#you will never escape ohtori

[hotmonkeelove]

Utena Rant Ahead

The level of misandry in the Utena fandom knows no bounds. I'm used to misogyny in various anime fandoms (and series), but the way the Utena fandom has become in the last several years just sickens me. And it goes against the whole point of the series, defying society's expectations and reading between the lines.

For instance, fans piss all over Saionji for his abusive behaviour towards Anthy (and Wakaba, despite the fact he isn't truly abusive to her), yet they don't bat an eye when Saionji is suffering abuse, and it's made clear he's been suffering it for quite some time. And plenty of you call him 'gay,' as if it's somehow okay to use sexual orientation as an insult or criticism. That's just plain homophobic! And then there's people who get outraged by my shipping Saionji with Wakaba, because "he was mean to her," yet will ship him with Touga, who actually does abuse him, and chalk up their problems to "not realising they're gay." Now if you ship Touga x Saionji, that's your thing, you're perfectly free to do so. Ship what you want. But don't go saying Saionji x Wakaba is somehow less moral. Touga and Saionji, respectively, go through some of the worst trauma in the series, but fans barely notice. Yet when there's just a possibility that something bad was done to a female character, they scream bloody murder. Unless it's done by another female character, then they downplay it. The only female who gets called out is Nanami, the straight-up bully of the series. Yet again, there's barely a word spoken when her brother tries to gaslight and abuse her.

I am also sooooo sick of the shit these idiots say about Ruka! *headdesks* They all either accept everything he does at face value, never considering just how deep his ulterior motives go. Or they assign motives to him that he doesn't have. He never tries or even hints at believing he can "convert" Juri. He never insults her for sexuality, nor does he say same-sex attraction is wrong, the way Touga does. He instead indirectly questions Juri's reason to want someone who is "spoiled, pushy, self-centered, not to mention a liar," all of which are fair criticisms of Shiori. And oh my god, don't get me started on the kiss... First off, I've suffered real sexual assaults. An unwanted kiss is not sexual assault and I find it personally offensive when people make it out to be. If he kept at it, sure, but he didn't. The only reason he even kissed her in the first place was to distract her, so he could swipe her locket, the chain which binds her to the albatross of Shiori. When he sees her horror at his attempt to break it, he realises Juri wants to stay chained, only for Juri to start bargaining with him. Not only that, but look and listen to him when Shiori tries to drag him back to her by the arm. He knows by now that Shiori loves Juri back, but when she tells him that he's "the only person" she ever loved, he is at his wits' end. Ruka takes it personally that Shiori still keeps up the charade, despite having every reason to come clean. Ruka manipulates people in an attempt to get them to do what they should, but won't do, on their own (playing the system of Ohtori against itself). Shiori manipulates people to try to make herself feel better. She does not have the moral high ground. And I say this as Shiori kin. Seriously, I don't like people dissing Shiori, either, but she's no better than Ruka. I am just really fucking tired of the hypocrisy.

[augustameretrix]

dunno if and when I'm going to rewatch the eva rebuilds i don't remember much from them but the seven million gratuitous boob and ass and vulva shots of the 14 yo girls make me guess some of the og's themes got... lost with time. not too excited about it tbh

[dark-kingdom-stan-account]

Just like any self-respecting Utena fan, I've latched onto a (semi) minor detail that I just can't find a satisfactory explanation for!

(MASSIVE RGU (series and movie) spoilers ahead!)

As someone who has engaged with RGU supplementary material plenty, it often goes out of its way to point out how Miki's eyes are "like crystals" and similar things. You can see it in the game and in the light novels.

The fan translation is accurate in this case.

So after staring at movie screenshots one too many times, I noticed that his eyes aren't blue there... they're green! And he's the only character whose eyes changed like this.

What does this mean? My first thought was to connect it with the characters who most prominently have green eyes in the series - Anthy, Akio and Dios. The characters who have the most power despite also being the most trapped in the system, with Anthy in particular having the power in the movie and being the only one of the three who is alive - if some theories are to be believed, she was the one who created the world the movie takes place in in the first place. However, she's also the person most trapped in it too.

However, their eyes are definitely not the same shade. More on that later.

An interesting part occurs in the movie during the Touga and Shiori scene - we cut to Miki and Kozue in the bath. It seems Miki has grown since the anime - he accepts that there's no going back to their childhood, and tells Kozue she's still precious to him. In response, Kozue threatens him with a razor and calls him a traitor.

And yet, the next time we see them, Kozue has become a car, and he smiles after she passes by, not sparing her a single glance. What happened? Did she become a sacrifice? She isn't seen individually afterwards unlike Shiori or Wakaba, she becomes just another car in the locust crowd. Perhaps more unsettling is the reason he gives to Juri for being a duelist - "I always wish to obtain more power". Juri responds to him by calling it manly.

That fucking smirk haunts me. Anyway.

Pursuit of power - doesn't this ring a bell? Perhaps like a certain student council president? Of course, in the movie, Touga is dead, so perhaps someone else took his place in the narrative... Miki. The unsettling implications of what happened to Kozue seem to add to this. Not quite as sinister as Touga's relationship with Nanami, and there's no reason to see it as similarly complex, but also I don't see what else it could be.

