#you mean it's all rgu?
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adracat · 1 year ago
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GWitch: The Aspects of Anthy
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Anthy Himemiya is a divisive figure in Utena. You either love and understand her, or loathe her as much as the in-universe world does. But that's the nature of a witch and rose bride. Today I want to discuss why, in my opinion, GWitch's use and seperation of her aspects is clever. Three characters share the role; Suletta Mercury, Ericht Samaya, and Miorine Rembran
The Witch Outside Her Coffin
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Let's dissect in order. Suletta has been through the ringer this season, abandoned by everyone she loves. But it's through the unconditional love of Earth House that she recovers; scarred but healing. This aspect is liberated by love and nourished into a self-realized individual but it's not an immediate process. You can't rush recovery, even with love. It's the same for Anthy.
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By the end of Utena 39, she has exited her coffin and regained her agency. She was able to walk freely from Ohtori, leaving behind her oppressor. She wouldn't allow him control anymore. This realization was brought on by Utena's unconditional love and choice to reach for her, in spite of Anthy's earlier betrayal. Tellingly, she has resolved to find Utena after her love took her place as the bearer of swords, like Mio does for Suletta. She eventually finds her in the Utena movie.
The Witch in the Coffin
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Eri I hadn't interpreted as an Anthy until I saw that QZ was quite literally a giant techno coffin. (Dramatic much, Prospera?) Eri is Anthy's hidden self, inert in her coffin. She cannot move forward and does not wish to, relinquishing control in the hands of Prospera. That's what a coffin in Utena symbolizes; stagnancy. Aerial is trapped in servitude to her mother and complicit in these schemes. She carries Anthy's bland affect and disconcerting calm. Aerial is content to stagnate.
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To an outsider, Anthy's relationship to Akio and by relation Eri's to her mother may be incomprehensible. Why not struggle? But victims, in this instance sexual abuse and filial obligation, are not perfect. They do not operate on the same logic as the unoppressed. They may act contradictory or aid their abuser, and to an observer it seems counterintuitive. Why don't you wish to be free? But they do, only fear for themselves/others and even love for the person controlling them keep them bound. There's a significant shot of Anthy being assaulted by Akio, but she's not fighting. She accepts the advance and clings to him with the universe composed of his frame. It's not framed as romantic, it's twisted dependence. Akio is all she has after being worn away by the swords and abuse.
The Rose Bride and the Rose Gate
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The Rose Bride is a title of submission, but more importantly a willing one. Like the encoffinated witch, she cannot move forward. The swords of human hatred and her oppressor will not allow it. Miorine is currently bearing the swords for Prospera, as Prospera strides towards the Rose Gate, or the Door to Eternity. But where's Mio's fire? Her abundant defiance? The Rose Bride does not have either. Miorine is pinned in place by guilt and self-loathing. And her role is lampshaded with the media and Lauda blaming her for all that has happened. The Rose Bride bears the swords of her volition.
It's important to note that this was foreshadowed in the S2 ED with the Odin iconography. Odin didn't just sacrifice an eye, he pierced his body with Gungnir and hung himself from a tree. He's associated with the Hanged Man tarot for this reason
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Like Mio and the Rose Bride, it signifies willful surrender. The role of a martyr bearing sins for what they believe to be a greater good. It's interesting to note that new insight can be gained from this submission. Anthy is eventually freed from the swords by unconditional love. With the above parallel, Suletta will do the same for Mio. Until then, the Rose Bride is hung by swords.
