#and only talks about utena personally

[gloriousmonsters]

i just saw someone call shiori a straight woman in an article....

[seasaltmemories]

I was wondering why I tend to more enjoy shoujo that predate the 2000s than contemporary stuff and at first thought it was history leaving the stronger works of past decades easier to find, but turns out there could be more than bias at play

Turns out there has been a censorship law since 2006 specifically targeting shoujo manga around sexuality. And suddenly the fact that shounen can get away with some much more content-wise than shoujo suddenly makes sense

[echothelover]

Is it just me or do people view Shiori solely through her black rose arc episode way more than they do the other black rose duelists?

[anonymous-gambito]

This is such a weird thing to say

[gilligansgarden]

✦…?

+POSITIVE:

You make me laugh ║ I am inspired by you ║ I trust you wholeheartedly ║ I consider you a role model ║ I am interested in you romantically ║ I am interested in you sexually ║ I am protective over you ║ I support you ║ In my ideal world, you are happy ║ You give me cute aggression ║ You have done so much for me ║ Your approval is meaningful to me ║ I think of you often ║ I hope you are a permanent fixture in my life ║ You don't get enough credit ║ Your presence is a mood boost

±NEUTRAL:

We are vibing ║ I like your posts ║ I respect what you've been through ║ I hope you get what you deserve ║ We may not be close, but I enjoy what we have ║ I wish you would seek help ║ Knowing you has changed me ║ I consider you trustworthy ║ You remind me of myself ║ I like bumping into you at the function ║ I idolize you ║ We share a lot of common interests ║ You're cool

-NEGATIVE:

I'm compelled to antagonize you ║ You grate on me ║ I do not trust you ║ I don't respect your life choices ║ I feel like I have to mask / dull myself around you ║ You've crossed my boundaries multiple times ║ I feel guilty over something I said/did to you ║ I am obsessed with you || I have a grudge against you ║ You stress me out ║ You give me cute aggression ║ I envy you and/or covet aspects of your life ║ I thinly tolerate you ║ Being around you sometimes opens up old wounds for me

[fellhellion]

having more thoughts on the gay homophobic blorbo of my heart but. i think shiori instantly leaving the school after “stealing” the boy she thought juri was interested in gains a different flavour when you think about the fact that hurting juri isn’t a threshold she backs down from once she knows it won’t actually break their relationship. the impression i get therefore is that she left because she believed she’d irrevocably destroyed their relationship and left what shiori fears most: apathy. 

[the-cooler-king]

Oh yeah..... midnight gospel be hitting.... sitting in my bed fuckin. Crying. Get a grip girl

[transmascutena]

we watched the black rose musical last night and i'm still thinking about how much akio goes around just.. touching other characters, even in scenes he isn't actually really supposed to be part of. it's a really interesting directing choice. sometimes it's just a touch, like a hand on someone's arm or shoulder, but most of the time he's pushing people. very much like in the show, he is putting the actors (the characters) into the positions he needs them in. only here it's very literal. and instead of just telling them where to be, like a stage director might do, it's physical, hands-on, even kind of violent at times, yet still subtle enough that nobody notices. nobody ever reacts to it, they just move to where he needs them to be, stumbling into place and continuing to play their roles.

and i could talk about exactly who gets pushed when and to where (like how the first and last person he does it to is anthy-as-mamiya, how it's a light push, really just a touch to keep the momentum of what they're already doing going, as opposed to the way he kind of shoves other characters), but the thing that really stood out to me is that the only character he does touch but doesn't ever really push (aside from i think anthy, and i do have a lot of thoughts on the scene where they're dancing together that i may get into in another post) is utena. what he does instead instead is pull her.

in the opening number, there's a moment where it seems like utena is about to walk off-stage (like tokiko does in the scene, because their choreography is mirroring each other. very clever), but before she can, akio grabs her arm and turns her towards the center of the stage instead, where she lies down in her "coffin". the show proper starts, of course, with the once upon a time story of utena meeting the prince, and a recap of the first arc/musical. and of course akio is the one who puts her into position for it. she's still trapped in her coffin.

and, i don't know, there's just something especially unsettling to me about it compared to the pushing. maybe just that it's different from his interactions with every other character. or the contrast between the pushing being more direct and aggressive, compared to him subtly and gently guiding her around the stage, into the chair or closer to him. there's something horribly personal or intimate about it i guess, especially since he often takes her hand to do it.

