#this was originally a part of another essay but i revamped it and added a lot more detail

[horse-girl-anthy]

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Gender in Context

beneath the cut, I discuss the RGU's portrayal of gender in the context of 1990s Japan.

in Ikuhara's interview with Mari Kotani, he stated that in traditional Japanese society, "prince" meant "patriarch." the same is true in Western societies--there was a time when a prince would be an heir to a royal line. by 1997, this meaning had died out of large parts of the world. even the association between princes and traditional masculinity was fading. Saionji, the weakest, most pathetic man in the show, is a parody of historical Japanese masculinity, with his kendo and his blatantly regressive beliefs about women.

in RGU, prince may still mean patriarch, but in a far more subtle fashion. Ikuhara and Kotani discussed the changing expectations for men in the latter half of the 20th century--it became gauche to fight over a woman with one's brawn, so instead, power struggles were played out in the arena of looks and sex appeal. one can see this reflected in the character Akio, whose power as a prince arises from his ability to turn "easy sensual pleasure based on dependency" "into a selling point with which to control people."

Akio has his moments of showboating masculinity, but when preying on Utena, he operates by making himself seem non-threatening and soft.

not only that, but he purports to want to allow students to express their individuality and thus approves of Utena's masculine form of dress. this is a front--by the end of the show, he's telling Utena that girls shouldn't wield swords. thus, through Akio's character, the show argues that traditionalist patriarchy in Japan isn't gone, but instead has only been papered over with false progressivism.

with all that said, there seems to be more to the character. he's taken the family name of his fiance, Kanae, and whatever material power he has in the school is dependent upon her family. in Japanese society, this is considered a humiliating position to be in, something that only a shameless man would do. the show never gives the audience any insight into how Akio feels about this--is he unbothered entirely, or are his actions against the Ohtori family an expression of his repressed anger? does he harm the children under his care to compensate for his humiliation?

this aspect of Akio's character may seem irrelevant in light of the larger, immaterial social forces at work in the show. however, I would argue that it was included for a reason. Akio, despite his status as ultimate patriarch of Ohtori, is in fact a highly emasculated character, to the point where lead writer Enokido even said that he is driven by an infantile mother complex.

to explain why Akio was portrayed this way, we have to discuss Japanese history. the nation suffered a major defeat in WWII and was forced to accept whatever terms the United States laid out for it. for an examination of how the Japanese have never truly processed those events and have plunged into modernity with reckless abandon, I recommend Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent. to sum it up briefly, in a very short period, the nation regained its economic footing, and by the 1980s had the largest gross national product in the world. this economic boom may have allowed Japan to maintain a sense of sovereignty, dignity, and power, but it was inherently fragile.

the infamous "bubble economy" lasted from 1986 to 1991. during this time, anything seemed possible; financial struggles appeared to be a thing of the past, and capitalist excess reached new heights. the ghosts of this period can be felt across Japanese media; for instance, think of the final shot of Grave of the Fireflies (1998), where the two dead children look down on Kobe, glowing an eerie green to imply its impermanence. the abandoned theme park from Spirited Away (2001) is explicitly referred to as a leftover from the previous century, when many attractions were built and then tossed aside in a few short years.

the bubble popped in 1992, leaving an entire generation feeling cheated. the bright futures they'd been promised, which had actually materialized for their parents and older siblings, had been lost to them overnight. economic crises are often accompanied by gender panics. to quote from Masculinities in Japan, "The recession brought with itself worsening employment conditions, undermining the system of lifelong employment and men’s status of breadwinners in general. The unemployment rate was rising, and although it never reached crisis levels, men could no longer feel safe in their salaryman status. Their situation was further complicated by the rising number of (married) women entering the workforce."

with this in mind, Akio's character can be taken as a representation of masculinity in crisis in 90s Japan. he's forced to rely on women for his position in life and has failed to save his only relative, Anthy. he tries to escape his misery through hedonism, perhaps an allegorical representation of how men tried to maintain their old standard of living after the economic bubble burst.

but of course, Akio is not the main character of RGU--the story is about girls. mangaka Yamada Reiji discussed the series in the context of the 90s, stating the following:

while I opened this essay by discussing the prince, the same points could be made about the princess. despite the increasing irrelevance of royalty, princess is still an important concept. how does it relate to the socioeconomic landscape of the 90s?

in Yamada's view, RGU is full of relics of the 80s; for instance, the figure of the ojou-sama, an entitled young woman who never lifts a finger for herself. during the economic bubble, it was increasingly common for women to be entirely taken care of by the men in their lives. Yamada names Nanami as a clear ojou-sama type character: she weaponizes her femininity, demanding to be rescued, doted on, and served.

however, by 1997, the ojou-sama could no longer expect to get what she wanted. from the 80s to the 90s, the percentage of women in the workforce increased around 15%; it was no longer viable for most women to be "kept" by their families. as the men experienced the humiliation of not being able to provide for their wives and children, women were undergoing a disillusionment of their own.

