#kozu rambles

[koziku]

my danganronpa mlp headcanons! i have some reasonings for my choices under the cut:

Since HPA (Hooves Peak Academy in this AU) is a very shitty school in canon, id like to think that they have a very strict policy for their students… something like ohh no cutie mark no entry!! and only scouting ponies for the school.

and because of how mlp works, with majority of the population having special talents, i think they would only scout the best of the best or whatevers more useful. leaving many who want to go to hpa to having to attend the reserve course.

changelings occasionally get by the security just because of their gimmick lol

moving onto the pony types— i tried to make each class as balanced as i could!

my perfectionism just wouldnt allow for one pony type to be dominating a class yknow? and the main trio from each class is each of the types (ex. hinata is an earth pony, nanami is a unicorn, komaeda is a pegasus) just cause im that particular

and!! izuru is the only alicorn! and hes an artificial one at that. i really like how alicorns are something special, godlike and worshipped, so i refrained from making sonia one even though she is a princess (not all pony princess are alicorns though!!!) the lobotomy in this au is definitely more brutal -esp if youve seen my past art of ponyzuru- cause not only was it a lobotomy!! it was a horn and wing transplant surgery. where did they get the horn and wings?? uhhhhhhhhhhhhh… definitely not ethically thats for sure

komaeda is a pegasus mostly because of the irony. lets give the boy whose parents died in a plane crash some wings!!! in this au it’s probably one of those flying fancy airships and after the incident komaeda is just traumatized by big heights + flying. if he ever does its a little hover

both the changelings outwardly show as earth ponies btw.

i think im going to stop rambling for now?? if there is any questions just ask and ill answer with my thoughts on why i picked your fav to be something lol. just dont be like twitter and yell at me smh im not gonna listen to you then

[transmascutena]

okay so i love drawing parallels between characters -- and i especially love drawing parallels between characters who seemingly have nothing in common -- and in a show where every character is a mirror of one another, i think kozue and utena might be the two who are the least alike. so i wanna talk (ramble) about them.

what does it mean that kozue and utena both have an injured ankle on their 'date' with akio?

i think it has something to do with restricted movement meaning restricted agency.

utena's injured ankle means she can't walk on her own, which means she would not be able to escape her situation if she wanted to. kozue on the other hand can walk, and chooses to go in the car, but i think they're both ultimately in a similar situation of believing they have more agency than they do in their relationships with akio.

kozue is more convinced of this because she's used to using romance and sexuality to get what she wants. she believes that she is using akio just as much as he is using her, and is fine with that arrangement (this is, i think, similar to touga's mentality. they both believe they're getting something out of their relationships with akio, which is why they stay.) but, of course, no matter how nefarious your intent is, it will never make up for the power imbalance between a child and an adult.

utena is... well it's more complicated. i don't think she's at all aware of what she wants, and she certainly does not think that akio is using her. (if anything she might think she's using him, and feels guilty about it.) she doesn't stay despite the abuse, she stays because she doesn't know about it. kozue knows akio is a bad person and doesn't care -- utena thinks he's a good person. akio takes advantage of both of these things in a pretty similar way. he makes all of his victims think that they are entirely in control of their own actions, even when they aren't. he makes kozue believe she is just as selfish as he is, and he makes utena believe that everything he does to her is her own fault. both of these things also conviniently serve to make sure neither of them ever tell anyone. (not entirely true. kozue does tell miki on his car ride, but it doesn't end up mattering at all)

then there's how they each got their injuries. utena's was either directly or indrectly akio's fault, depending on interpretation, whereas kozue's came from a decision she made that had nothing to do with him. i think this mainly reflects that kozue is not part of akio's plan in any significant way, whereas utena obviously is. he needed to personally restrict utena's agency, whereas he only took advantage of the way kozue has limited her own agency via the choices she makes (and the structure she lives in that pressured her into said choices, of course. i hope i don't sound like i'm victim blaming.) this again ties into kozue being able to walk despite her injury where utena can't -- kozue is much more free to leave her situation.

[sillybayo]

Bayo's Black Rose Arc Analysis

Some notes before I begin:

-This ramble/essay contains heavy discussions of CSA, general sexual themes, and incest. Also, keep in mind that the characters discussed here are 12-17. While I will be looking into how sex affects them mentally and such, I will not tolerate child sexualization here. I will block anyone who makes a single weird comment or make me uncomfortable. We'll be talking about this from a pure psychological standpoint.

-This is a thought dump rather than anything formal, so I won't be dropping episode titles or numbers. I'm also going purely off of memory, and things I said in group chats. So if things lack clarity, this is why.

-I'm not saying I "cracked the black rose arc code" or anything, this is purely my interpretation that I wish to share, due to not seeing many black rose analysis', and being displeased with what some people have said and concluded. I just want to put what I think out there for others to enjoy :3.

-To avoid being repetitive and cluttered, I'll be generally referring to any character who pulls swords out as "wielders", and any character who has had a sword pulled out of them as "sheaths". Any scene where this transpires will be called a "sheathing scene."

-Once again, due to the material of this analysis, I will be blocking anyone who sexualizes the characters in notes, or anyone who I see as creepy.

With that out of the way, let us begin :3!

So I was watching rgu video essays one day, and I stumbled across one about Miki. About halfway or late into the video, they begin talking about how Miki and Kozue had sex in the black rose arc, due to the way she touched him before the sheathing scene, and the way he turned beet red when Nanami asked how it felt for the sword to be taken out. And I thought it made sense at the time, as I was still new to utena, and I only watched it once. And the allegory is clearly there in other black rose sheathing scenes (besides with utenanthy), right?

But then I thought about it more when I rewatched the juriori black rose episode a year or so later, and caught Juri blushing when Nanami asked her the same question. And...wait. Because doesn't all of the black rose sheathing scenes look..uncomfortable? The sheath cries in pain as the sword comes out of their chest, and Wakaba even forced it out of Saionji. And this weirded me out, because why would a show thats so clearly against rape of any kind go on to write something like this? Why did Miki and Juri blush about something that was so forceful? And even if they were under a mind controlled like state, why would they write the wielders to be rapists? With the way rgu writes sex and rape, it didn't seem right, y'know?

So a few months later, when I decided to continue my rewatch and reached the Wakaba black rose arc episode, thats when I truly started to think about it more. And thats when I reached a conclusion: Miki and Juri are more influenced by Touga and Saionji than they realize. And by extension, they're all influenced by Akio.

You see, Touga and Saionji clearly view Anthy as someone to be sexualized. Shes their wife, who would fulfill their every request. Even though they might not know Anthys and Akios relationship, and/or how the latter treats her, this is an undeniable shared mindset.

Even though the boys and Utena uses Anthy as a sheath in the exact same ways on the outside, you know that when its with Touga and Saionji, its sexualized. They own her. When Touga demands Anthy to kiss his sword, it feels so off that Utena couldn't bare to watch. You could argue that its because it would hurt Anthys lips, but in later episodes its clear that it isn't the issue, as Utena uses the same powerup but in a more supportive fashion rather than sexual. So whats up with that?

I say; in (most of) the wielders view, the sword is like a penis.

I know, a very silly thing to say. But I don't mean exactly. And I, of course, don't mean literally.

Do you know that scene from the scream movie, where the two guys are stabbing each other, begging for it and all? It definitely has sexual undertones, because of the mood set by the characters, and heres where I'm getting at; the idea of a long pointed object being thrusted in you.

