The Tutu, Utena, (and also) Ouran, Sailor Moon, Goldfish Warning!, MUC, WHR, etc. orgy thread (rn)

[monika]

(Originally Princess Tutu as a followup to Utena <s>mindfu</s> discussion thread.)

Potential Spoiler Warning: I assume light spoilers (in the form of analysis) for all of Utena and Tutu up through disk 5 will be discussed tag-free in this thread. Heavy spoilers and disk 6 of Tutu discussion should be tagged but I can't make guarantees.

I'm currently sick at work - too sick to do actual work but well enough to do some light¹ Utena analysis. I considered hijacking the other Utena thread, but it was doing its own thing.

Anywho, having now watched disk 5 in English², I'm reminded of what a Mikage character Autor is. I don't have the disk on me for direct quoting, but he makes some rather interesting comments on the nature of Princess Tutu and the world he lives in.
<ul type="square"> The world is controlled by stories.
No matter how strange something is, the people in the story are led to believe that that's how it's always been.
Even though he's the only one smart enough to figure this out, he doesn't get to do anything about it because he's a failure and stuff.
[/list]
The creative teams behind both works

Princess Tutu is the work of Ikuko Ito (original creator, character design) and Junichi Sato (series director). You might recognize the pair from Sailor Moon (Sato was the series director, and Ito was the character designer), where (surprise surprise) Kunihiko Ikuhara (of Utena) got his major start in direction as Sato's young protege. (Sato and Ikuhara also worked on, at around the same time and to some extent before that, Kingyo Chuuihou!, Maple Town Stories, and Akuma-kun, and besides a few random storyboards and a handful of episodes directing in other things, Utena is the only thing Ikuhara's done without Sato. They haven't worked together since Sailor Moon.) Ito and Sato as a team only got stronger as a team after Sailor Moon, working together on such shows as Magic User's Club and, yes, Dogtato-kun. (highly recommended. It's about a dog who's also a potato.) Also of note, Sato did a little work on Evangelion under an assumed name "Kiichi Hadame". Anno really wanted Ikuhara for that little project.

I'll leave it up to you to infer any, oh, I don't know, rivalries here.

The cycle theory, the extended cycle theory, and the hyperextended cycle theory in a nutshell, for people who haven't seen my posts in Utena threads before...

There are very few people who doubt the general cyclical nature of Utena TV. The cycle theory merely gives this nature a more explicit explanation and includes the movie as a direct sequel to the show. It is not canon or anything, nor are you required to believe it (in whole or in part) to follow this thread, but it's a useful tool in the analysis of the show.

Cycle theory goes like this: Akio and Anthy are two powerful entities that exert some amount of control over the world they live in. In each cycle, they collect more power for themselves by manipulating the people in the world and recruiting some (often pink-haired) newcomer idealist to force some change (a revolution) in the world. Revolution here takes on its other meaning of a full turn of rotation, bringing them back to an earlier part of the story. Between cycles, characters can either remain as themselves (and are vaguely aware of what's going on) or pass their characteristics onto new generation characters, and then either leave of their own accord, be forced into leaving by Akio and Anthy, or linger on ghostlike in the story if they cannot find a way out. Actual significant changes in the characters and their distribution of attributes take place over many cycles.

Mikage, for example, is a many-cycles-ago Utena character. Ruka was the Miki character just a cycle ago, Shiori is getting replaced by Kozue as we speak, and, if we include the movie (which we do), Movie Saionji, Miki, Juri, etc. are all the same as the TV characters, only Saionji (movie spoiler) <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>has also, last minute, taken on the Touga characteristics, since, last minute, Anthy decided to kill Touga off for the next cycle, and didn't have a replacement lined up. Although Tsuwabuki is shaping up nicely and should be ready in a cycle or two.</span> The surprises for the cycle in the movie are that a) Anthy totally tricked Akio in the TV show and took his powers for herself, and b) Utena Utena came back instead of some replacement Utena like everyone was expecting.

I'd go into more detail, but that's not what this thread is about. In any case, the extended cycle theory can be used to claim, say, that this entire thing started because some chick decided to get involved in the French Revolution, and that in the future, Akio will be controlling the stories as much as he can from beyond the grave after he gets his proverbial hands (represented by a phallus) cut off while Dios (a third, or 2.5th entity with some power in this world only it's been stripped for some time) manages to contain the power-hungry Anthy a bit by shattering his own heart and burying the pieces around town. And the hyper-extended cycle theory can be used to say that after being banished to Chateau d'If on false charges for a while, Saionji (aided by the gift of power from a dying Akio) manages to wriggle his way back into the cycle and wreck havoc on both the characters in an ending cycle and their replacements for the next cycle

Tutu as a followup (and possibly a sequel) to Utena

Ah! You've made it!

Anyway, I think Sato said it best.

[ QUOTE ]
Storybook intro to episode 9 of Tutu:
Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved to dance very much. The girl made the mistake of putting on a pair of red shoes that, once put on, would force her to dance for eternity. The girl continued to dance day and night. Oops, this is a different story. Although perhaps it is not so completely different after all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ikuhara, of course, stole the story from Hans Christian Andersen³, and certainly, so did Sato, right? Moving on.

Anyway, let's assume you agree with at least one of the following statements. 1) Tutu can be viewed and analyzed as a sequel to Utena as per the extended cycle theory, 2) Tutu is Sato's and Ito's reaction to Utena and can thus be analyzed as such, or 3) This sounds like fun.

I'll throw out a few easy ones to start.

Child Utena, Utena, and Power-of-Dios Utena correspond to duck Duck, girl Duck, and Princess Tutu.

Fairly straight forward. Utena as a child was very smart and wise and observant and stuff, far beyond her years, but apparently managed to not age at all between the ages of 7ish and 14. As an adolescent, she manages to be childish, stubborn, naive, and very impressionable. When she has the Power of Dios, she loses all that and becomes, oh yeah, good at sword-fighting. (Flaws in ones ability to handle a sword in Utena correspond to character flaws. That's why people lose duels when their character flaws are brought out.)

Duck as a duck is a very advanced duck. She's got such important and un-ducklike traits as empathy and compassion. But as a girl, she remains ducklike and we're constantly reminded that she is clumsy and unreliable and easily distracted, traits we overlook when she's a duck because they're expected. As Princess Tutu, she is none of these. She is graceful and smart and can do ballet. (Ballet is a metaphor for sword fighting. Or something. Ballet or the character's art form of choice. Notice when Rue is first shown experiencing trouble dancing on point, what causes it and how she reacts. Charon, by the way, with his crafts and his taking in of Fakir, is Wakaba.)

Post-movie Akio is Drosselmeyer

I touched on this earlier. Tutu, being a "sequel" to Utena, of course, follows the movie. If you recall, in the movie, Akio's been stripped of his powers, thrown out a window, and buried. Also, his huge tower has been torn from its base and nailed to a board. He still has some power, including, as we see, the power over machines with gears and stuff that can crush people, but he can't directly affect the story, because he's dead-like.

Drosselmeyer has, or rather, had, the ability to write stories and have them come true. Then people cut off his hand and killed him and now he lives in a world where he has clocks and stuff and where he can influence the story only by suggesting things to characters and adjusting the progress of time a bit.

Dios becomes Mytho

While ostensibly taking on the role of Anthy from Utena TV, Mytho, oh, let's see, is a prince who sacrifices himself for the good of others and in doing so, completely castrates himself and becomes a rather ineffectual prince-shell of his former self. As a character written by Drosselmeyer, he is a part of the Akio character in much the same way Dios is a part of Akio. As the manifestation of the story book character in the real world, he starts out rather ChuChu-like and as he regains his heart-shards, he grows more Akio-like. (If you haven't accepted the Trinity of Akio-Dios-ChuChu yet, that's another Utena analysis thread right there.)

I've typed a lot. Here are some more matchings without analysis in case other people want to give this a shot but don't know where to start.

Touga -&gt; Rue
Saionji -&gt; Fakir
Anthy -&gt; The Raven
A-ko -&gt; Edel (with no B-ko)
C-ko -&gt; Uzura

And oh yeah, what stared this thread: Mikage -&gt; Autor

And so we come full revolution.


---------
¹ by my standards
² the nicest thing about dubs - I can watch them from bed without contacts even when I've lost my glasses. Also, Tutu has a nice dub which is rarely painful and often downright pleasant. Highly recommended.
³ HCA's character, as is not mentioned in neither the Utena nor the Tutu reference, solves her problem by getting someone to cut her feet off. Furthermore, her severed feet in the red shoes don't stop dancing after that. In Tutu, the thing is passed off as a reference to Rue's situation, but it's really more telling of what we later learn about Drosselmeyer.

[jejune]

Dagnabbit! Your discussions are always the best - remember the thread discussing why a creator would work to bring their idea to reality, if not for the money? - Best AOD experience ever.

Unfortunately, I'm watching both shows for the first time right now, and I'm less than halfway through Utena and only ten episodes into Tutu. (I know - I've seen hundreds of episodes of anime and I haven't watched Utena?!? I'm correcting the oversight now.)

So I can't even read your post. AAArghhh! I wanna participate! I'd better get watching and ordering.

*Does research* Holy Crow! Ikuhara and JUNICHI Sato worked together on Sailor Moon! I didn't know that. For some reason I'd always had it mixed up and thought Tutu was directed by TATSUO Sato (Shingu, Nadesico). Now that I know better, I realize that there's no wonder there are correlations.

Edit - Oops, I just dipped into your first paragraph because I couldn't help myself, and I see that my research wasn't necessary. Oh, well.

Double edit - Alright, take into consideration that I haven't read your post, so forgive me if I ask something you already discussed. Do you think Tutu is an expansion of what was done in Utena? An attempt to make a totally different or unrelated point but in the same 'visual vocabulary'? Or might it be an outright argument against Utena's message, or at least stating a differing view/opinion, that is made on the same playing field (picture a thread in a forum, where every post is made in the form of an anime series) - and could Ikuhara answer with another series, almost like two people from afar playing a game of chess, mailing their moves to each other over a course of years? What a thought. (And I really like how I danced around the fact that I don't know what happens in Utena yet - masterfully played, if I do say so myself.) If my ignorance prevents you from answering properly, just say so at the point in your post where it becomes spoilerish, and I'll read it after I'm 'In The Know'.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

Just skimming your dissertation there, a few fragmented phrases immediately sprung to mind:

/images/graemlins/stunned1.gif Like Utena... sequel... messing with my head... must! check! out! /images/graemlins/stunned1.gif

This, of course, is a good thing. Anything favorably compared to Utena is worth taking a look at!

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
jejune said:
...almost like two people from afar playing a game of chess, mailing their moves to each other over a course of years?

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

No really, /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

I believe this is how The Beach Boys and The Beatles wrote most of their later albums. And Metallica and Megadeth. Which is great, because the Sato/Ikuhara dynamic always struck me as a little Hetfield/Mustaine.

Both Utena and Tutu come from a long line of shows using the same visual vocabulary. (Utena especially quite often blatantly copies scenes from previous works to make different points.) Unfortunately, most of these shows are not R1 licensed¹ and Utena continues to look new and original to R1 viewers. Both shows kind of take this vocabulary and then use it with similar, incredibly ridiculous accents. Like how Gundam Wing spoke Mecha with a lisp.

The biggest difference I see between Utena, Tutu, and every show they steal from is how many times one might be inclined to drop the word "meta" in front of "fiction" when describing what the show does. When someone watches Oniisama-e, he's² supposed to be watching to find out what happens next. It's fiction. When someone watches Utena, with the familiarity of the genre and/or the advanced degrees in literature Ikuhara expects viewers to have, he's supposed to be watching for Ikuhara's insight into how these kinds of stories are told. It's metafiction. When someone watches Tutu, he's supposed to be watching to see what can be done to a story when the characters in it are marginally aware that they are in a story about stories. It's meta-meta-::counts on fingers::-meta-fiction.

I can't think of any specific examples at this time - I'll post them as they come to me, but when I'm watching Tutu, I often see the kinds of direction that Ikuhara really really wanted to experiment with in Sailor Moon but Sato said "no" so Ikuhara said "fuck you, I'm going to go make my own show." If anything, this strikes me as the "response" part of Tutu. Whether the message is "This is fun. I'm going to start doing this too now!", "What, you think you're special because you have your own little cheap tricks?", or "You were right, I'm sorry..." is something only Sato will ever really know. We as the audience just get to watch the moves as their being played and only get to guess as to the reasoning.

------------------

¹I am now seeking investors. If anyone would like to give me money in exchange for me bringing over shows I think you should watch, please PM me.
²"he" in this case is an 8-year-old Japanese girl watching primetime TV shoujo.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Serial Experiments NieA said:
/images/graemlins/stunned1.gif Like Utena... sequel... messing with my head... must! check! out! /images/graemlins/stunned1.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

See, Utena is Utena written with 13-year-old girls in mind (note: not for 13-year-old girls...).

Tutu is Utena written with 5-year-old girls in mind.

[aquapermanence]

You've forced my hand. Specifically, my hand with my remote control.

::starts the second season::

(I didn't actually read any of that, but the sheer length convinced me that I would need to, and soon.)

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:

Tutu is Utena written with 5-year-old girls in mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's an interesting (and concise!) way to put it. I like the chess analogy too as far as Ikuhara and Sato are concerned.

[monika]

Oh yes, and I might as well use this space to say that, because of some crazy circumstances I won't be able to control, I won't be available to process RBT contest entries on the 1st like I originally planned, so I'll probably extend the contest another two weeks or so. (I can't fix the website yet because my home computer is lacking internet connections and other important things.) People should enter that. The prize is cool and stuff.

[monika]

More analysis time!

Saionji as Fakir

I think it's fairly well known around here that I have a soft spot for Saionji characters. I tend to sympathize with them. The flaws I see in them are often the same ones I see in myself, and even when they're playing the role of the clown of the student council, they are often the most humanly written characters. Such characters almost always make a bad first impression on both the series protagonist and the viewer which (and a reminder here that we are dealing with metafiction, and the viewer is taking a very active role in the story telling) in a very real sense puts the character at a disadvantage.

Heh. Perhaps that's why I enjoy Gankutsuou so much when viewed as a sequel to Utena. (Gankutsuou fits in as part of the hyper-extended cycle theory. I wouldn't actually suggest considering it a sequel to Utena in any sense other than "WHEEEEE! This makes for a fun romp in Utena character analysis." But in that sense, it really works wonderfully.) Saionji characters are traditional tragic characters, in the old Greek sense of the word, and so is Edmond Dantes for the first 30 chapters of the novel, which Gankutsuou decides to skip past to get to the good stuff.

Anyway, Saionji is often my favorite part of extended cycle theory character analysis, because, more often than I see with other characters, the matchings often add significantly to the Utena Saionji character, making him more interesting instead of just the other way around. While, for example, Miya's backstory in Oniisama-e just lets us know that Juri's problems with boats and lesbians have been around for a number of cycles, St. Juste actually significantly adds to the characterization of Saionji. Makes Castle Where Eternity Dwells look like Cliffs Notes.

But yes, I'm supposed to be talking about Fakir.

Fakir is once again introduced to us as the character acting as semi-self-appointed guardian over some defenseless emotionless shell of hotness. In his "guarding", he's at first portrayed as mean and quite possibly just in it for the hot dom/sub sex. But in the character's mind, it's a rather different story. Fakir guards Mytho out of a very firm belief that that is what he needs to be doing. He is, after all, a knight whose role in the story is to protect and die for Mytho. When he fails at that, he runs off, leaves the school for a bit, and spends some time with his good friend Waka, er, Charon, who helps him realize what his true role in the story is.

The nice thing about Fakir is that even as he is made to take on a less important role in the story, he ends up fulfilling a much larger and important role in the story. (Figure out my notation on your own...) His accepting that he's not a knight that can go around saving princes directly empowers him. In Utena, Saionji is presented with this shortcoming in himself at a very early age and takes years to come to terms with it, languishing on it and sulking on its effect on his relationship with Touga, completely forgetting the role Akio played in it. In Tutu, he manages to repress the original memory instead of dwelling on it, completely forgetting the Raven's involvement, and somehow this works out much better for him in the end.

Additional Utena/Duck musings

In Tutu, the character of Princess Tutu in The Prince and the Raven is seen as an afterthought, a character who was thrown in last minute to resolve the story and vanish for trying to tell the prince of her love for him. When she comes back in the new retelling of the story being acted out in the present, people are surprised she's returned, and specifically that anyone would be willing to take on the part. Very Utena of her. The Utena character is traditionally the character that gets replaced every cycle. It is not a desirable role, and the character is forced out of the cycle once he or she brings about the revolution. (Seriously, watch the scene in Utena Movie when Saionji is first presented with Utena. He is totally expecting a new pink haired boy to come and challenge him to a duel, but he and Anthy are shocked as hell to discover that this new pink haired boy is really the same pink haired girl that left the academy at the end of the TV show.) Drosselmeyer had to go so far as to recruit a duck to play the role, since all the other people in the world are familiar with the story and how much being Princess Tutu would suck. Furthermore, when Princess Tutu manages to confess her love through dance instead of words at the end of season one, and kind of sort of escape her fate that way, the story doesn't know what to do with her, and she is left completely without a sense of direction.

[meryl]

You may be turning other people onto Tutu, but you're making me want to give Utena another try. (I think I tried to watch it too early in my anime fandom, before I was ready for it.) Your Fakir theory really interests me.

[monika]

/images/graemlins/happy.gif Getting people to watch Utena was why I was put on this Earth. The moment I confess my love for it, however, I will vanish in a speck of light. That is why I dance.

::dances::

[Spirit Of The Stage]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
/images/graemlins/happy.gif Getting people to watch Utena was why I was put on this Earth. The moment I confess my love for it, however, I will vanish in a speck of light. That is why I dance.

::dances::

[/ QUOTE ]

Touche Utena...I mean Anthy...I mean Ahiru...I mean...

/images/graemlins/stunned0.gif /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif

[monika]

/images/graemlins/happy.gif Saionji. I'm Saionji.

[monika]

Continued Analysis:

Touga to Rue

Touga Touga Touga Touga Touga...

What about him?

Nothing. I just like saying his name. Touga Touga Toooooooooooooooouga...

Okay, that's enough of me referencing a movie no one else here has seen 'cept Randy...

What can I say about Touga, the one character that I've spent more time analyzing (and probably less time going on about) than all other characters put together? The boy who once fell so in love with a dead princess in a coffin that he spent his entire life practicing the outdated role of "prince" on the off-chance that the situation just happened to arise again? The guy who is so used to being admired by default that he's forgotten what it feels like to impress someone from scratch? The guy whose desire for revolution (and for a father figure who's gentle when butt-raping him) allows him to be so easily manipulated into hurting people that he himself begins to doubt he's a good person (while never ever questioning his own core motives)?

Oh yeah. Nice dress.

Let's see... Rue's first impression on Duck.
OMG amazing dancer!
Mytho's best friend apart from Fakir, and Fakir's a meanie.
Not as unapproachable as everyone else seems to think.
The differences here stem from dancing replacing swordery (discussed previously) and Duck being generally more trusting than Utena, which is why Rue's perceived humanity makes Duck respond by trying to be friendly while Utena responds with the whole cold-shoulder thing.

Rue, like Touga, has trouble dealing with old friends, likes telling Mytho what to do and think and say even while honestly worrying about the way the story goes, and, thanks to the influence of a certain Raven, likes to bare her chest all the way down to her waist, something she never would have done before. (Aside: Touga wears an undershirt the first season of Utena.) She also likes sitting at high places and observing things. And she's pretty.

[Dagger]

Have you ever compiled a canonical (heh) list of series that could be said to fall under the extended cycle theory? I've gathered from reading your posts here and in earlier threads that Oniisama E, Rose of Versailles, Utena and Tutu are some of the main players, but obviously it's not limited to them. And my apologies if you already addressed this; my head is still swirling a little. /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif

[monika]

Actually, my getting a paper in and needing to present the research at UAI this upcoming weekend has put me behind on a new pet project Randy and I are working on.

It'll be an extensive and growing list of all shows that are not Utena, and how you can tell in case you get confused and think they are Utena. That's more than I'm going to say until we get the thing up.

[aquapermanence]

::quietly gathers beans in a corner::

[Helschadenfreude]

Wow, I think I'm kinda dumb for just taking Utena as, well.. it is, face value. /images/graemlins/sweat200.gif

The cycle theory is very interesting though, and I would like to also know what other anime fall under that category.

And this thread is very very informative. Never thought of Tutu in this way, although I did briefly think about Utena while watching Tutu. Which I thought I was strange for doing so(as there was no reason why I was thinking about Utena), but maybe not..... /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[monika]

Within the core extended cycle theory (the one where people almost take you seriously), I would easily put:

Rose of Versailles ('79, manga from '72)
Kaze to Ki no Uta (manga from '76, OAV '87)
Oniisama-e (manga from '75, show from '91)
Utena ('97)
Utena movie ('99)
Princess Tutu ('02)

in that order. (Like Utena, Princess Tutu manga really just serves more as something pretty to look at.) For something to be part of the cycle theory, I sort of require it to be 1) really strongly supported by the work (blatant scene copying and/or pervasive stylistic similarities, nods to the previous work), and 2) somewhat intentional on someone's part.

