#utena project

[cleave-and-plough]

YOU SON OF A BITCH

what a warped episode, huh? the black rose arc seems to come to a close, the whole thing seemingly orchestrated by akio, using anthy as a false mamiya. some questions are answered, but many more are raised as nemuro dissipates and akio solidifies his place as the power behind the scenes.

down to the final black rose and unable to find a way to defeat utena head on, souji redoubles his efforts to recruit her into the seminar, unromantically confessing to feelings for her and posing himself as a savior - someone with the genius and resources to help her and her friends out of any trouble. utena considers; she's usually able to get herself out of any scrapes, but there is someone dear to her who seems powerless. dreaming of her time in the coffin after her parents' death, utena wakes in a dim room, the tv playing static, anthy's hand entwined in hers. a transference occurs in this ghostly, liminal space - utena recognizing her past helplessness in anthy and that sometimes outside help is needed.

meanwhile, souji experiences his own transposition, seeing utena as tokiko and substituting her in utena's place. it's an uncanny moment that foreshadows the strangeness to come. as the end approaches, he coldly dismisses his secretary, who notably resembles tokiko, and her comment that she can "finally let her hair down" seems pointedly loaded. untethering himself from his worldly connections, he floats between the present and the past over an unending banquet table, remembering how he refused the lab boys' duel challenges once his work had finished. mamiya appears at his bedside, bringing flowers as if to a funeral, and questions his opening of the arena and castle. knowledge of the arena's existence seems to instill the academics with the belief that eternity will be attainable by the champion duelist. suddenly, mamiya changes tone. "don't you want the power to revolutionize the world?.... i want... eternity."

until now, it had seemed mamiya was reluctant to be preserved like the roses in tokiko's garden, but his strong words now spur souji into action. in the memorial hall, as utena beholds the portraits of the black rose duelists, he confesses to her yet again, this time as both the architect of the black rose and tokiko's would-be lover. but, he argues, utena and the other black rose duelists aren't so different, are they? at their core, they are bound to their most precious memories, have based their lives upon them, and are willing to fight for them. and fight utena will, punching souji and pinning him to the ground for daring to equate them. he smiles, acknowledging her memories must be very precious indeed. he's not entirely wrong, which is what angers utena, but he does seem to make a key misapprehension - utena doesn't wish to live in the past, she looks towards the future. her childhood experience of pain and salvation is something that she draws strength from, but it isn't something she wants to eternalize. nevertheless, she can't allow souji to continue his schemes, which have threatened her friends and endangered anthy, so she formally challenges him to bring an end to all this.

collapsed in the elevator, souji has a vision of the past, extending his funeral-like air from earlier into something like his dying words. visited by mamiya's spirit, he accepts that dueling utena is his last hope, as she is closest to the power of dios. and yet, there is some relief in this desperation, as he feels he has been reunited with tokiko - perhaps, to die by her sword is its own kind of eternity. somehow, the spirit of mamiya hands him the final black rose, allowing him to call forth a sword that looks strikingly like the sword of dios.

the duel begins amid a sea of photographs of tokiko and mamiya. souji continues his psychological warfare, drawing parallels between himself and utena and claiming that their lives were both changed by a special person in their past. this, he says, is why they can enter the arena - their lives are built on an elusive memory. utena rejects his comparisons as mere manipulation, and souji begins to falter more and more. his shoulder wound ails him, he slashes the photo, and, most damningly, he fails to realize anthy's deceit in the duel's final moments. hearing "mamiya's" voice in the arena, he becomes lucid for a scant few seconds before his rose is severed, his last sight the true image of mamiya.

akio takes a phone call. calmly, he reveals everything to souji. nemuro's regrets over tokiko froze him in time, and mamiya passed away long ago. akio used this to some advantage, but no longer. "the path you must take is not prepared for you. now graduate from this place." and with that, just as all the black rose duelists lost their memories of the black rose, so too does ohtori lose its memory of professor nemuro. the hall he had rebuilt in his memories lies derelict and forgotten. "he was never really here," akio says, sounding very like the end of the world. "just like you." anthy turns to face him, smiling.