[saiscribbles]

Lily is correct. She doesn't make rage bait. You'd have to be at least a little clever and actually plan out your video scripts to do that.

Lily's opinions are just so off-base, so deranged, so childish, so wrapped up in her own personal bullshit and delivered in that smug ass Ben Shapiro "I'm so right and smart and logical" style that it just stabs painfully into the brain of anyone with sense who hears them.

And aside from this strange deficiency she has when it comes to understanding narrative, she doesn't seem to fully watch or play anything she ever talks about!

Utena? Clearly didn't see it. She didn't even know the name of the villain. If she had watched it she'd have been screaming about the tone and either praising or deflecting on the three sibling relationships of varying degrees of incestuous in it.

Steven Universe? I doubt she's rewatched it since it aired. She constantly gets things wrong or is surprised by things that are in episodes. And the movie? I doubt she watched it beyond just a few clips. She went by a bunch of edgy Reddit fan theories, didn't know what any of the songs were actually about, and then kept disgustingly saying reset Pearl being a Pearl to Greg was gay conversion therapy and cut out Opal's entire existence to maintain that narrative.

Even Kingdom Hearts? Well mah boi Crim from my supporter Discord went over that one. Lily, supposed big mega fan of KH, tells you to just skip a bunch of the games. We now wonder if she's actually played them or only watched cutscenes.

[charmtale]

Shameful secrets cause a person to become haunted. She cannot sleep, for a shaming secret is like a cruel barbed wire that catches her across the gut as she tries to run free.

(Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves)

the fact that no one* knew about akio's abuse of anthy is far from the only thing wrong with it, but the inherent shameful secrecy of it was an integral part of her abuse, something that significantly served to isolate anthy from her peers.

it was definitely akio's plan for utena to see anthy and akio at the end of ep. 36. (anthy's hands disappear into her hair = she had no hand in this. + the way the scene lights up like how lights come on at the beginning of a new scene in a play (anthy's previously black silhouette gaining color and features) = it was staged. not to mention her bleak expression) akio thought that utena would just be disgusted by her, and/or feel betrayed, and that would be that. however, he sealed his fate (anthy being able to ditch him) with this action, because utena offered anthy compassion and understanding instead of condemning her.

utena acknowledging anthy's pain as a result of being abused by akio touched anthy more than any of utena's other actions up to that point. while utena says a lot of stuff in that scene about utena's ego and being a prince, anthy only has visible reactions to two of utena's lines until utena is completely done speaking.

"And the night I learned about you and Akio...!"

the camera focuses completely on anthy, nothing else shown, as anthy slightly tilts her head up. there is no dialogue while anthy makes this small movement; anthy is listening intently for what utena will say next, and the show wants us to notice that.

"I thought that you had betrayed me. Even though you were suffering so much...!"

when utena talks about suffering- acknowledging that akio's treatment of anthy caused anthy pain- anthy uncurls her body significantly. a visual indicator of feeling less shame, immediately in that moment.

anthy does not move in reaction to anything else utena says until utena is fully done speaking, when anthy and utena are now shown kinda-holding eachother. utena may or may not know the full impact of her words, but it is clear to the viewers what moved anthy to say:

"It doesn't matter now. Just leave this school. Forget about everything that happened here!"