What I think is that Anthy is so sexualized by the student council, that the idea of a simple sword being pulled out of her 14 year old south asian brown girl chest, is arousing.

So when each of the student council members become sheaths themselves, of course they think that its one of the most sexually intimate things to experience. And its so stupid, right? Its just a sword. a SWORD.

And I shouldn't be referring to the student council so generally, because Nanami is the only one who sees through this. As far as I remember, she wasn't weird in the slightest when she was Tsuwabukis sheath. And even in the apocalypse arc, shes uncomfortable when Touga kisses her, and disturbed when walking in on Akio and Anthy (but then again I haven't rewatched that episode yet, so I could be wrong). She purely meant to ask how the sword felt, with no sexual intent. Miki and Juri were just pure idiots on that part.

So then, wait, if the sword pulling in the black rose arc wasn't a metaphor for rape, then what is it?

Well, I argue that it black rose wielders follow the same mindset as some sexual assaulters when they're under the effects of Mikages reverse therapy, in a way. Its the strong feeling of thinking the sheath owes the wielder something, and that the wielder deserves it no matter what they say.

Another reference to a different piece of media, but remember when its revealed that Pearl continued to fuse with Garnet for her own personal wants, which crossed Garnets boundaries? People interpreted that scene as Pearl raping Garnet, when....no. What? Of course she isn't. Its just the general idea of your wishes being disrespected, and boundaries ignored. Do you see where I'm going with this?

The black rose wielders see something in the sheaths that they want for themselves, whether it be their love, their attention, or some secret third thing. So with nothing but entitlement and desperation in their heart, they force the sword out of their hearts, where their desires lie.

But, wait. How about other scenes with swords? Like when Anthy is Utenas sheath, and when Anthy has a thousand swords stabbed into her? Do swords still represent desire?

Well, yes! Very easily. Utena fights for the pure sake of love and friendship. She fights Saionji when hes cruel to Wakaba, and she swears to protect Anthy with all her heart. She duels with the strongest ounce of care in her soul. Thats the desire to keep her loved ones happy.

What about when Anthy what continuously impaled? Well, that was the villages desire to get to the prince. And it was Akios desire to finally revolutionize the world after so long.

I may be missing a few scenes, but this is the general idea, and I hope I got the idea across. Thats the end of my little ramble :3. As an acespec hypersexual, I already spend a lot of time deconstructing the truth behind sexual things and feelings. So this was fun to think about. I hope y'all liked this, and understood it most importantly. Toodleeess

[cafeleningrad]

Rambly thoughts on Kozue-Anthy-Shiori parallels: But since I am on my "Kozue's hair is actually a light shade of blue-ish purple" agenda, all the princesses in the Juri-Miki-Utena friendship triangle parallel each other not only in symbolic purple signature colour. In fact the signature colour is nice visual shorthand grouping them together in their shared base conflict and social role.

All the three started from a point of genuine care and love for their respective "prince". But the prince themself was afforded a social position in which they could only care for their own problems, and the more Anthy/Kozue/Shiori wanted to be part of their life, the more they'd to adapt and succumb to the needs for another. And the respective princes don't even notice how miserable Anthy/Shiori/Kozue are for their sake.

And all of three girls feel in a certain way inferior than the "princes" in their life. Kozue's Black rose reveals how "Miki's brilliance" is leading her sword arm, he's the innocent, the talented twin, she's the wild animal. Shiori has no idea why Juri cuts of contact to he unexplained. Well, Juri was always talented, charming, admired ever since their childhood. All Shiori could do was to date boys close to Juri, Shiori herself can't really tell why, maybe to feel like at least she was good at dating? (No, she totally didn't want Juri's attention, she totally didn't want to be close to her by proxy. No, she doesn't know why dating boys made her feel so much much awful, no, no,no). Anthy did take away Akio's most precious role of Dios. Ever since her chivalrous, kind, selfless brother is wallowing in melancholia, turned out for the worse. And Anthy can't explain Akio and their relationship turning for the worse but her being at fault.

All the three girls feel they're at fault for their own misery when the opposite is quite the case. At this point no communication is a sort of control because with this lack of information, neither of the girls can only conclude that they must have done something wrong - to the convenience that their respective princes don't have to feel responsible or question the problems of their own making. (Akio not reconsidering his selfimage, Miki not taking responsibility for desire of familial bliss, Juri thinking she's unique in her suffering and entirely misconstruction who Shiori is.)

Note: note: Anthy's relationship with Akio is primarily implied here. n Akio's case he takes Anthy's suffering for his sake for granted. But mostly because he can't oversee it anymore yet he considers this just right for his sake.

In relation to Utena (paralleling Juri and Miki) she only realizes Anthy's actual toll later because unlike Juri and Miki, Utena at some point realizes she needs to seek out Anthy, and begins to pay attention. Utena realizes how conceptual Anthy was to here at the beginning. Hence why the bedroom scenes and the BR Arc are such a shift: Anthy begins to state her opinions more and more. Utena can state her own thoughts but also second guesses the events that happened, or leaves Anthy room to bounce around questions.

Whereas Miki and Juri are mostly focused on their melancholia on their own. The most important people in their live remain conceptual. Miki chastises Kozue for her statements but never seconded guesses why she would say or think certain things. All he can offer is the sweet drink from her childhood, or be sweet after her BR duel blackout or when she's injured. Then he can be her brilliant old brother again, when she's obviously in need of care. Meanwhile he doesn't notice how Kozue is in constant anguish over trying to have her own personhood outside being framed in relation to Miki. Juri is the embodiment of "comfort in coffin". She's absolutely not happy yet can be pretty cruel when people try to get her out of it. Instead of the Shiori who admits to Anthy and Utena that she would like to receive visitors because she's so lonely, Juri frames Shiori as source of her pain, unaware what anguish she causes Juri. Yet Juri doesn't realize how desperately Shiori tries to connect with Juri, with more and more desperate measures. With Juri's refusal to open up, understand, and see people outside her perspective, the false image, their reason for Juri to feel endlessly desperate will continue to persist. Either Shiori gives up on Juri - which will hurt Juri - or she continues pulling more and more tricks out of her hat for any kind of Juri's attention - which will also hurt Juri. Juri can continue to feel desperate, sad, and hopeless. With the knowledge who's picture is in Juri's locket, Shiori has received the ultimate leverage.

Last note on Adolescence: In Adolescence, we do see a reprisal of all the major themes in Utena, and Anthy realizing her final act of emancipation. If seeing the movie as a sequel, I do see the characters having somewhat progressed yet struggling to finally get out of Ohtori. Whereas Kozue and Shiori seem to have turned out for the worse. Kozue threatens Miki in their shared bathroom scene, Shiori sets up a duel between Utena and Juri, antagonizing Anthy and Utena on their escape. Why though? If following the journey of Kozue, Juri, Shiori, and Miki from the show, the following juxtaposition occurs: Juri and Miki have begun to grow and emancipate themselves slowly from the princehood mentality. Miki's desire for the sunlit garden always hinged on Kozue begin part of the ideal. But they broke apart, and Miki is forging his own path. Juri has come so far that she helps Utena sort of her feelings for Anthy, believing in a future for a lesbian relationship actually. To love means potential pain but also the courage to dare something new, worth the risk. On the other hand, we have Kozue and Shiori who were ground down to their journey. Kozue has adapted herself to the notion that she's the sullied twin, her brother too irresponsible to go along with her. But unlike him she hasn't had the chance to form any connection with someone who doesn't want to take something out of her. Ulike Untena and Anthy who came to understand each other. Unlike Utena, Miki, and Juri who get to play tennis with each other, or the student council contemplating on their shared sense of anguish. Shiori found out that the guaranteed connection with Juri is one of unfullfilled pining, and inflicting pain on her. That's the only way of expressing love left to her now...