I'm also told I should watch Maria-sama ga Miteru and Ouran High School Host Club to see if they fit, and the later I'm really looking forward to. ("Like Utena full of Nanami episodes and almost everyone's male", I'm told.)

The hyper-extended cycle theory states that everything ever is part of the cycle. It is, of course, wrong, but fun none-the-less.

Within this, I often cite Gankutsuou, because it really works out interestingly and very well as part of the cycle theory, even though it mostly fails on both points. I'll also often point to Keroro Gunso to show how far out this can get. (For that, pay attention to the characters who share seiyuu with Touga and Saionji.) Anything Ikuhara had a hand in is likely to fit somehow. S&amp;M no Sekai, for example, and Goldfish Warning! (about a girl who tries to use her money to pretty up a school and its students. Several of these students are cows.) Also included are shows that take strong visual clues from any of the core shows - Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, for example, or Rozen Maiden (which is like some sick combination of Utena, KKJ, and Hand Maid May, with some rather nice gothic loli aesthetics thrown in to attract 4chan.) Sky's the limit. Watch a show and go "Let's assume this is a sequel to Utena. I would say ______ corresponds to ______."

[monika]

Those beans had better be not Utena.

Also, I need a word that means "that feeling you get when you're watching something and you get confused and think you might be watching Utena but you're really watching something else." I'd go with Ikufusion, but there has to be a better word out there. Anyone got one?

[Teiresias]

Alzheimers? /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

deja vu'tena?
onorosaepoeia?
duellaflaggia?
akiopiopathy?

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
Teiresias said:

deja vu'tena?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was thinking "Tenjou vu" myself...

[AbeChinchilla]

Okay... I've just got an urge to check out Princess Tutu.

[Dagger]

[ QUOTE ]
AbeChinchilla said:
Okay... I've just got an urge to check out Princess Tutu.

[/ QUOTE ]
For some reason I thought you had already watched it and were one of its ardent fans, which probably means that I had mentally confused you with someone else. But none of that matters, because once you see Tutu, you will become an ardent fan of it. Especially if you like mahou shoujo, Utena, and/or ADV dubs. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[gsilver0]

And this is why I love both shows so much /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[AbeChinchilla]

[ QUOTE ]
Dagger said:
Especially if you like mahou shoujo, Utena, and/or ADV dubs. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Mahou Shojo?! Where?!

[monika]

Heh. I checked out the extras on disk five late last night and completely forgot about this until just now.

Ikuko had the idea floating around in her head for quite some time, drawing sketches of the characters (she's planned it to be about the character who became Rue, whose parents owned a ballet company or something) and fantasizing about a show using tons of ballet music. Sato jumped on board in, and someone with the disk at hand correct me if I'm wrong here, 1997.

I remember stories of him calling up all his regular crew and announcing "We're doing Tutu next." but I don't have a source. If I can find one later, I'll post.

The plot thickens. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[monika]

Mahou Ahiru. It's a Magic Duck show.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Teiresias said:
Alzheimers? /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

deja vu'tena?
onorosaepoeia?
duellaflaggia?
akiopiopathy?

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:

I was thinking "Tenjou vu" myself...

[/ QUOTE ]

Very nice /images/graemlins/happy.gif

I have high hopes that the best option will make itself clear to me in a dream in the near future.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

Uten'again? (apostrophe optional)

[monika]

Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Keep 'em coming. Also, Tutu/Utena analysis. I'm out of town but I check when I can.

Also, drinking game contest entries (see sig link). In case you weren't sure, yes, you can enter as often as you like, as many entries per email as you like. Remember, RBT is an Utena parody that sticks very close to the original story, so if something funny happens in Utena three times, it happens in RBT ten times. Except incest.


Incest isn't funny.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Incest isn't funny.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would that make Tenchi (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/images/FEATURE/222/Family.jpg) an epic tragedy?

[monika]

It's a parody of Oedipus. The creators didn't realize incest isn't funny.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:

Incest isn't funny.

[/ QUOTE ]

Incest is a gas, sis!

Actually, I haven't seen Tutu, so I have no business posting here anyway. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[monika]

Heh. Early in college, I'd gotten mad at my mom and adopted two guys as my new mothers, even calling them "Mommy!" and giving them mothers day cards and stuff. About a year after that, I started dating one of them. Someone comes up to me and says "So, I hear there's incest in the family."

"Yeah, by definition."

[machineger4]

After reading this, I really should watch Utena again with this cycle theory in mind. It's a pretty cool idea.

[monika]

My absolute favorite cycle theory moment in the show is the look on Miki's face when Ruka shows up. Miki, the smart little bugger, figures it all out right then and there.

[Fencedude]

Hey, Monika, have you ever read Sophie's World by...*runs to go look it up* Jostein Gaarder?

Its a novel about philosophy, and also touches on the "reality of stories" concept like Tutu, and how characters can take a life of their own.

[monika]

No, but I'll check it out.

[aquapermanence]

Time for a shotgun reply, which, knowing me, will probably turn into some long-winded and tangential thing. Here goes. More responses to come later.

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Anywho, having now watched disk 5 in English², I'm reminded of what a Mikage character Autor is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Their main difference is in Autor's willingness to go against the established order, and of course his more on-the-surface envy of Fakir, the Saionji character. Where both Mikage and Saionji were in love with the person whom they saw in Anthy, Mikage always knew he would be kept from acting on it unless he made a fundamental change to the system. Saionji, who was Anthy's "default" boyfriend, earns his grudging respect for at least being where he wants to be part of the time, and likewise Saionji holds a grudging respect for Utena, the potential proto-Mikage, who is in a legitimate position to usurp his place and give Anthy the castle.

Rather than letting himself be swept along by Drosselmeyer's plan, Autor realizes that the best way to get what he wants is to recruit Fakir and support him, even if Fakir is dense and singleminded enough to chatter loudly in a library. Of course, by embarking on this course, Autor acknowledges to himself that his pleasures will only be academic, rather than personally fulfilling, but at least it's better than being constantly frustrated. Mikage wasn't willing to acknowledge that there was no chance of personal victory until his secretary left him.

[ QUOTE ]
I'll leave it up to you to infer any, oh, I don't know, rivalries here.

[/ QUOTE ]

'bout time someone opened the door. Here's one I've been mulling for like 4 years now:

Masaki Kajishima and Hiroki Hayashi had a difference of vision sometime during or after the first series of Tenchi Muyo, causing a rift between them that was never repaired. Hayashi left the second series in Kajishima's hands, and Naoko Hasegawa sat quietly in a corner writing her books and providing scripts when asked, which was like twice in the next six years. With video games, art books, and drama CDs, the OVA project got too big for AIC and Pioneer to handle, so they did a reset and scaled things back to TV level, launching the Tenchi Universe franchise. But knowing it would be unsustainable, Hayashi was kept on with Pretty Sammy, a largely-unrelated spinoff using the same popular character designs and relationships. Kajishima and Hayashi each went in their own directions with several more shows, but haven't worked together for near onto 15 years now. Their relationship is best expressed in a dialogue between Professor Sanada and Professor Rara in Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, in which both basically admit that they're both too selfish to let anyone else have control over a project.

Oh wait...

[ QUOTE ]
Fairly straight forward. Utena as a child was very smart and wise and observant and stuff, far beyond her years, but apparently managed to not age at all between the ages of 7ish and 14. As an adolescent, she manages to be childish, stubborn, naive, and very impressionable. When she has the Power of Dios, she loses all that and becomes, oh yeah, good at sword-fighting. (Flaws in ones ability to handle a sword in Utena correspond to character flaws. That's why people lose duels when their character flaws are brought out.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Utena retains all of her character flaws while dueling. It's just that she's concentrating on dueling, so she doesn't have as much of a chance to get confused. Utena had no formal sword training; she just picked up a practice sword one day and challenged the kendo team captain. When she beat him, everyone probably just assumed she was good at it.

In episode 7, Jury and Utena are conversing while looking out over the quad. In this scene or another much like it, some of the boys are play-fencing using their cleaning equipment. They clearly have no idea what they're doing, and if they really were martial artists, they wouldn't be play-fencing with cleaning equipment. That's what Utena's like, but with noble intentions, since she isn't wearing the boys' uniform just to imitate them.

The Power of Dios makes her faster and more accurate, but Utena can still be tricked and defeated by someone who knows how to handle her, such as Touga, Ruka, or Akio. And even without the Power of Dios, Utena can still defeat someone of Saionji's level (namely Wakaba), and using mutodori (swordless defense, according to Jubei-chan) at that.

On the other hand, all the other duelists were basically brought into the game thanks to very strong and specific character flaws, and with training in specific fencing techniques, their minds are more free to wander back to those flaws at the crucial moment. Utena claims that she never thought of the duels as play, but it's clear that the rest of them all take it much more seriously than she does, at least up until the Wakaba duel. With that kind of pressure, there's gotta be at least a subconscious temptation to lose to Utena, especially since no one sees her as a threat to what they want (except Saionji). The Student Council members also believe that they'll get their turns to duel again, so the first duel with Utena can be written off as information-gathering. Only Touga (the data-freak) takes the loss personally, and that's only after seeing how Utena reacted to being defeated by him.

[ QUOTE ]
Duck as a duck is a very advanced duck. She's got such important and un-ducklike traits as empathy and compassion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also worth mentioning is that Duck is in many ways the Ugly Duckling, a character always trying to live up to an impossible image and always failing, only to emerge as something different yet no less beautiful. Also, both Duck and Utena make funny noises when they're startled.

[ QUOTE ]
Post-movie Akio is Drosselmeyer
...
He still has some power, including, as we see, the power over machines with gears and stuff that can crush people, but he can't directly affect the story, because he's dead-like.

[/ QUOTE ]

I figured dead-Akio's power over machinery was largely thanks to the legacy that Mikage left behind in the Academy understructure, namely a system that would through mechanical processes (and a big incinerator) produce a duelist capable of completing the revolution. While Akio used various machines of visual trickery including the projector, the camera, and the shiny red car to achieve his goals, it always seemed like the power to do that in the first place was provided by something that Mikage did. Hence the reason for Anthy having to clear not only a gauntlet of otherwise-extraneous black cars, but also the tire-filled underside of the false castle before confronting Akio. I forget which episode featured the shadow girls discussing the importance of cooking tires properly, but the gist of that segment was that a vital element to achieving success was being replaced in an obvious manner with no one the wiser, which was a big theme in the Black Rose arc.

[ QUOTE ]
Drosselmeyer has, or rather, had, the ability to write stories and have them come true. Then people cut off his hand and killed him and now he lives in a world where he has clocks and stuff and where he can influence the story only by suggesting things to characters and adjusting the progress of time a bit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Likewise, moonwalking ghost-Akio tries to subdue Anthy-in-Utena-car using a pair of giant watchbands on tank treads in a world that has no timepieces. Without the foundation of his intricate machinery to back him up, about all Akio has left is petty symbolism. SPOILER for Tutu v6--<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>Drosselmeyer is also ultimately powerless without the constant mechanical tick of a writing machine set up long before the story started.</span> If we regard Autor as the Mikage character, then it suggests that not only will ghost-Akio have lost all power that comes from the support of a mechanical system, but that it will eventually be turned against him once Mikage's intentions come up with a self-deterministic resolution. Autor, then, would be like the Mikage who was forced to "graduate" without his life's "research" being completed, but now has come back as an alumnus and is making demands with his wealth and power.

[ QUOTE ]
Anthy -&gt; The Raven

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif This one's easy. They're both black and hungry. ::rimshot::

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:

Also worth mentioning is that Duck is in many ways the Ugly Duckling, a character always trying to live up to an impossible image and always failing, only to emerge as something different yet no less beautiful. Also, both Duck and Utena make funny noises when they're startled.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, for this type, even if you take off the glasses, his eyes will appear even small- O_O


(I had to fight really hard to not make a post that was just like this all the way through but as long as Randy's. I chalk this one up as a win to willpower.)

[Helschadenfreude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
My absolute favorite cycle theory moment in the show is the look on Miki's face when Ruka shows up. Miki, the smart little bugger, figures it all out right then and there.

[/ QUOTE ]

My brain is fried even more now and I haven't watched Utena in 3 years. /images/graemlins/sweat200.gif Man, I don't really get it beyond the whole Utena comparsion to Tutu, and sort of same thing happens part. /images/graemlins/sweat200.gif

[monika]

Heh. Thanks to the kind folks at empty movement (http://ohtori.nu), I don't need to break out my DVDs for screenshots.

FilmBook4-34.jpg (http://www.larself.com/revolution/FilmBook4-34.jpg)
TemptationCap0145.jpg (http://www.larself.com/revolution/TemptationCap0145.jpg)
TemptationCap0147.jpg (http://www.larself.com/revolution/TemptationCap0147.jpg) &lt; this is probably about three or four cels before the exact shot I'm looking for.

/images/graemlins/happy.gif Every time I look at that, I can just hear Josh Chaffee, our Ruka, saying "Excuse me, captain. I know I'm just a mysterious stranger who's walked in off the street, but do you mind if you and I have a go at it? Step aside, kiddo. Let me show you how it's done." followed by Liz's "You must think I'm stupid, Ruka." (I'd forgotten that was the sound clip on the site for Ruka (http://larself.com/revolution/index2.php?page=ruka).)

[monika]

Slightly more substantial reply while I wait for some image processing to happen on my work machines.

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Their main difference is in Autor's willingness to go against the established order, and of course his more on-the-surface envy of Fakir, the Saionji character. Where both Mikage and Saionji were in love with the person whom they saw in Anthy, Mikage always knew he would be kept from acting on it unless he made a fundamental change to the system. Saionji, who was Anthy's "default" boyfriend, earns his grudging respect for at least being where he wants to be part of the time, and likewise Saionji holds a grudging respect for Utena, the potential proto-Mikage, who is in a legitimate position to usurp his place and give Anthy the castle.


[/ QUOTE ]

I have lost. You have more skill than I had given you credit for.

Enough skill to beat a handicapped kendoist, in fact.

Damnit, I said I wouldn't do this.


[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Rather than letting himself be swept along by Drosselmeyer's plan, Autor realizes that the best way to get what he wants is to recruit Fakir and support him, even if Fakir is dense and singleminded enough to chatter loudly in a library.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would honestly not be surprised at all if Mikage got really annoyed with everyone always trying to tell him how awesome he is in the library, and for that reason moved the microfiche reader into his office.

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
In episode 7, Jury and Utena are conversing while looking out over the quad. In this scene or another much like it, some of the boys are play-fencing using their cleaning equipment. They clearly have no idea what they're doing, and if they really were martial artists, they wouldn't be play-fencing with cleaning equipment. That's what Utena's like, but with noble intentions, since she isn't wearing the boys' uniform just to imitate them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh. If I recall, there are five guys with brooms and one guy with a golf club in that scene. When Juri looks down over the quad, all she sees are regular students. When Utena looks down, all she ever sees is the rose garden. Or Touga surrounded by girls who wanna fuck him. That's also the scene where Utena's all like "I'm glad there's someone on the student council who understands." and Juri's all like "What a fucking idiot. I need to slap someone."


[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
The Power of Dios makes her faster and more accurate, but Utena can still be tricked and defeated by someone who knows how to handle her, such as Touga, Ruka, or Akio.


[/ QUOTE ]

A quick reminder that Ruka is left-handed. (Not everyone realizes this, including the people coloring some of the cels he's in.)

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Only Touga (the data-freak) takes the loss personally, and that's only after seeing how Utena reacted to being defeated by him.

[/ QUOTE ]

And people still look at me funny when I point out the parallelism in casting for Utena and Keroro Gunso. Except Japan, which is still too busy being amused that Giroro is the Count of Monte Cristo.

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Also worth mentioning is that Duck is in many ways the Ugly Duckling, a character always trying to live up to an impossible image and always failing, only to emerge as something different yet no less beautiful.


[/ QUOTE ]

Duh. Watch the opening sequence. &lt;s&gt;Saionji's crying.&lt;/s&gt; She turns into a swan right there.

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
I figured dead-Akio's power over machinery was largely thanks to the legacy that Mikage left behind in the Academy understructure, namely a system that would through mechanical processes (and a big incinerator) produce a duelist capable of completing the revolution.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say something here about the machinery replacing Akio's duelist-producing organ in much the same way Drosselmeyer's machines replaced his hands, but that's clearly not the case, since that doesn't get removed until the movie cycle.

::waits for the guys reading this thread to stop shuddering before continuing::

Makes me wonder how much duelist production is actually going on in Utena. Anthy, as the story goes, is not allowed to be Akio's princess, being his sister and all, supposedly forcing her into the role of witch, but also in this case apparently not actually stopping her from being his princess (euphemism for sex oops, I said the soft part loud) anyway. Akio is also out making princesses of anything else that moves. (By the way, here's a recommendation for Daddy Long Legs (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=2020), not so much because it's good, but more just because it's amusing to watch the show knowing that that's what Kozue thinks her relationship with Akio resembles.) Anthy is out marrying Miki and Kozue's dad in her spare time (episode 26. Pay attention!), but is in theory not their mother. Heh. That actually makes me wonder if they have some breeding program going on. They've identified Miki's dad as being good duelist stock, so...

I am now going to try to leave this tangent and fail.

Also, the childhood rape of Touga and the selling off of him and Nanami to...

Now I'm going to leave this tangent.

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
I forget which episode featured the shadow girls discussing the importance of cooking tires properly, but the gist of that segment was that a vital element to achieving success was being replaced in an obvious manner with no one the wiser, which was a big theme in the Black Rose arc.


[/ QUOTE ]

Episode 19. See, because in the Onion Kingdom, people don't eat onions.

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
in a world that has no timepieces.


[/ QUOTE ]

Unlike the world of Princess Tutu, which has timepieces, but they only serve to confuse people. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

Side note: I'm highly amused that in Ouran, they realized that they cannot parody Utena without a tower more phallic than Utena's, but it's impossible to be more phallic than the tower in Utena, so they just used a giant pink Big Ben.

[Fencedude]

I DEMAND that the two of you discuss this more, because its the most interesting thing I've read in weeks.

...and dammit, I wish I had volume 6 of Tutu.

[monika]

/images/graemlins/sad.gif Can you also demand that other people join in the discussion? We don't bite and it's awful lonely.

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Almost 900 views and like 12 responders. I've seen this reaction somewhere (http://larself.com/revolution/benibarafans.png) before.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
(By the way, here's a recommendation for Daddy Long Legs (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=2020), not so much because it's good, but more just because it's amusing to watch the show knowing that that's what Kozue thinks her relationship with Akio resembles.) Anthy is out marrying Miki and Kozue's dad in her spare time (episode 26. Pay attention!), but is in theory not their mother. Heh. That actually makes me wonder if they have some breeding program going on. They've identified Miki's dad as being good duelist stock, so...

[/ QUOTE ]

Sally MacBride is Anthy-type. I was really proud of myself for noticing that, until just now when I realized that her last name is a dead giveaway. In the live-action Daddy Long Legs movie (from the 50's), Sally tries to set Utena, er, Judy, er, Julie, up with her handsome college-age cousin. (We've seen the "cousins" excuse used before, by the way, in various dub versions of Sailor Moon. It's code for "they have sex on the couch in the next room while everyone else is asleep.") Their romance is thwarted by Daddy, a kindly rich old playboy played by Fred Astaire, who nonetheless realizes that he should pass the torch because he can't compete against such an awesome guy, even though his own love is noble and genuine. In case no one noticed, this is the same character Takehito Koyasu has been playing his entire career, most recently in Meine Liebe, a show about a bunch of boys in an elite academy in a fictional country with all kinds of roses and intrigue and prancing. Also of note, Daddy's niece is in the role of the Nanami character, who grudgingly rooms with the Utena and Anthy characters in the anime version.

I think what I'm trying to say is that yes, it's funny that Kozue thinks she's in that kind of relationship, since it's a case of "so close yet so far," and that yes, there is also some kind of insidious breeding program going on with bases in Japan, France, and the United States, and probably going back as far as 1769 or thereabouts.

[ QUOTE ]
Episode 19. See, because in the Onion Kingdom, people don't eat onions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now I know there was a shadow play that pantomimed a panda hanging from a tire--a panda that couldn't be seen because there were sour grapes hanging in front of it. I think that if we're to interpret the imagery of the shadow plays too literally, we're gonna get distracted and not really know what's going on.

Pandas are black and white. Utena from the movie is dressed in black and white. I think you see where this is going.