in anthy's opinion, this has to be the kindest, most honest thing she can say in this moment. utena leaving would ruin akio's plan and anthy would be the obvious reason why (likely leading to punishment), not to mention how anthy would obviously miss utena. the fact anthy said it anyway shows how impactful utena's statement was

it's good to talk about utena's obsessive girlprincing and how it was damaging. it's good that utena acknowledges it herself. but i think the fandom commonly overestimates how much that mattered to anthy, especially in relation to this scene. i feel that people sometimes abbreviate it as 'utena apologized to anthy for her egotistical behavior, and that brought them closer together!' like yes, she did and that was positive and indicative of utena maturing. but i do not think that was the most important aspect here

[purpledemonlilyposting]

Responding to Lily Orchard on Utena

So I already talked about how Lily Orchard never watched Revolutionary Girl Utena and doesn't understand it on my main blog, and now she's trying to invoke the arguments I've had with other morons who have never watched and don't understand Revolutionary Girl Utena. Discussion beneath the cut!

[Lily's Post]

Here Lily and the little zoomers on Twitter who have never engaged with Utena beyond making a tumblr mood board, let me hold your hand through episode 33 The Prince Who Runs Through the Night from my "Let's Watch Utena" livestream from a few months ago. Uploaded unlisted:

Going "um sweaty she's a minor!!!???" instead of engaging with the actual text just stalls any meaningful discussion about the purpose of this episode within the narrative. Utena is a surrealistic piece that operates entirely on hazy dream logic. Trying to bring in real world ethics outside of the text into Akio's seduction Utena is simply irrelevant to what is being communicated. It would be like stalling every discussion about a revenge plot movie with "but murder is illegal!"

As I said on the stream Akio's seduction of Utena is Faustian. He is the devil pulling her further away from her gender role defiant values and her true purpose of saving Anthy from her eternal suffering, as she was spurred to do by the spirit of Dios. He is also using her because he thinks the Sword of Dios he can draw from her will be the key to opening the seal to the "Power of Revolution". But Akio can never regain the power of the Prince again, as he's a corrupt adult now. The ideal of the Prince that exists in both the hearts of Anthy and Utena.

This is a series you have to take within its own symbolic language. It is not interested in being realistic or straight forward. It's heavily influenced by experimental stage theater. Ikuhara purposefully wanted it to be tonally mismatched to put the audience in the mindset of the world.

On the next point:

I've been into Utena for 28 years. I've read lots of essays on it and have listened to many interpretations of it. I have no idea where this idea that Utena "rejects" Dios is suddenly coming from. I'll reiterate from the debate I had about this on Twitter:

Dios, the actual spirit of the ideal of the Prince, whose spirit she calls down during duels, who has only ever spoken to Utena in the space between life and death, appears here to Utena as the duel song chorus swells with "I exist! I'm here!"

Dios kisses her ring

And Utena finds the strength to get back up.

And when Akio is about to drain away the remainder of Utena's life? Dios, his presence completely unnoticed by Akio, quietly disappears behind the glass of pink liquid Akio is drinking. Never to be seen again. Dios has been Utena's ally throughout the entire show. Embodying the ideal of the Prince without having to be a prince is how she frees Anthy.

She puts her fist to the floor to lift herself up with the hand the ring is on. At no point does she "shatter the ring" as this person on Twitter tried to claim:

She has the intact ring still on for the rest of the episode. Because the ring represents her promise to free Anthy. You can watch the damn scenes yourself. The entire show is available on YouTube. I'd recommend watching the entire series first but here's the finale.

Wherever these painfully incorrect surface level readings of Utena are coming from please stop reading them and go to Ohtori.nu I beg.

