#something something cantarella scene

[arill-b-r]

One thing I really love about RGU is how Anthy isn't a perfect victim

Anthy is not flawless, some of her actions are far from good, but that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to be loved and helped

The plot shows this through Utena. Even though Anthy literally backstabbed her, Utena still pushes through and tries to save Anthy, because she loves her no matter what

[biruesque]

Miss Utena, don't you know how much I've always despised you?

Inspo

[lunarharp]

i wanted to put these four together chatting, cooking, dancing, and trust

[wygolvillage]

additional hot take: the balcony scene is the best scene in all of rgu, nay, all of cinema and television and everything.

this ↓ is what Media as a whole is all about.

[midnightfox450]

SA Mention //

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[tower-reversed]

last time i talked about the cantarella scene being misunderstood i was joking but then the joke actually got me thinking...that they both misunderstood each other.

the summary of my thoughts is that, to utena, when anthy told her she'd poisoned her tea, it surprised her because anthy had never so boldly said something like that. this is the part of the story where they really know each other, they really consider each other friends; utena thinks that this is anthy coming out of her shell under her influence. to utena the poison in her tea is that anthy can fight back. anthy can "take control", she can be a "prince" like utena is. so when utena replies that she poisoned her cookies, she's like "hell yea girlfriend, we're both two empowered women". you know, they're united in this. they trust each other. they're badasses.

and anthy is being vulnerable right now with utena, obviously, no objections there. she's telling utena that in the end, utena can't save her, that anthy is hurting her as much as the other way around. so to anthy, when utena says she poisoned her cookies, it's like "i know these roles hurt us, but you know, it's fine." so anthy saying the cookies are delicious is like "yea ok, just checking to make sure you got this, i can feel fine about being the death of you now".

with both these misunderstandings, utena is especially afraid and ashamed of herself when she stops anthy from jumping off the balcony, because before that, she felt like they'd finally gotten on each others' level. and then for anthy, she's especially shocked to see utena fighting to save her from akio, but what really makes up her mind to stab utena in the end is that utena's made her bed and has to lie down in it; to her, it seems like utena understood that this is how it would play out.

[transmascutena]

Hey hey, I forget if you've ever posted about this, but one thing that fascinates me about Utena is the food side of everything. How Akio bakes, how Anthy basically only successfully makes shaved ice, and how Utena talks about the food going bad from lack of refrigeration. How it's not the job of the Rose Bride to cook. How Wakaba being able to prepare food makes her a good wife. I have thoughts about this, but I'll avoid saying too much because I wanna hear what you have to say too

i have gotten an ask about anthy's cooking before, where i talked about the ability to make food as a symbol for agency/freedom/independence, and how anthy can cook certain things like festival food, shaved ice, rosehip jam, the cantarella cookies, but not really anything that counts as a substantial meal (the curry is a bit of an outlier here. i guess it shows that her agency is mainly expressed through messing with nanami?) anthy says she wants to get better at cooking, and i'm inclined to believe her. i think she has the potential to be good at it too, but that akio has.... discouraged her from trying, as a way to make her more reliant on him. although, i actually can't recall if akio ever does anything in the kitchen other than (allegedly) bake that cake to impress utena, so maybe i'm way off. or maybe that's another piece of symbolism i haven't quite figured out.

you bring up a good point about gender roles here in regards to wakaba too. cooking is traditionally a woman's role in a lot of cultures, which makes it interesting that anthy, who as the rose bride is supposedly meant to be the ideal bride/wife not only cannot cook very well, but, according to touga, should not cook at all? i guess that ties back to the agency thing, though. but does wakaba have a lot of agency? she has a certain degree of freedom, at least, that comes with not being tied up in the main narrative most of the time. i'm not sure. i think food and cooking is one of the (many) things within this show that does not have one specific meaning that can be used to interpret everything related to it. i suppose my conclusion is that cooking can be both a limiting role if it's forced on you (in the sense of "you need to cook well to make for a good wife which is of course something you should want to be"), and something liberating if you do it for yourself. it's also just kind of a necessary survival skill, which is why it's so telling that anthy doesn't have it.