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biruesque · 6 months ago
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out of place, out of touch, out of time
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diezmil10000 · 2 years ago
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maybe we aren't meant for revolution
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rosebridal · 5 months ago
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narrative foil antagonism at its best
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liquidstar · 6 months ago
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maybe im overthinking, but do you ever think abt how in episode 1, utena justifies wearing the boys uniform by saying its not against the rules? while this was clearly a "gotcha" moment against that stuffy teacher, i feel like it also shows how shes still functioning within the parameters of the ohtori system. like, yeah, shes being rebellious, but its a form of rebellion that isnt actually revolutionary- shes still following the rules propagating the structure built around the patriarchal prince, shes just doing it in the "opposite" way of whats expected, but shes not actually fighting it. though, of course, even this much deviance still tries to get corrected... its still not against the rules. i feel like from the beginning we're told aspiring to princedom isn't a noble goal, and that utena is still part of the system as long as she pursues it
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heartslobbf · 1 year ago
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i dont knowww there’s just something about how both nanami and touga’s warnings to utena about entering the duel called revolution are essentially ‘you can’t trust end of the world or anthy’. and theyre both genuinely well intentioned about that because they do both care about utena’s wellbeing, even if someone (touga) is too misogynistic to go about that in a Normal way. but then you have juri, and all juri does when talking to utena about whether or not she’ll enter the final duel is ask ‘what are you going to do with anthy?’ and ‘you love her, don’t you?’ like. none of the stuco ever really recognise anthy’s personhood, none of them care about her, they dislike her. but juri sees how much utena feels for anthy and she says actually, maybe the way that you feel about her is important. and she tells her to do something about that (also!! anthy and shiori parallels, huge significance for juri’s character post-ruka etc etc). what im saying here is that juri is the only character other than utena to understand, or attempt to understand, what anthy means to utena, and why that relationship is important. there is no someday together without juri and that just makes me absolutely bonkers
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daylighteclipsed · 1 month ago
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I finished Rebirth! The last leg of the game gave big KH vibes imo (the name of the last chapter (End of the World) is even the name of the last level/world in KH1). But that ending was crazy. Does Cloud, like, know Aerith is dead, or is he so deep in denial that he thinks she’s alive?
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ninashiki · 3 months ago
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i feel like almost everything in utena has sort of already been extensively discussed in the last two (almost three) decades of utena's existence (not that there aren't new interpretations to be made, there always are) besides black rose arc (mikage+mamiya+tokiko). which is why they're so much fun to think about. i think the need to read between the lines makes it unfortunately easy to misunderstand or look past obvious stuff if you don't pay attention, but to me it's always been really obvious that mikage's arc is a literal representation of the erasure of queerness in ohtori (society?) by akio/everything he represents. and that's so fucking tragic! nemuro was never able to find a name for his desires. he lived and died as a puppet in the shadows.
#rgu#i think sadly that trigger warning list that people always passed around kind of stunted discussion bc of the assumptions it made#like. i think its okay to say that mikage/nemuro was always in love with mamiya and not tokiko#not that its impossible to interpret him as bisexual (similar to how people see utena as bisexual)#but his love for mamiya is what changed his life (same for utena/her meeting anthy)#one scene i never see people bring up is how#at one point mikage says that attaining eternity wouldn't even make 'her' happy#and then akio questions '''her'' you say?'#the only reason mikage thinks attaining eternity wouldnt even make 'her' i.e 'tokiko' happy is because he just had a conversation#with mamiya where he admitted the whole endeavor was making him unhappy#if anything it would have made tokiko happy to attain eternity and forever preserve her brother like a dead flower#which is what akio does with anthy! so fucked!#ALSO another thing#is that mikage sees utena as tokiko returned#just like how utena meets 'dios' - returned as akio#he claims he will finally beat tokiko - in this place (the dueling arena) - which is kind of foreshadowing utena fighting akio?????#anthy!mamiya says to mikage in the black rose musical:#“You can’t win against her. You will eternally lose to my sister who dwells in your memories.”#or “You will never beat my sister; who dwells in your memories.” in the nozomient translation#which makes so much sense because anthy couldn't believe utena could win against akio either#god i could literally keep going#by read between the lines i mean like how akio actively tries to lie to the audience by saying things like#'mamiya was created for you out of your lingering attachment to tokiko'#of course nemuro/mikage being gay isn't all there is to him bc like always everything in utena has 1000 layers#really love the general theme of becoming static and unchanged forever bc of our attachment to nostalgia/memories/eternity#(re: can't grow up)#tho in mikages case he is literally just a ghost summoned by akio. which the utena sega saturn vn confirms#also definitely people talk about black rose arc (i.e me right now) but i feel like the majority of the fandom kind of side steps it#on tumblr specifically at least?? im not on the fansite forums or discord#rgu meta
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aroanthy · 8 months ago
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hi!! i know u talk a lot about aromanticism a lot on here, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen u talk about aromantic anthy. would u mind discussing/elaborating on it or linking to a post where u do because i’m very curious!!
i got a similar ask half a year ago or something ridiculous like that on my main blog, but i’d like to really do justice to my url right now and explain it in more concrete terms.
i will say, it’s important to bear in mind that this reading of anthy’s character is very much informed by my own experiences, and a lot of those experiences are ones im not keen to talk in depth about. but you know. let’s make some nebulous gestures towards ideas of being traumatised, being autistic, struggling to meaningfully connect with others and honestly not really wanting to do such because of how they treat you.
like ive previously said, an aromantic perspective on the world would, i think, really benefit anthy. when youve lived your whole life experiencing violence at the hands of these patriarchal structures, of which romance is absolutely one, it’s kinda like. damn. im uncomfortable buying into those ideas.