reflecting on nemuro's last moments and his life of regret, i thought of the lyrics to "komm, süsser tod” from end of evangelion:

i wish that i could turn back time 'cause now the guilt is all mine can't live without the trust from those you love i know we can't forget the past you can't forget love and pride because of that, it's killing me inside

...

i'll never love again my world is ending

stray thoughts:

during the duel, souji's style seems to mimic past duelists' techniques, just as the black rose duelists' imitated those of their swords' sources. i noted saionji's sweeping horizontal slash and juri's footwork - i'm sure there are other connections to be made.

the silhouettes depict a father missing the golden days of his youth, which have been replaced by the challenges of adult life. to recapture that glory, he attempts to re-enter high school, just as nemuro reinvented himself as the student mikage souji to remain at ohtori.

the use of the word "graduate" seems significant, extending the metaphor of the school as purgatory, and begs the question of what (adult) life outside the school is like. the staff don't seem to be a viable source of information, and the only visitors have either been transfer students or tokiko herself (and nemuro, at first). perhaps kanae, hoping to advance in life, realized that akio would always be "in school" and misdirected her frustration towards anthy.

i look forward to learning more about the nature of the school and how the saga of nemuro aided akio's plans, especially given that utena doesn't seem to remember the experience - what role will the black rose come to serve in all this?

[empty-movement]

Hi, Vanna here. I have submitted to the strange authority of Xenforo's image hosting system, which demands that if I want gallery items to appear in proper order, I will have to upload them back to front.

As such, welcome to the last few page's of Animedia Magazine's September 1997 supplemental Duelist Bible, translated by Nagumo and edited by me!

Anyway

THIS IS NOT A DRILL, VINTAGE OFFICIAL PATTERNS FOR YOUR VERY OWN DIY CHU-CHU

[astrateiaa]

Have some Anthys from an animatic I’m working on :D

[primarydragon]

🎃 the Lobelia Bride 🍇

[ebaltika]

Zig-zagged position is a prominent theme in the show. No matter how much they try to understand each other, they can't fully reach one another because they continue to project things towards one another because neither can truly see each other.

Contrast to the ending movie scene where both can at one another directly and understand each other

[prismaticglass]

TOWER: IN REVERSE

Happy Valentine's Day!!

[pippenpaddlopsicopolisthethird]

Juri is finally finished! I got some really pretty pictures at the con and I feel like this is a cosplay where I'll end up with a lot more.

Photos were taken by @spontaneousmusicalnumber and edited by me!

[biruesque]

sending my love !!!! from the other side of !!!!!! the apocalypse !!!!!!!!

[cybersodas]

While we wait for the tarot card orders to arrive, I’m happy to announce a new upcoming preorder campaign!

vv Details below vv

As it says on the tin, these are for dried flower acrylic charms! Featuring a blooming flower and an empty coffin, you will be able to buy either of these pins individually for $20, or you can buy one get one half off when you buy them together for a total of $30!

This is another preorder campaign, and I think these ones are going to take a little while in production (around 2 months I believe). But, if we can make a total of 30 preorders, we’ll go forth with manufacturing!

The preorder period begins March 23rd! look forward to it, and thanks for stopping by the soda shop!

[cafeleningrad]

Okay, it's funny because when working out that yeah Shiori does feel inferior to Juri, and might not be aware that her attraction to her is lesbian love, she still is the one who tries the mature thing of communicating, apologizing, asking what went wrong between her and Juri, hoping that they could sort their relationship out. My girl tried the mature proper thing and ran straight into a concrete wall. Like, I never want to read jokes of Shiori being the Lana del Rey girl again.

If nothing else, it's Juri's making up a Shiori that does not exist. Juri prefers the feeling of being tragically in love, and understanding love as anguish rather than interacting with the actual Shiori. Juri banished herself into melancholia, and a rigid understanding of the world, considering herself to be doomed for tragedy. If nothing else, Juri is the Lana del Rey girl.

