#touga mirrored akio very often

[arscorpii]

episode 12 / episode 34

episode 12 / episode 37

there were several similarities i noted between the two episodes (12 and 34):

within the specific scenes: both touga and akio reached out and touched utena's left hand with their left hands, but touga covered her hand with his, while akio took her hand into his. in episode 12, utena and touga were accompanied by anthy and wakaba (during the day, out in the open cafeteria), while in episode 34, utena and akio were alone in akio's room (during the night); anthy was aware of it, but she was in her and utena's room and couldn't do much about the matter. anthy also couldn't do much for utena in episode 12 due to the rules of the rose seal (she was engaged to touga). also, the two scenes in episodes 12 and 34 took place after very tragic incidents happened to utena: losing the duel to touga, and consequently, losing anthy as her rose bride versus akio raping her (unarguably even more tragic).

correlation with utena's sense of self: in episode 12, utena tried (and succeeded) to take back who she was via a rematch (losing to touga made her doubt who she was as a person). who utena was as a person at this point may be referring to the role of a prince that she was able to truly embody due to her engagement to the rose bride (e.g., utena saving anthy in episode 3 from anthy's dress incident and then dancing together, utena saving anthy who was trapped in a coffin in episode 9). or, more like how the engagement with the rose bride allowed utena to be more/most like herself, one of which would be largely comprised of the princely ideals she adopted/learned and idealised (as told in her monologue of meeting the prince; utena also said she wanted to be a noble prince who saves princesses in episode 1) (i'm not sure for this part).

in episode 34, we learned the real reason utena had the rose crest ring, the real reason utena wanted to become a prince: to save a little girl suffering a fate worse than death. ultimately, in both situations (episodes 12 and 34), anthy influenced utena's sense of self, to an extent. regarding the prince, taking into account the context of episode 11, i'm quite sure utena still believed that touga was her prince in episode 12. meanwhile, episode 34 gave us (more) indisputable confirmation that akio was the prince that utena met in her past (this fact was heavily hinted at since episode 25). however, i don't think utena made the connection yet at that point. nevertheless, as a whole, in both situations, touga and akio were framed as utena's prince (to utena [episode 12] versus to the audience [episode 34]).

a common conflict/theme underlying both scenes was the pressure of conforming to ideal gender identities and presentations. this was evident in the scene with touga (complimenting utena's girl uniform and asking her out). however, it's infinitely more severe with akio because he was actively grooming utena to that end; some events of this episode were just parts of the long process (in the specific scene: asking if they're friends, mentioning that she didn't take off her ring "that night," trying to kiss her). in addition, the visuals of both touga and akio somewhat covering utena's rose crest ring with their hand gestures could be seen as analogous to them trying to suppress/diminish her princely ideals/role (touga said that losing the duel gave utena a chance at being a normal girl; he then actively tried persuading utena to this end, i.e., the compliment on the uniform and the ask for a date. moreover, touga critised utena for not knowing about the true power of the rose bride when she "fancied herself as anthy's prince." also, to reiterate: akio brought up the fact that utena didn't take off her ring when he raped her while stroking the ring; he expected that that event would be sufficient for utena to take it off [give up the role of the prince]).

i think episode 12 is an interesting foreshadowing/parallelism of some kind for later events in the final arc, with regard to utena/touga/anthy and utena/akio/anthy dynamics.

[cafeleningrad]

Aaaah, of course, their shared eyecolours! What a fine detail you picked up. While Saionji's purple is more intense than Nanami's periwinkle/lilac, it's still a similar way to view him. In the Ohtori-universe less saturated colours often are used to mean a less "lesser" version. "Less intense" or "a shadow of something else". Like Mikage painted in a washed out palette of Utena's attire, Ruka's dark blue hair the "finalized" form of how Miki threatens to treat women in the future if he follows his path, Nanami mirroring Anthy's relationship to Dios before he betrayed her when becoming Akio. Would that mean for Nanami having/developing a less idealized view of her older brother? Necessary to add that Saionjivery likely is romantically drawn to Touga, so his disinterest in the Rose bride, simultaneous to his fixation towards his "prince" might be more intense.