anthy also has this lovely line in ep 19 where she says to utena ‘romance either happens or it doesn’t’ and it’s just sooooooo. so very interesting to me, actually, that anthy would say something so black and white about ‘romance’, a topic that anthy knows better than a lot of rgu characters is hopelessly confused and arbitrary and often enabling violence. and utena (fellow aromantic gaybo) says 'yeah, i know, but...'. these simplifications, these elisions. what is and isn't articulated. but what? maybe things are much more complicated than we'd like to think.
anyway enough of that tangent. one thing i as a trans and aromantic person always return to when discussing trans and aromantic readings of characters/texts more broadly is that there's no singular piece of evidence that can really cement these readings as Undeniable. it's like. okay. there's a critique of romance as a patriarchal structure in revolutionary girl utena. there's an ambiguity about anthy's feelings towards characters like utena, where there is clearly a queer connection but it takes shape in unconventional and complex ways. me, i'm aromantic, i see all of these pieces and i go oh well that's because she's an aromantic lesbian. you know, there's plenty of little moments i can evidence but those moments can be used to argue for an alloromantic lesbian anthy too. romance is a very arbitrary thing and i think everyone should take their own approach to it unapologetically. of course, mine is that it's hellish and i want nothing to do with it, but im just one guy. and im okay with that. i feel strongly about this reading and it is personal, and id be dishonest to say otherwise, but i do also find that it's well-evidenced in the text. as one of my lecturers once said, don't worry about authorial intent, it isn't real <3
#and authorial intent is NOT real i really cant emphasise that one enough#like it's fun to engage with the stuff a writer/director/whoever thinks about their art#and it can be very useful#but it's not definitive. that's not the last word on the topic#like did be papas consciously write any rgu character as aromantic? idk probably not#but i find such powerful aromantic narratives and themes coming through in this show#in how it chooses to examine relationships and power dynamics and the pervasive nature of romance as a concept#how it is so easily unequal how it is DESIGNED to be unequal how it offers chivalry and safety to mitigate harm#which it directly enables. makes easier#and that doesnt mean that aromanticism is the only solution bc you know. some ppl do feel romantic attraction#but it's like ok let's rethink 'romance'. let's combat amatonormativity let's challenge the relationship hierarchy that privileges#families and romantic partners in such a dangerous dangerous way#and i see all of that in this show and it resonates so deeply with my experiences many of which pertain to aromanticism#and you know. this show made me accept that im aromantic. so i think that speaks to how strongly these themes come through#but i digress. i find it hard to talk about this stuff bc its deeply personal and quite arbitrary#and also every time i do someone sends me anon hate about how i hate gay people. which is so cool btw please keep doing that#i didnt realise that loving being gay and loving gay people and loving when gay people love each other made me homophobic /s#just to clarify for the second time that is all sarcasm im gay and aromantic and i dont have time for arophobia here#anywayyyyy#im aware of all the asks ppl have sent me. im working on it i prommy <3#dais.txt#dais talks aspec
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clowningoose · 2 years ago
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universalthaumaturge · 2 months ago
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ok i get why anthy has creature of delirium now
#rgu ramblings abound:#i just assumed she had many-faced as in. socially. shifting to be whatever the current Engaged wants#but no yeah ep 23. she does do that.#what in the (end of the) world were those hands during ep 22 though#like yeah yeah time is fucked so the hourglass is blue for illusion#tokiko's lipstick on the teacup was orange so like... juri-color. hopeless relationships? i cant pin it down in words but yknow what i mean#but what was the black cats teacup butterfly guys holding hands etc about? might be missing cultural context. ill read some analyses later#god mikage is such a good character though. WILL miss him going ''fukaku motto fukaku''.#i know akio is the patriarchy but like. is he... a reverse bodhisattva or something????????????????????????????????????????????????????????#keeping people in the schoolgrounds-of-not-letting-go-of-the-past??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????#..himemiya under orders from himemiyas brother pretended to be mamiya trying to get people to kill himemiya so mamiya could become himemiya#not quite ''vergil teamed up with vergils brother and vergils son to kill vergil so vergil could become vergil'' but close enough#saionji is the only one sweating during the intro. wonder what that means#i saw an utena out-of-context compilation before watching the show and like#nanami lesbian moment which i have no context for had birds. juri shiori episode had a birds. is birds lesbians???????#the cmwge seed program is EXTREMELY utena student council huh.#...i watched a few more episodes before posting#i had written a whole thing about how i didnt get why anthy was on CoD because they pull the sword out of *her*#and had an epiphany about how she like. used the black rose duelists as vessels and extracted the student council's swords#but nope! she's straight up pulling the sword out of utena now#the subtitles called the elevator a ''gondola'' and... I Don't Think That's What That Is. Like. At All#also god is akio creepy. viscerally uncomfortable man. i wish to Punt him#is the new ed song about jesus??? a full analysis wouldnt fit here but yknow. dante's paradiso mentioned. also nge is full of jesus so#also! empty motion??? after the primum mobile thing??? that seems important!!! is it referring to the eternal thing? i guess?