[bixels]

So I l’ve been getting into your ko crisis story lately (it all sounds rlly awesome btw) and i was curious - you’ve said in the tags in a previous ask that ash is comphet, so is that gonna play a major role in her character arc/journey in any way?

Yeah, the story basically covers her journey of redefining her identity as a queer Asian-American disabled woman in a sports-entertainment industry, which is a media landscape that specifically targets, exploits, and fetishizes people like her.

[cleave-and-plough]

can an hourglass run slow?

the lens widens. souji's looming presence in this arc once again expands the show's scope, and this time in terms of genre. speculative fiction now joins fantasy, romance, and coming of age in the blend of tones: can science achieve the eternal? is it like a perpetual motion machine? or is it like a computer learning to love?

while the student council members try to investigate the black rose duelists, souji receives a letter-bearing visitor: akio, who seems to be the chief agent of end of the world, if not end of the world himself. he brings new orders for souji, who initially resists but finds himself recalling his past as professor nemuro.

in the distant past, ohtori academy seemed to be funding a project with the rumored goal of "revolutionizing the world" or "achieving eternity." to this end, 100 male academics were gathered, along with nemuro, a renowned scholar known as the "living computer." the academics seem to have a sense of a deeper purpose that they withhold from nemuro, though he remains skeptical of the entire affair and sees it as nothing more than a job. as with everything at this school, it's hard to tell who's truly informed and whose intent is being carried out. given the eventual fate of the laboratory, i have to wonder if the academics were gathered specifically because they were young and willing to pursue something as lofty as world revolution: wearing rose crest rings, they seem like prototypes of the student council duelists, wielding scientific instruments and equations rather than swords in their pursue of the eternal.

nemuro stands to the side of this quest, "a dry man living dry days," yet the arrival of tokiko chida and her brother mamiya stirs him from his apathy. chida's essence is one of prolonging and preservation: her over-steeped tea, her butterfly shadowbox(!), her candied flowers, and of course, her ailing brother. computer-like, nemuro notices the details of her home as if being notified by a blinking cursor, another instance of the show using effects and visuals to delineate a character's memories. seeing the tension between tokiko and mamiya, nemuro finds himself unusually emotionally affected. they both care for the roses in the garden, but to different ends; mamiya seems to honor the natural life cycle, wondering "if the roses like to be preserved," while tokiko does everything she can to elongate the moment.

as such, she reveals her reason for coming to the school: she hopes that the project will be successful and provide her a means of preserving mamiya's life. nemuro cautions her that the project wouldn't be able to cure him, and she responds simply by asking if there's anyone he cares for. "perhaps it's impossible for a computer to love someone." nemuro seems to agree, but something has changed within him. he finds a passion for his work, perhaps for the first time in his life, and yet he eventually reaches a wall, an insoluble equation. what can a computer do in the face of such an obstacle?

his only option is to revolutionize the world.

akio appears, counseling nemuro much as nemuro himself will counsel duelist candidates years from now. the path he must take has been prepared for him, though it costs too dearly. nemuro refuses, but having caught a glimpse of his next stage, he wanders the halls in pursuit of it and finds only akio and tokiko in each other's arms. the sequence echoes miki's discovery of touga and kozue, drawing a line between end of the world and touga, the erstwhile inheritor. having lost the object of his affections, nemuro accepts his contract, donning the ring. mysteriously, mamiya is the one to burn down the lab, though i assume nemuro enlisted his help somehow. another connection emerges here as nemuro compares the deaths to fossil fuels, a theme often prevalent in the duel songs' lyrics, which discuss ancient beings and geological eras. the present depends on the past.