So even though Miki appears to be pursuing power at the cost of even his sister, potentially, he's unable to get there. His eyes are not the same shade as Anthy or Akio, not even close - they're much brighter. He appears to have shed some of his innocence - no longer wishing to go back to that garden - but he traded it to pursue more power. No wonder he isn't ready to leave Ohtori yet.

An English-speaking person may also be tempted to connect this to the common expression of "green-eyed envy", and yet I'm profoundly unsure if this is the case. He's never shown to be envious of the power possessed by anyone (unlike Touga, he can't look up to Akio, who is also very dead), even if he and Juri see the ghost of Dios inspecting the cars.

However, no matter how much he desires power, in the end, he's one of the people helping Utena and Anthy escape. He tells them how to go to the outside world. He promises the student council will join them eventually. Arguably the most good-natured interaction Anthy has with any of them.

His eyes appear to be showing how much he's changed since we saw him in the anime, and in some ways, perhaps not for the best. However, he's not fully trapped in the hell of Ohtori Academy yet - there is hope for him, even if he's strayed into such a dangerous path.

In the end, I think all of them deserve their revolution, even if the road getting there is bumpy.

...Or maybe they thought it would fit him more to have green eyes idk lol-

[calypsolemon]

This is more of a question and it's probably not a really interesting one, but do you think that the rose garden's architecture being different in the series and the movie (in the series it is a literal birdcage, while in the movie it is way bigger and also just not a birdcage anymore) is telling of something? Especially because of how Touga told Anthy the garden is "her domain" in (I think) episode 11

Oh anon, literally everything is interesting in rgu

I feel like I can't analyze this without pointing out that the birdcage rose garden is in the movie, its just busted all to heck

Its barely recognizable as it looks like someone basically exploded it, but the circular foundation is there and you can see the crosslike structures are really from the metal of the glass frame. I generally come at the movie from the framework that it is, at the very least, an emotional continuation of the show, so this has always made sense to me as anthy having broken free of the literal cage of akio's control (which is subsequently why he is buried under the remains of the old cage as well).

The architecture of her current garden in the dueling arena makes sense to me as an extension of that concept. Unlike the birdcage, it is in the open air, with not even anything around it to keep one from just falling off the edge (noteably this is linked back to in the shot that is definitely meant to parallel her attempt to jump in episode 37). It signifies the position Anthy has in this iteration of Ohtori - that is, without her brother, she is at the top of the hierarchy. She, despite initial appearances, is in control of what goes on here.

However, the garden/arena is also shaped like a diamond, and several shots of the movie very obviously give it the sense that it is the sort of caution sign you'd see on a road. Those two factors show that while Anthy may have some semblance of control in this space, she is still emotionally caught in the trappings of the dueling system/ ohtori itself. It could be a sign of caution to herself, in that way, or even to others - the subconcious part of Anthy that is afraid that she can never escape the trauma she went through and the negative behaviors she learned from them, even after removing herself from Akio's physical presence.

[ukyou-kuonji]

Recently I've been thinking a lot about "The Cowbell of Happiness" episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena, and specifically the background song Donna Donna. I actually grew up singing and hearing the English song a lot (which afaik predates the Japanese version but isn't itself the original language?), and thus had an assumed interpretation of the lyrics' application to the shows themes, which I've been changing my interpretation of. However it has been about eight years since I saw the show, so feel free to disagree with me or correct my interpretation! I put a cut in due to the length, sorry it got a bit away from me haha.

I always saw the farmer's mockery of the calf in the second verse "Stop complaining says the Farmer/Who told you a calf to be/Why don't you have wings to fly with/Like the swallow so proud and free," to be an ironic statement. The calf was born a calf, and cannot change it's species more than a person can control the circumstances of their birth. Therefore the third verse, which states "Calves are easily bound and slaughtered/Never knowing the reason why/But whomever treasures freedom/Like the swallow must learn to fly," drives home the impossible truth. You don't want to be exploited? Simply don't be born within an exploited group. The calf's fate is unavoidable, because of his inherent and unchangeable identity and the way society perceives and reacts to it. It is incapable of learning to fly by it's very nature.

This relates to the themes of the show by paralleling Nanami (or later, through extended metaphors and parallels, both Anthy and Utena, among others) to the calf. These characters cannot help being teenage girls navigating the patriarchy, and cannot escape their exploitation. The world within which they exist (Ohtori) does not permit them an alternative existence. This interpretation is very bleak, I know.

But I think this interpretation only engages with one half of the story it sets up, and completely ignores the swallow. This feels particularly erroneous due to the show's bird imagery (the name Ohtori, the prominence of the dead sparrows associated with Kozue and Shiori, the school archways shaped like birdcages to give a few examples, all of which associate students with egg, chick, or bird visual metaphors). Mostly, I thought of the infamous egg speech appropriated from Demian by Hermann Hesse. As Touga and others state in the Revolutionary Girl Utena reconstruction of the original text "If the egg's shell does not break, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick; the egg is the world. If the world's shell does not break, we will die without being born. Break the world's shell!"