[ QUOTE ]
Unlike the world of Princess Tutu, which has timepieces, but they only serve to confuse people. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I, and by extension director Kunihiko Ikuhara who commented on the Utena movie except for like 20 minutes when he was sleeping, was mistaken. There is a clock in the movie. It's part of the pink-haired-straw-man-shadow-girl exposition machine, which is of course powered by the Kage (shadow) Operating System, which was possibly developed by Mikage but I may just be grasping at straws, or straw-men-girls, at this point.

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:




Pandas are black and white. Utena from the movie is dressed in black and white. I think you see where this is going.


[/ QUOTE ]

God dammit, I nearly spit oreo all over my monitor.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
In case no one noticed, this is the same character Takehito Koyasu has been playing his entire career...

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking of Koyasu, have I mentioned lately that Ouran is fucking awesome?

[evilarrex]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
In case no one noticed, this is the same character Takehito Koyasu has been playing his entire career...

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking of Koyasu, have I mentioned lately that Ouran is fucking awesome?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes yes it is!! /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[Jenskot]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
In case no one noticed, this is the same character Takehito Koyasu has been playing his entire career...

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking of Koyasu, have I mentioned lately that Ouran is fucking awesome?

[/ QUOTE ]

Just imagine: Touga acting like Ranka. Oh the possibilities... /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
/images/graemlins/sad.gif Can you also demand that other people join in the discussion? We don't bite and it's awful lonely.

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Almost 900 views and like 12 responders. I've seen this reaction somewhere (http://larself.com/revolution/benibarafans.png) before.

[/ QUOTE ]

*Stands up in the cheap seats in the back of the auditorium*
*Yells from a distance*
"Just speaking for myself, while I have seen most of Utena (up to ep.30, I have the Apocolypse saga finally, and plan to watch the rest at some point) and all of Princess Tutu, I don't think I've examined it in the kind of detail that you're talking about to be able to add anything to the discussion. But please continue, as it is actually pretty interesting."

*sits back down*

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Jenskot said:

Just imagine: Touga acting like Ranka. Oh the possibilities... /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I did. And then I wrote and produced a movie about it. And then my director held it captive under the guise of "post-production" all while safely living too far away from me for daily beatings, for two years. And then Ouran came out. And now my director is too busy watching that to work on my movie. ::grumble::

/images/graemlins/happy.gif Such is life.

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
*Yells from a distance*

[/ QUOTE ]

WHY HELLO THERE! ::waves::

Don't anyone feel they need to match us or anything. I am totally for not well thought-out responses /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif (Hell, while I have the supposed background and familiarity with the subject at hand to allow me to make these kinds of posts, most of it is actually pulled out of my ass at the time of posting.) I'd love for a little argument. Or questions. Or suggestions on what to pull out of my ass next. I've been out of this game for too long anyway. Don't think of us as lecturers or professors or something, think of us as an improv troupe.

Or something. Probably not an improv troupe. But something you yell things at and they perform based on that that's not an improv troupe.

Oh wow I'm tired. I'm also an insomniac, but I'll try to get some sleep and then post content tomorrow morning, whenever that may be. (I have cast off the shackles of the 24 hour day cycle. I am free. FREE. I'd say I live in a world without timepieces, but I really live in a world with a ridiculous alarm clock that's more adjustable to my "schedule" than normal ones...)

[touma]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Almost 900 views and like 12 responders.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I have bumped up the view count, but I am here to gather information, I really do not have anything to contribute.
I am trying to decide if I want to continue Utena. I have watched The Rose Collection, including the movie, and am feeling very undecided.
I am also trying to decide if I might want to look at Princess Tutu.
They both seem to have some very interesting aspects, but might require more thought than I really want to put into them.
But I am still lurking and thinking about it.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
I am trying to decide if I want to continue Utena. I have watched The Rose Collection, including the movie, and am feeling very undecided.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]
Utena is the series you've been wanting to continue to watch. It will amaze you in ways you never thought possible. The movie will make so much more sense once you've completed the Black Rose and Apocalypse arcs.
[/Obi-Wan Kenobi] /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
I am also trying to decide if I might want to look at Princess Tutu.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thoughts exactly. As I mentioned earlier in my brief appearance on this thread, the comparisons are intriguing enough to warrant Princess Tutu a spot on my 'I need to check this out' list.

[nakimushi]

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Almost 900 views and like 12 responders.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I have bumped up the view count, but I am here to gather information, I really do not have anything to contribute.
I am trying to decide if I want to continue Utena. I have watched The Rose Collection, including the movie, and am feeling very undecided.
I am also trying to decide if I might want to look at Princess Tutu.
They both seem to have some very interesting aspects, but might require more thought than I really want to put into them.
But I am still lurking and thinking about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Princess Tutu can really be enjoyed on the level of just a very beautiful Mahou Shoujo story. The deeper stuff in Tutu is there if you want to look for it, but it isn't essential (IMHO) for understanding and enjoying the story.

The deeper stuff in Tutu, makes for great re-watchability of the show, but it doesn't make the first time you watch it a chore at all. Utena and Tutu are both great shows, but Tutu is much more accessible, don't be intimidated by its connections to Utena, it is not the same show, or in the same style.


The shows can be connected, but not the same. I'll attempt to add another show to the Cycle (although at a far lower level of erudition).

It was mentioned briefly in this thread, but I think Magic User's Club - Mahou Tsukai Tai could be given some consideration as another Utena prequel (the OVA did precede Utena, but the TV show followed it so I guess it could be both pre-quel and sequel, how very cyclic).

Magic User's Club / Princess Tutu ENDING SPOILERS BELOW
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

As mentioned, Junichi Sato and Ikuko Ito, also both worked on this show as well. I actually just finished watching the OVA and TV show for the first time this past weekend. My first thought, (watching the original Japanese - I'm not sure about the dub) is that that Ahiru is Sae. Her mannerisms and especially her frenetic speech patterns are almost identical. The only real difference is that Sae doesn't quack.

The connection doesn't end with Ahiru and Sae, but how about Utena and Sae?

Both were rescued when they were small children from emotional distress. Utena by the Prince, Sae by "Jeff" (OAV). Now Utena was teased/tested/tormented by Akio, and Akio was (forgive my over-simplification) a twisted version of the prince who saved Utena. In MUC TV, Jurika was the personification of Sae's magic, who teased/tested her, and was merely another version of Jeff (who IMHO was an earlier manifestation of Sae's Magic). So both Utena and Sae were saved and confronted by different versions of the same person.

Actually, in Tutu, Rue is saved by a prince when she was a small child and is later tormented by a twisted version of that prince when she is older.

Nanaka and Wakaba are both dear friends of Sae and Utena, respectively and are both hopelessly in love with someone who can never return their love, Aburatsubo and Saionji, who are both also in love with someone who can never return theirs: Takeo, and Anthy, who are in turn the main concerns of Sae and Utena. That's a cycle in itself, although I'm not sure I'm ready to say Takeo is Anthy. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

Especially since there is a similarity between Takeo and Touga, first there's Mizuha and Nanami. Both Mizuha and Nanami have been obsessed with an 幼��� (osananajimi - childhood friend), and a brother respectively. Both fight against potential rivals, but while Nanami attacks the rivals directly, Mizuha attacks Takeo's self-confidence to make him unable to pursue them. As a result, while Touga surrounded by beautiful women who want him (Nanami, can't stop them all, so she only concentrates on the ones who might be serious rivals), Takeo is only surrounded by beautiful women who want him in his daydreams.

Both Takeo and Touga both fall under the sway of the "twisted prince", Jurika and Akio, but both Takeo and Touga ultimately reject the "twisted prince", however they are not able to actually defeat him.

On a minor note, Rue is just Akane gone bad.


Getting back to the main stories, there are the revolutions.

As has already been previously mentioned, Utena's revolution destroyed the machinery of her world.

Also mentioned is that Ahiru/Tutu's revolution destroys the clockwork machinery of her world.

Sae's revolution destroys the machinery of her world, the Bell, by transforming it into a giant Sakura tree.

One unifying theme to all three revolutions: Utena, Ahiru, and Sae are not trying to change the world, they are only trying to save the people they care about.

In all three stories, people who try to change the world directly to suit their own purposes fail. The world is is only changed as a mere by-product of selfless motivations and actions to help others. Machinery used to control others is destroyed in the process.

Edit: In re-reading this, I think I may have unintentionally copied that idea from one of the many fascinating exchanges on Utena that I have read on these boards by monika and aquapermanence. If so, I apologize and give the credit to the actual originator.


The interesting thing though, is that the "twisted princes" seemed to have all come about from seemingly similar selfless actions.

Akio is results from a sister's attempt to save her brother. Mytho goes bad as Tutu returns his heart (although the Raven and Krahe had a hand in poisoning the heart), and Jurika emerges after Sae uses her magic to save the Sakura tree.

As mentioned, Anthy's action of protecting her brother, could be seen as removing his heart (for safe-keeping), creating the heartless Akio. Tutu is trying to restore Mytho's heart, which he used to seal the Raven. Jurika is also heartless in a way, he is motivated by having fun in using magic power, regardless of the consequences.

Anthy's case is the hardest, because it really did seem as if she was unselfishly trying to protect her brother, so she really seems to be in a no-win situation there.

It definitely wasn't Ahiru's fault that Krahe poisoned one of the heart shards, so it is hard to fault her as well.

Sae was just having fun.

So perhaps all three are just examples of how even the best intentions can be twisted into bad results, due to circumstances, the malicious influence of others, or a lack of self-awareness.

All three ultimately rectify the problems in their own way.

Utena, removes the swords from Anthy's heart (since Akio does not want to be saved from his own narcissism), by sacrificing herself.

Ahiru restores Mytho's heart, at the expense of her ability to be a human girl.

Sae however is the most fortunate of the three, since she is able to restore the heart to Jurika's power (her own heart, since Jurika is really just a manifestation of her own power), by understanding and accepting the actual feelings of her own heart and taking responsiblity for how her feelings can affect her power.

Sae is the most fortunate because she is really only cleaning up her own mess. Utena fixes Anthy's mess and Ahiru has to fix the mess of Mytho, the Raven and Rue/Krahe, that was ultimately contrived by Drosselmeyer.


Well, I have now read way too much into a fun, light show with really cute girls like Magic User's Club. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[EmperorBrandon]

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
They both seem to have some very interesting aspects, but might require more thought than I really want to put into them.
But I am still lurking and thinking about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't really have to put a lot of thought into Tutu to enjoy it. It's a great series to watch either way, and I think there was a quote from Junichi Sato to that effect (though I forgot what exactly it was or which poster mentioned it). Ah well... not that I don't find the discussion in this thread interesting, either, though. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[EmperorBrandon]

[ QUOTE ]
nakidasu said:

Well, I have now read way too much into a fun, light show with really cute girls like Magic User's Club. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, since it was about Magic User's Club, I had to read it all. Love Sae. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Anyway, happy that you checked it out.

Reading through that does bring up the biggest strengths of the TV series, more focus and thought put on the characters. There's definitely a lot of material there to make some interesting analysis (this is certainly not the first time I've seen it /images/graemlins/wink.gif)

[monika]

Yay! Responses!

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
They both seem to have some very interesting aspects, but might require more thought than I really want to put into them.
But I am still lurking and thinking about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/happy.gif Would you believe I've had this problem before?

Somone once started a thread saying "Utena seems too shallow. Convince me it's deep so I'll continue watching it. Feel free to spoil me."

I then did.

Then the guy was like "WTF. What kind of director is so mean to his audience? You shouldn't need to watch it 30 times to get it!" and we were all like "oops..."

Utena's second and third seasons are more unconventional than the first, and more fun. Neither of the shows REQUIRE this much thought (Ikuhara and Sato are not Umberto Eco in the end) but both stand up to it, which is really just a sign of good construction, and something ideally every show should be able to do (whether or not anyone bothers).

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
nakidasu said:
It was mentioned briefly in this thread, but I think Magic User's Club - Mahou Tsukai Tai could be given some consideration as another Utena prequel (the OVA did precede Utena, but the TV show followed it so I guess it could be both pre-quel and sequel, how very cyclic).

Magic User's Club / Princess Tutu ENDING SPOILERS BELOW
.
.
.
.
.
.
.


[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Fun, isn't it?

It's been like three or four years since I've watched MUC, and the last time was during a three day club marathon meant to fuck with the club's head. Other shows included Utena and Boogiepop, and MUC was the light show. /images/graemlins/happy.gif It was already in my rewatch list, and now more so. (I hope and expect Randy will have a fuller answer for you, and if not, I'll find some way to refresh my memory.)

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
(Ikuhara and Sato are not Umberto Eco in the end)

[/ QUOTE ]

But really, who is?

(NOT DAN BROWN)

[meryl]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Yay! Responses!

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
They both seem to have some very interesting aspects, but might require more thought than I really want to put into them.
But I am still lurking and thinking about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/happy.gif Would you believe I've had this problem before?

Somone once started a thread saying "Utena seems too shallow. Convince me it's deep so I'll continue watching it. Feel free to spoil me."

I then did.

Then the guy was like "WTF. What kind of director is so mean to his audience? You shouldn't need to watch it 30 times to get it!" and we were all like "oops..."

Utena's second and third seasons are more unconventional than the first, and more fun. Neither of the shows REQUIRE this much thought (Ikuhara and Sato are not Umberto Eco in the end) but both stand up to it, which is really just a sign of good construction, and something ideally every show should be able to do (whether or not anyone bothers).

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if you're going to bring Umberto Eco into this, then I really do have to finish watching Utena. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
meryl said:
Well, if you're going to bring Umberto Eco into this, then I really do have to finish watching Utena. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That reminds me, I still need to read The Name of the Rose.

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
meryl said:
Well, if you're going to bring Umberto Eco into this, then I really do have to finish watching Utena. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That reminds me, I still need to read The Name of the Rose.

[/ QUOTE ]

So do I actually.

I did just recently (like, 9 months ago) reread Foucault's Pendulum though.

(I needed to get the bad taste of The DaVinci Code out of my brain)

[meryl]

[ QUOTE ]
Fencedude said:
[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
meryl said:
Well, if you're going to bring Umberto Eco into this, then I really do have to finish watching Utena. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That reminds me, I still need to read The Name of the Rose.

[/ QUOTE ]

So do I actually.

I did just recently (like, 9 months ago) reread Foucault's Pendulum though.

(I needed to get the bad taste of The DaVinci Code out of my brain)

[/ QUOTE ]

I read both of those years ago and ought to read them again. The most recent one by him I've read is The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, which is a great book for anyone interested in comic book art, especially comics that would have been available in 1930s-40s Italy. The illustrations alone are worth the price of the book.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
Fencedude said:
[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
(Ikuhara and Sato are not Umberto Eco in the end)

[/ QUOTE ]

But really, who is?

(NOT DAN BROWN)

[/ QUOTE ]

Italo Calvino... is... Umberto Eco
in...
The Man Who Made My Head Hurt!
Coming soon to a theater near you. (Due to the extreme nature of the discourse, small children and persons with heart conditions are advised AGAINST attending this film!)

[monika]

Yeah, seriously, I like Eco, but reading his books is still like running repeatly into a brick wall at full speed.

At least with Ikuhara and Sato, there are pretty pictures to look at if you want to take a break from the brick wall. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[meryl]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Yeah, seriously, I like Eco, but reading his books is still like running repeatly into a brick wall at full speed.

At least with Ikuhara and Sato, there are pretty pictures to look at if you want to take a break from the brick wall. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what makes The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana so nice -- lots of the pretty pictures.

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Yeah, seriously, I like Eco, but reading his books is still like running repeatly into a brick wall at full speed.

At least with Ikuhara and Sato, there are pretty pictures to look at if you want to take a break from the brick wall. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

The Name of the Rose isn't actually all that bad (but I read it at least 15 years ago, so my memory may be failing me). And if it gets too bad, you could just watch the not-really-faithful movie version /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
Touma said:
I am also trying to decide if I might want to look at Princess Tutu.
They both seem to have some very interesting aspects, but might require more thought than I really want to put into them.
But I am still lurking and thinking about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll just echo what other posters have said about Tutu, it has deeper levels to it, but you can just enjoy it for what it is.
I was in a similar position last year, back when I was only reading the forums here and not posting at all. I kept on reading these discussions on Tutu, especially about the quality of the dub in ET, and wondering what all the excitement was about. Then the Anime Network started to make the episodes available on demand, and I decided that I would take a look at them. After the first 3 episodes, I was kind of like "WTF? Collecting heart-shards? That's it? What is this crap?"
But then I continued watching. By about the 5th or 6th episode, I decided I had to see some more, just to see where it was going. And then, it slowly kept on getting better, and better, and better. It's a show that you have to give some time to, you may not get hooked in the first two episodes. But I think it's worth the effort.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
isn't actually all that bad

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/happy.gif I actually enjoy running repeatedly into a brick wall. I'm an Utena fan, and completely insane. And a masochist.

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
isn't actually all that bad

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/happy.gif I actually enjoy running repeatedly into a brick wall. I'm an Utena fan, and completely insane. And a masochist.

[/ QUOTE ]

Plus, as brick wallish as it can be, you LEARN all sorts of neat stuff from Umberto Eco books.

I remember the first time I read Foucault's Pendulum, I was like...3/4 of the way through it and my mom asked me how it was. I told her that I'd learned all sorts of neat stuff, but I had absolutely no idea what was actually going on.

But it didn't matter!

[monika]

I always thought Foucault's Pendulum would make a good video game.

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
I always thought Fouault's Pendulum would make a good video game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Vanity Publishing simulator?

[monika]

Yes. It would be like an awesome version of Myst that's really long and harder to play.

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Yes. It would be like an awesome version of Myst that's really long and harder to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

That'd be awesome.

I was going to type up my favorite passage from the book, but it involves religion, so I can't. /images/graemlins/cry00000.gif

[Teiresias]

[ QUOTE ]
Fencedude said:
[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
meryl said:
Well, if you're going to bring Umberto Eco into this, then I really do have to finish watching Utena. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That reminds me, I still need to read The Name of the Rose.

[/ QUOTE ]

So do I actually.

I did just recently (like, 9 months ago) reread Foucault's Pendulum though.

(I needed to get the bad taste of The DaVinci Code out of my brain)

[/ QUOTE ]

DaVinci Code is the "Married with Children" to Foucault's Pendulum's "Everwood."

But I digress... /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[Teiresias]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Yeah, seriously, I like Eco, but reading his books is still like running repeatly into a brick wall at full speed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless you're talking about Eco's discursions on post-modern linguistics, IMHO Utena is more nuanced than anything in Eco's fiction.

[nakimushi]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Fun, isn't it?

It's been like three or four years since I've watched MUC, and the last time was during a three day club marathon meant to fuck with the club's head. Other shows included Utena and Boogiepop, and MUC was the light show. /images/graemlins/happy.gif It was already in my rewatch list, and now more so. (I hope and expect Randy will have a fuller answer for you, and if not, I'll find some way to refresh my memory.)

[/ QUOTE ]

It was fun, but I would have never made the connection (however tenuous) if it weren't for this thread, which has been even more fun to read.

I thought of another similarity: both Utena and Sae are seduced by their "twisted princes", although Akio is far more thorough about it than Jurika is. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
nakidasu said:
I'm not sure I'm ready to say Takeo is Anthy. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't worry, I'll do it. It's not a one-to-one correlation, but let's go over the similarities as an exercise.

Takeo is an introvert. He discovered the magic book while alone in a cave, and he began learning magic because it intrigued him and he enjoyed doing it for its own sake. He also realized that doing magic can possibly earn him fame and admiration, and he created the Club as a way to have people around him who enjoyed his hobby. Anthy was the only girl who couldn't become a princess. She became a witch instead, and sealed away the Power of Dios, earning her the hatred of the world. Together with Akio, she created the dueling game, gathering talented people from all over (whether or not they wanted to be involved) to fight over and lavish attention on her. Anthy, like Takeo, has no qualms with destroying or transmogrifying any intruder she recognizes as a threat to her world order.

Takeo is weak against Miyama, a self-styled artist and leader of the manga club. She is a Student Council member and a powerful feminine image at the school. Miyama is possessive and controlling of Takeo and by extension his friends, but she also has a hidden soft side in which she nurtures traditional shoujo-manga feelings about male-female relationships. Anthy acts weak and submissive around Saionji, a top athlete and captain of the kendo team. Saionji is on the Student Council as well, and his entourage of followers is a force to be reckoned with. Saionji will use violence out of frustration or to get what he wants, but under a hard exterior he keeps a "hidden love," his true feelings of affection for Anthy. It's also worth noting that Miyama makes a good early target for aliens and their funky flower experiments, and that Saionji (whose given name "Kyoichi" meaning "pod one" prompts his sci-fi-ish declaration of "launching" back into the Academy) is always the first to be taken by Anthy (an alien-like presence, especially when she removes her glasses) and/or visit her in the rose garden.