And if we take Juri and Miki having somewhat progressed in their developement that they could take to Wakaba car at least to the direction of emancipation, contrasted with Shiori and Kozue having had to grind themselves down for affection... we end up with two assigned princess characters who had to develop for the worse. Because unlike Anthy they didn't have someone who listened to them. Only those who wanted to shape or use them.

Hence why Shiori is one of the major antagonists. Juri and Shiori do entertain somewhat a lesbian relationship in Adolescence. But it's still under the harmful framing of prince-princess-role of unequal power, chasing-chased, no actual understanding but serving a sword to a duelist, and someone to duel for. Most of all, it is a self serving relationship. The princess can feel eternally desired by her won. Shiori didn't have that sensation before. In the show she had to be the one making herself feel worse for Juri. Now she's the desired one, and it feels good to inflict pain for once because she can now receive the affection and attention by Juri. It is a relationship for the sake of one's ego. (Note: It's not only Shio-Juri representing an egotistical dynamic of getting something out for themselves. These are all prince-princess dynamics! Shio-Juri in Adolescence is used as emblematic of this issue.)

This contrasts with Utena's and Anthy's relationship which is now based on understanding, care, and a desire to bring joy to the other. Hence these different forms of understanding love and relationships, the maturity are juxtaposed.

[nyaskitten]

I have some FSM I WANT to post but first I have to design Mystake and *looks at smudged palm writing* Kuzco.

[twig---verginix]

thinking about season 3 this morning. as a viewer, the introduction of the "Jennifer incident" felt almost cheap, at first– it's so painfully not present in any previous seasons that peels back the layers a little bit, forces you into blinking and saying heyyyyyy. you're making that shit up now. >:/. But I think it can work diegetically, even if it wasn't planned.

It presents it this way: not only has fucking with the timeline forever impacted the present world that these characters reside in and the only other people they'll ever interact with, but it's also impacted their past, their story. Not changed, per say, but more unlocked it. Like taking different actions in a video game and getting more dialogue. And it drives the viewer away from the Umbrellas in the process, widening the gap between where we are and where they are, knowledge-wise, which arguably does a nice job of adding to that off atmosphere that Hotel Oblivion seems to be going for.

[cafeleningrad]

Whereas Nanami's treatment is conciously set up by Touga, with the Kaoru twins I also had the impression that a lot of their struggles also involve a personhood for themselves.

After all, they're twins. Utena even says to Kozue that if she were a boy, they [Kozue and Miki] would be the same person. Which Kozue coldy denies. If they're only difference is gender is there really nothing else that differentiates them? Does gender seperate them really this much? And if their gender defines them so much by a person, does Miki's perception of Kozue define her in the end? It's easy to read Miki's and Kozues relationship strongly on the psychosexual plain although that is also what Ohtori does to it's inhabitants. It trains every person in it to consider all power dynamics in sexual, gendered terms, without regards of the many possible forms of affections or relationships not dictated by power, or especially gendered power. Anyhow, the past childhood memory Miki treasure's the most is intrinsically linked to Kozue. In that sense she's intrisincally part of himself. In that sense, control over Kozue, is Miki's control overthe memory that defines him. Control over Miki, by getting him back, might be Kozue's chance to regain the peace she seeks out herself. Each other's twin is the key to their actual desire. In the end they both seek out the same: Idyllic, familial proxmity - contrasted with the reality that their family is currently falling apart by adult affairs. As episode 26 strongly hints at is that the separation process of their parents already went on in a while. Their father contaxts them after he moved together with his new wife. Yet they can't seek out this state together because Miki's memory is already deformed into a Kozue that never was, familiar proximity, especially as woman and man, is not an option in Ohtori. It's a struggle that Ohtori denies them a sibling proximity yet Kozue only can access proximity by miscontruing it even further. In that sense, Kozue fools around with many guys. As she notes herself, she does that partly to defiantly spite Miki. On the other hand by having a definition of herself as not "part of Miki", it might be her attempt to seperate her own personhood from her twin brother.

I might need some better arguments to back of my "my twin is me, am I my twin?" theory around these two however the mutual control both try to exercise over each other (Miki's judgmeent over Kozue's prmiscuity, Kozue tempting Miki to participate in a second duel against Utena) is also a control one has over the one who define them, since they can't emancipate from the other to be their own person yet.

In that sense I do find it interesting that the student council memebers who're able to emotionally emancipate themselves from their idolized princesses, and in a way from a binary prince-princess-power-dynamic, are Juri and Miki. But the the last shot we see of their former princesses before the epilogue are both, Kozue, and Shiori, glaring. It seems, that in cyclical action, Juri and Miki were emotionally so cold that the girls seeked out the princess role in order to find a path that does lead to proximity to the prince. However, Juri and Miki left that path but Shiori and Kozue were left behind. Another thing is, how in Adolescence, is how, in a sense, Kozue and Shiori both seem to souble down on their roles as witch-princess. Obviously Shiori uses her emotional leverage over Juri to ensure the prince system continues. Miki and Kozue are both bathing in a scene, which might read as slightly incestuous. Miki calls out Kozue that she's the one holding him back from growth. With them the tables have turned that unlike in the show, Miki is the one seeking emancipation from Kozue.

Further unsorted notes under the cut

one thing I noticed on my first Utena rewatch is how Kozue's rose is of a pale purple shade (thistle? lavender? perwinkle?), a purple more leaning into blue but already in the spectrum of the colour purple which is associated as Anthy's colour of the Rose Bride/the colour of the exploited little sister who got conditioned to see her place in the world by the logic of her older brother. Or the witch's colour. Multiple associations might apply Fandom associates her in the blue triangle, and I don't think that's wrong but I found it curious that her rose colour is actually already departing from a pure blue palette. Might that be a hint that Kozue is, in spite of her best efforts, already shifting into a projected social role?

i love kozue please talk to me about kozue

OMG YAY!! Alr. I have to pull up some of my notes from my last rewatch

So it actually took me quite a bit to really appreciate Miki and Kozue's character arcs because theirs is arguably the most subtle out of the the entire cast (which I understand may not be saying a whole lot, as Utena emphasizes a visual approach to storytelling, where everything is more or less completely out in the open for the viewer to relish-- it's just up to the audience to decide what those symbols mean). The thing that tripped me up about Kozue is that you can't really understand her until you've understood Miki, since her whole narrative niche hinges on her relationship with her brother, and of course given RGU's egalitarian disposition in regards to textual intent, however you've understood Miki will then inevitably color your perception of Kozue. That said! I don't think it's a completely one-sided dynamic, because of course Miki is impacted by Kozue's actions all the time. I just think there's a stricter analytical chronology to dissecting the twins, and that's a departure from the rest of the series' writing, and it makes them stand out a bit more.