Oh, and another I had to Touga hurting everyone around him. As "Adolescence of Utena" reveals, Touga is a CSA victim. At very young age, the theoretically positive act of adoption, finding a family, turns into the worst nightmare. Touga was deeply betrayed what should be a safe relationship, and also very powerless. Which might explain why he constantly blurs the nature of his physical affection he give to Nanami. (As Nanami replicates with Tsuwabuki, confusing obdience but proximity with romantic connection.) So at older age he sees a system where, so he believes, is the one in constant control over the action of others, he does adopt it. Well, then the limits of that system hurt the people around him, and for very long he thinks that's good.

real quick: Thinking how close Nanami and Saionji are to each other. Not only do they know each other since childhood but they're both thematically close in theme. Both try to be close to Touga who they genuinely love; Nanami in familiar terms, in Saionji's case a genuine desire for friendship if not even romantic love. But since Touga perfectly replicates the motions Akio taught him, any kind of affection is denied in a patriarchal system. Like everything, the question is always, who has power over whom? Between men the only affection that allows proximity is rivalry/competition and up the other (Saionji), between men and women the only proximity is sexual (Touga ruining the relationship towards his little sister by assaulting her). Saionji mentions how being close to someone while enduring abuse is still good enough, and maybe that's a hidden form of love, in the same episode Nanami replicates her abuse on Tsuwabuki. He basically comments on her doing so. Also, also, also, what I find very curious is that both are the first ones to actually figure out the falsity of the system they live in. Saionji's action betray the system for what it is: Boundless power over women no matter if it's in an gallant or overt way, in Episode 1 he already mentions how the Phantom castle is just a trick, and actually he only cares to somehow be close to Touga but he's only allowed to do so by hurting others. (In all honesty, he does indulge in that action...) Nanami is one of the first one's figuring out what's actually going on between Anthy and Akio, and she realizes in which direction her environment, and her own brother tries to push her into.

My take is that both are the most removed from actually wanting to seek either a prince or princess role but Touga's word and teaching pushes and models them into the only boxes available in Ohtori academy.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Thoughts on Utena: Blooming Rose of Deepest Black (THE MUSICAL)

Saw the Utena black rose musical and it was great! did a ton of cool things and additions to the arc. Gonna list my favorites.

-They did this really cool thing where when the Black Rose duelists were on stage the person they took the sword from was on stage too and Utena would be fighting both of them (and sometimes they would cross swords with each other too). You’d have both duelists saying things and going into their issues at the same time, so you could see how they mirrored each other. This REALLY paid off at the end when Utena was fighting Mikage, Dios showed up and Mikage was able to see him and was fighting both of them. The theme of duality and parallels between people was just emphasized super well.

-It is WAY more obvious in the musical Shiori has feelings back for Juri (but is expressing them in a truly fucked up way because she thinks she can’t keep Juri’s attention unless she has power over her) than it was in the show. While she and Juri are fighting Utena near the end, they both just kind of have a breakdown and Shiori lets her vulnerability actually show, they pull close to each other and straight up kiss (!!) then they both break away frantically with Juri saying “I don’t believe in miracles” and Shiori saying “I believe in miracles”, honestly I’d have to watch the whole thing again to give a full breakdown, but it was really interesting.

-Shiori’s actress was SO GOOD, she could alternate between sickeningly sweet and truly unhinged, you could just always FEEL she was a second from losing it. Akio did really well at giving me the creeps in every single scene as well.

-Like in the last musical, Saionji’s dorkiness is amped up in a way that makes him pretty fun to watch despite still being hot garbage, my favorite bit was when Utena knocks on the door while he’s living with Wakaba, he just STRAIGHT UP IS TOO INEPT TO FIGURE OUT WHERE TO HIDE in his panic, and poor Wakaba has to frustratedly shove him into a hiding place. Also, he later pretends to be a statue when Juri sees him. Also at one point Miki and Juri just straight up shove him out of the way, such is their disdain, it’s great.

-during said incident where Utena comes to visit Wakaba, Wakaba not only does the “I’M PRAYING! I’M VERY RELIGIOUS!” thing but also pretends she was “practicing transforming like a superhero” and yells “HENSHIN!” Utena offers her Anthy’s casserole which she says “tastes like the inside of a kendo mask” wow how could she NOT want it when you sell it like that Utena.