surprisingly enough i've never really posted about utena's food talk in episode 33 or how it may or may not play into this symbolism, so i guess i'll take this as an opportunity to do that. first, during the othello game, she talks about messing up measurements when cooking, and about the flavor coming out wrong. "you can't undo it once it's done." this shows her worries about what is happening/what will happen, and is already hinting at her regret afterward. it's a metaphor, but it also kind of ties into the agency symbolism. it tells us that utena is not very good at cooking either, and hints at the similarities between her and anthy. later she talks about what to make for lunch the next day. she's rambling, trying to distract herself, dissociating, and i don't tend to read a lot into what specifically she's saying. that's not really what's important. however, i do think it's signicant that she's bringing up anthy, for one, but mostly that she's talking about something urgent she needs to do that isn't here. she's making excuses to go home, to stop. if you buy the cooking as agency thing, utena's worry about the food going bad could once again reflect her worries and doubts about the whole thing. is there symbolism to the fact that she specifically brings up salmon and eggs and asparagus and sandwiches? maybe. but i think it's too easy to get caught up in all the little details and miss or ignore the bigger picture of what actually matters (very vaguely referring to an analysis of this scene that i hate. if you know you know.)

[wa3jetisbestpony]

okay spicy hot revolutionary girl utena take in the year of our lord 2024 but

I genuinely do not think Anthy likes roses/flowers. they're literally the symbol of the oppressive abuse controlling her life. and I see so so many people make like fan art and stuff of her post ending like growing a garden or working as a florist and truly dont think she'd want to do that once shes free. I think everyone is taking the line in the cantarella scene where shes like "I'll be happy as long as i can grow roses" at face value. but thats so baffling to me because the whole point of that scene is that she is not being honest about her feelings. and everyone seems to be on the same page about that? like its blatant. she promises to still be friends with utena in 10 years and then tries to kill herself almost immediately after. she's not being honest in that scene everyone talks about how much they love the tension and symbolism of that scene with neither of them telling the truth and they're saying one thing but they mean another, they say they poisoned the tea and cookies as a metaphorical way to admit theyd hurt eachother. but then they take the roses line at face value??

to me what shes saying in that line is basically "I'll be happy as long as I stay useful to Akio" because she still thinks thats what she wants, shes still telling herself thats what she wants. she cant bring herself to hate her brother despite how much hes hurt her (which is another thing is see get weirdly ignored by a lot of people BUT THATS NOT WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT IM STOPPING MYSELF FROM A TANGENT) and thats like the whole reason shes going along with the duels and all that right? because she is trying to do what he wants.

If you were to ask me what I think she would actually want to do I think she would want to do something with animals. she seems to really like animals, an animal serves as a symbolic expression of her true feelings throughout the show, the moments where she seems most happy and at ease often involve animals in some way. if i were to pick something specific I think shed become a wildlife rehabber because i like what that would say symbolically about her character arc.

and it really seems to me that a lot of Anthys despair towards the end of the series comes from her seeing that Utena has a real chance of changing the status quo and that scares anthy. i dont think she has any hope of things getting better with akio or going back to the way they used to be with him as dios. I think she was trying to keep things the way they were, where she could cling to some sense of still being important to him, even if its just that hes using her. and thats what shes saying when she says "I'll be happy as long as I can grow roses"

and so if the revolution, the triumph at the end of the series is anthy finally accepting she doesnt have to let him hurt her anymore and walking away, her realizing there really is a whole world outside of him for her to find meaning and joy in, then why should she still want to grow roses?

anyways stop drawing utenathy reunion scenes where utena just like walks into a random flower shop and sees anthy and start drawing them where utena has like a fucking raccoon inside her apartment at 2am just absolutely trashing the place and calls animal control and anthy shows up to catch it

[oh-honey-its-maxine]

So I wrote a review/analysis of Revolutionary Girl Utena on letterboxd and my friend told me I should post it on here, so here it is. I'll put the link to the review and I'll also paste it under the read-more for convenience.