Blue is assigned to three characters over the course of the series: Miki, Kozue, and then Ruka. Any thematic commonalities, though, appear to be entirely lacking at first glace; after all, all their personalities and archetypes are oppositional to each other. I definitely had a hard time figuring out this one, but I think my primary (and preliminary) conclusion as to their point of contention has to do with their status as accessory characters. Ruka appears with Juri as a masculine foil, Miki's own status as a member of the student council is consistently undermined by the greater authority of those around him, and Kozue attaches her social worth to her promiscuity. Of these three, Kozue exclusively is a woman, in addition to which she is in the transitional period of adolescence along with Miki, kind of representing an ambivalent force among Ohtori's constructs. She doesn't fully belong to any class of Ohtori's residents. Sure, she has a leaning, but it's just that-- a tendency set up to exacerbate extremity. It's also the binary complement to Miki's own nuances (here we can get into RGU's exploration of Childlike Purity but that deserves its own essay lol; the point I'm trying to get across is whatever Miki is, Kozue represents the other face of the coin).

The bulk of what I managed to gather from Kozue's character actually comes from her duel song, Utopian Paste Tense Incantation. The lyrics lay on really hard with nostalgic imagery and diction.

From this.

We can grasp the core tenant of her character motivation, that being that she's wanting to return to the past when she was figuratively and literally a child, presumably to before the incident with the failed piano recital (parallel that I haven't quite managed to place is the one related to sickness. Miki and Ruka both lost their metaphorical "other" because of illness. Hm). Here, the desire to return to the past is metaphorical in nature-- obviously she doesn't want to turn back time, she wants to replicate their past dynamic, reclaim her innocence, undo metamorphosis, reject the expectations of change the world demands of her.

**Note: The 7-5-3 referenced in some of the lyrics is referring to a Japanese rite of passage and annual festival celebrating the lives of children. Traditionally, girls aged 3 and 7, as well as 5 year old (occasionally 3 year old) boys undergo a ceremony that demarcates their transition into adolescence and womanhood/manhood. Here's the Wikipedia page on it if you're interested

But THIS. This is the catcher

There's a passing mention of an amusement park, which we come to associate with Akio.

The amusement park is the place where fantasies thrive. Its attractions are bound for the same path each and every time. There's no change at an amusement park, no revolution-- only the burden of comfort. And here is the fool who rides a carousel of violence round and round for eternity, the fallen prince. Kozue's own childhood with Miki was like this, and whether it's riding a merry-go-round or playing to his brother's naivete, she keeps herself going around in circles, chasing after a prince who always had his back to her.

Kozue's resentment is mutual- Miki does not approve of her sexual activity and projects his own ideal of the past onto Anthy- but it is not inhibiting. Rather, it is passive, and most of it manifests as self-hatred. She's manipulative, not in the way that she means to hurt Miki as a form of vengeance, but in the way that she advertises a very specific persona of herself to Miki. She's performing the role those around her demand from her (princess), to seek confirmation that somewhere in Miki is the brother who she believed was kind, gentle, and chivalrous. It's fear-- she's driven by the fear that Miki will completely reject her. She was abandoned once, after the recital, and she slipped out of one phase of her life into another. But surely, surely, Miki would still take her back, right? He hasn't changed like she did (or so, I suppose she believes). Her pursuit of an incestuous relationship is the apex of her complex-- it's unhealthy and mired in presumptions of intimacy that aren't conducive to her actually getting any closer to her brother. Similarly with the other sibling pairs, we see this type of sexual abuse used as a way to spotlight the harm that stems from endorsing the caricatures of masculinity and femininity that we're conditioned to view as desirable.

Kozue presses her own vision of the past onto Miki as much as he does to her. He's her "shining thing", her relic of nostalgic antiquity. And therein is their tragedy, wanting to move on in totally different ways, unable to see eye to eye, believing in a flawed history that was never there to begin with. Neither of them want to face the future and place blame on themselves for the loss of a memory that was never once genuine. They're birds who refuse to leave behind their nest, their birdcage. And I think the most fascinating element is the conclusion for Kozue's part of the story, in the scene at the end of Miki's Nest Box, where she finally calls out Miki for being a "coward" and walks away from him, leaving him to finish the nest box on his own. I interpreted that as being symbolic of her finally discarding her own preconceptions of Miki and coming to see him for who he is rather than merely as an extension of her personhood, disavowing the connotations of princeliness she'd come to expect from her brother. He cost them the duel and their attempt at reclaiming their past because of her intrusion on his idealistic fabrications, and seeing firsthand just how fragile his worldview was allowed her to break through her own.

There's so much I haven't addressed, but this is the gist of what I think she's all about? Do add more if you have any thoughts of your own! I will say. Common misconception for Kozue I see frequently is that she's actively aggressive towards Miki because she doesn't like him for reasons ranging from "she doesn't like being objectified by Miki" to "she's been irreversibly hurt emotionally by the incident with the recital" (and that Miki doesn't like Kozue because she simply doesn't fit into his own ideal of femininity). The objection here being the correlation of causality, as I don't necessarily think that Miki's objectification or even the recital are what *caused* Kozue to behave more coldly towards her brother. I hope my train of logic makes sense here because I tried my darndest to shoot down this specific misconception... uhmm. This took a long time to write LOL

[nodutra19]

Rambling

Reading RGU analysis always makes me feel dumb as shit. I'm a heavy reader but outside some manga and videogames, I've pretty much neglected visual mediums, so watching RGU was a very strange experience. I love it, I just feel tiny in comparison to everyone else who seems to get it, unlike I.

Obviously, Ohtori Academy is a coffin, a trap, an arrest of development. From Sôji's fixation on Tokiko to Akio's obsession with becoming Dios, the rotten ideal in white, everyone has to disassemble what they've been taught. Juri has to let go of Shiori, and everyone has to let go of these stupid and harmful games and ideas. One thing I did struggle with understanding until now was how possible it was for Miki and Kozue, Nanami and Tôga to have healthy familial relationships after everything.

I realized I was thinking too rigidly, in spite of my planned no-contact with my own family. CLAMP once said "Family is other people too" (in xxxHolic). The main thread for all the characters in RGU is the fact they're holding onto something they need to let go of. After everything's that happened, the Kaoru and Kiryû siblings have unsalvagable bonds. That's how I see it anyway. They were already taught horrible things. It's just that on top of that, they've morphed their relationships into something incredibly foul and mephitic. A bit of separation anxiety isn't harmful in itself, but the four of them have festered it into one of the most twisted things I've ever seen. As Ikuhara said in episode 15's commentary, there's this idea that familial relationships are the deepest. "Blood is thicker than water."

The hell of it is, the original line is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." Meaning that what matters more in this world is the bonds you choose. You don't choose where or with whom you are born. But you do choose who you associate with. Obviously there's a lot of complexity about the interactions between the individual and the collective, the individual and the structures about the individual, but ultimately a choice is a choice.

Family bonds are just as fragile as any other. They're just as fleeting, just as prone to deterioration. They're not eternal as we're taught, hence the revolving, spiraling incest throughout the show. We're taught family is forever, and so it's no wonder the Kaoru, Kiryû, and Himemiya siblings have the dynamics they do. They represent different forms of what this sort of thinking leads to. Especially Akio. After all, a Prince is a member of Royalty, no? And we all know what Royalties throughout our histories commit in order to be "pure." This thinking is what traps so many into cycles of familial abuse. If we were to treat family as we treat "outsiders" (because that's how we're taught to think of anyone outside the family), if our lenses were shaped to this analysis, if our retinas were shaped to recognize these true colors, I'd say most of us would never like our families from the jump. It's much the same way adults justify beating their children and yet if anyone even their age beat on them whenever they made a mistake, you bet your fucking ass they'd fight back. But if it's family, it's suddenly different, when really it isn't.