- the musical also gets more into the fallout of Wakaba’s duel! At the end of it, Utena cradles Wakaba in her arms, sobbing and shouting “WHO WOULD DO THIS? UNFORGIVEABLE!” Afterward, she’s worried Wakaba isn’t coming to school and isn’t answering her when she knocks on her dorm door, and says “I’m sure like the others she doesn’t remember the duel, I wonder if it has something to do with Saionji coming back.” (WOW BABY MADE AN OBVIOUS CONNECTION! I’M SO PROUD OF HER! no i really am) 

but then Wakaba comes to visit with her own (better than Anthy’s of course) casserole all cheerful and Utena’s like “oh i didn’t have to worry!” (oh honey why must you always accept everything at face value) and they sing this WHOLE CHEESY SONG about the power of friendship while Anthy just sits there with her empty glassy eyed smile CLEARLY DYING INSIDE but near the end Utena nudges her into participating and she seems to kinda start to enjoy it, because she keeps singing it even while going to sit beside Akio on the couch and he looks SO ANNOYED. 

-THEY INCLUDE THE NANAMI COW PLOT BECAUSE HOW COULD THEY NOT. There’s a part where Utena asks Miki why he won’t just tell her and he’s like “well she’s so confident now!” and it’s a genuinely funny asshole moment from him, LIKE LACK OF OUTWARD CONFIDENCE WAS EVER NANAMI’S PROBLEM. 

I guess the main nitpick I have about the musical(s) is Nanami’s role IS pretty much completely reduced to comic relief, and the cow thing is her only real plotline in this- I was kinda hoping they’d fold her first duel into the Black Rose arc since it’d be pretty easy to, just have her be Touga’s duelist, but alas (I can see why they didn’t, it’d be a time crunch). Her arc was one of my favorites in the anime, so its a shame. Like yeah, a large part of her screentime were the comic relief episodes, but even those often gave us a look at the underlying insecurities that drove her. Even the cow episode has that sequence where she dreamed that now that she was fully a cow, her brother was sending her to the slaughterhouse. It showed that she was (rightly) terrified her brother would discard her at the slightest provocation, and was well aware of how he was. But even that part wasn’t in the musical.

There WAS a great moment however, when she ascended as student council president and Miki’s like “uhhhh are you a duelist? since when” and she was like “yeah I dueled Utena Tenjou last time” and looked at the audience and is like “JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T SEE IT DOESN’T MEAN IT DIDN’T HAPPEN” so that at least confirms her arc still takes place in the canon of the musical it’s all just offscreen lol. I love that Nanami has the ability to break the fourth wall, she also thanks the stagehand at one point. There’s also an ongoing arc between her and Wakaba of all people, she kind of bullied her in the first musical, but in this one she got jealous of Wakaba during the moment she was “special” and tried competing with her as she sang. Then Wakaba successfully berated her into CARRYING A SETPIECE OFFSTAGE so they could change scenes.

- Anthy remains fantastic, she still has that super-lowkey creepy laugh that she did when Utena asked if the projector was her brother. You could also just REALLY see how uncertain and guilty she was about the whole Mamiya thing, and at the end there’s this part where while Akio is talking to her about her role in all of it, Utena’s running around looking for her, and then Anthy finally runs to her, and Utena says “I’ve got you” while standing behind her and kinda cradling her in that possessive/princely pose and Anthy just has this thousand yard terrified stare that’s full of guilt and conflict and a million other things and it cuts to black and it’s SO UNSETTLING, I got chills.

Anyway yeah, it’s a FANTASTIC show uttely fully of love for the story and good understanding of its themes, and I can’t wait to watch it again, there’s a million little things I missed or can’t remember enough to post about here, so maybe next time I see it I’ll try writing down some more stuff right after.

[iztarshi]

Duel Patterns

I’m procrastinating so hard I wrote long, rambly Utena meta.

Miki gets the most straightforward pattern to his duels.

