#i wish saionji and touga had a little pose at the end too

[glowing-starlight]

[some-triangles]

Episode 37.  This is the finest thing Ikuhara ever produced, I think.

The duels are over, the winner decided.  We have reached an inflection point: from here, the revolutionist can choose either to restart the narrative or end it. The power that Utena won is the power of the liminal.  She stands outside the story right now and can do whatever she wants.

A knock-on effect of this development is that the episode structure we’ve been relying on to carry us forward is gone.  We’re no longer building to anything because it isn’t clear that there’s anything left to build toward, and we don’t know what kind of person our main character is, just now. Utena was a lot of things but first and foremost she was the girl who wore that ring.

The girl who loved Akio, the girl who loved Anthy.  What is there left for her?

Well, she can ask Akio out on a date, in front of Anthy.  Just to test her arm.

I think we see the strength that makes Utena the one who will bring the world revolution, here.  Her reaction to seeing Akio and Anthy together isn’t denial and it isn’t revulsion.  She doesn’t immediately decide how she feels about either one of them.  What she embarks upon is a slow, careful reexamination of her situation, and of what power she still has.

And – now that she finally gets the idiom of poisonous doublespeak she’s been living in these past weeks – she engages in some of it herself.  Just to see.

UTENA: Man, most girls would kill to go out on a date with someone as cool as you, Akio!

ANTHY: Hyuu, hyuu. [trans: wow, ok]

We head to the balcony to catch up with Touga and Saionji.  End of the World has sent Dear John letters to all the duelists save one. Utena got a very different letter, but she hasn’t opened it.

Touga, there, discovering that a princess once acquired is not so easily shook.

Utena and Akio come back from their drive.  Akio asks why she’s not wearing her ring – she says she’s not sure it suits her anymore. Any action is possible, out here, so why not turn into a different person entirely? 

They go through the “you look like a girl”/”well, I am a girl” routine.  Utena remarks that Akio hasn’t said anything about the stars tonight.  He is sufficiently confident in his victory – confident that she’ll wear his ring, so that he can turn his attention elsewhere – that he drops a little piece of his seduction routine prematurely.

But – there are still some details to be worked out, aren’t there?  We’re still waiting for the final act.

Utena finds Anthy waiting up for her when she gets home.  There is so much to say at this point and so little time to say it in that every word that passes between them is significant, and it’s difficult to find a way to condense it.  Maybe translation would be a better approach.

UTENA: Are you angry? [I acknowledge that you have a prior claim on your brother in a way I didn’t recognize, and while I am not exonerating you in this, I am not judging you, either – similarly, I am acknowledging that you may, in a way I still don’t fully understand, have a prior claim on me.]

ANTHY: About what? [I am still unable to speak to you about this openly.]

UTENA: I thought you’d say that. [I understand that acknowledging what is really happening will destroy this world that we’ve created together, and I don’t want that, but we must find a way to communicate around this issue.]

Then something that doesn’t need translating:

UTENA: Akio said I looked really girlish tonight.  What does it mean to be girlish?

ANTHY:

Anthy takes Utena by the hand and tells her that if she goes to that castle in the sky, she’ll meet her prince.  There is a smile on Anthy’s face when she says this.

Meanwhile, Akio is taking pictures of Touga and Saionji on top of a pile of cars. They tell him that his plan has failed, because Utena has chosen him, a flesh and blood man, over her prince, an ideal.  He says:

So, the setup’s complete. This was the plan, such as it was. He’s shown her a beautiful lie and an ugly truth and now she gets to walk away from Omelas, or not.  

The next day Utena is playing basketball while preoccupied (gotta watch that – remember what happened last time!)  In the morning, she and Anthy had the following exchange:

ANTHY: Utena, I wish the three of us could stay like this forever. [If you don’t go through with the revolution, you will be trapped in this purgatory with me for all time, along with all the other girls Akio will eventually add to his collection.]

UTENA: [rips the letter from end of the world into a million fucking pieces, thereby calling Anthy’s bluff, and indicating that she’s feeling pretty friggin MATRIMONIAL all of a sudden]

As we’re left to absorb the way that these nasty little moments are practically the only time Utena and Anthy get really real with each other, Juri and Miki show up, and it’s time for the Badminton Game of Redemption.

If you were wondering whether any of the other duelists were going to get a shot at resolution for their character arcs, this is about as close as you’re going to get.   I don’t even think I’m going to run it down, here – it’s too good and pure to be picked apart.

Suffice it to say that there is power in their mutual acknowledgement of powerlessness, comfort in their open acknowledgement of their flaws.   And in the end, when they all say that they’ve fallen for Utena, as the objects of their obsession look on – that’s them telling her that she’s the Prince.  It’s the prince’s job to be the lightning rod for the love that passes understanding, the love that will break a normal person if they are forced to bear the brunt of it. The prince acknowledges that the love she receives is the love of something higher than herself, the love of nobility, loyalty, grace. And so, when she is loved, she laughs. She laughs with the people who love her.

Nanami doesn’t have a religious bone in her body, but offers Utena acknowledgement of another kind – that they will both keep fighting, because it’s who they are.

It’s an enormous gift they give her, here, the gift of their friendship, their support, and their acknowledgement of the potential she has to remake this world for the better.  But the last shot of the scene is this one:

There is only so far that her friends can take her.  She is going to have to do the next part alone.

Then the shadow puppet girls put on an epic performance, recapping the stakes at hand in thorough detail and also briefly acknowledging the central grossness that the rest of the series skirts around.  It turns out that Prince Audition Judge is the young applicant’s

And did you know, by the way, that only one girl can get the part?

I love the shadow puppet girls because we have similar priorities.  They and I have elected to fight the power in the same time-honored, highly respected, and completely ineffectual fashion, i.e., by making fun.

Then there’s like fifteen seconds of Akio fucking Anthy really brutally (via the car metaphor but there’s no attempt to hide the implication) and nothing is funny anymore.

God, and then.

Utena and Anthy are talking in the kitchen.  Utena asks Anthy about her future plans – what she plans to do when she grows up, essentially – which to Anthy must sound like asking a convict with a life sentence what their dream job would be if they got out.  Anthy asks Utena if she’s ever heard of a particular kind of deadly poison, the kind the Borgias used, and then asks if Utena’s enjoying the cookies.

Utena takes a moment, and then she finishes her cookie.

Anthy takes a moment, and then she takes a big sip.

They found a way to communicate around the issue!  It’s like a trust fall, but with murder.  It’s incredibly heartwarming, and I’m not sure why.

Anthy asks Utena where she sees herself in ten years.  Utena says she doesn’t know, but it’d be nice if the two of them were still together then, drinking tea and laughing.  (“Laughing.” Anthy and Utena don’t have much in common, beyond taste in men, but they do have the same pitch-black sense of humor.)  They promise to make it a date.

Later that night, Anthy tries to throw herself off the roof.

It’s the confirmation that Utena still loves her – that, in the end, Utena will choose her over Akio – that’s too much for her to bear, I think.   Knowing with absolute certainty that she isn’t worthy of that love.

The following day, Utena is back in her uniform and on her way to the dueling arena.  She passes Touga and Saionji, who are eager to share some of their new poses while they ask her why she’s suddenly interested in world revolution.  “It’s not just that”, she says.  Touga correctly intuits that it’s Anthy’s freedom she’s after.   Standing next to his best friend, he reminds her of the central axiom of his life:

To which she replies, “I am a fool”, of course.

Utena is wearing her engagement ring. Anthy is waiting for her. Together, they walk into the end of the world.