Hell, this is part of why we say "bro," "homie," "twin," "brother," "sister" to people we're extremely close with. Even I do that. Found family is a wonderful thing, but if "Family is other people too," then how does "found family" factor into things? If we're so rebellious against things such as the nuclear family structure, if we understand that family doesn't determine anything, then what use is found family? If we so despise these structures, why do we mimic it? Are we like Utena who say "I'm completely different from you, Saionji/Tôga/Juri/Miki/Sôji/Akio" when we're mimicking said structure? Is what we seek in these relationships undefinable in the lexicon we're given? If family is as fleeting and prone to death as any other bond, then what's the worth of referring to these non-familial bonds in terms of family? Maybe that's part of why this show has so many fucking orphans and/or absent parents.

I'm not saying you should stop feeling sisterly or brotherly to that one friend who just seems to get you. Really, I'd be a massive hypocrite if I did. But it's still something to chew on, I think. I can't provide any answers though.

I hope this has been insightful in some way. I feel late as hell to the party. One of these days I'mma go through all of Empty Movement.

[ququb444hm]

𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭, 𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝

part 12 / how cute ☆

masterlist

warning(s): possible typos (because it's 12 am and i don't feel like rereading everything right now) (also this is a repost)

‘awkward. this is literally the optimum of awkwardness.’

instead of opening up the surprise appearance by apologizing and clearing up the inconvenient tension between the two friends, yn had blatantly brought up the chemistry project they were supposedly partnered up for. 

“a surprise seeing you here.” a half-lie. kozume expected tetsu to talk to yn about the situation but he didn’t expect yn to show up in front of his door. well…yn has always been hard to pinpoint so maybe expecting the unexpected is the best option when it comes to her.

“uhm your texts about chem? the project. i came for that.”

“oh. yeahhh, we got partnered up for it.” 

“yeahh.”

“yeah.”

yn swayed back and forth awkwardly in her spot in front of kozume. “so can i come in?”

“shit yeah sorry,” kozume pushed himself off the side of his doorframe, fully opening the door for yn to enter. “it’s kinda messy, band practice has been on and off randomly so the guys just put their things wherever.”

“it's okay. also, i brought cheese.” yn walked over to the couch, took off her bag, and let cheese roam around the table in front of her. she looked over at the kitchen to see what looked like the makings of pasta. “were you making dinner?”

kozume hummed in response, picking up ginger and placing the kitten in the middle of him and yn as he sat down on the couch next to her. “he missed you. a lot.”

yn’s lips curled into a smile, watching as ginger pitter pattered onto her lap. “hi ginger,” she mumbled, stroking the kitten’s head. “i missed you too. more than a lot.”

her attention stayed glued to the snuggly friend but kenma’s attention was stuck on her.

“yn-”

before he could even begin his sentence, yn cut him off, now eager to do what she intended to do in the first place. “listen about the other night, it was an accident and i was drunk and you know how tetsu and i are when we drink. and yeah maybe i shouldn’t be drinking in the first place because of that but literally who cares! i just wanted to have fun before we maybe die and kill ourselves because of college and the growing pressure of society! and i didn’t know keiji would even be there- i mean i saw his car and i thought of the possibility of somehow seeing my ex who goes to the same school as me and lives in the same city as me be at the same place as me, but like who would’ve thought we would see each other at the same karaoke place on the same day and at the same fucking time for christ’s sake! i’m so over him by the way, i don’t even know why i threw up. maybe it’s because i broke up with him over the phone and never saw him since and confrontation isn’t my strongest suit so maybe that’s also why it took me a little over a week to see you face to face again to apologize which is what i am supposed to be doing now but i’m...just rambling,” yn groaned, her body falling backwards on the couch as she closed her eyes tightly before letting out a deep breath, “what i am trying to say is i’m sorry, kozume.”

yn prepared herself for whatever kozume’s reaction were to be, her body still laying flat against the couch with ginger on her chest. “hnnghh kozu-”

a chuckle.

a silly little chuckle.

then a fit of giggles.

then finally a full blown laugh.

“seriously yn,” kozume giggled out, pulling her body upright so that they could look at each other eye or eye, “you really didn’t need to apologize over that. it was an accident, i understand-”

“HUH? so why’d you let me say all that, you jerk!”

ignoring her outburst, kozume continued, “i get it, you saw something that caused your body to react. just y’know…not the way you expected it to. plus i know you’re over keiji and i know how you are when you drink- kind of. it was a fun night, just sucks you kept overthinking about the whole thing enough to ignore me for a whole week. it hurt, ms. green peas.”

"i know,” she whined, “i should’ve just talked to you the day right after-”

“especially since we’ve known each other since what? the second grade?”

“especially because of that.”

“so why didn’t you?”

“don’t act like you don’t already know, kozume.”

“i mean i do know, but i just like when you verbally overshare things.”

“because i like you.” yn stated, seeing as kozume’s playful demeanor disappeared to make way for his reddening cheeks. “and i like when you get all red. did i ever tell you how noticeable it is when you start blushing?”

“whatever.” the blond let out a groan, pushing yn back down to when she was flat against the couch before standing up and making his way over to the kitchen. “i’m gonna finish making dinner. don’t break anything. and i’m taking your mouse with me.”

yn waved him off, telling him to feed her little friend before turning her attention back to ginger. “oh and i’m sleeping over. i’m tired.”

“are you asking or...?”

“no, i’m telling you. you’re stuck with me, pooks.”

“how cute.”

part 11 moral support <- | masterlist | -> part 13 blondie #1.5

note(s): help how does one make a taglist and who wants to be in the taglist since i have revived my seasonal tumblr era yippie ^.^ also im gonna make a filler n then fix some things n then sleep bc its 12 AM n i have summer school booo ): none of the pictures used are mine!!

[aroanthy]

thinking about kanae and her relationship with her parents and akio and his relationship with her parents and just like…. ideas about patriarchs and fathers and family in utena. and incest obviously. you know there’s something so horrifying about kanae’s situation, beyond the obvious fact that she’s not yet graduated high school and she’s being married off to a child predator who is using their relationship to levy more power over more children. and her mum. and the fact that we don’t ever SEE her dad. fathers in utena have, shall we say, the worst track record in the book. i have so many things that i want to say about representations of Adult Men in rgu and specifically representations of fathers but it all circles back to their absence and imitation.

like, okay. i think the only (non-silhouetted, ie Actual Flesh) father we see is miki’s, and even then we don’t see his face. similarly we don’t see kanae’s mum’ face though she too is a Flesh Parent. don’t even get me started on how the only two visual representation of utena’s parents are their coffins and graves. also don’t get me started on that One shot from episode 10 that i use in all of my amvs of the silhouetted kiryuu parents because as you can probably tell from my heavy use of it in my amvs, i find it a deeply fascinating shot. swagever. all of this is to say, dads are not In The Flesh in utena.

im excluding the movie from this discussion bc whilst im a diehard aou lover and would never normally eclipse it from my analysis like this, the choices it makes in representing touga’s father break with rgu’s typical stylistic choices in a way that i honestly think is less effective. that whole sequence is incredibly visually rich in every other way and includes symbology that is some of the most compelling in all of rgu, imho, but it’s like. gahhh. i know it’s an active choice to represent him as Just A Guy, and you could argue ‘well akio’s Just A Guy’ but it’s. it just irritates me. i don’t think it’s meaningful in the way that utena likes to be meaningful. id argue that seeing his face doesn’t contribute anything, but idk maybe i just don’t like looking at his horrible face. it’s probably just that but also im right it’s a lacking stylistic choice

rambling side note aside, i get to my actual point that i technically already alluded to: akio. akio’s not a dad but akio is positioned as a (pseudo?)father figure to (checks notes) anthy, utena, kanae (hey remember she’s what started this post lol), touga, id throw nanami in, you could probably make a tangential argument for miki and kozue, ruka’s an interesting one, and mikage (maybe??). this is for a couple of reasons. he’s the (acting) chairman of the school that all the characters i just listed attend, he’s the guardian/caregiver for three or four of them, and, fundamentally, he guides and governs their lives to the best of his ability (not in the sense that he’s trying really hard to raise these kids, in the sense that he’s trying to control them. lol). BUT. crucially. he is an approximation of a father, an imitation of the patriarch, even and especially to anthy.