Through this, the swallow seems directly implicated as a viable alternative for the calf, or for characters such as Nanami, Utena, and Anthy. The only way for them to avoid being exploited as women within Ohtori or "slaughtered as calves on the farm," to use the language of the song, is for them to self actualize or reject the reality presented to them and move beyond the limitations placed on them through the label of "woman" in a heteronormative and patriarchal system. They must defy the very conditions that determine their condition. Or rather, they must break the world's (Ohtori's) shell, be born as the chick, and take flight as birds. This is what Utena attempts to do in the finale, and what Anthy does do by stepping away from Ohtori and Akio's influence.

The song that seemed to condemn Nanami to life as livestock in episode 16 also promises hope and foreshadows Anthy's choice episode 39. She, like the swallow, has learned to fly, and the other characters have the potential to do so also, provided they value freedom and develop the wings to leave.

[horse-girl-anthy]

could Anthy have walked out of Ohtori from episode one?

essay under the cut.

my basic answer to this question is no, but there's a lot of complexity behind that no.

when Utena first encounters Anthy, she immediately thinks there's something wrong with her and tries to talk her out of the whole "Rose Bride" business. while Utena makes several crucial mistakes during this early stage of their relationship, her instinct isn't necessarily wrong. if you met someone who said their inherent position in life was to be a slave to the will of others, wouldn't you have some concerns?

by episode 23, Utena has begun to understand Anthy better, to feel the magnitude of her plight.

such moments have long since led me to the conclusion that Anthy couldn't leave Ohtori until the final episode. however, that doesn't mean that I knew what "not being able to leave" truly implied. here's the thoughts I've come up with.

in life, we all have times when we know what we should do to improve our circumstances, but we find that we simply cannot do it. the barrier to "not being able to do something" is not physical, not easily explainable. I'll give an example from my life. I spent a couple years as an alcoholic. obviously, there was a very simple solution to this problem: stop drinking. but I just couldn't do it. my life was pretty bad at the time, but I've gotten through other bad times without guzzling alcohol. during the course of my addiction, it looked like I wasn't making any progress. then one day I just stopped. people say you're an alcoholic for life, but I don't believe that. I know I'm done; it's over.

I've started to take Anthy's character as, in part, a grand metaphor for being in such a position. a simple action, one that you're physically capable of, would solve everything. but you can't do it. until one day you can.

that's not the whole answer to the Anthy question, of course. the show has a system, a social landscape, which has to be taken into account. there's the swords of hate, there's Akio. Anthy is truly oppressed, and so, even though she eventually reveals that she's capable of walking out, to give such an explanation is facile. I gave an example of a situation where I knew what I needed to do to get my life together; for Anthy, it's more of a case where she cannot even believe that her life could change. either leaving Ohtori doesn't occur to her, or she thinks it's impossible.

taking a more thematic approach, Anthy is a representation of the suppression of women. she's in an impossible situation; she constantly denies her own agency; she has been so badly hurt that she is afraid to be herself in any capacity. so the question of "could Anthy just have left Ohtori from the start?" could be rephrased as "can women just shake off their socialization?" Utena, who attempts to do just that, can't escape from it in the end either.

but the reason RGU is such a beloved story is because it is about liberation from gendered socialization, as well as other mental prisons. with this in mind, I think Anthy not being able to leave at the start was necessary for the narrative. it can't be easy for her to leave, or there's no story, and it won't feel real.

the process of liberation isn't easy either, or necessarily explicable. the show centers on the dueling game, a system which treats Anthy as an object, which encourages conflict and possession. the characters always seem to fail at their objectives. they never resolve their complexes--they only spend them out. Utena wins and wins, and although she is loving, she is not prying Anthy out of her coffin. Ikuhara once described the final arc as being full of stories that are wrong. there doesn't appear to be any light at the end of the tunnel.

right when you think Utena and Anthy have achieved solidarity, that they both want the same thing, Anthy reveals another of her faces, stabbing Utena in the back and acquiescing to her fate yet again. it's only then, after every single option has been eliminated, that the revolution can occur. strangely, the power of the final episode comes from the "empty movement" of the previous 38. all along, it looked like no progress was being made. Miki and Kozue break apart almost as soon as they've reached an understanding. Touga challenges Utena to another duel, despite knowing that that's what Akio wants. Nanami won't let go of the spotlight she so craves. Juri can do nothing but surrender. and yet.. and yet.

a lot of fans view Ohtori as a bad place, an evil place. certainly, evil happens there. Akio is at the helm, an embodiment of the sick childishness of an adult who refuses to grow up. but I don't know if Ohtori is evil. it provides the setting for the process of liberation to occur. staying there is the problem. but perhaps for Anthy, and for the other characters, Ohtori served as the shell--a thing of protection--which allowed them to reach adulthood and emerge into the world. the dueling game was all a grand play which gave them an outlet for their issues, a testing ground to be left behind when they were ready. through failure, they found out that what they really wanted was something beyond their imagination. they struggled and fought with one another, only to find out that underneath at all, there was love, unlooked for, rising from shared alienation.