#from that ooc compilation- touga repeated akio's throbbing engine thing p much verbatim to saionji. something something cycles of abuse#(it WAS an EXTREMELY funny scene though)#huh. not a single man in this show is normal about women. is that a themes thing or#oh wait no. yamada tanaka and suzuki. love those guys. i def didnt have to look up their names what are you talking about#also mamiya i guess but he doesn't count he's dead#was really expecting utena to turn into a car during the saionji duel. like. the whole arena's cars. i know she does it but if not now when
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fantastic-mr-corvid · 3 months ago
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Despite Elenas whole roses & dresses style and the overwhelming amount of stuff in Celia n co thats inspired by revolutionary girl utena, ironically thats one of the few thing not inspired by rgu. Roses are just fucking cool and so is Elena<3 She was actually much more of a girl-prince, if a very jaded one, when she was a kid, and her leaving & dressing more feminine & covering up is freedom to her.
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seventeendeer · 2 years ago
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rewatching princess tutu for the first time in 5+ years and fighting droves of inner demons trying to give poor angry boy a chance this time. tumblr tells me he’s really cool and interesting when you get to know him, I’m going in with an open heart this time around, I promise. I won’t even throw rocks at my computer when he’s on screen probably
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strebcr · 4 months ago
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Girl help I'm back on my Utena bullshit...Again
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llycaons · 5 months ago
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can I be honest here it's true there's ppl who insist on watching shows like iwtv then wildly misinterpret everything because it's too complicated for them but there's also ppl who will mock you for only watching shows within your intellectual comfort level/for never trying anything new or challenging and ALSO for trying to understand something and getting it wrong. obviously you gotta hear from multiple perspectives and practice critical thinking as a skill and try to learn from ppl who are speaking with authority on their own experiences but that takes time and not everyone you encounter on the internet is gonna be an expert. and obviously outside of bigoted interpretations maybe it's not the end of the world if some people are wrong about a tv show and this is coming from someone who loves to complain about other ppl being wrong about media I mean you know me
like...there are very good reasons why people are so critical of iwtv fans being so so bad at understanding what's happening or being extremely judgemental of some characters over others (racism) but it is also kind of funny to see condescending posts about how 'ugh, everyone on this site only watches kids shows' one day and 'wow, viewerss are SO stupid for not immediately understanding this intentionally complex and confusing situation' the next like I thought we wanted people to challenge themselves! they're not going to immediately understand it perfectly coming from, idk, the hunger games. and if they're not given any grace it's not easy to branch out! again I'm specifically discussing the misreadings of the interview process, the sequence of events, and the structure of the story, and NOT the misreadings of the characters wrt their race. I'm not saying racist viewers who refuse to educate themselves need their hands held by black viewers I want to be clear
imo the 'discussion questions' post was a genuinely fun and accessible way to direct critical engagement over this last episode I'm dead serious I wish we had more of them. I know how annoying it is to see people misread a story and characters you understand, but it's a complicated show and not everyone is going to get it easily or on their own idk. I'm just glad for my mutuals who knows what's going on bc EYE do not <- knows her intellectual limits
THAT BEING SAID the way some of these people are wrong is so goddamn smug and annoying. no further comment. this is the internet. where better to get worked up over poor media literacy shajshfjsjdj
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heartslobbf · 1 year ago
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loving your brother sososososososo much saying if anything happened to you i’d…… what? what would you do? in what way would you fall apart? how would you put yourself back together afterwards? would you swallow the notion that there was nothing at all whole? would you grow bitter and jaded, would your body finally cease to reject that splinter of cynicism? godddddd. nanami. nanami. i know where those feelings lead. being a child being a baby having done nothing other than be born. thinking youve grown up thinking youve come to understand the world, only understanding a one-dimensional fragment of it. you truly don’t understand screaming sobbing crying until youve witnessed nanami’s world collapse around her in real time in the most cruel and horrific manner imaginable. dont even get me started on how anthy and touga feel about it
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