This is my 3rd watch and boy do I have a lot of feelings. I really recommend people to read the Palace Perspective on archivesofourown.org. It's a very in-depth essay about the deeper themes of the show.

Anthy Himemiya is probably one of my favourite characters of all time. She's just a girl. She's been here from the start. She's not really here. She's an awkward teenager. She's at the centre of the world. She's a bird in a cage. She's an allegory for all the ways women suffer under patriarchy. From the first episode, before we know the truth of the rose bride, we see her be blamed anytime something bad happens to a male character. On the first watch she's seems to not have much personality, but once you have a better understanding of her and what she's been through she (and subsequently the show itself) becomes so much more interesting. You notice all the ways she exercises her agency, mostly to fuck with Nanami, and that's important! Because that's the point of the ending, nothing changed, there was no revolution. Anthy didn't suddenly become more powerful, Utena just showed her that she was worth being saved and so she saved herself. I'm going to give Akio a (rare) break and say he's not the one that started calling Anthy a witch, however he is the one that kept her in that coffin through abuse and manipulation and continually scapegoated her.

Akio is also interesting. For all intents and purposes, he was once a victim himself. Though it's debatable how much of the Himemiya's backstory is just metaphor, it seems he was once put on a pedestal and made to live up to impossible standard. But when he couldn't meet them, Anthy took the fall for him. Ever since then he's been stuck trying to regain his glorious past, and keeping Anthy stuck with him. Akio is the most miserable motherfucker, despite being the one with the most power. Probably because he surrounds himself with teenagers he grooms, and never makes any meaningful connection with anyone despite the respect he clearly has from other adults. In the end he's the one who is the most stuck in his coffin. He refuses to heal from the pain others caused him in the past, so all he can do is perpetuate the cycle and keep everyone else trapped. He talks a big game about wanting to "revolutionise the world" but when Utena was on the verge of making real changes, he panicked and tried to stop her.

Utena is a lot smarter than what people give her credit for. The cantarella scene, the rooftop scene, she does realise the harm she's caused Anthy without meaning to. She realises the duels are inherently harmful because they keep Anthy in her role of rose bride and at Akio & the duelists' mercy. The reveal in episode 34 is so important because it shows that it wasn't really about becoming a prince, it was about saving Anthy. It was always about saving Anthy. Utena was simply told that the way to save Anthy was to become a prince, but someone who believes in the system of princes, princesses, and witches cannot save Anthy. That's why Akio was never able to open the rose gate. All Utena had to do was hold out her hand, both literally and figuratively.

Nanami is also underestimated quite often I think. She's easy to dismiss in the beginning, just another anime mean girl with a big brother complex. However, as the show unfurls, you see how she plays into the show's themes. In many ways, Touga and Nanami are a future Akio and Anthy. You see then how Touga feeds into her brother complex purposefully to control her, especially when she distances herself and his advances become more explicit. Nanami being a parallel to Anthy is crucial in showing the cyclical nature of violence in RGU and how abusive behaviour is taught and passed down to the next generation. Even the "filler" episodes show her as an animal raised to be slaughtered and consumed by Touga, her fear of being alienated from Touga and how her whole sense of self centers around being Touga's little sister.

I could go on, every character in the show is so interesting. The ways they uphold patriarchal ideas, the ways they don't. How they all try to fit into this prince-princess-witch system and it hurts all of them, but still does more harm to the girls because it strips them of their agency. How that system prevents real love from flourishing, because it forces relationships with uneven power dynamics. To finish, big love to the Shadow Girls, the best modern take on the greek chorus I've ever seen. Always throwing shade (pun intended) at the characters in the most cryptic ways possible, except when they called Akio a miserable bastard to his face.