Takeo is afraid of Aburatsubo. Aburatsubo is more than a friend: he's the prettiest guy in school, extremely likeable, and good at anything he sets his mind to. He's a romantic rival, but also a potential partner, which is what scares Takeo, who lives very much in his own fantasies and knows that if it ever came down to it, he'd be the "bottom" and Aburatsubo would tease him mercilessly. Anthy fears Touga. He's a charismatic leader, a calculating duelist, and an all-around decent guy. He's a threat to her relationship with Utena, but he also has a very good shot at becoming the Engaged, and makes it clear that while he could give her what she wants, he will treat her like she's nothing if it suits him. This is what scares Anthy--becoming engaged to Touga leaves her in the same position she already holds with Akio, but with none of the power (since her power is entirely contingent on behaving as the Rose Bride, and Touga, through observation and behavioral analysis, knows that the key to foiling the Rose Bride is to ignore her or take her for granted). Both Touga and Aburatsubo have long red hair and are played by Takehito Koyasu, not that that necessarily means anything.

[ QUOTE ]
In all three stories, people who try to change the world directly to suit their own purposes fail. The world is is only changed as a mere by-product of selfless motivations and actions to help others. Machinery used to control others is destroyed in the process.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thus, thanks to the involvement of a certain Chiaki J. Konaka, Princess Tutu stands proudly as a thematic bridge between Utena and The Big O--they all <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>take place in enclosed, artificial worlds ruled by storytelling machines</span>, and some other stuff. Roger Smith is thus a Touga character, which puts his rich playboyism in a fun perspective, and makes his choice of all-black attire (and his nickname of "crow") all the more metafictional.

For anyone wondering what Utena characters would look like as giant robots, here (http://larself.com/revolutionold/rbto1small.gif). Also, ohtori.nu has a screencap of the combining robot from the game. But, to get back onto the previous tangent...

Magic User's Club contributes as a thematic bridge as well, opening the line all the way from Utena and Tutu to Serial Experiments Lain and from there to Haibane Renmei, which is of course <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>just Azumanga Daioh in Purgatory</span>.

[ QUOTE ]
Sae however is the most fortunate of the three, since she is able to restore the heart to Jurika's power (her own heart, since Jurika is really just a manifestation of her own power), by understanding and accepting the actual feelings of her own heart and taking responsiblity for how her feelings can affect her power.

Sae is the most fortunate because she is really only cleaning up her own mess. Utena fixes Anthy's mess and Ahiru has to fix the mess of Mytho, the Raven and Rue/Krahe, that was ultimately contrived by Drosselmeyer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sae's ending was also the most bittersweet: her story is far from over and she hasn't had much closure; she still has to face up to her own feelings for Takeo or risk Miyama taking him away from her (and if Miyama is really a Saionji character, then she's not a far cry from Fakir, who has crazy bitchy writer powers). Sae will also have to deal with losing her sister to a man who may not take good care of her and being powerless to help. In Sae's world people grow up, time passes, and there aren't always second chances.

Anthy never understood the transience of existence. She's lived with pain and loss, but she is an eternal beauty. She will neither grow old nor die (except by the sword of a pure heart, I'm guessing), and there will always be more roses, more animal friends, and more princes. Her portrayal of Mamiya is, by that token, a complete bastardization of the character. The sickly little boy is the very essence of transience, the character who won't even live to see the age where he might become a prince or a devil. He is Anthy, yes, in that Anthy had just as sorrowful a fate thrust upon her, but Mamiya was not the self-aware Anthy who would knowingly twist Mikage's love. Mamiya and Tokiko were from outside--they were people from a time that moved forward, who knew that the end would come. Seeing Tokiko in Utena set Mikage on the path to regaining his own time; seeing himself in Utena banished the false Mamiya from his memory. Mikage would have killed the Rose Bride to save Mamiya, trading life for life, but Utena protected Anthy, selflessly, just as Tokiko cared for Mamiya. Mikage was defeated before he set foot in the elevator, and probably before he set foot in Ohtori. But he had to lose to the Utena he shaped before his pact with Akio was fulfilled--before he could get out.

In Anthy's world, clocks don't record the passage of time--they record the passage of plot points. The bells signal the duels. The hourglasses record the expression of sentiment. The metronome counts the ticks of the conversation (which is why both Anthy and Chuchu feel it's important to observe it patiently). And Miki's stopwatch measures the particularly salient lines.

In fact, only cats record the passage of time in Utena. More cats = more time. Cats appear in Mikage's window during his talk with Tokiko. The shadow kitty grows larger while Ako and Bko waste time on trivial details. And Touga gets cats on his birthday.

"But Nanami killed a cat!" you say. Yes. And that's why Nanami lays eggs full of monsters instead of bleeding out her vagina like a normal 13-year-old girl.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
In fact, only cats record the passage of time in Utena. More cats = more time. Cats appear in Mikage's window during his talk with Tokiko. The shadow kitty grows larger while Ako and Bko waste time on trivial details. And Touga gets cats on his birthday.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ikuhara's hobby is taking pictures of cats. Still pictures.

(Then again, he also has a red sports car, and red sports cars are the universal symbol of being an adult. Maybe he's trying to stop time after becoming an adult, but then what's the point?)

((I have a sports car. But it's blue. And it doesn't work.))


On that note, just as there are no clocks in Utena movie, all the animals in Utena movie exist in some bizarre wasteland where they can, if prompted, die and get pissed on. Especially odd considering exactly how often Anthy used animals in the TV to various ends. And by "various ends" I mean "annoy Nanami." (Nanami, by the way, defaults to cow mode unless she has some reason to aspire to be like Touga.) As Randy pointed out, without cats, we have no idea what time it is. And without clocks, we don't notice any plot points.

I assume Anthy realized this all was a problem by the time we all got around to Tutu, since the animals are back, and the cats are again strongly associated with time. Of course, the cat in Tutu is anxious to get married, supposedly to reproduce, which would, as it did in Mikage's time, demonstrate the passage of time. However, too many cats would probably cause problems for the army of crows that keeps the world in check.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Teiresias said:
Unless you're talking about Eco's discursions on post-modern linguistics, IMHO Utena is more nuanced than anything in Eco's fiction.

[/ QUOTE ]

The writing style and pacing, however, is brickly dense. And to this day, I do not watch Utena without the opening and endings. They space things out some, and there's somewhat less symbolism in them. A few character insights and a lot of "Screw you Sato! If I want girls jousting on horses flying through an upside down crumbling castle, I can have it."

[monika]

A few more thoughts on the subject of cats, time, and animals while this experiment runs...


There are a shitton of animals, especially cats, in Goldfish Warning!.

In Goldfish Warning!, Chitose is the obvious Akio character. (Specifically, the RBT Akio character, whose main concern is aesthetics, but this is close enough to the Utena Akio character for these purposes.) She's a school chairman who assembles a student body, and specifically a student council and then forces them to participate in ritualistic activities for the purpose of turning the school around (revolutionizing it) and making everyone realize how awesome she is.

Given Chitose -&gt; Akio, the obvious choice for Anthy is Gyopi, Chitose's pink goldfish and the source of her wealth and power. (Gyopi, being a goldfish, cannot be Chitose's princess.) While Gyopi is normally fairly obedient to Chitose, she does on occasion act in ways Chitose does not expect.

Wapiko, the pink-haired girl I've never seen not Super Deformed, is Utena-type. For one thing, her primary role in the story is attempting to make Gyopi a normal person, feeding the goldfish potato chips and such when Chitose would rather she just eat designer goldfish food. She also has a habit of overhearing things she's not supposed to, and jumping to conclusions.

Anyway, like I said, lots of cats, cows, chicken, pigs, etc. in this show.

So following the arc of Goldfish Warning! -&gt; Utena TV -&gt; Utena Movie -&gt; Princess Tutu, we notice the following. In Goldfish Warning!, Akio is in charge, Anthy's relatively helpless but has a few tricks up her sleeve, er, fin-garment (oh, and is an animal herself), time progresses fairly normally, and there are lots of cats to demonstrate the passage of time with. In Utena TV, Akio is still in charge, Anthy's gotten control over the animals, but uses them more for amusement than any sort of real time-keeping, and time seems to go on normally enough that it doesn't even bother the regular students (such as Wakaba) who interact with both Ohtori and the real world on a regular basis. In Utena Movie, Anthy's taken charge, and doesn't even bother with animals, time barely progresses in any real sense, and things are crazy. In Tutu, animals have been restored, often in roles you wouldn't expect them (perhaps brought back haphazardly with little thought. As Nanami shows us, people can be transformed into their inner animal fairly easily. Perhaps in Tutu, Anthy's like "Shit. Time. You, you, and you are animals now.") Time passes day to day, but there is no cat reproduction, and general overarching time seems to be still-standing.

And then there's Ouran.

Nekozawa (Mikage-type, with an obsession/similarity to Tamaki (Touga-type with some Utena. I go into some more detail in the Ouran thread...) that borders on Mikage's with Utena) has Beezelnef, the artificial cat he's obsessed with and hides in dark places with. He doesn't get along with real cats, seeing them as more supernatural than anything he does in the dark magic club. There's also Antoinette, but she's a dog. And lots of crabs, and some snakes. But cats. No one trusts cats.

[meryl]

I'm in love. The lengths to which you've spun this analysis has warmed my literary soul.

[golthin]

[ QUOTE ]
meryl said:
I'm in love. The lengths to which you've spun this analysis has warmed my literary soul.

[/ QUOTE ]
/images/graemlins/happy.gif /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[monika]

Heh. The opening of Goldfish Warning! starts out with 8 visible and possibly 14 - 20 cows (and one goldfish) riding a flying clock. It then goes on featuring humans, cows, chickens, pigs, a very out of place penguin I don't remember in the rest of the show (but I could be wrong), and people dressed as bunnies and cows. There is not a single cat in the (1:20-long) opening.

The closing starts out with nine cats dropping from the sky.

There's also a shark, with the same penguin in his mouth, for whatever reason. The penguin is wearing a basebal cap with "T" or possibly "╤" on it. I'm going to wonder loudly if the penguin represents someone working on the staff, and then loudly wonder if this is somehow connected to Pen² with the hopes I can get Randy to respond.

The cats then start walking to the left of the screen, joined by other marchers. I was hoping they'd loop around and I could comment on it, but they never get that far. There's a 10th cat though.

So, one cat is roughly 3 minutes.

----

I just remembered there are other animals in Utena movie not in the wasteland with Nanami and ChuChu. There are a number of little white butterflies in Touga's flashback. For his sake, I hope it all went quickly.

[The Great Bear]

A question for the experts:

What role would you assign to the minor characters Pike and Lilie in Princess Tutu?
In some ways, perhaps they are somewhat akin to A-ko and B-Ko in Utena, in that they are two minor characters who sometimes have interplay with the lead female, and for the most part with the lead female only, and provide sidekick-style commentary on the action. Of course, this is just skimming the surface, so I'm curious to hear what you think.

[monika]

Oh shit, I forgot them.

I've always considered them the Juri (Pike) and Miki (Lilie) characters in Tutu. That may seem a little harsh, reducing the Utena characters who were strong student council duelists, themselves trying to bring revolution, to the support characters for Duck in Tutu, but I refer you to the badminton game / conversation that happens in episode 37.

(First, there's the amusing little point that Utena totally didn't realize Miki and Juri were friends with each other. But that's just her being herself.)

Miki and Juri both realize that they cannot bring about revolution as they see it, because they are too selfish. They decide that they would rather support Utena than fight against her. (Nanami on the other hand, decides there's no reason to do either, and resigns to a life of cow-ness.) Miki and Juri WANT to be the kinds of characters Pike and Lilie are. They're on their way in Utena Movie.

The Juri -&gt; Pike and Miki -&gt; Lilie connection is probably one of the weaker ones, but I like it.

Also, another side note...

There is absolutely no one on both the staff of Utena and Princess Tutu, and the only cast member shared is Yuri Shiratori (Lilie and Nanami). Likewise Utena and Magic Users Club share only Koyasu (Aburatsubo and Touga). I just think that's kind of cute.

[nakimushi]

A convincing correlation of Takeo and Anthy, a brave new way of looking at Haibane Renmei, and a comparison between sequential and CATenated time in MUC and Utena.

Great stuff!

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:


"But Nanami killed a cat!" you say. Yes. And that's why Nanami lays eggs full of monsters instead of bleeding out her vagina like a normal 13-year-old girl.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it bad that I laughed at this?

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
The penguin is wearing a basebal cap with "T" or possibly "╤" on it. I'm going to wonder loudly if the penguin represents someone working on the staff, and then loudly wonder if this is somehow connected to Pen² with the hopes I can get Randy to respond.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have an episode handy so I can't check, but "T" or "╤" is the leading character of tegami or "letter," and appears on post boxes with the meaning of "drop your mail here." It could be appearing on a penguin entirely by coincidence, but we do know that Ikuhara isn't afraid of penguins (http://www.asumiko.com/imgs/wp_02_800.jpg), or he wouldn't work with them. The letter may have only been put on the cap because there needed to be something on the cap, but it's nevertheless fitting in hindsight.

Pen^2 was Misato's pet in Eva, and possibly the wisest and most beloved character in the series. We know that Anno wanted Ikuhara to work with him on the show, and there are little things that may be nods to that failed relationship like the congratulatory sign with "Ikuhara" written on it or the use of the name "Rei," which is that of both Sailor Mars and Saint-Juste from Brother, Dear Brother. After a well-received performance as Usagi, Kotono Mitsuishi played the more mature Misato, followed by the more sober Jury in Utena, followed by Ebichu of Ebichu, a pet project of Anno's that had its roots at least as far back as Misato's refrigerator. Be it coincidence or the natural flow of the Japanese animation industry, Anno and Ikuhara have been working with the same people for quite a while now, just never in the same room at the same time. It's possible that their communication is at this point on the level of coy subtextual cues, and it may even be possible that their deeply-buried messages miss each other, especially seeing as neither of them is into that symbolism stuff anymore. The insistent nature of the Eva references in His and Her Circumstances and the overt presence of Pero-Pero, written Pero^2, may be no more than an anxious Anno checking to make sure his audience got the message the first time around. (If Arima is a Saionji character, then his spontaneous declaration to "launch Unit 01" becomes perfectly fitting.)

"Pen" may be a shortening of "penguin," but a pen is also a tool for writing. Such as for writing a letter. Strapped to a penguin. That's all I was getting at.

[ QUOTE ]
There are a number of little white butterflies in Touga's flashback. For his sake, I hope it all went quickly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Butterflies show up very prominently in a number of different shows, including Paranoia Agent and xxxHolic. Butterflies also held a well-established place in Utena, representing something or other with regard to the Black Rose duelists, possibly a parallel of "the chick breaking out of its egg." In the Utena movie, the butterflies appeared on and unfolded from heads of cabbage all around Touga as he was being scarred for life... suggesting that either young Touga was a cabbage (or perhaps a paulownia tree), or that the Touga we saw in the series was a result of an infestation of foreign seeds in the cabbage patch.

Shiori also carries regrets over sex, but in her case it was sex she engaged in willingly, with the boy she thought she was stealing from Jury. Shiori thus turned herself into the butterfly in the cabbage patch, and, wanting company, tries to recruit Touga to transform Jury in the same way. But Touga can't agree to that; he sees Jury as both an idealistic prince like himself, and a princess to be protected. He won't hurt her, but he won't stop Shiori from hurting her, just as he won't stop Anthy from hurting Saionji. (Although his burning of the exchange diary could be construed as an act of mercy.)

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Shiori thus turned herself into the butterfly in the cabbage patch, and, wanting company, tries to recruit Touga to transform Jury in the same way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... but aren't the butterflies actually cabbage moths (i.e. false butterflies)... and Shiori herself seems to occupy the space of a false (or wannabe) Anthy, attempting to become a witch, asserting she too can become a car (and the driver, I guess), and ultimately failing--pretty much to the collective shrug of everyone--since she is even a false antagonist (the true antogonist being... ultimately... the false world of Ohtori itself?)

Crap, I think I actually got a little serious there. Sorry!

[KomoriKiri]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Magic User's Club contributes as a thematic bridge as well, opening the line all the way from Utena and Tutu to Serial Experiments Lain and from there to Haibane Renmei, which is of course <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>just Azumanga Daioh in Purgatory</span>.


[/ QUOTE ]

Just in case you ever feel like trying to tie in NieA_7 as well, I'll point out that the cat's name is Wakaba...

Wraith
"Don't be so greedy, Mayu. I was the one who caught the monkey."
-- NieA ("NieA_7")

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Wraith said:
Just in case you ever feel like trying to tie in NieA_7 as well, I'll point out that the cat's name is Wakaba...

[/ QUOTE ]

I could, but then I'd also have to tie in Shrine of the Morning Mist, and then Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror, whose last arc is about a cat spirit that interferes in a wedding ceremony, and is done in a style that's halfway between Gankutsuou and Samurai Champloo.

The cat spirit, or bake neko, also appeared in Those Who Hunt Elves, and of course Sailor Moon had its own take on the concept with several characters being reincarnated into cat bodies. From there we can transition into all kinds of magical girl shows featuring helpful cat/rabbit/stuffed animal companions like Pretty Sammy, Hime-chan's Ribbon, Creamy Mami, and Full Moon wo Sagashite. And, so long as we're letting rabbits in on things, Vampire Princess Miyu had both an insightful rabbit mascot and a demonic cat who killed married couples.

Miyu is also worth noting for its use of birds. The whole last arc is a bird-imagery orgy worthy of Princess Tutu, with occasional Utena-esque set design.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
Hmm... but aren't the butterflies actually cabbage moths (i.e. false butterflies)... and Shiori herself seems to occupy the space of a false (or wannabe) Anthy, attempting to become a witch, asserting she too can become a car (and the driver, I guess), and ultimately failing--pretty much to the collective shrug of everyone--since she is even a false antagonist (the true antogonist being... ultimately... the false world of Ohtori itself?)

Crap, I think I actually got a little serious there. Sorry!

[/ QUOTE ]

Analysis is never having to say you're sorry.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
When someone watches Oniisama-e, he's² supposed to be watching to find out what happens next. It's fiction.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering the number of countries this show was banned in, halfway through its first TV airing, quite possibly because of the <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>rampant lesbianism</span>, <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>bullying</span>, <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'> throwing knives at people while doing drugs and smoking</span>, <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>incestuous overtones</span>, <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>attempted suicide</span>, and/or <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>dropping out of school to get married</span>, that's actually harder than it sounds.

Also, more shows need scenes where people drive around eating hot dogs.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Fakir is once again introduced to us as the character acting as semi-self-appointed guardian over some defenseless emotionless shell of hotness. In his "guarding", he's at first portrayed as mean and quite possibly just in it for the hot dom/sub sex.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dom, I should point out, is the appropriately-named enemy captain who whips Tylor mercilessly in order to get information from him, despite their mutual respect and friendship as men. I assume that scene was made for all the Legend of the Galactic Heroes fangirls who'd been aching for a steamy Reinhard-x-Yang encounter. Leave it to the parodies to give people what they want.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be talking about Fakir.

Hmm. Big difference between Fakir and Saionji would be their family situation. Fakir was adopted, but he at least has a place he can go back to for rest and comfort, and his relationship with Mytho began at a young age--he grew into the protective role, rather than taking it upon himself suddenly. Saionji, on the other hand, says he has no place to go. If he has a family (by naming conventions he's the first son, and has a sister who plays tennis in Sailor Moon) he won't rely on them for support, and he would rather impose on someone he barely knows and whose feelings he callously hurt at least once (I don't believe Saionji necessarily posted Wakaba's letter, but may have only said he did when confronted so as to not appear to be a coward or someone being manipulated into a fight, which was really all it took) than go to his best friend (Touga) for help (because that would mean giving Touga power over him, and rooming with Touga would also mean putting up with Touga's uncultured Utena-ish little sister who quite possibly wants to get Anthy naked). Saionji actually got the idea to be protective from Touga--right after Touga hit him and they rode double on his bike--but didn't get the chance to put what he'd learned into practice until he met Anthy, which may not have been very long before the series started. (Saionji could have beaten them all or been declared champion by default, for all we know. Touga starts a new duel chart with Utena's first win, but it's hard to say how often he makes charts, since he's a data freak. See Koyasu's character in Initial D, specifically regarding his treatment of people named Kyoichi.)

[monika]

I'm planning polishing off Tutu 6 this weekend, and figured I'd give people a heads up in this thread that I'll be back in it soon.

On a side note, I noticed a bunch of things in the Haruhi (Suzumiya, Melancholy of) opening that reminded me of the Goldfish Warning opening, and if the conversation gets boring, we can talk about that. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
On a side note, I noticed a bunch of things in the Haruhi (Suzumiya, Melancholy of) opening that reminded me of the Goldfish Warning opening, and if the conversation gets boring, we can talk about that. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Glad you mentioned that. I've been watching through Sailor Moon S, and am nearly at the end of it. When I saw the blue penguin plush in Hotaru's room it immediately reminded me of Goldfish Warning, which as we all know shared a number of the same staff with Haruhi (Fujioka, Host Club of). Once I'm done I'll probably be ready to present an intricate cycle structure involving multiple generations of Sailor Soldiers, Duelists, Hosts, and powerful old men who have a thing for destitute redheads.