let's put it one more way: Anthy could not leave Ohtori from the start, because she was still a child, no matter how jaded she was. she hid her child-self away long ago and then forgot it was there. when that child woke up, she found that she had a friend who wanted to go out into the real world with her. that was all she needed to become an adult, and so, at last, she left Ohtori for good, a whole person. in the words of Ikuhara:

The prince chose to sleep on, and the princess chose to wake up. At the top of that tall tower, the princess bid farewell to the prince. No - she wasn’t the princess any longer. She quit being “a person (thing) ruled by someone.” The victory bells rang, but there was no “tower (rule)” beyond them now. She’d learned where freedom lay. She crossed the threshold of that “Door of Revolution” which had always been closed for her before, and began walking. The “girls’ revolution” lay in the girl’s future.

[sea-solaire]

Demons won I’m Utena/Soulsposting again, major spoilers for both Dark Souls II (specifically Lucatiel’s storyline) and Revolutionary Girl Utena (specifically the ending) below

Warning for discussion of death and memory/amnesia

TL;DR I will unfortunately never shut up about how everything is related to Utena but Dark Souls II (2014) is especially related to Utena

In a way, Lucatiel and Utena are similar characters who have each other’s tragic endings.

Both are swordswomen who wear men’s clothing (Lucatiel’s mask is the face of a man, Utena’s prince getup)

Going to a place where space and time are warped (Drangleic, Ohtori Academy) in search of a man who they can’t quite remember (Lucatiel’s brother, Utena’s prince) because both of them have notable amnesia particularly affecting their early memories (“My memories are fading, oldest first.”, Utena’s Everything regarding the prince story)

They find a companion to confide in (the Bearer of the Curse/Player Character, Anthy) and in part devote themself to their cause

However, it is in their endings where they diverge. By the time of the player's last meeting with Lucatiel, her condition has progressed to the point where she doesn’t recognize you at first. She begs you to remember her name, “for I may not myself” and prays for your safety in your journey. She is never seen again after this point, and it is more than reasonable to assume that she has gone hollow. Lucatiel never reached her goals, never found her brother or left Drangleic, but, in Dark Souls III, after giving a crow a bone, you can acquire an item called Lucatiel’s Mask. The item description states this: “A Hollow once fought valiantly with this mask, but feared the fading of her self, and implored a comrade remember her name. Perhaps that is why this gentleman's mask is named after a woman.” Not only did the Bearer of the Curse remember her name, they ensured that it was never forgotten even as ages passed.

Utena, on the other hand, did escape. As Anthy states, “she’s not gone at all, she merely vanished from your world.” Over time, however, the people at Ohtori forget that she ever existed. Life goes on without her, albeit changed, with only herself, Anthy, and Akio remembering her presence.

Lucatiel died to be remembered. Utena lived to be forgotten.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think the world of Utena (or at least Ohtori) is without homophobia?

God no.

That's kind of the point of the anime, the film, and every adaptation I've seen.

The fantasy world of Ohtori is strictly defined by gender roles and even when you defy them, you better defy them in the lanes defined by the world, e.g. to not be a Rose Bride Utena has to become a Prince, there is no in between that is allowed within Ohtori.

Utena is allowed to be a prince and take Anthy for the Rose Bride but it's allowed in a very strict manner and we later learn that what Utena is doing is not kosher per the laws of Ohtori.

Even Utena choosing to be a prince, to dress like a man, is constantly brought up by other characters. The teachers try to get her to wear the female uniform, the other students try to get her to wear the female uniform, it's a constant thing that's brought up.

Ohtori, we learn as we progress through the show, is a prison that must be escaped or else the inhabitants will perish without being born.

As for the outside world, the beauty is we never find out, it's this mysterious thing outside the realm of adolescence that is hinted at being terrifying, wrong, and nothing like the magic of Ohtori.

As for Ohtori itself, incredibly homophobic, just as it's incredibly misogynistic, but it's supposed to be, that's the point of the show.

[transmascutena]

Never got around telling you that I watched the transfeminism in utena essay and loved it!

Today I finally rewatched Adolescence and loved it as well, I think it's one of my favorite movies, it's visually stunning and so amazingly haunting/hypnotizing, felt like I was in a trance while watching it.