[needle-thread-thimble-spear]

Revolutionary Girl Utena and Epistemic Violence

or

Why Anthy is not a trans girl (but she is to me)

~~

Ohtori, as any good setting tends to, carries a lot of thematic weight. It’s a fairy world, where metaphorical illusion blurs personal hopes over a poisoned interior structure, to the point where an outside perspective may struggle to distinguish between what a character is thinking and what is actually happening. Time and memory are suggestions whispered in the ear of its students, a cyclic hell where the same puppets are played in position, memories broken but dreams intact, to test new victims and forge new swords. A kingdom of nowhen, ruled from above by a king that refuses to see that the prison he built cannot ever free him. A hierarchy where the misogyny taught to children to prepare them for the grown up version is baked into the very structure of the world, belying a culture of horrible sexual violence. And at the very bottom of that hierarchy, the victim-witch, is the kings own sister. A sort of broken Omelas, where one girl must suffer forever and ever, not to end the suffering of others, but to keep them in the dark. Especially her brother. What Ohtori is, and the hierarchies that it represents both within the work and outside of it, hinges on the suffering of that girl. And, maybe more importantly, her silence.

~~

Revolutionary Girl Utena changed my life. I’ve been saying this nearly two years now, mostly as a joke, but with distance I can see it really isn’t. When you are in the depths of an abusive relationship, it is extremely difficult to see what’s happening to you. I don’t wish to dwell on my own story here too much, but how can I ignore it? RGU was the language I used to understand what had happened to me. Images from the show flit through my mind as though I were a Tamarian. Utena, in the window. Anthy, with the candelabra. Utena, her hands cut with thorns. Anthy with the white beret. After finishing the show for the first time I felt sickened. Not merely because of the subject matter depicted, raw and horrible as it is, but because I saw myself in it. Why do I feel such a kinship with Anthy?

I think, dear reader, you may be able to imagine the horror inherent to that realization. You might have felt it, you may be feeling it now.

It seemed obvious to me then, for reasons I could not begin to fathom, that Anthy was a trans girl. Reeling from my first watch, this felt like the only conclusion I could draw though I couldn’t tell you why. For years, I have drafted and redrafted essays attempting to justify this feeling. Recently, I posted an reading of Miki as a transfem character, and I don’t feel particularly strongly about that reading! Sure, aspects of his character were relatable to me, I could draw analogies well enough, but that was completely secondary to my actual goal. Practice for the transfem Anthy essay. Looking back on what I’d written now, I don’t. Hate? What I wrote. There’s definitely some aspects I’d repudiate now. If you enjoyed reading it, if it meant something to you, I’m glad. But even as I was writing it it felt incomplete and limited. And I believe I understand why.

What did I get wrong about Miki and Kozue? What lies in Ohtori’s heart? What lies in that bed of rotten rose petals?

We all know what does, but we do not want to see it and certainly don’t want to talk about it.

It’s Nanami’s disgust with Anthy, with herself. It’s Miki and Kozue’s confused but earnest posturing. It’s Utena looking up at Akio, it’s Anthy’s vacant stare.

Even here, I’m speaking in abbreviated reference. But it’s abuse, sexual, at times incestuous abuse, that touches every character in RGU.

I’d recently seen a few posts which I think hit on a really common phenomena among fans of the show. Our own stories, our own disgust, our own fears and our own traumas, sort of get in the way when we talk about RGU. I think it’s a natural consequence. RGU deals with heavy subject matter that is very difficult to sit with. I don’t think it’d be incorrect to say most western fans of RGU are queer in some way. We’re much more likely, as consequence, to suffer from interpersonal abuse. And naturally, we are drawn to these characters since they represent, with so few holds barred, some of our worst experiences. But does that make them like us?

For the record, I think it would be ridiculous to suggest that RGU isn't a queer show and that it isn't filled with queer characters. But, for as obvious a conclusion as this is, a surprising depth of that queerness is veiled in subtext. It’s worth considering, the endless arguments over whether Anthy and Utena are lesbians or bisexual, is sort of inconsequential. The important thing is that they have escaped, together! We could suppose that, were Ohtori a real place, we could go track down the two of them and demand from them an answer. How do you feel, Anthy, about your attraction to Akio? What does that mean to you? Would you please quell that horrible disgust we feel thinking about it? Inquiring readers would like to feel better know!