Miki > Kozue with Miki’s sword > Miki and Kozue

Perhaps because of this it feels like he doesn’t really change much, though? His duels start and end with the same problem, and the final duel just plays it out. Miki is easily convinced to duel, but irresolute while duelling because he feels (…fairly enough, I suppose) that the duels make him impure, and doesn’t want to risk his own invincible innocence. Kozue is unable to resist acting out to get Miki’s attention, even when she knows it’s only making things worse. Kozue distracts him by making out with Anthy, Miki can’t keep going in the face of that, and acting at cross-purposes causes them to crash — Miki is hit by the car Kozue was in.

Juri’s duels would follow the same pattern, but the addition of Ruka spreads the final duel out over two, with Ruka and Shiori, and Ruka and Juri. It’s hard to say whether the pattern disruption helps or hinders Juri’s arc. Considering Ruka had to first manipulate and then bargain to get her to duel at all, it seems as if she might simply have made good on bowing out without his interference. Ultimately, she doesn’t wind up so far from where she started either. She wanted to either confess to Shiori or be free of her — by the end she’s still struggling with that, even with the locket gone.

The badminton game takes Juri and Miki into trying to let go and form new relationships (with Utena) instead, which is good. In the post-revolution sequences, though, it seems to be Kozue and Shiori who are finding themselves and changing their behaviour. Although perhaps Miki and Juri letting up helped with that.

Saionji and Touga have a different pattern. Their Black Rose duels are almost irrelevant (Touga’s especially). Saionji might have been sincerely grateful to Wakaba, but she doesn’t have anything like the hold on him Kozue and Shiori have on Miki and Juri. Wakaba and Keiko more bring out the theme of the Black Rose arc itself — people who feel like they’re nobodies reaching for those who are somebodies.

Outside the Black Rose arc Touga and Saionji often echo each other’s duels. In the first arc the first and last duels Utena fights are against Saionji and Touga, and both end with the other with the Sword of Dios and her with a broken sword. Both boys fight her twice, too. There’s also the “the Sword of Dios has no special powers”/“the Sword of Dios has special powers and you didn’t know about them” echo, as Touga reveals what he knew that Saionji didn’t.

There’s also the unscheduled trip to the arena, which isn’t really a duel, and definitely not part of Akio’s patterns (he went surprisingly easy on Touga for how near that came to revealing a few key things about the nature of the duelling arena) but in a way it’s the centre of Saionji and Touga’s arc in the first set of duels. For one thing it reveals their connection to Utena and how much her own formative experience was theirs too. Even if the part she remembers of it has become distorted into a fairytale by time and she no longer remembers it clearly enough to see herself in the despairing girl they couldn’t save.

For another it lays bare the worst of them. Saionji may say he loves Anthy, and even acknowledges that fighting to own her is probably not congruent with that, but he’s still going to do it in order to defeat Touga. However much he wants it to be about saving either Anthy or the girl in the coffin, in the end he’s reaching for his lost friendship and tries to grasp eternity rather than helping Anthy when she appears in a coffin.

Touga manipulates the whole thing, willing to get his former friend expelled in order further his own chances of winning Akio’s power. He’s also willing to throw himself in front of a sword for it — never let it be said Touga doesn’t risk himself for his own ambition.

Saionji and Touga’s final duels are even more mirrors, and they wind up mirroring Utena and Anthy in the final arc too.

Saionji’s duel doesn’t fit the new pattern, because it establishes it. He’s the only one of the duelists to go on without a bride. But that’s because this duel is establishing Anthy as Utena’s bride. Until now, Anthy’s been giving the Sword of Dios to Utena as she would to any other duelist, but, when it vanishes, Anthy — acting of her own will in direct opposition to Saionji having just been convinced she doesn’t have one — draws Utena’s. And does so with great tenderness. The shadow play about teamwork seems to be aimed both at Anthy and Utena — who now have to rely on their bond to fight — and the future duelists who will have to try to do the same.

Saionji also learns a few things this episode, but they seem to take a while to sink in. He goes back to duel feeling special because he’s been singled out for attention by End of the World and doesn’t yet know this is the new pattern, but his motives haven’t changed. (I appreciate Utena and Miki both being like “You’ve changed? How exactly?”) It seems to sink in later both that he wasn’t special and has been duped once again, and that Akio saving the girl in the coffin means Touga doesn’t have any special access to eternity either and being equal to him doesn’t require duelling.