why does this matter? well, funnily(?) enough it circles back to why i dislike aou’s choice to portray touga’s father as A Guy. the powerful men in ohtori— and when i say ‘powerful’ here, i specifically mean men who are not marginalised, men who are not racialised, men who come from money and have never had to reach the top of the tower, rather always resided at its summit— are not seen by us. akio is the acting chairman, the acting father, the stand-in who stood up for something that is altogether worse than him, that made him who he is in such an insidious way. and i just think that’s really fucking interesting to think about wrt his status as a brown man, being racialised, being The Thing That We See when everything else— the inappropriate vice principal, miki’s piano teacher, mr ohtori, mr kiryuu (anime version), even off-hand dialogue from shadow girls about adult men in positions of power like mr judge (papa! daddy! god!!)— is obfuscated and implied. and i don’t want to suggest that that’s an intentional commentary on the racist mythologising of brown and black men as innately sexually violent, because. It’s Not. and utena massively drops the ball wrt race, but because of that lack of explicit, intentional commentary, it creates this strange dynamic between akio, the only racialised man in the show, and Every Other Guy. and that’s a very long-winded way of saying ‘maybe poisoning mr ohtori was a good thing actually’

[sleazebouquet]

I may have said this before but I badly want them to make Hime’s canon favorite game and call it “Blossom Blasters” or something idc and it’s an FPS like Overwatch and all the playable characters are just apparent AUs of all the idols in the franchise.

And later they come out with new characters and the girls are like “wait don’t these look a lot like us?”

OR

Hime’s status as a streamer and esports pro plus her school idol status results in the fictional game devs reaching out to the club to ask them to do a special collaboration where they help make their own OCs for the game and voice them. And that’s how Hasu gets in the game.

And all the music is in the game somehow idk don’t rush me.

maybe they should just fight izumi and seras

[koziku]

ITS MY BIRTHDAY TODAY YIPPEE

[transmascutena]

why do people say utena always brings up she's an orphan like if it wasn't for the fact some of the episodes start with "once there was a princess who's parents died" I would have entirely forgotten

i really don't know. i was speculating a bit about it the other day and i think it's something of a combination of the repeating fairy tale opening making people think it's brought up way more often than it is (even though it only actually appears in a few episodes, it being the same every time makes it feel like more), plus a lot of people not really caring to truly understand utena, instead just projecting various vague character tropes onto her. "utena is an orphan so she must bring it up all the time because that's what Orphan Characters do." instead of looking at the text itself where she only talks about it in one episode (which has a general theme of parents). and it's a shame because it's actually pretty interesting to think about why utena is so reluctant to talk about it. i think it would be entirely justified if she did bring it up every episode, but she doesn't. it's not something she likes to think or talk about because it's something really traumatic for her, and something she isn't sure other people would understand. it's also super interesting how more often she will talk about being an only child, because at ohtori she is surrounded by a lot of sibling relationships, and next to no parental relationships aside from kozue and miki talking about their mother, the one time utena also brings her parents up. idk, i'm rambling, but i think this misconception about utena is a bit of a shame because it leads to missing some really important characterization of her

[heartslobbf]

Hm.

Nanami and Juri are girl princes. Maybe Kozoue too... Shiroi maybe?

Saionji and Miki are boy princesses.

more complicated than this imho but thats just because im weird and transsexual. i have rambled underneath about my feelings about boy-princess- and girl-prince-isms, and the general bullshit of ohtori’s rigid categorisation because it’s something that compels me to no end.

juri is a girl prince but everyone forgets that she's a girl until she actually tries to act like a boy, and then they punish her for it. nanami is like a calf-shaped prince. ive said this before, but it's genuinely how i feel. she's not a girl, she's a farm animal (to ohtori; and admittedly, there isn't much difference in ohtori, but it's explicitly said about nanami when it isnt for other girls).

now. ive never really got the 'miki is a boy princess' thing because like.... sure miki is a 13 year old androgynous little boy with short hair and he doesnt exactly ooze masculinity in everyones eyes but um. two things. one is that he actually commands more respect than saionji as a male and therefore princely figure (saionji isnt princely whatsoever and never tries to be bc his ideas about masculinity are in contradiction with akio's all-american bullshit) and the other is that he is, hilariously in my opinion, the only character other than akio shown to drive the car in the series. like, it's a dream sequence/projector illusion (?) but the fact that we see miki in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel, is kind of a huge deal for the show where they loveeeeeee to refuse to show you stuff that destabilises ohtori's artifice. miki has a very conventional and straightforward desire to be a prince to anthy (you know, if you ignore everything with kozue; but arguably his displacement and warping of his feelings in that way is typically ohtori) and he could totally pull that off imho. he's just a little too young for the moment, and unwilling to manipulate and coerce others like, say, touga is. this isn't to say there's no gender fuckery going on with miki because there 100% is, as there is with all rgu characters, i just wouldnt describe him as a boy princess.

anyway <3 kozue deffo has princely qualities but i would probably box hers in with anthy's. they are both princes repackaged as witches because their genders destabilise the ideal of the prince and its artifice. this is something that happens to all of ohtori's little sisters, because they demonstrate utmostly princeliness towards their brothers, but nanami gets special calf-shaped prince privileges because i have kiryuu sibling brain worms. anthy and kozue are very conscious of their witchification as they are conscious of their sexuality, and how that impacts their relationships with their brothers. nanami is not.

shiori is also an interesting case because she and ruka are. well. theyre just fucking bonkers arent they. everything they say about each other is also equally applicable to themselves. i think that out of our three roles (prince, princess, witch/rose bride), some combination of witch and princess seems most fitting? like shiori is 100% a witch, and ruka was the perfect prince until he got sock-puppeted by akio in such a way that. well ruka's complicated and frankly i dont have time to get into it right now (know, however, that i hate his reanimated guts). shiori wants to be a princess and she wants to be pursued hopelessly but in having that desire, she is a witch. there is perhaps a perverse princeliness to her desire, but id argue that that's just what being a witch is. slayyyyyyy

now in regards to saionji. he's a boy princess but also it's complicated. saionji doesnt want to be a prince and saionji doesnt have any interest in princehood because, fundamentally, he doesnt care for it. princehood is built upon these americanised ideals and aesthetics that dont resonate with his very traditionally japanese understanding and performance of masculinity, and he just feels kind of disillusioned and defensive and all-around miserable that he's being 'left behind' in this 'old world' without any fucking chevys in it. like he doesnt want a chevy but everyone else has massive hardons for chevys and all his male peers think thats the only way to attain true masculinity and it makes him sooooooo mad, and frankly, even though he's a misogynist freak, i get that. maybe i am just an american car hater, who knows.