(and oh my god Anthy is my favorite character in anime of all time, I adore that she gets so much more dialogue and screen time in this, specially towards the end. Hearing her say the "Give me the power to revolutionize the world!" line made me tear up)

Just wondering your thoughts on it, or your favorite thing about it (?) Idk! If you have any rant about aou I'd love to read it

sure, i'll rant a bit about aou! this is mostly just my thoughts on various parts i like and dislike, not really any analysis.

i have mixed feelings on adolescence that change every time i watch it but mostly they're positive. i think my favorite thing about it is anthy. i love that we get to see her be more free and more forward. i love that it's her narrative, that we get to see what her and ohtori are like without akio (though still haunted by him.) i love the reading of the movie as a sequel, in that the show is about anthy escaping her abuse, while the movie is about the lingering trauma from it. i love the "we were together in killing the prince" line from utena at the end. i love that they're both free and together now. i also love the visuals of it, of course, it's a gorgeous movie. and i appreciate that we get to see utena and anthy in a much more explicitly romantic relationship, even though i do prefer the subtlety of the show by a lot. all their scenes together are very good, but i especially like the bedroom scene, the dance scene, and the drawing scene (i want to write some proper analysis of them sometime). i love the layers of metaphor and symbolism in every part of the movie, and that it feels even more abstract than the show. i love the car scene, it's silly and it's symbolic and it's emotionally impactful <3

on the other hand i think pretty much every part of the movie that isn't about anthy and utena is .. not very good in comparison (to the parts that are about them, and to the show.) which makes sense when you read the movie as anthy's narrative. of course she's not really focused on any of the other characters. saionji especially lacks literally all of his depth, which i think is just funny when thinking about it through that interpretation. uh, i hate the nanami cow scene which i've talked about before. i think it's unnecessary and uncomfortable and purposeless. i do however like that she doesn't appear in ohtori, because of the implication that she escaped. i appreciate touga's backstory reveal, though i don't really care for his role in the movie very much. it's never felt all that coherent to me, though i do understand what it's saying about the themes of the prince being dead. shiori has a weird antagonistic role that i don't know how to feel about. she's lacking a lot of her depth too, and i'm not sure i fully understand her motivations. or maybe i do and they're just not that interesting to me. hmm what else . akio is a far less interesting character than in the show also, but i think it works. he's not very intimidating, incredibly pathetic even, because anthy has already left/has already made the choice to leave him. also i like that he kills himself :)

i don't want to directly compare it to the show when talking about what i like about it, because obviously i like the show more. but i don't think the movie is trying to like.. compete with the show in terms of which you like better. because it isn't just a retelling of the same story. if it was, a 39 episode long tv series would always beat it in how developed its characters and themes are. which is why i think the movie works much much better when read as either a literal sequel to the show or as a continuation of its themes. it doesn't stand very well on its own in my opinion, aside from how pretty it is.

[cure-icy-writes]

Thoughts on the adolescence of utena:

-Okay so I've seen the time loop theory and also the sequel theory but I personally subscribe to a secret third thing: alternate universe where things go a little differently

-WHERE IS MY JUSTICE FOR NANAMI. please the cow scene was legitimately distressing to watch because she can't breathe! All you needed was one scene of her maybe just. idk make her depressed and staring out the window with contempt as she comes to terms with the fact that her princely brother wasn't the person she thought and now he’s dead and she is finding out things she never wanted to know.

-Learning about Touga's backstory was. Holy SHIT. I will never see cabbage butterflies the same way again. But also I think this was necessary in a sense, because it explains so much of why he's like this.

-There are sort of vague Black Rose Arc vibes-- people have gone through character development that remains, but their memories have vanished and reality has been altered. Utena doesn't want to blindly protect Anthy, she isn't passive about abuse; she steps the fuck up and firmly asserts Anthy's right to choose and to determine her own future.

-I've seen a lot of different takes on how race is handled in the series, and while I agree that there are some iffy tropes, I also think it's really important to acknowledge that Anthy is portrayed as this.... universal pinnacle of objectification and idealization and demonization. As a woman of color, she experiences the intersection of racism and sexism. She's a person, she could be anyone, she's a witch, she's a doll, she loves animals and isn't a perfect abuse victim. She is every woman. She's complex and she doesn't need salvation so much as she needs someone to offer her the choice to escape and she needs to make that choice. And that's exactly what she did in the car wash scene, and the coffin scene in series.

-The outside world, the place that has no roads? Yeah that's literally just trying to exist in a haze of landlord beige and constant emails and grocery shopping. They have no idea how to survive but it's better than the rigid paths of school and the cycle of abuse.

-This is a world where Utena couldn't reject Ohtori entirely, where Anthy couldn't find it in her to leave and instead started fighting back against her abuser, and black rose unreality shenanigans happen. They remember each other as if in a dream. Utena is so close to leaving but she needs to understand, first.

-the only place where ghosts of adolescence can linger is ohtori. you have to let go.

-You have to let go.

[erstwhilesparrow]

any book or tv show recommendations mayhaps?

oh! hello! (had a second of "WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU FIND ME" and then i checked your blog and was like, "ah, okay, never mind, you are entirely aware i am in the midst of being really pretentious about mcyt right now." welcome!)

under a cut for I Talk A Lot crimes:

hm. okay, tv shows first because i know that'll be short:

NBC's Hannibal (2013) - Huge massive content warning for cannibalism and gore but also the prettiest murders you've ever seen. Feels weird recommending this one because it feels so widely known, but I do love it and I don't watch a lot of other TV. Borrowed from Wikipedia: "FBI profiler Will Graham is recruited by Jack Crawford, [...] to help investigate a serial killer in Minnesota. With the investigation weighing heavily on Graham, Crawford decides to have him supervised by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter." Things only get worse for him from there.