Yamada blames Disney for creating the ideological structure which led women astray. obviously, the company is known for its films about princes rescuing princesses. in Yamada's recounting, during the 80s, the company was infiltrating Japan through its theme parks as well; across the country, Disneylands were opening up, and people were buying into the escapism the corporation offered. Japan, as America, became a country of eternal children. its people were waiting for a prince to appear and save them.

but fairy tales can't stave off reality forever. Yamada claims that RGU embodies the rage of young women who woke up one day and realized that they had been raised on a lie. this anger pervades the work from beginning to end.

though RGU was created in a particular social context, its lessons can be extrapolated to any time and place. as the first ending tells us:

I hope this essay helped provide more context for the series. thanks for reading!

[ultraternative]

Why pokemon fans should not and do not want gen 5 remakes: an essay

I said I would do it, so here I am. I'll put it under a read more just because it'll be a long one and I don't want to fill your screen without your permission. That being said, let's begin.

As I'm sure many people know, the fifth generation of pokemon games, those being black & white and their sequels, are fan favorites and beloved by many. In fact, black 2 was my second ever pokemon game, so I'm no stranger to the magic it made people feel when they played it. It was ambitious, exciting, and completely new, so I understand people wanting to go back and live it for the first time again completely revamped and with a new coat of polish.

But that's not what this is about. I'm here arguing for the opposite, and why I think it would never work.

Remakes: an underlying problem

Yes, pokemon is no stranger to doing remakes of their games. It's been around since gen 3, with firered and leafgreen, and has been going right up until not too long ago in gen 8, with brilliant diamond and shining pearl. And I understand that it's to let players newer to the franchise play older games on recent hardware, but sometimes it's hard to stay faithful to the original while introducing new mechanics to keep old players interested.

Take for instance, omega ruby and alpha sapphire. Those games were done in a way that kept the spirit of gen 3 while having the new mechanics of mega evolution and such from gen 6. And it worked, in my opinion. But then we move on to brilliant diamond and shining pearl. Maybe it's because it was outsourced to a different development studio, or maybe it's because they wanted to be too faithful to gen 4 on a new gen console, but it didn't have the same impact as the original games. And the only new things they added was fairy type existing and a revamp of the underground, pre-post-game of course. And maybe I'm biased, but the let's go games don't appeal to me because I never got into pokemon go, and the catch mechanic is entirely based on that.

Realistically, what could we expect?

Think about it. Each remake was built in the style of its most recent generation. So if we take that and translate it over to today, we could theorize the region of unova to be a semi-open world 3d environment, letting players explore the world before moving to the next goal. But that's not the spirit of gen 5. The games were fairly railroady, putting you on a path and making you stick to it. But it also had moments like the bridge leading to castelia city being a bit overly long but mesmerizing to experience that first time. The pixel sprite of your character walking along this massive structure as the camera shifts to show off the landscape, making it feel as though you were going on an adventure just as big. How would you translate that to full 3d? How could they capture that same feeling?

Because I don't think it's possible in the current day.

The number 2 and a time skip

Yeah, this is another thing I want to bring up. After the events of black and white, the characters move on with their lives and live peacefully for a while. Then the events of black 2 and white 2 happen. Unlike every other pokemon game*, gen 5 is a canonical 2 part story. Team plasma gets up to shenanigans twice there, and a different kid has to beat them up each time. And if they really want to do remakes of gen 5, I feel they would need to incorporate both the first and second games into the same game to keep the story flow consistent and so fans don't have to deal with buying another game to continue the narrative again.

Some unaware people might say "Well what about the ultra sun and ultra moon games? Aren't those continuing the narrative from the first of those games?" No, they don't. It's roughly the same story, set at basically the same time. It's like an alternate universe at that point. It's not the same.

And I know someone is gonna bring it up, so I will address it here too. I am aware that the events of gold and silver take place after the events of red and blue. However, I am arguing that since they are different generations, they do not fit in the point I am trying to make. Black and white had direct sequels in the same generation, and if they get remakes those should be incorporated. But they won't, because they don't want people getting more games in their game.

A reasonable alternative

The whole reason I started this rant was because I saw an article saying something about players noticing the names of the bike colors in gen 8 could be the names of the gen 5 remakes, and they latched onto that pretty hard. And it also mentioned that they made that connection when the game came out, long before even the gen 4 remakes, and they just wanted to bring it back up for some reason. And I seriously doubt they would tease a game that far in advance, all things considered. I think it was just some cool names for cool decals.

But another article I didn't read said something about a potential legends style game for unova, which I think would be perfectly okay. Since it was established in legends arceus that it's very clearly a prequel to explore the origins of a region, I think it's a better plan to make that game over a glorified port that can't capture the magic of the original.

(Also I would be fine with just a straight port of gen 5 no changes but bundle the first and second games together)

Closing remarks AKA the tl;dr

Just give us legends unova. Don't bother with black & white remakes. It wouldn't be the same and they wouldn't bundle the sequels with them either.

Thanks for reading.