anyway saionji's inclination to the princess role (it's a bit more of a bride role than a princess role, but these distinctions are muddy; i'd argue a princess is entirely passive, but a bride actively wills the outcome of a duel) is deeply sad to me because it's just like this guy has absolutely no idea what the hell he's supposed to do to have a place in this world, attain specialness, command respect and attention. like he was repeatedly mocked for and excluded from attempting masculinity and he certainly cant be a princess (wow isnt this an interesting idea i wonder if it relates to the transfem reading haha what) and he doesnt feel any inclination towards either gender presentation particularly. he likes woodcarving and cooking, is artistic and earnest and expressive, but he's also a devoted kendoka whose sense of masculinity is closely tied to that practice. his gender is, by ohtori's rules, desperately confused and inconclusive. thus he forms part of the trifecta that is himself, utena and nanami, or as i like to call them: transgender freaks and cowgirl. good lord have they slipped through the cracks of this evil bastard system and attempted to fit all the same, understanding absolutely nothing about the impossible spaces they try to fill.

anyway whatevs. now im gonna talk about anthy and touga because my blog is the anthytouga show in my mind despite rarely talking about them and mainly just reblogging deranged art (affectionate) of them. anthy and touga are bonkers to me because they ARE the norm, but also no they arent. and that's the whole thing. like they embody the ideal so perfectly (prince and princess respectively), but anthy's also a witch, and the rose bride, and touga isn't really a prince. theyre unable to join as a prince and princess should, unable to be virtuous and perfect due to their knowledge and awareness. like, theyre both aware of the artifice of their existences and performances, but neither of them can really artiulate that awareness because doing so would jepoardise the positions theyre currently in. for touga, that's a very valuable one that has him close to 'escaping' (read: getting the key to the birdcage and holding it over everyone else's heads). for anthy, it's also valuable but not for herself, not really. it's valuable because it's a position from which she can help akio, and akio needs her, and she is indebted to akio and obliged to sacrifice herself eternally for him. etc etc etc. god i hate this man. you get what im saying with this. it’s about the precarious position that you are placed in as a victim, the power dynamics of it all. you have the knowledge that could crack the world’s shell easily, but you have been caught in such a way that you believe sharing it would kill you (again). it wouldn’t be worth anything. all it does is highlight how disgusting and awful you really are, and you can’t let anyone know that (the objective truth) because then they will stop loving the idealised you you’ve been performing and see the real you (evil and monstrous). ohhhhh what’s that Judith herman quote about being filled with black slime that pours out of your mouth when you open it. anthytouga hours (i am inconsolable rn)

sorry about this rant! i simply have too much to say about this goddamn show and merely wish to discourage people from 'girl prince' and 'boy princess'-ing characters into boxes. you know, utena's whole girl prince thing is actively critiqued by the show because there's nothing revolutionary about assimilation. every character in this show's cast is androgynous and it's up to us to determine what we think those unique expressions of androgyny mean. there are certainly girl prince-isms and boy princess-isms to characters, some more so than others, but you know. the ambiguity and freedom of the transsexual or whatever

[aptericia]

TIME CHILD: RGU FANART & ANALYSIS

OMG I’m finally done with this! I hope you guys enjoy this duelist-style Tokiko, I had a lot of fun drawing her :)))

Below the cut is my attempt at an essay that explores her character through the characters and ideas she represents. I’ve never done one of these analysis thingies before (it’s been hard to convince myself that it’s neither 100% obvious boring stuff nor completely incomprehensible ramblings with no foundation) so it might not be great, but I feel really satisfied being able to put all my vague thoughts down on paper, and I hope someone finds it interesting :)

MAJOR SPOILERS for the entirety of Revolutionary Girl Utena!!

In the Black Rose Saga, the parallels between Utena & Anthy’s relationship and Mikage & Mamiya’s are quite obvious. But both of them have another, equally important figure in their relationship—the bride’s older sibling. If Mikage represents Utena, and Mamiya represents Anthy, then Tokiko logically represents Akio. She was also the one who pulled Nemuro out of his purgatory of apathy and loneliness, and gave him something to care about: Mamiya’s unpleasant fate. And just like the two of them, she has a relationship with her counterpart: where Mikage and Utena are rivals, and Anthy impersonates Mamiya, Tokiko is Akio’s lover and a (likely unknowing) perpetrator in his plans.

(This is a bit of a tangent, but Akio’s manipulation of Nemuro in episode 22 is strikingly similar to Touga’s manipulation of Miki back in episode 5. Just like Miki, Nemuro has largely given up on his task by Akio (in his case it’s research, rather than dueling) because he realizes it’s not truly what his bride wants or needs. But Nemuro is in love with Tokiko. He probably doesn’t even realize this, given his lack of social skills, but when he sees her with Akio he suddenly becomes scared of what he has to lose (just like when Miki sees Kozue with Touga). Combine this with Mamiya stating out of the blue that he does, in fact, want “eternity” (just as Anthy suggests that her engagement to Utena could end her piano playing), and Nemuro is now willing to take the offer he’d been so repulsed by earlier.)

Anyway, if Tokiko is a counterpart to Akio, why does Mikage see her in Utena of all people? It’s because the Tokiko he remembers is the version of her that’s still naïve, idealistic, and fundamentally childish—that is, the Tokiko from Nemuro’s time is Mikage’s Dios. Notably, when Mikage comes across present-day Tokiko in the hall, he ignores her—he doesn’t recognize the person, the adult, she has become. His entire reality is built on his memories, therefore, he can’t imagine that Tokiko couldn’t have changed from the young prince she was to him. Instead, he finds those “innocent” qualities in Utena and decides she must be the woman herself, desperate for an outlet for all his unresolved love and hatred towards her.

Tokiko, of course, did change—and her “fall from grace” that turned her from Dios to Akio was the fire at Nemuro Memorial Hall. Her brother is dead, which is bad enough, but something she might have been able to accept. However, Nemuro—possibly her only other friend at the academy—can’t accept it. He deludes himself and denies reality until he ends up taking the lives of a hundred students. At this point, Tokiko has failed to save anyone, and her innocence has been shattered. Therefore, she does the only thing she can: give up, abandon Nemuro at Ohtori, and become an adult.

There’s not enough information to say if she becomes “evil” exactly (indeed, the line is very fuzzy in Utena anyway), but when she returns as an adult she seems to have no interest in helping the people trapped in Akio’s garden, apart from a vague understanding that “there’s something wrong” about what he’s doing. Good or bad, she chose to save herself, and she’s no longer the prince she once was.

What’s really sneaky about Nemuro’s storyline really is that is doesn’t actually use the term “prince”, or any other fairytale themes. It has a much more “mundane” or “modern” feel to it, with science & medicine replacing the swordfights and castles. But ultimately, it’s still the same story, and it’s a warning to Utena (and the viewer) of what would happen should she fail to break out of her coffin. Nemuro stayed too long—after the failed revolution, after his bride was dead—and continued to cling to his memories, becoming a cruel manipulator in his own right, still convinced he was doing it for someone else. In their own ways, Tokiko and Mikage both foreshadow how easy it is for the noble prince to become selfish and cold-hearted. Although it’s hard to imagine Utena ever becoming as bad as Akio (plus she’s mortal, so she probably doesn’t physically have enough time), she has a real risk of becoming Tokiko or Mikage. If she allows herself to realize she can’t save Anthy, she’ll close herself off and leave Ohtori on her own, taking with her only a mountain of regret and a lingering sense that she can only ever look out for herself. If she convinces herself she can still save Anthy, she’ll go to increasingly far (and immoral) lengths to do so and drift further away from reality, and the one she loves. There’s no way out…except, maybe, to convince Anthy to save herself instead.