[kanamori-kamper-moved]

🫂 scientistshipping

OOOO THIS IS A GOOD ONE!!!! TY FOR ASKING ANON!!!! Short, like really short for my standards, but you'll like it. It’s based on this one scene from Revolutionary Girl Utena I like, it gives them vibes.

Ask game

-

"Have you ever heard of cantarella?" Vetrix softly asks, pouring some tea into a far too fancily crafted teacup. It’s a quarter past 2, and they’re sitting in the lab. It feels almost alien now, but at least things are back to normal (at least as normal as they can be).

“Cantarella? Would you mind telling me?” He picks up the freshly brewed tea, pressing it to his lips.

“It was something used by the Borgia family in Italy a long, long time ago. I learned it while traveling.” Vetrix reaches for the plate of cookies besides Faker, taking one for himself. “A poison.”

“So, how do like the tea?” There’s silence for a few minutes, just the sounds of the record player thats been skipping the same sequence of notes for well over half an hour. “I made them myself, it’s quite hard to bake with this body now.”

“I hope they don’t taste funny.”

Silence. Still silence. Until it is broken by Faker uttering the words.

“What a coincidence. I poisoned those cookies.” He’s met by the sudden, soft embrace of him. Vetrix doesn’t expect it, but it’s far too warm and inviting to reject. “You don’t say.”

“So, what do you think?”

“Their delicious.” And he keeps chewing. “So’s the tea.”

[idkhowtopickausername]

2, 7 and 17 for utena?

Yaaay thank u for indulging me! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

2. My favorite thing about it is actually like a dozen interconnected things I really love how it critiques the idea of saving someone and the savior/saved dynamic (and how poignantly it does so) and also how it deconstructs the idea of the pure innocent victim vs. the conniving evil manipulator, and how complex and real Anthy is as a character, and how it shows that other characters perceiving her as one or the other is self-serving and contributes to her pain and denies her full humanity. I also really like how in Utena’s character arc she starts out with a goal that depends on success within the current system but is also doomed to fail both as a means of helping Anthy and as a means of being who she wants to be because success within the dueling system leads to Akio who enforces a level of conformity and complicity that goes against who she is. And the way that she really has to confront that she was complicit in hurting Anthy in a way that I rarely see ‘heroic’ characters forced to self-examine. But that despite the power of these structures and the suffering they lead to, they are neither natural nor inevitable but constructed and upheld by lies and illusions and authority and preying on people’s pain and insecurity. And the fact that Utena’s idealism wasn’t intrinsically wrong or naive, just misdirected, and they needed to let the structure crumble and walk away from it to create something new, despite how terrifying that prospect was!!! Anyway in short I think it manages to confront a lot of pain and disillusionment in a very real and nuanced and brutally honest way but still offer a form of genuine hope that doesn’t feel fake or ignorant or patronizing. Sorry that was long.

And my least favorite thing is that I think despite providing really meaningful, insightful, and gut-wrenching critiques of the sexualization of underage girls, it’s not totally exempt from doing the same thing at certain isolated moments (that would be easier to overlook if it weren’t for parts of the movie and marketing + and the fact that I’ve heard it’s sort of a problem in Ikuhara’s other works as well). And I think also, while incest plays a really important thematic role in the story and is handled really well textually, I don’t feel as confident as some other fans that the choice to focus on it was purely for reasons of criticism despite how insightful and worthwhile that criticism is (mainly because the bathtub scene with Kozue and Miki in the movie was…very weird and unnecessary imo). Additionally I think the way it handles race is not great either. In short my least favorite thing about it is that the things that bother me about it are in such close proximity to the things I think it does well and that I love about it 😞

Wow that was a long-winded response to one number.

7. Character that feels like home: Hmmm maybe Utena. Anthy is my ultimate fav but there’s something very homey about Utena and the way she chatters about things.