When one leaves Ohtori, one leaves the view of the audience. Utena and Anthy are in love with one another, but what that means to them (and themselves) is out of our reach.

And yet, I can’t seem to shake my original conclusion, from my first watch. Surely it cannot be intended! Hell, even the fact that Anthy is desi is sort of incidental to any commentary on social injustice, the motivation for depicting her (and Akio) this way was to exoticize them relative to the rest of the school. So is this image of Anthy as a brown trans girl, her position in Ohtori being a result of transmisogyny, some western myopia? Mere projection of the aggrieved self on a character who, by her nature, absorbs the feelings and impressions of those around her?

Sort of?

Revolutionary Girl Utena was created in a Japanese cultural context, to be sure, but it’s worth noting that while the precise execution of (trans)misogyny and other gender injustices may vary from culture to culture, patriarchy isn’t exactly exclusive to the west. There is a lot of different directions we could run in here, but the one I want to focus on is epistemic violence (a good primer linked here if the term is unfamiliar). *

In Ohtori, all girls are like princesses, unless they are like witches. And, sooner or later, all girls are like the rose bride, the doll-witch, the synthesis. This is how patriarchy works. There is a concept of “permissible” femininity, and an “impermissible” feminity. There is the wife, the mother, the domestic servant, who is permitted some limited social power by her utility to a patriarch (primarily as a mother to trueborn children). Then there is, well, everyone else. “Loose” women, sure, but also those who have been damaged by sexual violence. Those who cannot bear children, because of some accident of their physiology. These women are used, for feminized labor, for sex, but because of the stigma associated with them and the issues they present toward patrilineal succession, they are subject to various censure. One does not talk about survivors of sexual violence or sex workers in polite society. It is possible for some to travel between these two categories, although it is far, far easier to go from “type 1” to “type 2” than the other direction. Indeed, for some it is not possible to have ones “virtue” restored. If we aren’t being reduced to predatory inhuman monsters, trans women, both a hypersexualized object of intense fetishization and incapable of bearing children, are placed into the second category automatically. Lots of would be abusers are happy to whisper in our ears, that they will treat us like we are “type 1”, but invariably they do not.**

The most maddening thing to me about being a trans woman is this, inability for anyone to see the violence that happens to you. People don’t believe you can be the subject of (sexual) violence, even though the fact it occurs to you, regularly, should be obvious to anyone who thinks about how we are perceived for just a moment! You cannot speak up without sounding delusional, it can happen right in front of a stranger, your best friend, and they wont bat an eye. That you are so incredibly disgusting, no one would want to hurt you that way.

Anthy isn’t a trans girl. But the system that silences her, treats her like she deserves her victimization, that she is irrevocably tainted by her relationship with Akio, the system that keeps us, the audience, from internalizing the dreadful truth of her character, this veil of silence, of covered ears and closed eyes, is extant in the lives of all misbegotten gender-oppressed rejects. If we are going to draw analogies between ourselves and Anthy, or Utena, or Nanami, or any the rest of them, we need to pull back that veil. Indeed, it's confronting (and then escaping from) that choking, word-stopping bile that sits at the core of RGU's thesis. I don’t think it’s wrong for us to relate to the characters in RGU, and write about that. But we might stop to consider why before we do!

*If you’re curious to read more about patriarchy across cultures, here is a really incisive article on the phenomena of third sexing, the operation of (trans)misogyny and gendered violence in parallel across cultural contexts, and how that relates to the western and desi sphere (but also more broadly).

**It should also be noted that there can be no comparison of suffering of anyone under patriarchy. Even the most vaunted cis man, I suppose. But there can be a comparison of power, and this is why we discuss it rather than throw up our hands.

Thank you for reading, I think this is the last I'm going to write about RGU for a while, though there's quite a bit I want to say about Utena and Anthy's relationship. So someday, I'll get around to more! And a perennial thank you to @empty-movement for the high quality archival images.