Having ended Saionji’s motivation for duelling to catch up with Touga, Touga’s duel episode explains Touga’s motivation for duelling to gain Akio’s power. Intriguingly, Saionji — amazingly the voice of reason by this point — thinks becoming like Akio is a terrible idea. There’s been a chain of toxic masculinity with Saionji imitating Touga who is imitating Akio, but meeting the actual source seems to have soured Saionji on the whole thing. Not that it stops him being a jerk in many ways, but he’s found some chill.

Their duel seems to highlight their relationship as much as Anthy and Utena’s. Especially with a shot of Saionji’s eyes as he draws Touga’s sword that’s very similar to a shot of Anthy’s eyes during the duel with Saionji as she drew Utena’s. They can’t defeat Utena and Anthy —  their relationship is still very new and in attacking from the motorbike they’re still trying to duel from a shoddy copy of Akio’s system. Their motivations are also… not great. Touga thinks he needs to own Utena to protect her — to be fair, a mistake Utena herself has made with regards to Anthy — and Saionji doesn’t have a problem with this logic so much as he believes the duels themselves are a no win game with any motivation at this point.

The juxtaposition where they’re in Akio’s room posing half-naked on his car while Miki and Juri play badminton with Utena is one of the creepier effects in a creepy series. Miki and Juri are finding a certain amount of freedom through Utena. Touga and Saionji, in spite of the fact that they’re rooting for Utena at this point, are stuck with Akio. (In some ways paralleling them with Anthy, who is still very much not free of his influence yet.)

And, while the Student Council splits  in half along those lines, Nanami isn’t quite in either half.  She attends the badminton game but doesn’t join it and, rather than asking Utena what she will do, tries to warn her off as Touga and Saionji do later. She knows more than Miki and Juri, and isn’t as tangled up in it as Touga and Saionji.

Nanami’s duels follow an in-between pattern too. Tsuwabuki’s Black Rose duel doesn’t really add to the pattern, but he’s not as detached from her as Wakaba and Keiko are from Saionji and Touga. The fact that his initial motivation was to be a big brother like Touga makes him, maybe, a bit of a stand in, which is relevant because Touga is central to Nanami’s two actual duels.

Looking at the pattern of Nanami’s own duels what I mostly get is… fuckery. Nanami gets the weirdest and most disturbing push into duelling of anyone, especially the second time. I think there are two reasons for this.

First she’s being manipulated in two, not entirely synchronised, ways. If you look at her first duel, it seems doubtful that Touga knew why Anthy gave him a kitten, or that it was part of getting Nanami to duel. I don’t think he knew where the blood type compatibility test was going at first, either. His first reaction is to ignore it until Nanami starts rambling about how it has to be wrong, because she and her parents get along so well, and then snap that he’s not interested. If he’d known where it was going, I think he’d have either encouraged her or discouraged her more thoroughly. Instead, he just doesn’t wanna hear it.

Second, Akio’s also manipulating Touga and it’s in Akio’s interest if he can be pushed to burn his own emotional connections to the ground. I think this ties into the first one, in that Touga may not have known where the blood type compatibility test had gone until Nanami told him she wasn’t coming home because he wasn’t really her brother. And that’s right in front of Akio, who Touga wants to impress with his coldness, meaning that any chance of him comforting her or picking anything but the most cruel and opportunistic response was right out.

The lengths to which Touga goes to make it more awful than it needed to be, including staging that conversation with Keiko, are on his own head though.

Both times Nanami ends up in tears. The first time Touga comforts her, seemingly more for Utena’s benefit than hers, and the second time he just ignores her. Neither time did he expect her to win or want her to.

Nanami’s ending is also the most ambiguous. Miki and Juri have found a way to carry on caring about the people they loved without it being an all consuming obsession. Touga and Saionji have each other, and there’s at least some hope in that for them. Nanami’s a little close and a little distant, making tea for the boys rather than interacting with them. Given that it’s been three months I sort of hope the fact that she’s interacting with Touga at all means there was one hell of an apology somewhere in there…