emerging from his reverie, souji leaves his office with newfound purpose. his path crosses with tokiko, who has grown older and muses "it breaks my heart to see you like this now" as he passes by. she visits akio, noting that neither of them seem to have aged since she first came to the school, and akio acknowledges that "as long as they remain in these gardens called schools, people will never become adults." on the night the lab burned, nemuro and tokiko reversed roles: the building was reconstructed exactly as nemuro memorial hall and became the epicenter of nemuro's quest to preserve mamiya's life as the rose bride, while tokiko left the school, married, and returns now only to pay her respects at her brother's grave. what does this mean for the mamiya in the present? did he die and become resurrected? or does tokiko see his life now as merely a pale imitation of their time together, and the brother she knew is dead to her? and does souji see mamiya as his only means of preserving and expressing his love for tokiko? or has he come to transfer his feelings for her onto her brother?

yet again, the school is equated to a limbo state, both purgatory and edenic garden, endlessly cycling into the future ordained by end of the world. i notice now that while akio seems more adult than the main cast, he's also only engaged - tokiko being married symbolically marks her as having fully moved on from school life and into adulthood. and yet, she returns to his arms. her words and those of her brother echo here:

"for a plant to bear fruit, its flowers must die."

"nothing in this world is eternal, but a heart that longs for eternity can be considered beautiful."

stray thoughts:

this episode marks the first meeting between souji and utena, oddly inauspicious as it may be. kind of him to save chu-chu from a mousetrap, at least. his invitation to the seminar is intriguing and recalls akio's words about people with special destinies - does he wonder if he could turn utena herself into a duelist against anthy?

"i like when you give me an injection" - no siblings in this show have a normal relationship.

souji links utena & anthy and tokiko & mamiya in his mind: the former trying to instill the latter with a sense of self-worth and preservation, though the situations are markedly different.

the silhouettes discuss the construction of an all-powerful robot, ostensibly representing nemuro: never gets tired, never gets lonely, great at catching monkeys (as proven via chu-chu!).

[viciamocha]

[os-eclipses-tamen-son-yuri]

A thing I really enjoy about RGU is how when producing the anime the crew was aware of the budget and limits that often come with TV shows at that time and created their own cinematographic language based on them.

The roses, the frames, the transformation sequences... Not only were they able to use them smartly but also make them reinforce the core themes of the show; that of repetition, circularity, a repeated movement, a revolution.

I personally greatly appreciate when narrative media is -meta- not in a direct way but in its semiotics. Utena creates this language based on repetition and is constantly seen subverting it, adding new "rules".

Episode 33 is cinematographicaly one of the episodes I find most interesting because they literally put the turning point of the story (I personally think of this episode as a turning point because we see Utena finally with her "prince"; except that, instead of the happy "ending" one would expect in traditional stories, it is here where everything comes into place and the grim reality is made perfectly aware. Were Utena a traditional princess story, episode 33 would mark a happy conclusion. Instead it is only the beggining of what lies inside the box and once opened it cannot be closed again) in an episode that is all about repetition. A recap.

Also, for as much as many people gloss over the Black Rose Arc I very much think it crucial to establish all of RGU's symbols. Because Utena doesn't tell us things, it wants us to learn them by noticing the patterns, by seeing the repetitions and where they are being broken, so that we ask ourselves why. The elevator sequence is one of such cases where we learn more of the characterization of these characters by seeing how they act inside of it. It's even a basic screenplay exercise: "how would your characters act trapped inside an elevator".

Mikage itself is a shadow, not just of himself but of Utena as well, an omen forever frozen in time.

Because that's another theme, shadows. And how in a way they are echoes, simplified and distorted repetitions of oneself.

And while shadows are cast in contrast, projections are cast forward. While one is a memory of something, projections are the reproduced illusion of it.

Utena works with parallels and repetitions and understanding their semantics and syntax allows us, the viewers, even subconsciously to feel their weight.

[giallogigan]

realizing there's this specific type of character

[futurevprophet]

we all knooow utena would chop her hair off in the outside world, but consider anthy getting a buzz cut immediately after leaving ohtori, as a sign of renewal. happy monday.