[cyphyree]

Revolutionary Girl Utena spoilers.

I think what guts me the most is how Utena tries to rise above the mistakes of others, tries to do good, tries to be kind in the name of becoming like the prince she was inspired by...... only to fall short just like everyone else.

She's hypocritical, willfully ignorant, insufferable, malicious even.

When confronted by others who reflect her worst qualities, she tries to defeat them, tries to tell herself that she's not like them at all, when in fact she is all of them to some degree.

The fact that she's "trying to do good" doesn't even make her special or morally better. Lots of well-intentioned characters try to do good in the show, and try to break the rose-tinted windows of their cages. They still end up hurting others, willfully or not. So does Utena.

Utena also tries to drive change, but so does everyone else. All everyone manages to do is reinforce the status quo.

Is Utena a bad person? No.

Is Utena a good person? She's trying, but again that doesn't make her any less malicious than anyone else.

I think what ultimately sets Utena apart is her pursuit for honesty.

Honesty isn't something that's talked about in the show in the most explicit way, and why would anyone talk about it? To be honest is to make yourself vulnerable and open to abuse. To seek honesty is to shatter the lies that offer comfort and confidence, and expose the ugly, dirty little truths underneath. It's to break the rose-tinted windows of their cage: it's painful and sharp and cold and the cuts will be deep and will they even heal?

Utena is honest to a fault, making her susceptible to manipulation and mind games. She's also DIShonest to a fault, therefore perpetuating the illusion that continues to harm Anthy (but it's hard, isn't it, when that illusion is the reason you're still alive?). Utena being naive also has trouble perceiving truths that others more experienced can see.

However--while everyone else resorts to deflecting blame, mind games, or neglecting the inconvenient truth--in the end, Utena continues to pursue truth and be truthful. Not out of naivety like in the beginning, but knowing full well that it's a hell-ridden road worth walking.

She doesn't want illusions and deceit to lull her into false grandeur anymore. She doesn't want to see herself or anyone else through rose-tinted lenses, because to live a pretty lie is to die without being born. She eventually becomes honest with herself, sees the ugly truth of her flaws, and confronts them. She refuses the final illusion Akio offers her because it's dishonest to who she is and what's really important to her. She becomes honest with Anthy, and when Anthy is finally honest with her, Utena receives it in full however much it hurt.

In the end, she didn't save Anthy, because the truth is that Anthy was never hers to save. But by shattering the lies between them, and baring her truth, Utena became the vehicle for Anthy to save herself.

And that is revolutionary.

[haru-dipthong]

hejhej, thank you for the post about the use of pronouns in SKU. Insights about the Japanese context in the show are something deeply interesting to me as I feel I sometimes lack a lot of context in this department. The following question is more related to socio-linguistics:

Until their very last appearances on screen Utena refers to Anthy by her last name but no honourifics but Anthy is on first name but (in lack of a better description of mine) high rank honourific. In terms of personal intimacy is there a meaning/implication in their relationship in the way they address each other?

I am so glad you asked me this because I was already thinking of writing a whole post about that moment! It’s one of my favourite moments in the whole show, and maybe the most rich in terms of analysis.

I think Utena’s way of addressing Anthy is much less interesting, but it does still carry some meaning. It’s common for boys to use last names with no honorifics among friends, and I think this is just a part of Utena’s masculine image. But let’s talk about Anthy’s final line!

In general, honorifics are usually used to put a bit of social distance between you and the other person. Sometimes that distance is horizontal, such that you’re not imposing a possibly unwanted intimacy on a peer, and sometimes that distance is vertical, as with 様 (sama). Romantic partners and close friends usually address each other by first name with no honorific, so to use their first name only would be a bit presumptuous.