All anime redheads, by the way, are inextricably linked to Anne of Green Gables. This was tested and upheld in Saiyuki.

[gsilver0]

I've been reading this thread over the last few months, and it's absolutely crazy.


I like it!

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:

All anime redheads, by the way, are inextricably linked to Anne of Green Gables. This was tested and upheld in Saiyuki.

[/ QUOTE ]

Grandis too? Anyway, after ROD (za TV) ("Don't say 'za.'") I feel as if I ought to read Red-Headed Anne.

[monika]

Fuck. I just lost a really long post because my cat fell off the back of my computer and hit the power cord on the way down.

It was a good one, too. It touched on things like Akage no Anne, Daddy Long Legs, Witch Hunter Robin, and Utena, before getting into a discussion of Ouran and the lasting effects of Rose of Versailles on everything. I usually take precautions against losing such long posts, too, but it was longer than I was planning and I didn't...

::gets to rewriting parts::

Edit: Oh yeah, and I didn't finish Tutu this weekend like I'd planned.

[monika]

So as I was saying, a bit of a cycle theory puzzle and what my current theory is.

(This is non-spoilerish, but discusses Ouran characters.)

The cycle theory defines a projection that takes the timelines of everything ever and projects them down to a circle. In Ouran, we are able to observe three concurrent cycles. This in itself is not strange, as we can do the same thing in Utena. In Utena, we are given the current cycle, remnants of past cycles, and the beginnings of the next cycle. However, in Ouran, we are given something a little more confusing.

Ranka [1.1] (http://larself.com/revolution/rankaclap.png), Tamaki [1.2] (http://larself.com/revolution/tamakiclap.png) [2.1] (http://larself.com/revolution/tamakiabduction.png), and Benibara [2.2] (http://larself.com/revolution/benibaraabduction.png) are all explicitly the same character in their respective cycles. This is shown repeatedly and deliberately through the use of parallel animation. (Furthermore, the entire Zuka Club is a cycle of the Host Club, with Tsuwabuki and Maihara (http://larself.com/revolution/lobeliacapture.png) as Kaoru and Hikaru (http://larself.com/revolution/ourancapture.png) respectively.) What's strange here is that the Zuka Club and the Host Club are running in perfect parallel - there is no clear way to order them! The Zuka Club we know has existed for a long time (and had an effect on Haruhi's mom, Haruhi of a previous cycle,) but one can presume that the current members are a new generation of members, as characters in Ouran presumably age at a normal pace, with the exception of a certain 18-year-old loli-shota.

In fact (aside) I would go so far as to blame this progression of time on Nekozawa and Beelzenef, who were clearly constructed to serve as guardians of time Sailor Pluto style, replacing the capricious nature of real cats with the more steady nature of artificial cats animated through puppetry. This explains both Nekozawa's fear of sunlight and Tamaki's fear of the catly duo.

So anyway, my theory on the Zuka Club. The Zuka Club seems to be the artifact of a bygone cycle which didn't die off as expected but rather spawned a second branch of cycles. Similar to but more severe than the Black Rose Death Cu- er, Black Rose Society. It continued to exist in the shadows (an all girl's school) parallel to the canon cycle.

The obvious culprit for the cycle that started it is, of course, the Takarazuka Revue's performance of Rose of Versailles, which means this offshoot's been in existence since the 70s. The 1770s. So the question is how did it last for so long without Akio and Anthy noticing and killing it? Well, in Ouran we take Kyoya to be "moderately Akio type" with some older Miki mixed in, as I've put it before. We're not given an explicit Anthy character. The Zuka Club's been hidden in Lobelia, nest of feminism and lesbianism, where Akio probably never bothered to check. (Note in Utena, Akio didn't have any luck nor particularly strong interest in <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>bedding</span> either the lesbian or the cow, while he got everyone else.) In the care of a bunch of feminazi dykes is the perfect place to hide something from him. I'm willing to bet the Anthy character in Ouran is the Kyoya character in the Zuka Club. We haven't seen her yet and probably won't because the Zuka Club only exaggerates the differences between the more flamboyant and more taciturn members of the club.

Anyway, with all the power shifting and talk of the outside world in recent cycles, Akio (Kyoya) is probably feeling rather weakened in his power but also secure in the fact that Anthy's actually gone now and he can start rebuilding his empire. Anthy on the other hand is just fucking with him, using the spare side-cycle she was probably saving in case things got really bad for her. Thoughts?

[Fencedude]

God...that is utterly brilliant.

And I really REALLY need to catch up on Ouran now

[monika]

How far into it are you?

19 is my new favorite episode. It's seriously the awesomeness of 9 plus the awesomeness of 10.

[Fencedude]

Like...8...or 9...

[monika]

10 was my new favorite episode for a long time. 9 was my new favorite episode until 10 came out. Go! Watch!

I'm really excited about disk 4. It has episodes 9, 10, and 11 (which would have been my new favorite episode had it come before 9 and 10) on it and, I just found out yesterday, the Kyoya LE packin, which makes me so very happy.

[Fencedude]

Yeah, yeah... maybe after I get caught up on Simoun...

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
The cycle theory defines a projection that takes the timelines of everything ever and projects them down to a circle.
...
Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

I realized today in the Gankutsuou thread why Duck has to get wet in order to change into human form.

It's because she's an optimist. Specifically, because
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Shower scenes, by contrast, are reserved for characters who believe they can be cleansed. Whether it be washing off a bad experience or trying to drown one's own inner turmoil, or just scrubbing behind the ears after a day's work, a character in a shower or bathtub is fundamentally an optimist, as opposed to a pessimist or a realist. Characters with shower scenes believe that everything will turn out alright, or that their situation will get better with time--or they've so completely given up hope of changing the world that they can only wash away their own feelings and thus become happier by denying the person they were.

[/ QUOTE ]

Normally, Duck turns into a duck whenever she does anything duck-like. And as we all know, ducks don't get wet in water. Hence the expression "like water off a duck's back." Yet when Duck gets even a drop of water on her, she turns into a human. And then has to put her clothes on.

Only characters who are fundamentally optimistic and seeking to change themselves or the world can be changed through immersion in water--thus, only such characters receive shower scenes. Because, to constantly dunk a character who isn't going to change in a pool of water, or spray them with a hose, or pour a tea kettle on them, would be gratuitous. Even Ranma 1/2 knew this much. As, one would hope, did Chou Kuseninarisou, which I only mention because I like showing this picture (http://larself.com/revolution/makeahabitofit1.jpg) every chance I get.

As a note, Abenobashi preferred to spray characters with urine, usually their own, and then have them move on as if everything were normal albeit a little stinky. Of course, since one of the precepts of that show is that nothing actually changes even when it seems different, this is not surprising in the least. GAINAX productions tend to be pretty good at breaking out of anime genre conventions, except for Yucie which I'm sure will find a place in this discussion once I've gone through the show again in full (Koyasu plays the doting father--imagine that), and Nadia which should be on every Haruhi Suzumiya fan's to-watch list.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
I like showing this picture (http://larself.com/revolution/makeahabitofit1.jpg) every chance I get.

[/ QUOTE ]

Almost as great as this (http://larself.com/revolution/makeahabitofit2.jpg) one.

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
I realized today in the Gankutsuou thread why Duck has to get wet in order to change into human form.

It's because she's an optimist. Specifically, because
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Shower scenes, by contrast, are reserved for characters who believe they can be cleansed. Whether it be washing off a bad experience or trying to drown one's own inner turmoil, or just scrubbing behind the ears after a day's work, a character in a shower or bathtub is fundamentally an optimist, as opposed to a pessimist or a realist. Characters with shower scenes believe that everything will turn out alright, or that their situation will get better with time--or they've so completely given up hope of changing the world that they can only wash away their own feelings and thus become happier by denying the person they were.

[/ QUOTE ]

Normally, Duck turns into a duck whenever she does anything duck-like. And as we all know, ducks don't get wet in water. Hence the expression "like water off a duck's back." Yet when Duck gets even a drop of water on her, she turns into a human. And then has to put her clothes on.

Only characters who are fundamentally optimistic and seeking to change themselves or the world can be changed through immersion in water--thus, only such characters receive shower scenes. Because, to constantly dunk a character who isn't going to change in a pool of water, or spray them with a hose, or pour a tea kettle on them, would be gratuitous. Even Ranma 1/2 knew this much. As, one would hope, did Chou Kuseninarisou, which I only mention because I like showing this picture (http://larself.com/revolution/makeahabitofit1.jpg) every chance I get.

As a note, Abenobashi preferred to spray characters with urine, usually their own, and then have them move on as if everything were normal albeit a little stinky. Of course, since one of the precepts of that show is that nothing actually changes even when it seems different, this is not surprising in the least. GAINAX productions tend to be pretty good at breaking out of anime genre conventions, except for Yucie which I'm sure will find a place in this discussion once I've gone through the show again in full (Koyasu plays the doting father--imagine that), and Nadia which should be on every Haruhi Suzumiya fan's to-watch list.

[/ QUOTE ]

An interesting premise, but I can think of several shower scenes that resulted in no internal transformation or change to the world outside -- granted, most of these are from fan service anime where the shower scenes serve obvious other purposes. And plenty of these involve characters not filled with optimism, but ones who tread in uncertainty, or even despair.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but just trying to suggest that it may not be so simple as you put it. I can see the cleansing angle clearly, as Duck washes away her "duckness" in order to become human, and also takes on a certain optimism by doing so. But isn't it interesting that Duck changes back into a duck any time she enagages in typical duck behanvior, with the single exception of going into the water.
While humans can swim, and some can swim very well, the water is not our natural habitat, but is part of the natural habitat of ducks. So, it's interesting that this is the one type of "typically duck-like activity" that Duck can engage in that does not result in her being physically transformed back into a duck, but in fact results in exactly the opposite.

And for this being typical behavior of a duck,<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'> to be in the water</span>, I simply reference one of the very last scenes of the show. [I have spoiler tagged this for anyone who has not yet finished the final volume].

So, I'm not completely disagreeing with you, but I think it may be a little more complicated. I don't have a full explanation myself.

[BluWacky]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Fuck. I just lost a really long post because my cat fell off the back of my computer and hit the power cord on the way down.

It was a good one, too. It touched on things like Akage no Anne, Daddy Long Legs, Witch Hunter Robin, and Utena, before getting into a discussion of Ouran and the lasting effects of Rose of Versailles on everything. I usually take precautions against losing such long posts, too, but it was longer than I was planning and I didn't...


[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be interested in what you've got on WHR. The <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>cyclical nature of the show</span> and the character analogues I can just about see, but unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with the other shows you bring up in this thread to properly participate, which bugs me no end /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

(although I had a huge smile on my face in Ouran 16 which I watched last night with the church scene; talk about blatant homage...)

[ QUOTE ]

Edit: Oh yeah, and I didn't finish Tutu this weekend like I'd planned.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're in for a treat. Anyone know what Sato's up to next what with relinquishing control of Futagohime for its second series and Aria drawing to a close? I can't imagine he's content babysitting Keroro.

[monika]

It was actually commentary on the possible source of her hair style. Then afterwards, Randy told me in IM that he thought he'd be able to do a one-to-one character matching if he rewatched the show. I haven't seen it all (caught some on TV), and I'm missing disk 1 but have the rest unwatched. I'll try to get my hands on it and watch it and stuff and comment when I can.

And with Utena, blatant references (http://larself.com/revolution/oniisamaerip.png)¹ are par for the course. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

Though I must say my favorite Ouran nod at Utena was Tamaki in the first episode commenting that water can't hurt handsome boys, in his best Koyasu impersonation.

¹That's the Utena character in Oniisama-E about to rip down a scandalous note about the Wakaba character. (It, however, wasn't posted by the Saionji character. She was too busy drugging up in the piano room.) (The show is full of those, and I probably picked the least blatant one, visually.) (Someday, I'll post the red shoe in the water...)

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Only characters who are fundamentally optimistic and seeking to change themselves or the world can be changed through immersion in water--thus, only such characters receive shower scenes.

[/ QUOTE ]

An interesting premise, but I can think of several shower scenes that resulted in no internal transformation or change to the world outside -- granted, most of these are from fan service anime where the shower scenes serve obvious other purposes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm aware of that. Showering doesn't necessarily lead to change. Nor does sitting under a waterfall build internal strength. Nor does falling off a cliff into a raging river necessarily mean that you're going to die, although sometimes it does. Water imagery is used in many places and for many purposes, and only by knowing the particular language in which a symbol is written can the meaning of the image be interpreted. For example, water in Utena foreshadows death. Not every time, and not every death, but enough to make a point of it. Nanami kills a kitten by drowning it. Ruka dies after Jury gets soaking wet. <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>So does Touga</span>, and then he comes back to keep reminding everyone. I like how he <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>playfully splashes Anthy with the hose. I'd do that if I were haunting people.</span>

That said, I'll spell out my interpretational direction on showering, particularly in how it has to do with fanservice and optimism.

When OVAs first started being made, there was a push, whether deliberate or implicit, to distinguish straight-to-video releases from theatrical movies and TV series at the time. This was done in a number of ways, including non-standard designs and storytelling structures, as well as an often generous use of animation cels. The primary market for early OVA releases was anime fans specifically, rather than the general market, and as anime fans tended to be single adults with disposable income and an interest in sci-fi, creature horror, and porn, it was a no-brainer for the OVA to target this type of consumer. Someone who appreciated anime as an artform, but was also somewhat obsessive and had more adult tastes than what could be fulfilled by family-oriented TV.

You know where this is going. Shower scenes. Without a doubt, the shower scene was devised as a way to titillate the audience, arousing both libido and sympathy for a female character while at the same time keeping the image private, and thus avoiding any nasty relationship drama. You could say that the purpose of the scene from a narrative view is to build suspense before the next big action scene--demons busting through walls, etc.--but it doesn't fool anyone. You could just as easily be showing the characters wolfing down hamburgers or lounging on a fluffy bed like they did in the 1970's (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=405).

As always ends up happening, the image of naked womanhood gets associated with peril. This is not a bad thing. Lots of men would like to feel like they can be a hero and protect their woman from whatever vague forces would harm her. Lots of women would like to feel protected. But it's a cliche, and it's a cliche that's gone so far beyond the normal bounds of a cliche that it's become an undercurrent of characterization in every scene in which it occurs.

We all know everyone bathes. Or ought to bathe. But they don't show shower scenes with hideous people. Except in Giant Robo. Only certain types of characters are fetishized with the all-glorifying shower scene, and almost invaryingly it's characters who you want to like, or are told you are supposed to want to like. The shower scene becomes a test of a character's perfection and innocence. Is she "good enough" to get a shower scene? Is there anything she's hiding, that I ought to be aware of?

Emeraldas has a scar on her face. You don't need to see her naked body to know that. Maetel doesn't have a scratch on her perfect skin--but that's only something you can find out by looking. Misato has a scar on her chest, which she covers, even though she wears short skirts and high heels when she knows she's going to be riding an escalator. Her big nudey shot in Magma Diver made sure to let the viewer notice that. For this analysis, hotsprings, baths, and shower scenes all serve the same purpose, although of course in practice they have subtle differences and varied applications.

The bath ought to be a place of relaxation and restoration, but ever since Psycho the bathroom hasn't been safe. At any moment a killer or a monster or a rapist can burst in on a pretty young girl while she's most vulnerable. As a staple in sci-fi and horror anime, the obligatory shower scene merely becomes a euphemism for that implied fear, which is only sometimes expressly delivered upon. Adult anime gets to have a field day there. In exchange for not being able to show a human penis, hentai of the 80's and early 90's thrived on the tentacle monster, a walking, raping, overtones-of-bondage-and-bestiality plot device that was then ported back over into regular TV, minus the penetration. It's truly amazing how often Sailor Moon gets tied up or held down by vines, tentacles, and translucent goo--almost enough to make you wonder whether the kind of eroticism it evokes is meant to be implied or overt. (For that matter, why are almost all of the monsters female?)

[ QUOTE ]
And plenty of these involve characters not filled with optimism, but ones who tread in uncertainty, or even despair.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uncertainty, yes. Despair, yes. But even in despair there is hope; a character who wishes to be saved from their poor situation acknowledges the possibility that it could happen, however unlikely. By contrast, a pessimist is someone who believes in their heart that the world is out to get them, that everything is going to turn out wrong, and there's no use even trying to make it better because it won't work. In the type of visual representation I'm interpreting here, I hold that a pessimist wouldn't even bother getting into a shower, or wouldn't be shown in one, because they would neither find meaning in the act of cleaning themselves, nor would the intended viewer gain sympathy or discover beauty in the showing of it. Understand that even girls shown moping or crying in a bathtub are at least taking a step toward reconciliation of their own feelings and situation, and that this is one reason the image can resonate so strongly with viewers: not everything is gone if even just this can still be done. A bathtub suicide (girl-type: slit wrists or pills), then, is still an image of hope, because it shows a will to change rather than an acceptance of fate.

And a realist is someone who believes that there's no point in being optimistic or pessimistic, because only what happens and what we do can cause change--not what we think or hope or believe. A realist in the shower is not a glorified image of beauty. They're a technical diagram of a mechanical process. Now granted, some people are attracted to human anatomy for its own sake, just like some people are interested in how helicopters are built and maintained. And the shows that provide that sort of content are still giving fanservice, but it's a different sort of fanservice. It's a love of the object for what it is, rather than for what it means.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying you're wrong, but just trying to suggest that it may not be so simple as you put it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know. I speak in absolutes in order to prompt discussion. Only once the issue is out on the table can we start classifying the shades of gray.

[ QUOTE ]
I can see the cleansing angle clearly, as Duck washes away her "duckness" in order to become human, and also takes on a certain optimism by doing so. But isn't it interesting that Duck changes back into a duck any time she enagages in typical duck behanvior, with the single exception of going into the water.
While humans can swim, and some can swim very well, the water is not our natural habitat, but is part of the natural habitat of ducks. So, it's interesting that this is the one type of "typically duck-like activity" that Duck can engage in that does not result in her being physically transformed back into a duck, but in fact results in exactly the opposite.

[/ QUOTE ]

Duck was told she was a duck, and was given a pendant that makes her not have to be a duck anymore, and she would turn into a duck when she did something duck-like. Like quack, which was something she had done often before.

The viewer may accept this premise because the story never scrutinizes it after the first episode, but what if they chose not to accept the premise? Couldn't the opposite be true?

Duck is introduced as a human. She only "finds out" she's a duck after Drosselmeyer's machinations come into play, but we know he can control certain things from beyond the grave. We also know of at least one character who was deceived by a dead-and-sealed-away paternal figure as to her own true identity: Rue, who was raised as Princess Kraehe.

So, is it not also possible that Duck was a human to begin with, that she merely has duck-like mannerisms, and was gullible enough to be maneuvered into believing she was a duck, just as Rue believed she was a raven? The tragedy of Princess Tutu, the incidental character in The Prince and the Raven, was not that she disappeared into a speck of light after confessing her love. What makes the character tragic is that she had the power to change the entire course of the story, yet allowed herself to be marginalized to such an extent that only her essence remained in a few brief lines. Similarly, Duck, who loved and cared for Mytho, and only wanted to save him from suffering, became convinced of her own powerlessness and surrendered the powers she did possess to the agendas of others who wished to advance the story for their own gain. Only at the end, as Princess Tutu, was Duck able to fulfill her powerful role in the story, to restore the prince's heart and confess love, giving Mytho the ability to end the story and be together with Rue. Which she had been told she was going to do right from the beginning--after all, Mytho and Rue were introduced in the story as lovers who were being kept apart.

[ QUOTE ]
And for this being typical behavior of a duck,<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'> to be in the water</span>, I simply reference one of the very last scenes of the show. [I have spoiler tagged this for anyone who has not yet finished the final volume].

[/ QUOTE ]

It's odd that Duck as a duck can't go in water, since it's what ducks do. Which makes me think that maybe in the first place she was a human all along. But there are several compelling possibilities, which is why I'm not ruling any of them out. Perhaps it was only when Tutu surrendered Mytho's heart that she truly became a duck, or perhaps she really was a duck from the start and the whole changing-in-water thing was a trick to keep her from being comfortable as a duck or growing complacent.

We know that in the world of Tutu there are many animal-people, and they behave dually as both animals and humans, from the tiniest bird to a cow and a rhinoceros. Mr. Cat is a dignified and uncompromising dance instructor, but that doesn't mean he won't spontaneously lick his balls in front of everyone. Cats do that, and that doesn't make them any less human.

So Duck has duck-like mannerisms, and her name is Duck. And she turns into a duck. So what? This may not be unnatural for her world, where you can get a leotard sized for a hippopotamus or a trenchcoat for a giant sloth. It's all good. Even Mytho grew feathers and took on a raven's appearance after a while, and if I'm not mistaken Fakir was a tree. Visitors to the story-world can't quite remember whether or not they weren't an elephant or an electric eel before they came inside, and it may well be that they actually were, in some capacity.

