESTLY PRETTY SHOCKING DEPICTIONS OF RAPE.

I honestly can't recall if anyone in Be-Papas ever brought this movie up specifically, but I cannot stress enough how obviously it is part of the DNA of Revolutionary Girl Utena. This was a film absolutely all of the creative team would likely have seen. Not only is it a major work of animation from the era, it's very much adjacent to the world of 70s ass musical theater abstract rage art that Ikuhara ate up so hard that alumni of it ended up working on Utena. (Seazer doing the duel choruses, there's even a lost musical by Ei Takatori, more on that another day.)

This isn't one of those 'lol check out this shot to shot comparison it's identical' kinds of things. While Ikuhara makes explicit references more often in later work to pop culture of note, Utena's vibe is more about digesting those inspirations, instead of decorating with them. Belladonna of Sadness is a film that feels like Utena content when you watch it. Visually, it's so much its own thing, but the shocking delicacy of Utena's most explicit scenes, the way rape is depicted, those sensibilities definitely have their origin in this film, in part.

It's not an easy watch, definitely look into content warnings for it, but those pass for you, it's probably one of, if not my top, recommendations for what to explore to find Utena's inspirations.

Another film with similarly deeply obvious vibes:

Lost Highway: This David Lynch film came out while Utena was being produced. I saw it before seeing Utena because I was Smashing Pumpkins trash as a teenager and they did a bop for the OST. I can't stress enough how much the Akio Arc is inspired by this film. Don't believe me? Listen to this:

The work of Shuji Terayama is very obvious as inspiration spiritually for Utena, especially Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets. However, I caution anyone interested in that end of the Utena universe to tread *very* carefully, this content gets honestly fucking horrifying sometimes. Explicit abuse and rape will be depicted in much of this content. Themes Utena shares, but depicts very differently, for a very different audience.

Anyway, hope that helps! Or at least is interesting!

-Vanna