17. Line I quote most: I wouldn’t say I really quote anything from rgu that much (although “It’s a big mistake to think you’re the only one who can turn into a car” is pretty funny to bring up) but quotes I really love and think about a lot are:

“We’ll be living happily in the castle…but what about Himemiya?”

“Himemiya you don’t know, do you? The only time I’ve ever been really happy was when I was with you.”

“You really don’t know what’s happened do you? It doesn’t matter. By all means stay in this cozy coffin of yours and continue playing prince. But I have to go now…She isn’t gone at all. She’s just vanished from your world. Goodbye.”

Plus the whole rooftop conversation and cantarella scene. Also I think, while being perspectives that are critiqued later and don’t fully reflect the message of the show, the “in the end…all girls are like the rose bride” quote and Utena saying “I’ll become a prince and save her” in the flashback in episode 34 are incredibly powerful in context.

[douwatahima]

okay grand conclusions:

he calls utena "utena tenjuu" the whole time which tells me that, if he did end up watching any of the show himself, it was only a bit of the first arc (since the dub fixes this mispronunciation once it hits the black rose arc).

speaking of the black rose arc...he didn't! he says that it "doesn't do much to elaborate on the plot" and for the most part he doesn't engage with it at all. a tell tale sign to me that this person is not someone who's opinion on utena i should take seriously.

he barely talks about nanami (another nail in the coffin to me personally when it comes to how much i care about someone's utena analysis) and when he does all he can say is "girl needs help" and, of the cowbell episode, "i'm sure that whole ordeal is symbolic for something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯". he also only engages with shiori when he wants to call her a "psycho".

he 100% misunderstands anthy and says stuff about her that is downright disgusting imo. this is the bit i've seen most people talk about on twitter so sorry if you've heard it already but it does bear repeating. when talking about the student council arc, he seems to think that anthy is incapable of independent thought and does whatever her betrothed wants because she doesn't know how to feel things herself rather than her involvement being a result of her ongoing abuse from akio and her true feelings coming out in subtle ways from as early as episode 1. he says that utena doing things like forcing anthy to go to nanami's party is utena "tirelessly coaching anthy to advocate for her own needs and feelings" rather than utena imposing what she thinks anthy should want on to her; which is, you know, the point. he later says that anthy has grown to "like being the victim" and that she "feels good being subservient" because that's all she knows. never let this man speak of her ever again i'm so serious.

this is less of a big deal than the last point, but it really threw me for a loop so here it goes. he talks about how, since utena is being groomed by akio and anthy can only see herself in relation to akio (due to her ongoing abuse), the two end up in a "toxic rivalry" in the akio arc. the clip he uses to demonstrate that thought? the cantarella scene. i literally had to pause and go "huh???" out loud.

anyway in conclusion i just wasted an hour of my life. his main sticking point seemed to be "man this show is so ~weird~ and ~kooky~ huh???" and he didn't seem to get it at all. which like, fair, but i think that if you watch something and you don't engage with it you maybe shouldn't make an hour long video essay about it. but this is the man who plagiarized most of his stuff so what do i know.

oohhhhh just found a link to the (supposedly patreon exclusive) james somerton video on utena

morbidly curious to watch it, not even to see what's been plagiarized but to see how the hell he's gonna talk about that show knowing his stance on women

[panvani]

Utena fans consistently completely unable to read any meaning into Utena but like hearing through the grapevine or some shit that it's about gender and then reaching the conclusion that the point Utena is making about gender is that there's a divine essential masculine you're born into and all it does is rape and kill

[seasaltmemories]

Honestly this might be the hipster in me, but the more ppl extol about the beauty of enemies to lovers, the more I think I might like it more in the concept then in practice

[mokushiyami]

I’ve seen so many people say that the cantarella scene is their favorite but other than their promise to have tea in 10 years, i kind of get that it’s a love confession but that’s it. As the resident blog i go to for questions about utena i guess i’ve trying to ask if you can give an analysis about that?