If I were to use the imagery of Sailor Moon S to analyze Tutu, I'd start with the fact that Duck is a captured fowl being used to collect heart shards by Drosselmeyer, much as the cormorant Daimohn were being used to collect pure heart crystals by the Professor, a shadowy half-dead guy who enjoys ironic twists of fate and manipulating people almost as much as he enjoys smiling and overacting. I doubt Sailor Moon would be as forgiving of Tutu as Rue was, but then again Sailor Moon was all hung up on not forgiving people even if their actions would ultimately restore her reincarnated prince's heart and memories. Present-day Usagi is ultimately disposed to staying with her daughter rather than with her ideal man (or maybe she just chose reality over fantasy; I can't tell), but Rue probably won't have to make that sort of choice since by now she's likely been put off the whole idea of having children thanks to Daddy Longtalons, and besides she gets to live happily ever after with her prince charming.

[ QUOTE ]
So, I'm not completely disagreeing with you, but I think it may be a little more complicated.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif I think you're not giving it enough credit for how extremely complicated it is.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't have a full explanation myself.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm workin' on it.

[monika]

Damnit, now I need to tie in Votoms. But I don't have time because I need to shower and get to work.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
It was actually commentary on the possible source of her hair style. Then afterwards, Randy told me in IM that he thought he'd be able to do a one-to-one character matching if he rewatched the show.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since I don't have the luxury of time to rewatch Witch Hunter Robin, I'll just do the matching now.

Robin - Utena
Amon - Touga
Sakaki - Saionji
Michael - Miki
Karasuma - Jury
Doujima - Nanami
Master - Ruka
Touko - Anthy

Meh. It's not perfect, and not everything applies to the same cycle. The Chief, Hattori, and Zaizen all fit in there somewhere but they're also a bit of a blur--maybe Akio, Dios, and Mikage respectively? Utena has a very tight group of characters whereas Robin is a bit more sprawling. For example, I'd be hesitant to try to match up all the witches.

Mainly I was struck by the similarities between Robin and Utena, and their relationships with the other characters in their shows. But that's going to happen when you have a central character of a certain age and design. Robin, as a redheaded firecaster, could just as easily be Sailor Mars.

[The Great Bear]

I'm not sure I can buy the "Duck was actually a human tricked by Drosselmeyer into believeing that she was a duck" theory. But your analysis is interesting.
The evidence lies in the show itself: at the end, when Drosselmeyer's grip over the town has been released, the animals <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'> return to being animals. The clearest example is the wonderful appearance of Mr. Cat</span> [spoiler tags added for those who have not seen the final episodes].
<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'> And clearly, we see that Duck has returned to being a duck</span>.

I agree with what you had to say about shower scenes. Hitchcock basically made it impossible for them to be "pure" titillation, without the presence of danger, or at least the "taint" that comes from there being a viewer, even if the person showering is not aware of it. The voyeuristic aspect itself is now the source of the titillation, not the bare naked flesh.

What you had to say about pessimism and optimism was interesting, though again, if I were to play devil's advocate, how could you explain the anomaly of the "bathing pessimist" ? I cannot give an example off the top of my head, but I'm sure I could find one. Say, a pessimist who is also a germophobe, and thus one who is constantly cleansing, even if he has doubts about the efficacy of the act.

Again, I'm not trying to just be a Doubting Thomas, but perhaps raising questions will help you in putting together that complete explanation. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Amon - Touga


[/ QUOTE ]

While it is utterly meaningless in this discussion, you do have an English voice actor match in this pairing. Perhaps a coincidence that helps, but nothing more.

[monika]

Meaningless? It's Crispin "Mythology" Freeman.

I'm not entirely sure how accurate the following timeline is, but didn't it go something like...

Play Touga
Quit CPM
Start working at Bandai
Write the dub script for WHR
Play Amon

... within a very short time period?


Now Crispin, he's a smart actor. Of the three general types I group (good) actors in in my head, he's in the group defined by Loren Dunn (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;hs=OhG&amp;lr=&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;q=+site:www.citypaper.com+loren+dunn+b altimore) (RBT's Saionji (http://larself.com/revolution/index2.php?page=saionji)). He does research (reads show summaries, checks out what Japan says about the shows, watches f******... stuff like that) in order to play a role with no surprises. He can overcome a bad director and really shine under a good one. He prides himself on knowing what he's doing.

He's a data freak like Touga is what I'm saying.

Even if it in theory only had an effect on the English dub of WHR, I bet Crispin had the similarities between the shows in his mind as he worked on the script and acted in it. (And I think by now it should be clear that I am willing to play loose with the direction of influences.)

I wasn't planning on doing this, but I'm going to end this post with a quote from Crispin.

[ QUOTE ]
Crispin said
I think a lot of people think that because they're great consumers that they will be great creators, and that's not necessarily the case. But what's helped me because I have been a fan of the genre-and because I approached it not just as a sycophantic fan, but as someone who appreciates the art-I have been able to bring to my work a level of knowledge of the shows that has helped me. Especially when I started in New York, because most of the people that I was working with, including many of the directors-not all but many-had no idea what they were working on, and didn't really care. And I did! And so that meant that when I went in to read my character I knew what was going on, which helped immensely. So, I kept getting cast. Then, as I started doing more and getting deeper into it, I think people realized that.

[/ QUOTE ]

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Amon - Touga


[/ QUOTE ]

While it is utterly meaningless in this discussion, you do have an English voice actor match in this pairing. Perhaps a coincidence that helps, but nothing more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Crispin also plays Togusa in Ghost in the Shell. It's a show I always look forward to watching dubbed, even if the dialogue itself is a tad on the dry side. One of these days I'll go through my collection and rewatch everything he and Rachael have been in.

[The Great Bear]

*left to take a shower, eat dinner, and watch TV*
[yes, that info is bloggy, but in keeping with the current discussion]

Ah, but by "meaningless," what I mean is that the Japanese creators, whose motives you've both been examining in great detail, probably did not [notice I am saying probably did not--without their confirmation, none of us can say conclusively] have control over the English casting decisions. And of course, I doubt that any of them could have know that Freeman would leave NY for LA at the exact time he did, in order to pick up a role that is a descendent of the one he had just completed. That's why I would stress the coincidence.

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Crispin also plays Togusa in Ghost in the Shell. It's a show I always look forward to watching dubbed, even if the dialogue itself is a tad on the dry side. One of these days I'll go through my collection and rewatch everything he and Rachael have been in.

[/ QUOTE ]
One of my favorite shows. I've just been waiting for the last volume of 2nd Gig to arrive before marathoning the whole thing.

What other shows have he and Lillis been in? Of course, I could go look myself at ANN or Crystal Acids, but then, I'm lazy /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Oddly enough, my first exposure to Rachael Lillis was in Comic Party. Absolutely feel in love with her voice from there.

And the first time I heard Crispin Freeman's voice was actually in Chobits. Yeah, not at all a role you would usually associate with him.

But now I'm getting way off track.

[monika]

I was totally going to post something in response to that, but then I discovered that Kuretake, the Nekozawa family maid in Ouran, the one who does things like impose Romeo and Juliet in places where they don't belong, is played by...

You might want to sit down for this...

<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>Kawakami Tomoko.</span>

I might now (in a few days when I have time) have to sift through her exchange blog with Ikuhara to see if this is mentioned anywhere.


(This upcoming paragraph I wrote and then I came back to warn you before you read it that it is crazy.)

In any case, I now feel compelled to give a shoutout to Makio Inoue's bit role in Champloo, where he played Mariya Enshirou, Jin's mentor. (Wata)Nabeshin(ichiro) (not to be confused with (Wata)Nabeshin(ichi) who claimed the nickname first and therefor gets to use it) admits that he only likes Lupin III and the anime he makes himself (which fully explains Bebop and Champloo) (and is probably also true of Nabeshin, supporting the theory that the two of them are each other's alter egos, and also the theory that the hyperextended cycle theory applies to the real world) cast Goemon to play the role of The Mentor of a character who he expects people to take as a worthy successor to Goemon. Now that's some neat casting slight-of-hand right there. Wish they'd do something as nice with Harlock. Like give Makio his role back.

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
You might want to sit down for this...

<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>Kawakami Tomoko.</span>


[/ QUOTE ]

I think you were replying to one of aquapermanence's posts above, but when you mentioned this name, it automatically made me think of....no, not our favorite duelist, but instead a little blonde girl who trips a lot and like weird juice: the moe object known as Misuzu Kamio.

But then thinking about it, perhaps AIR, in a strange way, is not inappropriate to bring into the discussion. After all, it does involve cycles, with the main characters being explicitly noted as reincarnations from a previous existence. And at the end, the cycle is completed, only to start again.

And it kind of shows the range of characters the spoiler tagged one above has played, as I cannot think of any two characters who are, in many ways, farther apart than Misuzu and Ms. 天上.

[monika]

She's also in Keroro playing a character who thinks aliens are kind of cool and stuff but isn't so much into the world conquest thing like Touga and Saionji.

[aquapermanence]

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Time to put this idea to the "conspiracy theory" test. (Don't take this post seriously--I'm not that far gone.)

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
Ah, but by "meaningless," what I mean is that the Japanese creators,

[/ QUOTE ]

Kunihiko Ikuhara

[ QUOTE ]
whose motives you've both been examining in great detail,

[/ QUOTE ]

oversaw the English dubbing of the Utena movie in 2001

[ QUOTE ]
probably did not [notice I am saying probably did not--without their confirmation, none of us can say conclusively] have control over the English casting decisions.

[/ QUOTE ]

in which Crispin Freeman played Touga.

[ QUOTE ]
And of course, I doubt that any of them could have know that Freeman would leave NY for LA at the exact time he did,

[/ QUOTE ]

Ikuhara also moved to the US in 2001, and resided in California where he went to film school. While here, he did things like buy a red sports car and then get too scared to ride on the hood. He has also kept an exchange diary with Tomoko Kawakami, who voiced in the Japanese version of Witch Hunter Robin in 2002.

[ QUOTE ]
in order to pick up a role that is a descendent of the one he had just completed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Witch Hunter Robin began its US DVD release in 2003, barely 10 months after its completion on Japanese TV. Crispin Freeman, in addition to voicing Amon in the show, wrote the ADR script for most of the episodes. We can assume he left for LA well enough ahead to get that done.

[ QUOTE ]
That's why I would stress the coincidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would also like to stress a coincidence.

Revolutionary Girl Utena aired 39 consecutive weeks, ending on December 24, 1997.
Witch Hunter Robin aired 26 consecutive weeks, ending on December 24, 2002.

::cue ominous elevator music!::

Witch Hunter Robin also shares a character designer with Ouran High School Host Club. Not that that has anything to do with anything. Ever.

[Fencedude]

So, I wonder...does anyone want to dare trying to work Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni into this?

Seeing as how we are talking about cycles...

(also, this is not specifically referencing Aqua's post, i just didn't know which post would be best to respond to)

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Revolutionary Girl Utena aired 39 consecutive weeks, ending on December 24, 1997.


[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting to note that Utena's final air date is five days before Utena's 15th birthday.

Utena's birthday is easy to remember. It's December 29th, 1982. To remember it, just remember my birthday, December 29, 1981, and add a year to it.

But yes, Utena characters have birthdays. Most of them were presumably assigned by Chiho while she was writing character bios for the manga.

Now here's an interesting point.

Touga's birthday takes place in Episode 10 of Utena. That episode aired 6/4/1997, Touga's 17th birthday. Implication that I'm going with: The show is running in real time.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it? After all this talk about, um, everything we talk about in this thread, Utena runs in real time.

Anyway, given that we can now look at when characters' birthdays happen in the show.

Shiori (2/2), Anthy (2/29), Wakaba (3/14), and Utena (12/29) all have birthdays outside of the run of the show (4/2 - 12/24)

4/2 - Kanae Exact air date of episde 1 (The Rose Bride)

I find this one an interesting choice, and blame Ikuhara. The show starts the day Kanae turns 18. Kanae is the youngest adult in the show. There is no character in the show who switches over from 17 to 18 within the airdates of the show (and lives to tell about it. Ruka, by the way, isn't given a birthday.)

5/28 - Miki and Kozue Exact air date of episde 9 (The Castle where Eternity Dwells) in which they do not appear at all.

6/4 - Touga Exact air date of episde 10 (Nanami's Precious Thing) in which his birthday is celebrated.

7/10 - Tsuwabuki Six days before episode 16 (Cowbell of Happiness) and less than a month before episode 18 (Mitsuru's Growing Pains) (kinda cute.)

8/8 - Nanami Two days after episode 19 (Song for a Fallen Kingdom)

Heh. In this episode, there's a scene where Nanami asks Miki to play the piano at the party tomorrow (which would be the day before her birthday.) She never says what the party is for, and the party is never on screen. By the next episode, there's no mention of it anymore and two episodes later, she's throwing another party, for her brother, which she seemed to be much more excited about.

8/25 - Saionji Two days before episode 22 (Nemuro Memorial Hall) Good to know he got his expulsion reversed in time to be back in school for his birthday.

9/15 - Akio Two days before episode 25 (Our Eternal Apocalypse) which is the start of Akio's arc.

9/24 - Chigusa Exact air date of episde 26 (Miki's Nest Box) but that probably doesn't mean anything.

10/6 - Keiko Five days after episode 27 (Nanami's Egg) which is cute.

11/30 - Mikage Four days after episode 35 (The love that TOUGA) (bad pun in the title lost in translation, by the way. There are a bunch of these, but this is my favorite apart from the view from KOZUE (tree top) one, which CPM didn't know what to do with either.) but he wasn't around anymore to appreciate it.

12/1 - Juri Day after Mikage's Also, Two days before episode 36 (And the Gates of Night Open) where she seems oddly mature.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Now here's an interesting point.

Touga's birthday takes place in Episode 10 of Utena. That episode aired 6/4/1997, Touga's 17th birthday. Implication that I'm going with: The show is running in real time.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it? After all this talk about, um, everything we talk about in this thread, Utena runs in real time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow! I can hardly believe it, but my favorite series ever just got better! I never would have realized this until you just pointed it out.

Utena never ceases to amaze me.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Revolutionary Girl Utena aired 39 consecutive weeks, ending on December 24, 1997.


[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting to note that Utena's final air date is five days before Utena's 15th birthday.

[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't Utena celebrate her birthday in The Barefoot Girl, or thereabouts?

I remember there being a cake. And some candles.

Oh, that's right. Despite all his meticulous planning, Akio is impatient when he gets excited about something. He probably just moves Utena's age up as an excuse to drive her around in his car.

[The Great Bear]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Time to put this idea to the "conspiracy theory" test. (Don't take this post seriously--I'm not that far gone.)
(snip)
I would also like to stress a coincidence.

Revolutionary Girl Utena aired 39 consecutive weeks, ending on December 24, 1997.
Witch Hunter Robin aired 26 consecutive weeks, ending on December 24, 2002.

::cue ominous elevator music!::

Witch Hunter Robin also shares a character designer with Ouran High School Host Club. Not that that has anything to do with anything. Ever.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I haven't seen any of Ouran (not from lack of interest, but because I don't watch fasnubs [deliberate misspelling]. The coincidences are starting to pile up, but it may be nothing more than serendipity. (Serendipity Now! Incongruity Later!)

Coincidence is usually the strongest support any "conspiracy theory" can get.

Actually, it is interesting the number of connections we've managed to make. At some point one of us here should see how many shows we've been able to weave into the web of Utena-Tutu.

Of course, if we continue to go down the Crispin Freeman connection path, we will be bringing in a huge number of shows in various forms.

[The Great Bear]

Hmm. It's interesting that so much attention is paid to birthdays in the show. Something that doesn't reappear in Tutu, where I can't remember any of the character's birthdays making a significant appearance, but then Tutu does NOT run in real time, as Utena does. We know this clearly since the town <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>is in a pocket of some sort out of normal time due to Drosselmeyer's grip over the town</span>. Kind of like Raxephon's <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>Tokyo Jupiter</span> thingy.

[Dagger]

And to think that I just started reading Foucault's Pendulum... good lord. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

Like Fence, I'm interested in seeing Higurashi worked into all of this. One of the scriptwriters was involved with a few episodes of Tutu (16, 19, 21, 24, if we can believe ANN).

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
I remember there being a cake. And some candles.


[/ QUOTE ]

Three (3) candles. Maybe 10/22 is Ruka's birthday, and Akio forgot to cancel (http://larself.com/revolution/cake1.jpg) with the bakery (http://larself.com/revolution/cake2.jpg). Anthy used the candles (http://larself.com/revolution/cake3.jpg) shortly afterwards (http://larself.com/revolution/cake4.jpg) for her own (http://larself.com/revolution/cake5.png) accounting. (Or should that be "for her (http://larself.com/revolution/cake6.png) own accounting (http://larself.com/revolution/cake7.png)"? In any case, the reference is there somewhere.)

'Course, Akio says he made the cake himself, which impresses both Utena and Wakaba.

[monika]

(This actually made me think "I bet 10/22 is Sailor Mars's birthday or something." And then I looked it up. It's Sailor Venus's. Sailor Mars was born April 17, 1978.)

[monika]

Also, on a completely different side note, episode 23 of Ouran is titled ç’°ã�®ç„¡è‡ªè¦šã�ªæ†‚鬱¹ but I'm going to refer to it as é*ˆçŽ‹ç’°ã�®æ†‚鬱². (I am also going to warn everyone else against looking up the titles of Ouran episodes they haven't seen yet. That was a mistake.)

¹ The Unrealized Melancholy of Tamaki
² The Melancholy of Suoh Tamaki

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
What other shows have he and Lillis been in? Of course, I could go look myself at ANN or Crystal Acids, but then, I'm lazy /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I had actually meant all the shows that either of them had been in, but since you ask, Boogiepop Phantom. I actually listened to their commentary on the show without having heard the English dub, so I hadn't even realized either one was in it.

I also spotted Rachael's name in the Kujibiki Unbalance credits, so I'll have to give that and Genshiken a run through in English.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:

All anime redheads, by the way, are inextricably linked to Anne of Green Gables.

[/ QUOTE ]

Grandis too?

[/ QUOTE ]

Woo. Tough one. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

One look at Grandis (of Nadia, I assume) says that she's Misato-type. A charismatic leader who's out for romance and adventure (and money) who carries the burden of being jilted by a lover she trusted and who ruined her family. Now she's getting up there in years, and she's starting to be seen as an old lady for people to leave their kids with. (Electra is Ritsuko-type. All the other characters fall into place by themselves.) But that's a projection into the future. Looking backward to Anne, there are plenty of similarities to cite.

Both are hopeless dreamers. When they set their eyes on a goal, they won't turn away from it, even if they know it won't come to them soon. Both lost their homes. Anne was the traditional orphan character, and Grandis was cast out of her house. They share a fantasy of waking up into new lives in which they are princesses. Both are very fashion-conscious. Anne dreams of puffy sleeves. Grandis wears anything that shows off her chest. Anne comes into the story with a strong sense of right and wrong, but with no perspective of a formal religious or moral upbringing. Grandis lives by her own code of honor; her actions are invariably noble even if her reasoning is at times criminal.

The Cuthberts, despite their initial misgivings, decide to adopt Anne and remain fiercely loyal and supportive of her. Marilla is a source of strength, etiquette, and moral backbone. Matthew is an experienced farmer with all manner of practical knowledge, and while shy around women, his love for Anne shows through in his actions. His catch phrase is "Saa."

The valets, Sanson and Hanson, were the only servants who remained loyal to Grandis after she was swindled. They followed her and supported her actions in everything, even going so far as to become mercenaries. Sanson is the muscle of the group, but his vanity makes him a walking textbook on gentlemanly conduct. Hanson is a top mechanic with a brain to match, but he's not assertive and often hides his feelings. Both he and Sanson follow Grandis out of their love for her, even while knowing that she will eventually want to marry someone else. Hanson's catch phrase is "Sa-sa-sa."

So yes, Grandis too. And by extension, Asuka.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Once I'm done I'll probably be ready to present an intricate cycle structure involving multiple generations of Sailor Soldiers, Duelists, Hosts, and powerful old men who have a thing for destitute redheads.

[/ QUOTE ]

"One! Two! One! Two! Come on! To the top of the hill!"
/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif That's not a song, that's just how I feel.

What follows is an exploration and comparison of elements of two shows that preceded Princess Tutu and can be seen as influential in its design. I won't draw any direct comparisons to Tutu, however, as that's been done quite a bit in this thread for the one title and not nearly enough for the other.

Without further ado,

Theory
Sailor Moon S is a post-Utena Movie cycle. Haruka and Michiru take on the roles left by movie Utena and movie Anthy, respectively.

Background
In his original conception of the characters, Ikuhara wanted to have Haruka find Michiru at the End of the World, where they would storm an upside-down castle on flying horses. Suffice to say it was never approved, and the couple got a different origin for the series.