様 (sama) is used to show extreme deference. Outside of customer-employee interactions, it’s not used much in modern day Japanese. But it is the honorific you would use to address your husband if you were a princess bound by duty to wed a prince from another royal family. The fact that she doesn’t use the honorific in the final line carries SO much meaning.

Superficially and plot-wise, it means she is free from her curse. More importantly, it means she considers herself and Utena equals, where before she was forced to place herself far beneath Utena, socially. This has implications about how Anthy sees gender as well. I believe one aspect of Anthy’s toxic hyperfemininity is that she feels that in order to be feminine, she needs to place herself under people. She sees femininity as weakness and timidity. The more people she positions herself under, the more feminine she sees herself — which ironically allows herself to feel superior. It’s a contradiction. But by shedding the honorific and implying that she and Utena are equals, it makes a powerful implication about how her view of femininity has matured, much like how Utena’s final acts and words show how much her view of masculinity has matured. It’s a huge payoff for a 39-episode long setup.

Lastly, it represents that Anthy’s relationship with Utena has taken its final step. They have been growing closer and further apart in many ways over the whole series and this is the culmination of everything. I see Anthy's use of 様 (sama) to be the final and most important barrier she places between Utena and herself, and by not using it, she is showing us that their relationship is complete - she has allowed Utena fully into her life. I believe that omitting the honorific, on top of everything, represents that Anthy and Utena are now intimate, in every sense of the word.

[horse-girl-anthy]

under the cut, I discuss my relationship with RGU and how it influences my understanding of the show's purpose.

it's been 10 years since I first watched RGU. I didn't go into it looking for anything intellectual or challenging. even at that age, 16, I was seeking out complex art, but in 2014, RGU didn't have quite the overbearing reputation that it does now--or anyway, I'd missed out it being considered a cryptic masterpiece. my impression of RGU was that it was a "shoujo romance" but with two girls instead of a het ship. I was totally on board with that.

I think going into it with that mindset mafde my relationship with the work different from a lot of other fans'. at a fundamental level, I don't view the show as a "critique" of shoujo tropes, or of fairy tale romance. there was a time during which I was persuaded to see it that way, but I don't anymore, and a lot of that is down to thinking back to my younger self.

I've talked about this before, but I didn't engage all that deeply with RGU at first. it unsettled and confused me in a way I wasn't prepared to deal with. since I'd expected a much simpler story, I kept resisting the more complex aspects of the work. what's more, it was touching on things I didn't want touched on. Utena, Anthy, and Nanami were all characters I was afraid to fully identify with, and Akio was a violation of all my girlhood dreams and ideals.

despite that, I was very moved by the final episode and would rewatch it off and on for years after. I remember being 18, very lonely and upset in my college dorm room, and telling myself, "there's no prince coming to save you," which to me meant "there is no force to rely on other than yourself." I'd, of course, thought things like that before, but this time it sunk all the way down to my bones. I explicitly linked this revelation to RGU.

still, I think back to those girlish feelings, which RGU trampled on so thoroughly, with a sense of nostalgia and tenderness. RGU carefully outlines the dangers of dependence, particularly when it is caught up in gendered power struggles. yet, it's only natural for a person who's still a child to be dependent. I don't think we need to "critique" dependence; we just need to understand it. RGU is much more sympathetic to kids than people give it credit for. it's sympathizing with the painful process of becoming independent--an adult.

going further, why exactly was I looking for a "shoujo romance" with two girls? it wasn't as if I was stupid or mindless. I knew that a lot of the romance content I was consuming wasn't "high art." I did, in fact, read several straightforward yuri romances where girls just saved each other and nothing particularly "deconstructive" happened. I liked them, just like I liked the het and the BL I read.

are some of those types of stories regressive? sure. but honestly, most of them are just meant to make the readers feel comforted. even though my tastes are more sophisticated now, it's not as if I'll turn down comfort in art today either.