I’m getting rgu asks again and im so happy tbh. i love the Cantarella scene so much, but i can understand how it can be missed because honestly i did take me finishing the series and rewatching it to fully grasp it, so here it goes.

The cantarella scene is a love confession but it is not only that. It comes after everything is laid out in the open, utena knows about anthy and akio, anthy knows about akio and utena. Utena asks anthy what does she want to do in the future and she says she’ll be happy as long as she gets to grow roses, but we know roses are restrictive to her, utena still suggest she becomes a florist. Then anthy talks to utena about cantarella. It’s a nice nod to the borgias who are very closely associated with anthy and akio. Utena is happily eating cookies but when anthy finishes her story about cantarella and asks her how the cookies are, utena flinches, but still finishes the cookie. Anthy does not outright say the cookies are poised, but utena does so about the tea, and anthy happily drinks it, saying its delicious. They are not acknowledging they love each other, they’re acknowledging that even though they love each other, they hurt each other.

Anthy says this by hiding behind a story, akin to what actually happened, the hurt didn’t come from anthy doing something in front of utena, but from what was untold. Utena says it outright, anthy knew about her and akio all along and she doesnt need a story to convey the hurt. They continue to eat the cookies and drink the tea, knowing that the hurt will continue, but still deciding to partake in it because they care about each other more.

They have finally realized their feelings about each other, they always knew but i don’t think they knew what name to put to it until that point. Then we see them talking about their little tea date in 10 years. I will always say that ikuhara is a genius director. While they are discussing the tea date, they are outside of the frame and a red rose appears on the top of the screen. The camera pans back to the table and window and they are not there, even though you can hear them talking. It’s a realization that this, them acknowledging each other, is the start of their journey of getting out of ohtori. Red roses symbolize love, and it shows up when they are not in frame. There are a lot of scenes that show that their relationship was build outside of the frames, it’s the only real thing in ohtori, it has been there even when we could not see it. It’s a love so pure that the mere existence of it is unfathomable within the confines of the school.

And then ofc the next scene we get is utena stopping anthy from jumping which is a whole emotional roller coaster on its own but it just adds to the importance the cantarella scene has for the show and for the audience.

I hope this isn’t too long and explained some things. There are plenty of essays and video essays on this topic that explain everything even with more details and i would suggest looking some up. If you have any other questions just ask me.

[transmascutena]

You know, as much as I love the meme of "Anshi Himemiya can't cook, lol" looking at the cantarella scene the more likely interpretation is that she knows how to cook, she just acts incompetent about it like so many numerous things she acts incompetent about.

In that scene, the sentence that makes Utena pause when eating the cookie was the phrase "I made them myself." She might have only openly revealed her competence in baking, however this results in a snowball realization that if she was willing to put in all this effort to support this small lie with all her shaved ice and curry escapades, what about the big ones? The ones that truly poison someone? Anthy was trying to subtly scare her away by subtly hinting at this (of course Utena then flirts back saying 'omg I poisoned you too <3').

On a more headcanon-y route, you know how some scenes show Akio talking about how he has cooked something for his guests to eat? I think it was actually Anthy who cooked those things. Not only does it fit their dynamic in Akio making Anthy do most of the 'dirty work' so to speak so that he may look more charming in comparison to her, but it is also so hilarious to me.

that's very interesting! i've heard people talk about cooking as a metaphor/symbol for agency and freedom since it gives you a certain control over your life and a way to support yourself and be independent, so i can see where anthy's lack of cooking skills would fit into that, (see also: touga saying "your job as the rose bride isn't to cook" when anthy expresses a desire to get better at it after hanging out with utena and wakaba) but the idea that she's just pretending is something i haven't really thought about. i really love that interpretation of the cantarella scene though!! feels like we're always finding more and more layers to it

i think realistically maybe it's somewhere in between the two. she's not completely incompetent in the kitchen or anything, but she's been told that she can't/shouldn't cook (to make her more reliant on people who can, i.e. akio) enough times that she started to believe it? like a learned helplessness sorta thing