Mars Red - Deeply cerebral anime about vampires. Full of theatre references, musings on life and time and death and what it means to sit on the edge / outside that as a vampire. Very very pretty. Plot-wise, it's about a group of not-particularly-connected vampires in 1920s Japan who've been recruited to a special military unit working to protect humans from other vampires.

Revolutionary Girl Utena - It's free on YouTube both dubbed and subbed. So much is happening. I am nowhere near done unravelling it and I may well be casting longing glances toward the project of unravelling it for the rest of my life. Utena Tenjou is a student at Ohtori Academy with dreams of being a prince straight out of a fairytale. She is drawn into a mysterious duelling tournament with Ohtori Academy's Student Council for the hand of the Rose Bride.

books:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Utterly enchanting. A man called Piranesi wanders the House, a functionally infinite building so enormous its upper levels are filled with clouds and its lower levels are flooded and have tides. There is a plot, but most of my love of this book comes from how we as readers get to explore and luxuriate in the House alongside Piranesi. I've seen this called 'anti-horror' because it takes a premise that would be really easy to do as horror (forever lost in an enormous impossible structure with almost no human contact) and makes it something looked with wonder and joy.

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi - Fun! Funny? Playful for sure. Almost a fairy tale. It feels distinctly like sometimes the narrator is winking at you. A woman from a country that doesn't seem to exist on any map attempts to tell her daughter about where she came from, and about their family's history with gingerbread.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - A fairly significant part of the reason for my obsession with architectural / spatial horror. What if the thing that made a house haunted was not any particular ghost, but simply that something had gone wrong in the house itself? Eleanor Vance is invited to stay at the eponymous house while it is being investigated for supernatural occurrences, and attempts to navigate connecting with the other inhabitants of the house and escaping from the demands of caring for her mother.

My Own Devices by Dessa - I love Dessa's writing in whatever form it takes. I've seen plenty of writing described as 'sharp' or 'smart' but Dessa's one of the few people for whom I feel this is truly an apt description of her work. Her writing sounds like she talks fast, is terrifically smart, and knows what she's doing, and most terrifying of all, I think that impression is right. This is a series of essays, or it is, as the subtitle suggests, "True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love". It's delicious to read.

How A Poem Moves by Adam Sol - I love poetry; I am so bad at reading and talking about it. This is a way into reading / talking about poetry better! It's a series of mini-essays by a professor at the University of Toronto who teaches poetry! He takes a fairly varied collection of contemporary poems and talks about a few things that each poem does particularly well. It's designed to be accessible and even inviting to people who do not read much poetry. For a taste of his work, his blog here.

When Fox Is A Thousand by Larissa Lai - A retelling of a Chinese folktale. A fox spirit haunts a young woman living in (roughly) contemporary Vancouver and a poet of the T’ang Dynasty. I remember reading this, going, "Oh, that was Good," and never figuring out how to say why.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt - Six deeply isolated classics students at a liberal arts college in New England murder one of their friends. Apparently a pretty big part of popularizing dark academia. I think it would be fair to describe this as gripping / compelling / convincing. I can't quite figure out what else to say, though I loved it while I was reading it.

On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden - Graphic novel. Makes me ache in a way that reminds me of summer. I described it to a friend once as "full of that feeling of having to do something very frightening, and being reassured by the thought that you will be able to return to people you love for hugs and snacks afterward." A young woman named Mia joins the crew of a ship in charge of restoring ruins in outer space, while also searching for the girl she fell in love with years ago at boarding school. Available online free here, though physical copies do exist and can be bought.

[soukeyed]

IM GONNA BE ANNOYING AND SEND 3 i'll do them in other asks though.

01 utena 02 whoever you ship most & 03 JURI!!!

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character: this entirely depends on the day usually its juri <3 but also nanami and anthy ... and utena .....

Least Favorite character: in terms of person i hate probably akio . in terms of characters i just dont care for? touga like i feel for him but also i dont really care god bles

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): ok this is actually hard aside from utenanthy and juriori who i like for completely different reasons i cant think of any others i care for enough.. top 2!

Character I find most attractive: (VERY SURPRISING FACT INCOMING) juri

Character I would marry: see above :P

Character I would be best friends with: realistically she would bully the shit out of me but nanami. she needs a friend ok i feel bad for her!

A random thought: i am at any and all moments thinking about this amv

An unpopular opinion: i dont know enough about the fandom to know if this is unpopular or not but i kind of prefer movie utena's design (even if anime utena is just That girl. u know) i love her short hair and hat. movie anthy is a monstrosity however.

My Canon OTP: UTENANTHY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Non-canon OTP: juriori is hardly non canon is it... yeah idk noone

Most Badass Character: anthy <3 she's everything i love her dearly

Most Epic Villain: SHIORIIII shes so evil i love her. her being like the main villain for most of the movie was so fucking funny but it fits. i mean id hardly call her epic either but she works so well. love her

Pairing I am not a fan of: pbbb i dont really care for touga/saionji? like i get how people see it but i literally just dont see the appeal

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Euhhh... none idk i feel like everyone was done pretty well. movie nanami because she was barely in it Sadge.