to bring it back to RGU, I think what I'm getting at is that I don't see it was a work which is casting judgment at all, not on other stories nor those who consume them. I think it actually captures the appeal of romance to the fullest extent. for instance, the tenderness, protectiveness, and yearning between Utena and Anthy, as well as much of the story's angst and melodrama. I was very unhappy as a teenager. I liked stories about love; I liked to imagine that I could love and be loved. in that way, RGU wasn't so different from any other romance I enjoyed.

there's a "have your cake and eat it too" aspect of the story. it uses the wrappings of genre to engender emotional investment, and that level shouldn't be discounted, because it's the foundation of the work. then the mature themes are layered on that foundation. thus, RGU both captures the primal emotional appeal of love stories AND demonstrates that, unless you become an adult and free yourself of illusions, you'll never be able to attain love. it depicts people rising above systems which seek to manipulate their desire for love and connection, but said manipulation should not obscure the motivating drive of the series. not only does RGU not condemn "the shoujo genre," but it is actually the pinnacle of shoujo romance for refining the deepest desires of its core demographic.

[aroanthy]

thinking about nanami and touga both telling utena not to trust anthy at the end of the series. whilst nanami and anthy being friends is something that makes me bawl like a little baby and overjoys me immensely, ive never bought a reading of nanami post-32 that is anthy positive. like idk how you could get that impression when all she does is talk about how anthy is a terrible and dangerous person. she’s scared of her. and you know she shouldn’t be, but it’s understandable why a 13 year old living in ohtori academy might be scared of someone she already didn’t like after finding out something deeply traumatic regarding them and not having the tools to make sense of it in a compassionate way. and it makes me want to eat drywall

what’s really interesting about all this to me tho is how both kiryuus tell utena not to trust ‘the chairman/end of the world or himemiya anthy/the rose bride’. anthy and akio are a package deal of toxicity and harm to both of them and if that isn’t just the most fascinating thing ever. also the difference between nanami’s ‘chairman/himemiya’ and touga’s ‘end of the world/rose bride’ (nanami giving her warning during the badminton scene, touga giving his at the end of his duel. so much going on here wrt roles and settings and rituals and reality). but getting back to my real point isn’t it so cool (agonising) how nanami and touga are incapable of extending compassion or understanding to anthy despite the fact that they’re the two people who know the most about her other than utena and akio. and like. they don’t know a Lot, but theyve both had a smidge of insight into an abusive relationship that mirrors aspects of their own lives in myriad ways

idk something about the rose bride as a symbol who bears all of humanity’s hatred. and in the end all girls are like the rose bride yes, but key word here is like. an approximation; all trapped, all agonised, yes, but not all literally fucking crucified for eternity by a million swords that shine with human hatred. not abstracted in such a particular and insidious way. i always find anthy/kiryuu parallels compelling wrt issues of race and class and mannnnnn. nanami takes a step away from the duelling game. she’s not out, but she’s not actively partaking, not actively being exploited. touga, whilst a little more overtly involved in stuco business and still meeting with akio, does also take a step away. like, they’re both able to do that. it’s a bit of an artifice, sure, they’re still here, but oh my god oh my god oh my god. theyre not anthy. am i making sense can anyone hear me holy shit

i think what im trying to say is that for everything that both nanami and touga learn about ohtori academy and the people living in it, for everything that forces them to self-reflect and question the ground that they stand upon, they fail to break the chain with it. like, they too contribute to anthy’s abstraction. she’s an idea that they secretly embody/emulate (not sure which word works better for what im trying to say just yet), and not a person who shares experiences with them but is still wholly separate from them. this kind of compassion is like. it’s too hard, when you’re in the situations that all three of them are in. anthy too perceives both of them as nonhuman, but there is a crucial power dynamic at play here. how can you stomach such a kindness to someone you can only see as a poor imitation of the worst parts of yourself, whom you loathe??

^ THIS GUY loves it when characters commit acts of extreme violence against one another that they themselves have experienced. the nanamianthytouga brand