Construction of the Cycle
The premise of the Sailor Moon S-Utena comparison is that Sailor Moon S is a post-Utena Movie cycle with Haruka and Michiru occupying the places of Utena and Anthy. Sailor Moon S is itself a new iteration of a cycle, but with the couple from the previous cycle moving up in age. Haruka and Michiru are both high school students at an exclusive all-grades university. This school attracts gifted students from all over, and is owned and run by a scientist who studies pocket universes and parallel dimensions.

The cycle opens with Rei, a psychic, having a vision of the "end of the world." She, along with the other Sailor Soldiers, had only just saved the world the previous year after being reincarnated into a parallel time-cycle. The "end of the world" itself will not occur until the end of the cycle, but Rei is psychic and thus able to see into parallel presents on occasion. Rei hides this knowledge from her friends, but it is revealed later on that Michiru has also seen a vision of the end.

The two were guided into this time-cycle by Setsuna, guardian of time. Setsuna is able to go back and forth through time, and does so in order to transport Chibiusa back, but she is forbidden from stopping time entirely. This is probably because the moon kingdom guardian animals are cats.

Characters

The Sailor Soldiers
The five girls who make up the Sailor Soldiers at the beginning of the season have just started ninth grade, and are preparing to take high school entrance exams. They are thinking ahead toward their futures, and to the kinds of lives they will lead after graduation. Despite having already experienced multiple reincarnations, alien invasions, and Usagi's time-traveling future daughter, they're going about their normal lives with their eyes set on the goals in front of them.

Like the students of Ohtori, the Sailor Soldiers and their friends are gifted in different ways, but are ultimately regular people with hopes and dreams.

Usagi and Mamoru
The star-crossed lovers. Usagi and Mamoru will one day create Chibiusa, the central figure of the Sailor Moon S cycle. As her parents they occupy a background role, but as young people and active fighters they set an important example in the story. Usagi's haughty combativeness and clingy affection for Mamoru makes her a Nanami-type character, while Mamoru's insistence on ritual and hero-to-women complex make him distinctly Touga-type. Two such characters, Shadow Nanami and Shadow Touga, appear in the Utena video game as the player character's parents. As screenshots reveal, the player character in "Four Days in Ohtori" is a young girl who transferred in seemingly out of nowhere, interacts and makes friends with the Student Council, and eventually participates in the duels, all under the machinations of the mysterious interloper Chigusa. Not to spoil anything, but this is pretty much the plot of Sailor Moon S, with Chibiusa in the role of the player character. The video game was advertised immediately after the final episode aired, effectively ruining the bittersweet ending (for the director, anyway) by making it look like the story was going to continue.

It's worth noting that when Mamoru was a child, he lost his parents in a car accident and sank into despair, losing his will to live. He was saved by Usagi, who just happened to be passing by at the time, and also by a flower-possessed alien prince who was apparently just waiting for him to grow up enough to make into his space flower man-bride. This was in Sailor Moon R the Movie, Ikuhara's theatrical debut.

Ami
A child prodigy but shy in the romance department, Ami hangs out with the other Sailor Soldiers even though sometimes she would rather be studying. Ami is taking her entrance exams seriously, and is even trying for Mugen Academy's high school, where Haruka and Michiru would be her seniors. Ami admires the Academy's standards and reputation, but is unaware of the dark dealings that go on there or of the truth behind the Science building fire years ago. It goes without saying that Ami is the Miki character... I mean, everyone else has been saying that Miki is an Ami character for years.

Makoto
Tall, curly-haired martial artist who can't seem to get it together with a boy because they all remind her of that one guy who broke her heart? Has a crush on Haruka, who dresses like a man, acts like a man, and can pull off an openly lesbian relationship without batting an eye? Yeah, she's Jury. Let's move on.

Minako
Warrior of love. Upheld the duty and calling of the Soldier before the main character even appeared on-screen. Acts friendly and easygoing, but secretly believes that her leader is a selfish ditz and the rest of her companions are little better. Kind to animals, but still kicks them when they deserve it. If she's not Saionji, I don't know who is. Except that girl named Saionji from the first season.

Remember, at the end of the movie, Saionji promised to follow Anthy and seduce her. Given his choice of Sailor Soldiers, who better than the one who stands for the very ideal of love itself, and has a headstart on everyone else? Unfortunately for Saionji, Anthy (Michiru) doesn't even show up until two cycles later, and by that point Utena (Haruka) has an awesome car to make out in.

Rei
Having lost the battle with Usagi for Mamoru's heart, Rei risks being relegated to "redundant character" status. She's already used up all her loved-ones-in-peril cards, and her dream of becoming an idol singer is vague and simple enough that it won't support more than a couple more image song episodes. At best she's a straight-arrow foil to Usagi's self-centered childishness, but if she's seen even a single episode of Goldfish Warning then she knows that being Chitose to Usagi's Wapiko is a losing battle.

If Usagi is Nanami-type, and Rei is Usagi's foil, then who does that make Rei? Not Anthy. Anthy tortured Nanami mercilessly out of malice and revenge, and whether Nanami learned a lesson or got shown up for her hypocrisy was incidental. Remember the cowbell? Anthy had a good laugh, and Nanami learned nothing. Except possibly how long it takes a nose piercing to heal.

Nanami's foil is the story, as presented by Kunihiko Ikuhara. In Chiho Saito's version, Nanami never showed up. She was written in as a comic-relief character, an early-episodes antagonist, and a good-natured punching bag. And Ikuhara punched with enthusiasm. Similarly, never once did Rei pass up an opportunity to give Usagi a good ribbing, be it over her appetite, laziness, study habits, or the fact that she had hatchlings at the tender age of 14.

So, congratulations everyone who guessed it. Rei is Ikuhara. (http://www.larself.com/revolution/SailorIkuhara.jpg)

Chibiusa
Chibiusa is the new-cycle Utena, but she's early in a number of ways. First, she's a kindergartener. Second, she's from the future. She won't even turn 14 until, like, a thousand years from now. She also has a family, isn't a crossdresser, and doesn't hesitate to pull a gun on anyone who gets in her way. (Utena was originally going to have gun duels. So was Gankutsuou. They both ended up with giant robots. (http://larself.com/revolutionold/rbto1small.gif) But that doesn't make her not Utena. Mikage, Wapiko, and Kaoru-no-Kimi are all Utena at one stage or another; about the only criteria is pink hair, and even that can be relaxed if the situation demands.


The Death Busters
While the Black Rose Society was introduced in the middle third of Utena, it was revealed that its activities had been going on long before, even to the extent of shaping the very foundations of the world in which it existed. After Utena dueled Mikage, he left Ohtori and the Black Rose Society seemed to disappear. But the emotions it had touched in the hearts of its members still lingered beneath the surface, and some members who couldn't be saved merely by closing their hearts carried grudges into and beyond the movie world. The mass of black cars that chases Anthy carries the misplaced anger of the Black Rose duelists toward the Rose Bride, but none can escape without crashing. Even the twisted wreckage on the outskirts of Anthy's world stands as a monument to those who escaped but could only make it so far.

Mikage worked to create a system wherein the world could be revolutionized. What he got instead was a practical application of alchemy to Akio's closed space. A sacrifice would be made in exchange for bringing about a revolution. Toward that end, Akio gathered and made contracts with 100 boys. What they wanted is irrelevant; Akio gave them whatever they wanted and they gave up their lives, leaving their energies in the Black Rose rings. These energies could then be drawn to fuel new duelists, guiding an Engaged on the path toward revolution without the tremendous expense and complication of creating new major supporting characters.

But early on, Mikage realized that even with the strength of a duelist and the emotional core necessary to seek the life of the Rose Bride, the Black Rose duelists lacked a crucial component: the Pure Heart Crystal that defines special people capable of transcendent feats. In Utena, the Pure Heart of a duelist takes the form of a sword. (As did Haruka's. She's late-cycle Utena. Michiru's Pure Heart is a mirror. Anthy never had a sword, but at least now she doesn't have a gaping hole in her chest.) Mikage's tactic then became to suppress the reservations of his followers using the black roses he cultivated with Mamiya, and send them to capture the hearts of those to whom they were closest. Those swords would be used as a flame to temper the Sword of Dios in the hands of the Engaged, but Mikage saw only their application in slaying the Rose Bride, his goal being to elevate Mamiya to that status.

Mikage was strung along on this path by the illusion of Mamiya, who he loved and had been unable to save. When he realized that Mamiya was long dead, and that his actions had all been for the sake of Akio's plans for Utena, he admitted defeat, accepted that he would have to finally grow up, and left Ohtori. But that doesn't mean he gave up his work.

The Professor
Souichi (not to be confused with Souji) Tomoe earned his reputation as a top scientist in the field of parallel universes. He doted on his daughter, Hotaru, who was always sickly as a child and also happened to be the reincarnation of Sailor Saturn, the Soldier of Destruction. (Robin of Witch Hunter Robin is referred to as a descendant of Saturn, prompting one to question the connection between between Saturn and Witches, especially if we're to consider Hotaru as a Mamiya-type new-cycle Anthy character.)

While performing research on a pocket universe, his laboratory exploded, mortally wounding Hotaru. Faced with the death of his daughter, Tomoe was offered the choice of losing his life's love or giving his own self and Hotaru's body over to Mistress Nine, a force of destruction from beyond the solar system and the herald of the End of the World. Upon making this deal with the devil, Tomoe was possessed by a spirit that made him work toward Mistress Nine's goals. He took on the alter-ego of the Professor, spending most of his time in a basement devising mechanisms by which seeds can collect heart crystals, and having intimate conversations with hand-picked Mugen Academy students over an intercom.

Kaorinite
The Professor's most loyal and ardent follower, Kaorinite oversaw the initial Daimohn tests, which were largely haphazard but proved that individual attacks could be useful if properly targeted. She is the oldest and most mature of his disciples, and her motivation is one of love. Ironically, Kaorinite's love for the Professor is thwarted by the presence of his closest relative, Hotaru, whose suspicious behavior and alien qualities inspire a fear that Kaorinite can only attempt to overcome through a reckless dedication. Of the Black Rose duelists, Kaorinite most resembles Kanae, who lived as a princess and might have been happy had Anthy not stolen her father (Chairman Ohtori) and Akio (Acting-Chairman Ohtori) away.

The Witches 5
A group of Mugen Academy students who specialize in researching and expounding upon the trends of society at large, an elite club with access to lots of random props and a desire to make others aware of their work. Their members stay in darkness most of the time, and their pronouncements are often tangential, yet no less relevant to the task at hand. They embody the spirit of the Shadow Girls, but when they step into the spotlight they are duelists.

Eugeal
The "old lady" of the Witches 5, Eugeal drives a station wagon with a Daimohn in the back. Her tactic is to transport the Daimohn swiftly to its target, while keeping the car running to provide a quick escape. Despite her title she's still a high school student, probably Shiori's age. It's easy to forget that Shiori is 17, since she's shorter than everyone else that age. Shiori thinks of herself as a player, and tries to manipulate others into doing her bidding, but ultimately she's dependent on their kindness because she's miserable by herself and can't help being taken advantage of. Eugeal plays it safe but is also very ambitious in her plans; she was nearly successful in killing both Haruka and Michiru by using their mutual love against them. Unfortunately, much like Shiori, Eugeal was in a situation where the cards were stacked against her, and she ended up crashing her car.

Mimet
Mimet believes in pure love, and she wants it anywhere she can get it. She pores over magazines, TV, and the world of sports for handsome men who can love her and make her happy, and then she hunts them. She stalks them on the streets like an animal hunting its prey, and when they run she tugs off her scarf and corners them in the music room (or wherever). She is Kozue, a child on the verge of womanhood, with creative and destructive urges welling up inside her that she doesn't know what to do with. Nor is she above dirty tricks. Mimet will kill the competition if she has to, and she'll take needless risks without knowing the consequences. Kozue didn't reappear after becoming a car--it was enough for her character that she made that choice. Likewise, when Mimet stepped into the television monitor, her role in the story was over.

Telulu
Another Witch who doesn't put herself above stabbing her co-workers in the back, Telulu barely had one episode to prove herself. Instead of Daimohn, Telulu had grown evil flowers that she launched upon the population through a tactic of pretending to be a friendly and helpful flower shop owner. While her plans worked for the most part, she drew too much attention to herself and had to take desperate measures, which ultimately proved her undoing. By the same token, Tsuwabuki's obsession with impressing Nanami led him to all kinds of mischief; he dropped a flower pot near her, set large animals loose in the school, and did whatever dirty work she asked just to earn her favor. His own carelessness landed him in the school infirmary, where his secret plans were read aloud, and then his sheet fell off resulting in much embarrassment.

Byruit
It's not easy to compare Byruit to Wakaba, so I'll go the obvious route. They're both attracted to perfection. Byruit is a firm believer in technology; she thinks that machines can be made to do anything through proper design and programming, and that her wishes will be fulfilled if she can create the perfect machines. Wakaba, in turn, is in love with the perfect man. Not Saionji, not the Onion Prince, not Utena. The perfect man, who she looks for in others. The prince who will protect her, the lover who won't betray her, the friend who will humor her. Wakaba sees all of these, but not all at once. She stays close to Utena, who has a princely demeanor, but her interest is in Saionji. Wakaba knows what a great guy Saionji is, and how devoted and pure he is in his love for Anthy. She wants that for herself, and when she has that chance she takes it. She takes care of Saionji selflessly, tries to be Anthy for him, denies that his coldness toward her isn't the same as his coldness toward everyone else. Saionji cannot be perfect for Wakaba, and in turn Wakaba cannot be perfect for Saionji; her own attempts to possess him make his betrayal a certainty. Sailor Moon did nothing to save Byruit. Perhaps nothing could have been done. Wakaba was at least more fortunate; Utena saved Wakaba from the black rose herself, without the help of Anthy or the Sword of Dios, and Wakaba was the only duelist who was able to move on.

Cyprin and Ptirol
A dual existence, Cyprin and Ptirol always act as a pair, although not in perfect tandem. They can be led to act selfishly, and they can be torn apart by presenting a tempting target. These two know that even ordinary students when grouped together can provide enough energy to fulfill their goals. Keiko fits in with their motif nicely, being always part of a group (with Aiko and Yuuko) and yet yearning to break away and claim what she believes is rightfully hers: the pure heart of Touga. Though she loves Touga, Yuuko is held back from expressing her love by Nanami, who could totally beat her up. She knows the value of staying with the pack, where she can safely love Touga as part of a swarm that even Nanami can't beat up all of.


The Daimohn
You know that bird that flew into a window pane and killed itself right in front of Jury and Shiori? Daimohns represent the glass.

Well, not quite. Each duelist of the Black Rose imbues their feelings in an object or talisman, which is then multiplied to create the dueling arena. It could be an umbrella or a milkshake, any object will do. Likewise, the Daimohn seeds were placed in objects closely related to their targets, and in that manner were presumably better suited to their task. When a Daimohn was exorcised, the seed pushed back out of the object, cracked open, and released a spirit. Likewise, whenever a Black Rose duelist was defeated, their ring shattered and the coffin of the sacrifice was consumed in flame.

I should point out that while those 100 boys were sacrificed, they were not sacrificed against their will. The way their shoes are lined up neatly along the wall of the crematorium implies that they burned to death voluntarily.


The World

Mugen Academy
Throughout shoujo anime, the Academy is represented as a sprawling place on an idyllic piece of land, with differently-purposed buildings here and there. Science building, pool, gymnasium, are all shown separately and connected by footpaths and stretches of park. The idealized shoujo school setting is a place of classical beauty where the children of affluent families can study with dignity and grace, and often there's a central tower that the camera can cut back to as a landmark. In Brother, Dear Brother, the bell tower was Saint-Juste's retreat, where she could throw knives and smoke all day if she wanted. In Utena, the tower had two groups using it: Akio and Anthy at the top, and the Student Council beneath them. (There probably wasn't a room available for their club, since even Utena had to scrounge in the haunted dorm for housing. Akio was kind enough to let them use his balcony, so long as they were willing to take an elevator that didn't stop on any other floors. Seriously, how do they catch that thing?) Ouran features a clock tower as a campus landmark, though I don't recall any of the characters going inside it.

Mugen Academy, by contrast, IS a tower. A skyscraper, to be precise, with all of its classrooms and facilities stacked vertically inside rather than spread out. Some rooms don't even have windows, further adding to the school's oppressive design: it's clearly a place where students go to concentrate on work, not to stroll about and have fun. The Academy even has at least one security guard who does a damn good Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, which the English dub version completely failed to pick up on.

Mugen, of course, means "infinity." The symbol for Mugen Academy is an infinity sign in a pentagram. If that isn't an endorsement of a cyclical universe, I dunno what is. (Ohtori, as I'm told, means "phoenix." As Akio's ultimate goal is to either reclaim his lost power or find a new source of it, it's fitting that he would be attracted to a place with such a nice name. He really likes the name. But enough about his name.)

Suzuki, Yamada, and Tanaka
As their names imply, they're commoners. Dime-a-dozen commoners, at that. Practically indistinguishable, they also happen to always be in the same place, not so much out of a deliberate desire to hang out with each other, but more out of just happening to think the same way. Like their schoolgirl counterparts who all have crushes on Touga, the members of this trio each individually have the hots for Nanami, and write her love letters every day. It's not clear what it is they like about her, but she is a tsundere moe character and she has big udders for a 13-year-old, so maybe that's enough. Nanami was given her ring by Touga, and became a duelist through him. But when she found out that he was adopted (and from that assumed that he wasn't her real brother), she realized that she was just an ordinary pest with an undeserved sense of entitlement. Thanks to her tendency to jump to rash conclusions, Nanami took off her ring before Utena's final duel, thus breaking her contract with Akio and putting her at Anthy's mercy. Anthy, not willing to put up with her anymore, let Nanami finish out the season and then turned her back into a cow. This left Tsuwabuki without a mentor (so he went to learn about timing from Miki until Anthy banished clocks), and the trio without a love interest. They turned their affections toward Keiko, Aiko, and Yuuko and got rejected, and then those three didn't make it over to the movie world, probably because Touga wasn't supposed to be there but also probably because they were bitches.

At one point, Suzuki, Yamada, and Tanaka had swapped bodies with elephants in order to accompany Nanami on her quest for anti-body-swapping curry powder (their logic baffles me), but was it ever established that they swapped back successfully? The elephants that appear in the movie sure act like the trio, but the trio themselves appear during the racing scene. It's entirely possible that these three just had very elephant-like minds to begin with, and it's also true that they didn't have much to say in the later part of the series, preferring to make slurping sounds and hum their entreaties.

The reason I mention them is because they actually appear in Sailor Moon S. Same faces, same mannerisms, and apparently they all applied for the same job because they're still together, acting as officials at a sports arena. They now communicate only through hand signals and puffs of their whistles, but they still act in harmony with each other at all times. The trio also age normally and are well aware of their own mortality (one of only two instances of blood appearing in Utena involved them getting the crap beaten out of them), which explains both why they're now adults and why they run away from giant monsters on the racetrack.


End of the Cycle

Chibiusa and Hotaru
The new early-cycle Utena and Anthy respectively, their duty in the story is to ensure that there will be no absence of a central conflict for some time to come. Haruka and Michiru, who recognize the potential of an early-cycle Anthy character to seal away the source of goodness in the world, take on the role of the murderous mob. They know that the only way to ensure the continued existence of the world will require the death of its destroyer. They are sympathetic to Chibiusa's ideals of friendship, but both know full well that friendship cannot be relied upon in a time of crisis. Despite the Sailor Soldiers' efforts to wipe out the source of heart-consuming evil, Chibiusa herself is captured and becomes a sacrifice to the resurrection of Mistress Nine.

Last Word
So I think that pretty much covers the comparisons I'm interested in drawing, but more may crop up. Of what the series had to offer I can say I most enjoyed Ikuhara's mid-season episode, which gave Haruka and Michiru a nice long rainy-day scene that even had an answering machine gag thrown in. I was also amused to see that Takuya Igarashi worked as both director and assistant director on several episodes, suggesting that either he was very controlling or the show was light on staff. And while it's true that Usagi's family and friends didn't show up much, I hardly missed them. The show struck a nice balance between having a large cast and insisting that all of them do their transformations every episode.

[monika]

I think it's about time I retitle this thread.

(IS IT CAN BE RETITLES TIEM NOW PLEES?)

[The Great Bear]

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aquapermanence said:
[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
What other shows have he and Lillis been in? Of course, I could go look myself at ANN or Crystal Acids, but then, I'm lazy /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I had actually meant all the shows that either of them had been in, but since you ask, Boogiepop Phantom. I actually listened to their commentary on the show without having heard the English dub, so I hadn't even realized either one was in it.

I also spotted Rachael's name in the Kujibiki Unbalance credits, so I'll have to give that and Genshiken a run through in English.