Favourite Friendship: WAKABA AND UTENA NO CONTEST!!!!!!

Character I most identify with: anthy or nanami. MonkaW

Character I wish I could be: girl none of them. i dont want to go through that ever

PUTTING THE OTHER ONES UNDER A READMORE BECAUSE THIS POST WILL BE LONG AS FUCK OTHERWISE !!!

utenanthy for this one :)))

002 | Send me a ship and I will tell you:

When I started shipping them: i mean like its utenanthy. i shipped them before i even watched the show #slay

My thoughts: THEYRE JUST !!!!!! WAUGH. i love them so so so much you have no idea theyre so complicated and flawed theyre EVERYTHING LOVE WINS !!!!!!!

What makes me happy about them: theyre so hopeful :) both of them escaping ohtori one way or the other in both canons. also that they're allowed to be human and teenage girls who make stupid decisions and are awful and bitter sometimes i love them SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

What makes me sad about them: i mean their entire circumstances. but i saw a post from someone who said they headcanoned that they never met again after leaving ohtori which is just :( bittersweet

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: i dont read utena fanfic to be honest so ermmm next

Things I look for in fanfic: see above

My wishlist: them being happy Pepehands. ok but content of them older and happy makes me :)))

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: honestly like.. anyone it could be someone entirely someone we've never even seen as long as theyre happy idc !!!!!!!!!

My happily ever after for them: ngl i like the after the revolution manga kind of madoka-ing utena and making her like.. god LOL. but that isnt exactly happy so like ? just them growing old together. free of ohtori forever :) learning how to live their lives together after going through all of that. also therapy thanks

JURI TIME!

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you:

How I feel about this character: ARARARARARAARARAR WAUGHHGHGHGHGHGHGHFJHG. SHES EVERYTHING I LOVE HER SO MUUUCH.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: JURIORI !!!!!!!!!! theyre awful theyre terrible theyre horrendous. perfect

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: her and utena! 99% of their interactions its like woah juri what is yuor issue then you learn all about shiori and its like Woaaah i get it. and then the parts where juri helps her .. :) like juri definitely projected on utena (and projected herself+shiori onto utenanthy a lot) and you can TELL !! but i also think juri saw utena as a symbol of all the things she could never quite do and in the end utena does EVERYTHING. like she gets out and so does anthy. so its a little headcanon territory but i think juri definitely kind of. idk i dont want to say she lived vicariously through her but i think her wanting to help utena wasnt entirely selfless LOL. also the implication in the movie that juri etc arent far behind utena in leaving ohtori... bursts into tears

My unpopular opinion about this character: idk none i tend to agree or at least understand most ppls characterisations of her. if youre that one atrocious forum post however i guess my unpopular opinion is that shes a lesbian OMEGALUL

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: extremely wishful thinking. wouldnt have made sense at all and i know this. i wish we'd seen her get out !!! but we have after the revolution which kind of fulfills that so its ok

Favorite friendship for this character: umm well i already said utena. again headcanon territory bc they dont really meaningfully interact but her and nanami is a sweet idea. the My ball. scene is funny as fuck but i feel like nanami could learn a lot from juri post canon and also um realise she is probably also a lesbian. peace and love!

My crossover ship: i dont care for crossovers so. shrugs

[regallibellbright]

For the TWEWtena AU (Specifically, the part where Touga and Nanami are Joshua’s cousins):

The thing is. At some point, Nanami’s actually going to manage to revolutionize herself out of that hellscape. We all know she will. She just has too many traits in common with both Utena and Anthy not to manage the thing that Utena, Utena’s other foil, and Anthy all managed. She’s SO CLOSE to getting the fuck out of there in the series itself! So like, within one dueling cycle of the Revolution, Nanami’s going to realize she can just leave.

And, because an indeterminate amount of time has passed and Nanami’s, you know, Nanami about it all, Joshua is probably the one relative she can turn to. (Touga sure as hell isn’t escaping at the same time Nanami is. I can see him eventually getting out, potentially, but he will be the LAST to do so if he manages it.)

Joshua will never see this coming. Pre-canon, post-canon, whatever. It doesn’t matter that Neku proved anyone can change, Nanami is a different matter.

He will say this to Sanae in almost those exact words.

“It’s really not THAT weird, J. Humans are more flexible than you give them credit for,” he replies.

“Yes, but you’ve met my cousin Nanami,” Joshua says. ‘Do you really think she’s capable of somehow winning OUR Game, much less whatever shitshow’s still running at Ohtori?’ is left unspoken but very much implied.

Sanae Hanekoma considers the seemingly infinite capacity of humans to grow and change and surprise him. And then he puts that up against his brief experience with Nanami Kiryuu.

“Did I mention the last time I saw her, she was turning into a cow?” Joshua adds. “Himemiya’s work. A shame it didn’t stick.”