(There’s one more small, largely unrelated point I’d like to make about Tokiko. Perhaps, instead of Dios or Akio, her true counterpart is actually Touga. There are some cosmetic similarities—her violet eyes, her dark pink hair color that is really closer to Touga’s than Akio’s—and her name sounds almost like a combination of the two (this could absolutely be a coincidence, but we have Mamiya and Himemiya after all). Also, her relationship with Mikage is telling. Where Utena sees Dios/Akio as an inspiration, and idol, and a duty, Mikage sees Tokiko as an actual friend (possibly a lover) that he lost but imagines to come back to him. Does that sound like Utena & Touga’s relationship from the movie? Anywayyy I’m probably seeing things, but if not, this may support my pet theory about Touga…)

[corvlth]

Alright so seeing as I am finally caught up with the manga, I feel like saying a thing or two about the Baki characters, and as the resident God of war degenerate who really likes blorbos interacting, I’m sad to announce that they don’t do a lot of interacting besides praising each other’s fighting skills. Bear with me because this is probably gonna be long and unfocused as shit of half remembered plot beats. I’m more of a make lines on a canvas guy than a words one, but regardless.

Now, people usually have big brain analysis about it with references made to Buddhism and symbolism, and I’m from buttfuck, Eastern Europe so I’m not aware of subtle cultural aspects of this manga, so if anything take this as an interesting point of view of a foreigner (though I do sometimes feel like people put more meaning into it than the author intended).

Baki. I’ve read it all (except the side stories, so take all this with a grain of salt). Is it good? No. But it is the outlandish, off the walls shit that brought me back to it ‘til the end and those definitely delivered, but I feel like the character department could have used more attention, so let’s talk about that.

Firstly, Baki Hanma. Protagonist, public menace and little meow meow you root for. He started off the manga by already being the champion of the underground arena before having a flashback of him getting there, which made the first part of it feel kinda clunky but so is this ramble so I ain’t the one to talk. I feel like Baki doesn’t really bring anything particularly interesting to the table by himself, which is a shame because he definitely has the potential to. He was pushed by his mother to train so she could gain the attention of Yujiro, Baki being nothing more than a means to an end for her in the vain attempt to impress a guy who simply couldn’t bring himself to give less of a shit. We see flashbacks of him training with Yujiro too, though I can’t really make out anything out of them. I guess he was tough on the kid? Either way, his mom gets killed in front of him, and after the child arc he’s just nice. Like with exceptions he’s just a swell guy. Which is fine, but it does feel kind of unearned since he just goes from walking through the streets with his mother’s corpse talking to her while trying to delude himself for just a bit longer from the truth of what has just happened, to being a nice, kind teenager with 0 explanation as to what happened in the meantime. And there’s glimpses of Baki acting more like Yujiro but the author doesn’t really do anything with it besides remind us that he’s a Hanma and therefore really strong.

I’m just saying it would be nice to see Baki be more of a messy bitch, like go girl make bad choices, while also being terrified of turning into his father. For example, in the Baki goes to prison arc, he butts in to Jun and Oliva talking and gets thrown into the railings outside, and Jun makes note of the “Hanma blood being the most stimulating liquid known to man” and implying his nature made him act that way. It never gets brought up again or acknowledged besides a ‘this is foreshadowing that he’s really strong actually’. Thank you, we knew that. It’s just that it’d be an interesting plot point for him to fight against his nature and have to eventually accept that the monstrous part of him will always be a part of him, but he can temper himself with compassion and he can use his power for other people and then we get to have him be a nice guy.

The Kozue plot arc felt… Like nothing. They already had a crush on each other, became a couple, Kozue accepted that Baki’s gonna be a fighter, then after that was already established the Ali Jr. arc happened and it just felt like nothing. Jr. gets set up as a potential threat to Baki’s relationship and gets his ass kicked multiple times which does nothing to set him up as a real threat, no idea why Itagaki chose to include that. Also Kozue was inexplicably considering Ali as a potential love interest after knowing him for what felt like 10 minutes. And after Son of Ogre and the big battle she never showed up, not in any meaningful way anyway, as far as I remember. Which is a shame because women an endangered species in this manga.

Skimming through Son of Ogre I see that Baki was looking up to Yujiro for his opulent lifestyle, which would also yield an interesting arc of Baki leaning into his nature, unaware of the effects it has on him and unintentionally getting worse and worse to those around him and that would put him at odds with Jack who does see what he’s turning into and hates it, himself and partially his brother, but desperately wants to save him from this road he’s choosing to go down.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, we love Jack in this house. He’s the messy bitch I wanted Baki to be. He’s out for vengeance, he’s destroying himself in order to achieve it. He’d flush Yujiro’s heart medications down the toilet if he had the chance to. My only gripe with him is that I’d like to see more of his relationship with his mother. She did show up at the end of the first volume. Is she using him to get back at the ogre? Is he even aware of it? Was she cruel to him as a child due to the circumstances of his birth? If so, was that even intentional? It’d be a cool plot point to see if Jack is doing all this because he feels guilty for existing and reconciling this with his mother that- I’m just saying I’ll cry like a bitch if she shows up and holds his face and looks him in the eye and says that she’s sorry and he’s not the monster he convinced himself to be.

And the big bad, the Ogre, the strongest creature on Earth, Yujiro Hanma. I’m torn between disliking and appreciating the fact that he’s very inconsistent. On one hand it’s very jarring that he seems like a caring (albeit very intimidating) father to Baki and gives him advice and warning Tokugawa about his health, and then doing horrible things left and right to people. On the other hand, the unpredictability seems to suit his character. He’s a fun character to hate and watch and it really felt like him and Baki were the only actual characters for a good portion of the first volume. Also that scene at the hotel with him being weaker than whoever was on the other side of the door is very funny and it gets funnier the longer it never gets brought up, I hope they never do.

This is getting kinda long so, some quick ones:

Retsu could have leaned into the pride of his 4000 year old Chinese martial arts but at the same time feeling crippling anxiety that he doesn���t live up to it

Katsumi never had his circus days and his father dying in front of his eyes affect him and is also just a nice well adjusted guy, also my man’s used to have dimples remember what they took from you

Jun’s an actual looney toon and we love him in this house but it’s weird that he’s allegedly fought for independence for his country out of compassion for his people but then says to Oliva that fighting for others is a weakness in his eyes, and only remembered about them halfway through their fight. Has he done all that for personal glory before and just now had a come to Jesus moment?

Musashi was just curious about the present for a good portion of Baki dou, until suddenly deciding to regain his glory, which was kind of jarring and could have been brought up earlier.

The entire Sukune arc was an actual slog to get through I actually only half remember most of these because I put down the manga for days to weeks on time because it felt boring as shit to continue reading until Jack came in and it picked up again. I guess he gets the bitches and banishes evil spirits, so good for him, I guess?

Pickle was a character I was looking forward to see him animated because I wanted to hear the sound design they chose for his vocalizations and was disappointed on that front because it’s like the same sound that’s way too quiet, but otherwise fun character. Kinda weird that there was a plot point for people to vote on freezing him back again and that went nowhere because he’s just living in the sewers now, but he’s a fun character to have around so that’s fine.

I guess that’s kind of it for the most part? Everything that I remembered I had an opinion on anyway, sorry I’m a god of war fan and decided to make that everybody’s problem. Feel free to ask any questions if you got any?