[elysiumrp]

So this is more so a question for the admins, What kinds of RP backgrounds do you guys come from? Did you all write with each other prior to founding this group? What are some of your favorite things about writing? Do any of you have particular pet peeves we should be aware of? I feel like nobody asks these things, but they are important xD

I’ll answer first cause I’m in the inbox and then let Izzy edit it afterwards to make it easiest. I originally started on Invisionfree back when I was sixteen on a post-potter rp that lasted for about eighteen months. During that time we also transitioned over to Jcink, and I remained in the Jcink realm until my freshman year of college. I was sucked into Tumblr RP my junior year of college when I joined a Teen Wolf/OC rp with a friend (although I’d never seen the show before haha), and I’ve been on Tumblr ever since. Besides the first Teen Wolf RP I was on here, I haven’t really had any that I’ve joined that have lasted that long? Which is part of the reason why I created Elysium a few years ago. I figured it was easier to keep something alive if I didn’t have to worry about admins abandoning.

Besides that super brief and condensed RP background, I also have a degree in Professional and Creative Writing and, albeit less relevant, a degree in Psychology.

Elysium has been brought back after a revamp so a number of us RP’d together on the past version of Elysium, but that was where it all began for the group (minus one member that I actually met on that previously mentioned Teen Wolf site). The majority of us from the previous Elysium have basically been here since the beginning of that incarnation of it, so December of 2015ish?

My favorite thing about writing is the creation aspect and just the creativity. I love daydreaming about my characters and events and potential interactions while driving or at work. I just love creating. And Elysium has been awesome because I’ve been able to share this vast creation with so many people. That sounds super like uppity and extra, but seriously, I love this universe and the characters that have been created in it. I love seeing the bios and faces that I wrote come to life. It’s just extremely exciting.

As far as pet peeves, the biggest thing for me is I hate when a plot such as this one is dumbed down into just smut and like relationship drama? It’s like I always say, the world is literally falling apart around these characters… act like it. That’s not to say that relationships aren’t fully accepted here, I encourage them, but I also feel like if all you’re looking for is fluff and no angst outside of fearing your boyfriend or girlfriend is cheating on you, well… it just starts to get to me after awhile.

Thank you for all your questions!! I hope my answers sufficed, and I’ll text Izzy to have her add on when she gets a chance as well.

ADMIN DANNAH

This is always such a fun question to answer, like, bless the Raven-Symoné flashback my mind is going through. So, I can’t technically remember exactly how I came into the realms of the roleplay tag, I think it had to do when I was looking up Harry Styles during my One Direction phase, and I saw a picture of him that looked pretty cool with a whole bunch of writing beneath it. After seeing the blog, I was just mesmerized that there was such a thing that existed, then I went through a whole bunch of other roleplays and found love. Then it hit me – why don’t I make one! What a disaster that was, I mean, I used Paint and Photobucket for Christ’s sake! Hilarious, I know, but I admin’d before I actually roleplayed. I learned my lesson, joined some roleplays, the good old typical ones just to get back into writing since I had kind of lost myself after high school, but it helped me find myself.

I can genuinely say I’ve admin’d more than I’ve roleplayed, a couple roleplays even just me admin’ing and not having a character in it, just being able to create a plot and allow people to take on characters I wrote was the greatest sensation. Like having a book that people were obsessed with and acted them out while being in the comfort of where they were. It’s actually roleplaying that helped me decide I wanted to pursue writing, there were enough stories created that could be branched out, why not? It’s my getaway, something I’ve always loved. While my classmates in high school hated writing twenty page essays, I loved it. The challenge is what brings people in, and the fact that you can create such a world with just your mind and fingertips, it’s just mesmerising. 

Also, don’t get me started on how I just loved explaining to people that there’s characters in my head speaking and doing things and hey, I don’t have anything going on in my mind mentally, but that’s always fun. This is our getaway, and just to be apart of something that helps do that with people is something I love. Being able to just help and put my experience to use apart from my characters being on here is something Dannah can tell you I offer a little too much, she’s just queen on Elysium and I follow blindly, haha. But yeah, the amount of friends I’ve made, finding a muse and a reason to basically live for something after I lost myself to things, I owe roleplaying to it all. I’ll be corny there. And as Dannah said, I got accepted December 2015 – bless her for accepting me even after the anxiety I had that I wouldn’t be accepted. Look at Kyle now, which is another thing I love. Being able to develop something, like a fictional little baby you feel so proud to watch grow.

Plus, it’s a bonus that I get to be creative instead of just lazy when I have my days off and down time! Pet peeve, I’ll save for last, is just talk. Communicate. If someone doesn’t answer your starter or leaves you dry in a para, shoot them a message to fix it if they won’t. We’re really big on people answering, so follow through and don’t let a person down! Roleplays are admins giving you a skeleton and you adding everything else to bring it to life. I hope we can do that here because that’s always my ultimate goal. Bless you for asking these things, they always make me just have a happy rant. 

– ADMIN IZZY