Sanae pours them both some more coffee. Surprising or not, Nanami’s here now, and eventually he’s going to have to meet her again.

He’s not going to admit how little he’s looking forward to that.

[marley-manson]

For the characters opinion sheet! Gonna go crazy and say Maccready from the thing, xena from xena and anthy from utena!

Thank you!

Maccready:

lmao I love this dark horse suggestion, but unfortunately I have very little to say about him other than he serves the story very well. I love The Thing, but I've never really thought much about the characters beyond how well they move the story along so I can enjoy the ride and see more cool fucked up puppets lol.

Xena was answered here.

Anthy:

She's a great character! Ofc she works best as part of a dynamic, toxic relationships are basically the premise of the show and you love to see them. (I mean arguably maybe that means she works best alone, but yk, not when it comes to me being entertained.) I love her growth at the end, but I also love her arc in terms of the slow reveal that she's a lot more fucked up than you expected. My favourite thing about her is probably how dark she can be, that she's not a perfect victim. I'm thinking I'd never want to meet her in terms of I wouldn't want to be stuck in the Ohtori... metaphor lol, but I suppose after she escapes she'd be fine to know, so maybe I shouldn't have crossed that off. Oh well.

[gloriousmonsters]

Ok can I ask abt your thoughts on Tokiko finding out™️ abt Anthy - you had the start of that ficlet and I’m wondering when/if/how she realizes that Mamiya has been replaced 👀

OH, this is an interesting one. So the piece I sent you (Tokiko having a creepy dream where she's dressed in white at a ball and sees Anthy, dressed in black, dancing with Akio ft. lots of sibling inappropriate vibes, ftr) is from black swan, which will tentatively cover Tokiko's life, piecemeal, from around the time of Mamiya's illness onset to the moment she manages to escape Ohtori in the wake of the fire.

from what I've written so far, it's not going to fit exactly with half unfolds her glowing heart, but I am going to stick with my pretty-sure-it's-canon-ish impression that immediately before the fire is the first time Anthy impersonates Mamiya, which leaves a very narrow time frame for Tokiko to even realize her brother's been replaced by fan favorite Mamiya Fresh like she's in a Stranger-themed episode of The Magnus Archives. But! While I'm still figuring out how in that narrow time frame she could at least run into Anthy!Mamiya, much less see him and Mikage interacting, I know I want it to happen.

black swan is, obvs, a reference to the Swan Lake ballet, where Odile dances with the prince in the guise of Odette and it's hot and creepy and all. Through most of the fic, the themes show up with Tokiko assuming herself as the 'white swan' and Anthy as the black, with Akio as the prince; but the actual Odette and Odile at the heart of the narrative are, of course, Mamiya and Anthy, with Mikage as the prince a sorcerer wants to ensnare. So in the climax, around the horror of the fire, I also want Tokiko to... not understand everything, because the situation is magical and insane and she has approx. five pieces out of this 5k piece puzzle; but realize that something is horribly wrong, that Mamiya has been replaced/impersonated, and that I was never the white swan, this fairy tale was never actually about me.

am i literally going to come up with a contrived way for her to see 'Mamiya' and Mikage dancing as a parallel to the dream? maybe! who knows! it'll be pretentious and creepy, however i work it out.

[emberwritesinsight]

I’m not gonna make this a full-on theory because 1) I genuinely don’t think this is what the creators were going for and 2) I know everyone HATES “dead all along” theories, but like.

I think you could get some really neat content out of an AU where Ohtori is, on some level, part of the afterlife. But like, a shitty walled-off section of the afterlife for a specific, vulnerable kind of soul.

Utena Tenjou is one such soul, whose dreams of princehood drove her till the very end, and even past it. When she was very young, she was ready to surrender herself to death, and as such someone was able to show her something eternal that convinced her to live.

Not to adulthood, but that was never the point. She lived long enough.

It doesn’t really matter how she died, but even afterwards she continued to search for her prince. And eventually, through terrain she doesn’t care to remember, she came to Ohtori.

A place where a dead witch raises roses.

Anthy Himemiya has been dead far longer than she’s been alive. For her, Ohtori is hell- a place where she is used and scapegoated and every so often she’s subjected to a recreation of the mob incident that killed her. But outside Ohtori is worse- she may hate Ohtori deep down, but the Unknown is one of the few things she genuinely fears.

There are other souls here too. Miki and Kozue, who have forgotten how to play together. Juri and Shiori, who hate each other almost as much as they love each other. Touga, who aspires to be more than he is and Saionji, who follows him. Nanami, who has shades of all of them, with her own oddity mixed in.

There’s something out of their reach. Something they lost, or something they aspire to. And someone called End Of The World has told a few of them that by following certain rules, they have a chance to get it.

They never will, obviously. Akio doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s doing and doesn’t much care to learn. He’s perfectly content to repeat this cycle with same steps, different souls for all of eternity, not that he’d ever admit that.

The only way to escape Ohtori is to let go of what you were clinging to. To move on from the memories of the past and go into the Unknown of the future. To release your grip on rose-tinted memories of your life and finally, fully, die.