[/ QUOTE ]

I heartily recommend Genshiken in English. Rachael actually underplays, but to very good effect. The other parts are quite well done. I won't ruin it.
KujiAn is cliche filled and silly, but don't let that stop anyone from enjoying it for what it is.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
I think it's about time I retitle this thread.

(IS IT CAN BE RETITLES TIEM NOW PLEES?)

[/ QUOTE ]

You should just call it "Monika and Aqua's magical mystery mindfuckery circus!"

[The Great Bear]

Interesting dissertation. Makes sense...as far as I can follow it. I was never a huge Sailor Moon fan (saw a few episodes on Cartoon Network years ago, never really got into it), though I understand the basics.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
Interesting dissertation. Makes sense...as far as I can follow it. I was never a huge Sailor Moon fan (saw a few episodes on Cartoon Network years ago, never really got into it), though I understand the basics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sailor Moon S = directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara = you should watch it! /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
You should just call it "Monika and Aqua's magical mystery mindfuckery circus!"

[/ QUOTE ]

But that would be admitting defeat in getting other people to join in. /images/graemlins/depresse.gif

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
You should just call it "Monika and Aqua's magical mystery mindfuckery circus!"

[/ QUOTE ]

But that would be admitting defeat in getting other people to join in. /images/graemlins/depresse.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, you mean admitting defeat was an option?

[monika]

No. Get back to work.

[machineger4]

[ QUOTE ]
Serial Experiments NieA said:
[ QUOTE ]
The Great Bear said:
Interesting dissertation. Makes sense...as far as I can follow it. I was never a huge Sailor Moon fan (saw a few episodes on Cartoon Network years ago, never really got into it), though I understand the basics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sailor Moon S = directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara = you should watch it! /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course the first two volumes are not available at Netflix at the moment, should've expected that to happen. Hopefully they'll get back in stock sometime before the End of the World. Do you really need to watch the first two seasons to enjoy the third or can I just jump in at S and not miss too many things?

While I haven't understood everything going on in this thread, it has been a very good read. I really should watch Utena again soon.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

[ QUOTE ]
Machineger4 said:
Of course the first two volumes are not available at Netflix at the moment, should've expected that to happen. Hopefully they'll get back in stock sometime before the End of the World. Do you really need to watch the first two seasons to enjoy the third or can I just jump in at S and not miss too many things?

While I haven't understood everything going on in this thread, it has been a very good read. I really should watch Utena again soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can jump right into S, all you really need to know going into it are who the main 5 Senshi are.

I'm with you on the need to watch Utena again. It's been a while (more than a year) since my last run of it, and this thread is bumping it forward in my rotation again. /images/graemlins/wink.gif It was coming up soon anyway, but I hope to start it up again before the end of the year.

[Redcoffin]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
You should just call it "Monika and Aqua's magical mystery mindfuckery circus!"

[/ QUOTE ]

But that would be admitting defeat in getting other people to join in. /images/graemlins/depresse.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I've just been reading and pondering and thinking how I could contribute to this well of knowledge. Last night I dreamed the moon crashed into the earth, and it talked to me... which has nothing to do with anything except that after I woke up, something occurred to me to write here.

First: I don't believe in the Great Cycle Theory promulgated above, for the following reason: I just don't see The Adolescence of Utena as a true part of the series. TAoU always seemed to me to be nothing more than an extended riff or quasi parody of the show, something done to amuse the fans and people who were plugged into the show's visual language. And if the movie's not part of any continuity, then the whole theory collapses, because the whole theory was (I think--although this hasn't actualy been said in so many words--) created in order to fit TAoU into some kind of continuity with the show. Excuse me for being a wet blanket, but it needed to be said.

Second: I regret the emphasis on complex construction in the critical paragraphs above--although much of it--especially the theory that it's all happening in "real time"--was quite clever and revealing. I regret it because Revolutionary Girl Utena does not derive its greatness from the subtleties of complex, Nabokovian construction. The show is great because it is so good at evoking--on a foundation of objectively juvenile and exhausted images and conceits--a truly astonishing sense of wonder and mystery. When Utena first goes to the dueling ground, the viewer--this viewer at least--experienced a powerful impression that something important was happening--a sense that, remarkably, did not diminish with the repetition of that scene. The same happened with the descent to the catacombs during the Black Rose sequence. Over and over again, the show breathes a kind of almost numinous, though perhaps impenetrable, authority--as if one were watching the Elusinian mysteries without really knowing what was going on. Before we say too much about the (perhaps partly imaginary) details of hyper elaborate construction, we ought to acknowledge that there is something beyond technique at work here, just as it is beyond an amusing but barren set of winks and jokes about the tropes of a certain stream of anime.

Third: upon completing the series, a friend of mine turned to me and said, "The world that was revolutionized, was Anthy's heart." I have not yet heard anything to dissuade me from believing that this statement largely sums up the entire burden of the show.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
I regret it because Revolutionary Girl Utena does not derive its greatness from the subtleties of complex, Nabokovian construction. The show is great because it is so good at evoking--on a foundation of objectively juvenile and exhausted images and conceits--a truly astonishing sense of wonder and mystery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely the two aren't mutually exclusive. /images/graemlins/happy.gif Utena derives many different greatnesses from many different things.

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
the whole theory was (I think--although this hasn't actualy been said in so many words--) created in order to fit TAoU into some kind of continuity with the show.

[/ QUOTE ]

The cycle theory was never really created, actually. It kind of formed over the course of what, over a year of intense Utena study (for the purpose of creating a solid parody script, not just for the hell of it...) followed by a few years of finally having some time to watch something other than Utena while we wait for our director to finish my goddamned movie¹.

There was never any real attempt to force the movie into a continuity with the show. Randy and I kind of accepted it as a possible interpretation that could be taken or left from the first time we saw it. (We also mostly dismissed it as too pretty to do much with.) After finishing the series, it became clearer how the movie, if it is to be interpreted as a sequel, fits. That happened naturally, and without much ado.

The cycle theory in its current state, (and specifically, the extended cycle theory) I'd say is mostly the fault of Oniisama-e, which is seriously what Utena would be if Wakaba was the main character and with melodrama turned up to 11. (For fun, here's some images (http://larself.com/revolution/oniisamae/) I quickly threw together.) Somewhere in watching it, our vocabulary switched from "OMG I can't believe Ikuhara totally ripped that off frame for frame!" to "St. Juste-sama is TOTALLY being Saionji in this scene." to "Damn, Juri's a bitch." When she (and this is probably more an Utena movie spoiler than anything else, although it happens in Utena TV too only Juri remembered it happening to her sister instead of herself,) <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>fell off a boat while carrying an umbrella, and lost her red shoes</span>, it was just too much. The theory had to be put in words.

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
quasi parody of the show

[/ QUOTE ]

Parody is really the heart of the cycle theory. Utena is the Evangelion² of Shoujo. It borrows all the conventions of all the shoujo (and much of the yaoi) that comes before it, perverts it into something completely different and, insomuch as a blatant ripoff can be, original, throws in some sex and random symbolism, and redefines the genre. Also, especially here as it made it stateside before pretty much any other shoujo, its brilliance as a parody as lost on much of the audience, (but luckily it has other legs to stand on.) As everything before and including Shakespeare was full of biblical references, and everything after Shakespeare was full of Shakespeare references, Utena serves as a fulcrum for Shoujo. What I'm getting at is, if I didn't consider the movie to be a parody of Utena, then I'd consider the theory as fallen apart.

(Also, in my experience, theories really do not fall apart if their premises are wrong. Theories fall apart if there is a mistake made between the premises and the conclusions.)

And as I've said before, you don't need to believe the cycle theory. It's a tool, and a rather fun one to use, if you think this kind of thing is fun...

---------
¹ Speaking of which, I just spent $2000+ on a Mac to push production along. At this point, if Praem doesn't get his act together and finish it up soon, I have a good solid reason to drive several hours and kick his ass.
² Evangelion is the Evangelion of Mecha.

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:

² Evangelion is the Evangelion of Mecha.

[/ QUOTE ]

You just did that because A) You didn't want just one footnote, and B) because you wanted an excused to use BOTH the little numbers.

[machineger4]

[ QUOTE ]
Serial Experiments NieA said:
[ QUOTE ]
Machineger4 said:
Of course the first two volumes are not available at Netflix at the moment, should've expected that to happen. Hopefully they'll get back in stock sometime before the End of the World. Do you really need to watch the first two seasons to enjoy the third or can I just jump in at S and not miss too many things?

While I haven't understood everything going on in this thread, it has been a very good read. I really should watch Utena again soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can jump right into S, all you really need to know going into it are who the main 5 Senshi are.


[/ QUOTE ]

Cool, I'll check it out when(hopefully not 'if') it's available again on Netflix.

[Redcoffin]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:

And as I've said before, you don't need to believe the cycle theory. It's a tool, and a rather fun one to use, if you think this kind of thing is fun...

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. I was just adding my two cents.

So--going back to the level of "Utena-dot-misc" questions...

1. When does the Black Rose sequence take place? Is it deliberately out of continuity, or is it sort of a metaphysical "stub" off of the main continuity of RGU?

2. Is Miki's use of his stopwatch intended as a parody of the animation director timing the scene?

3. What about all that stuff that's happening in the background during the student council meetings (trains and balloons and whatnot). As with the actions of the shadow-play girls, this stuff becomes more baroque and distracting as the show progresses, which I interpreted as evidence of some tension among the production staff--perhaps between those who appreciated the hieratic, repetitive quality of the scenes, while others found them boring and wanted to jazz them up after a while. I found the earlier shadow-plays more evocative than the screwball later ones.

[ QUOTE ]

² Evangelion is the Evangelion of Mecha.

[/ QUOTE ]

You win one free Internet for that remark!

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
So--going back to the level of "Utena-dot-misc" questions...

1. When does the Black Rose sequence take place? Is it deliberately out of continuity, or is it sort of a metaphysical "stub" off of the main continuity of RGU?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Black Rose arc literally occurs between the time Touga loses his second duel to Utena and the time Akio shows Touga his car.

Time still flows normally during those episodes, with plenty of important changes, particularly in the budding relationship between Utena and Akio, and Saionji's return to school.

Despite this, everyone pretty much forgets that the events of those episodes happened, and Nemuro Memorial Hall becomes a ruin. Does that mean it occurred in a time pocket? Not necessarily.

When Saionji gets expelled, there's a posted announcement and everyone seems very concerned. After all, he's a famous student, a Council member, and the captain of the kendo team. But once he's gone, everyone seems to forget him except for Wakaba. In fact, it takes Wakaba to re-introduce him to the story--Mikage couldn't have gotten to him if she hadn't been sheltering him on-campus. When Saionji is re-admitted to the school, he attracts attention the same way Utena did when she first showed up: as a dashing transfer student who everyone makes a point to notice.

Likewise, when Utena leaves at the end of the series, most of the students can't really remember who she was, what she did there, or why she went away. Ohtori Academy is a garden of youth where the memories of the students are often manipulated, even those with whom Akio has made deals. In that sense the events of the series as experienced and remembered by the characters are not entirely trustworthy, but the process by which details are highlighted or omitted is itself relevant to their growth as characters.

None of the Black Rose duelists remembered their duels, or if they did then they closed their hearts up again so as not to let on. But the emotions that were revealed while they carried the Black Rose still reside in them and influence their behavior, and the revelations of those episodes inform the audience of the motives behind those characters in the final third. Utena grew as a duelist, and Mikage got pushed back out of the story. Akio and Anthy were the only ones who really knew what was going on that whole time; they were making it happen and they wanted it to happen. Through her conversations with Akio (which were prompted by the relationship issues being experienced by the Student Council members), Utena grew closer to him and became trusting of him. She wasn't suspicious of moving into his apartment with Anthy--indeed, she may have seen it as an opportunity to get closer to him, as she had seen Kanae do. (Touga already showed that using a direct approach in trying to date Utena will fail. Wakaba showed this again more bluntly.) And thanks to getting her into that creepy S-shaped bed, Anthy was finally able to have intimate face-to-face discussions with Utena. (They had bunk beds before. Utena slept on top, and Anthy watched TV all night.)

[ QUOTE ]
2. Is Miki's use of his stopwatch intended as a parody of the animation director timing the scene?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a reference to it. Monika tells me that Miki always times the line immediately previous to when he clicks. Which would make sense, but I'd have to check the actual times and compare them against what was being said to be certain.

In any case (and I forget if it's been said in this thread already), Miki is working on understanding how his world works. He doesn't get all of the subtleties, and he doesn't even see the big picture, but he's putting together the major pieces and it fascinates him. He's not even coy or ironical about his use of the stopwatch--he doesn't click it with a wink and a nod when Utena climbs the stairs, for example, because that would just be too self-aware for a character who's only somewhat self-aware. Miki can be blindsided by new information. He's learning. He doesn't have all the equations or even the names for the terms he's going to be using, but at least he's gathering information, which is exactly what Touga did before him (in his own way).

Miki may not know what's going to happen at the end of the story, but in the last episode he's shown training Tsuwabuki in the art of the stopwatch. This suggests that he's getting ready to either surrender his role, or prepare a successor who will be able to carry on his work.

[ QUOTE ]
3. What about all that stuff that's happening in the background during the student council meetings (trains and balloons and whatnot).

[/ QUOTE ]

In one scene, balloons float past the balcony from below. These balloons are color-coded, with the colors matching each of the duelists. When a specific-colored balloon appears with the delivery of a line, it means that the line in question is particularly relevant to the person whose color matches the balloon.

Notice that there's only one purple balloon in the scene.

It could also be interpreted that the Student Council members are merely archetypes, and that thus there are many children, many roses, many balloons who are just like each of them. The Big O preferred tomatoes.

In a more literal sense, these balloons were launched because a school festival was taking place. Specifically, this is the festival around which "Four Days in Ohtori" centers.

[ QUOTE ]
As with the actions of the shadow-play girls, this stuff becomes more baroque and distracting as the show progresses, which I interpreted as evidence of some tension among the production staff--perhaps between those who appreciated the hieratic, repetitive quality of the scenes, while others found them boring and wanted to jazz them up after a while. I found the earlier shadow-plays more evocative than the screwball later ones.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am at this moment resisting the temptation to go through every single Student Council meeting and shadow play one by one and picking it apart. Suffice it to say that the things that are said are immediately relevant, and the things that occur are relevant in a thematic sense. Even the later ones, despite being more nonsensical with trains and baseball games blowing through the meetings, are directly indicative of the forces at play. Utena never goes into super-deformed style, and very rarely does it show things that are only in a character's head. So the representational compensation has to come from somewhere, and usually that means there's suddenly a boxing kangaroo in the middle of the athletic field.

[monika]

Adding to the Miki commentary:

Ikuhara's said himself that Miki is timing the lines, like an anime director. Chiho's commented that Ikuhara, she believes, based on Hasegawa Shinya (and Ikuhara kind of nods quietly when she says this). He did character designs for Utena, and some animation direction for Sailor Moon S.

Ikuhara based Ruka on himself, down to the taller-than-most-people and the hairstyle. Entirely within the context of the show, we're given lots of parallels between Ruka and Miki. For one, they have nearly the same hairstyles. For two, they both fence really well. For three, they have interesting relationships with Juri that involve a lot of sexual tension even though she's a lesbian. For four, the other woman in their lives have cool-colored hair that is short, and they're sluts and stuff. I could probably go on, but I'm tired...

Heh. I now realize I'm more tired than I thought I was when I started typing.

Anyway, Tsuwabuki wants to be a Touga character, but he's not scared of doing his own research, and getting help from other people. And Miki realizes he can die at any time, and isn't the type to let good research go to waste. That's probably why Mikage likes him.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Machineger4 said:
Do you really need to watch the first two seasons to enjoy the third or can I just jump in at S and not miss too many things?

[/ QUOTE ]

While not vital, it's best to at least see the first few episodes of the original, as they establish a few things that won't be repeated later on.

But jumping into S cold shouldn't be too much of a problem. The show is redundant enough (yes, I do mean redundant, rather than merely repetitive) that you can piece all the important stuff together.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
The cycle theory in its current state, (and specifically, the extended cycle theory) I'd say is mostly the fault of Oniisama-e, which is seriously what Utena would be if Wakaba was the main character and with melodrama turned up to 11.

[/ QUOTE ]

There're a lot of ways to read that statement... about Wakaba, I mean, and unfortunately it's been long enough since I've seen Brother, Dear Brother that I can't cite anything specific. But here's how I saw the breakdown of the characters.

Henmi Takehiko - Touga
Saint Juste - Saionji
Kaoru - Utena
Tomoko - Wakaba
Shinobu - Shiori
Fukiko - Jury
Takashi - Akio

The two I've bolded here are gonna be the most relevant to the discussion, but I want to preface that by saying that 1) the comparisons aren't set as firmly as they might appear at first and 2) the absence of Nanako from my equation is obviously a point of contention.

Despite the obvious resemblance and numerous cues in their backstories, Fukiko and Saint Juste aren't just Jury and Saionji, respectively. To each other, they're in a post-Utena Movie Kozue-Miki relationship. Furthermore, the entire dramatic arc of the show is presumed to hinge on the presence of a catalyst in Nanako, which would make Nanako an Anthy-type, except that Nanako is also acting as the narrator of the story and has no particular ambition.

The title suggests that the (distant) relationship Nanako has with her brother would make her Nanami-type, and we can presume that the Nanami character is set up for purposes of having an exterior internal monologue with the Utena character. But that doesn't really cover it either.

Both Fukiko and Shinobu are obsessed with Nanako, the one in an "I admire your innocence and childlike elegance" sort of way and the other in a "I'm gonna steal you away from your best friend" sort of way. If they're Jury and Shiori then they would go together well, except they're only Jury and Shiori around Nanako, who then becomes what--Ruka? Unnamed guy from episode 7?

Henmi Takehiko also occupies the Ruka role, except he's not self-sacrificing enough. He's really a full-on Touga character, and by full-on I mean from right at the end of the series when he's admitting his feelings after it's too late and getting some cold hard perspective on everything he's been doing up until then. Kaoru is what Utena might have grown into if there were no Anthy around, but Kaoru is also explicitly Oscar, who we know is Touga in certain iterations. That means Touga goes well with Touga, but that's no surprise: Touga was the first to have sympathy for Utena and try to make her feel better, not that he stood a chance of it since he was already broken and living out a predetermined role by that point.

Nanako occupies what amounts to a transient role in the story; she's different things to different people but her level of commitment is low. Her Saturday plans involve baking cakes and then eating them, and she might go to a movie with adult themes, but she won't enjoy it. She takes her position in the Sorority, with her friends, and in her school as something that's out of her control or arbitrary, and it is. But she doesn't resist or refuse.

A Nanako character really isn't necessary for the telling of the story. She just sort of hangs around, and things happen to her and near her that would have happened eventually anyway, but maybe to a couple of different ordinary nice girls. In this light Nanako is a mesh of the less-active sides of both Nanami and Anthy: she's desired yet passive, singleminded yet noncommittal, bold yet plain. Her love for her brother is something that's kept platonic, but her understated reactions to the warning signs around her show that Nanako is not yet ready to take the step into adulthood. By being in both positions at once, Nanako also becomes a channel for much of the mischief and sexual suggestiveness of the series, despite being the most chaste and innocent character, as well as a magnet for more noble, if misguided, affections.

[monika]

I've always considered the Nanako and Tomoko relationship to be kind of like this one (Nanako in blue, Tomoko in green). (http://larself.com/revolution/nanako.jpg)

Wakaba, in episodes 19 and 20, tries to explain to Utena something that Utena would never understand. (Because Utena is retarded. And also because Utena has trouble understanding people in situations different from hers, as even she realizes and repeatedly points out whenever she deals with siblings.) Not everyone in the world is special. A lot of people are decidedly normal. No one idolizes them. No one dances with them in their dreams. No one challenges them to duels.

And furthermore, no one writes TV shows about them.

The setup of Oniisama-e is simple. We have an ordinary girl (Nanako) who starts out at a new school. She brings with her her ordinary friend (Tomoko). Early on, they are introduced to three SPECTACULAR characters that everyone in the school worships. There's the once sickly but returned supposedly healthy androgynous beauty, the sickly but everpresent androgynous beauty, and the so theoretically healthy ridiculously feminine beauty. They also meet a girl who really really wants to befriend these people.

One of these two girls, Nanako, develops an interest in the sickly beauty who happens to look an awful lot like Saionji. She is actively protected by the formerly sickly beauty who happens to act an awful lot like Utena. But she's not so obsessive as to force herself into their lives. It's all very Wakaba.

And then she gets dragged into the sorority.

At this point, she begins to fill a more central role to the story (more central than narrating, even.) And at this point, Tomoko is now the (only) normal person. She remains friends with Nanako, but the dynamic has changed. She's only content in her role as much as Wakaba is, occasionally getting annoyed with it but usually just letting it go and being happy she has such a wonderful friend as Nanako and that Nanako gets to be shiny and happy. She watches from the sidelines and supports her friend.

Randy's right. Tomoko is very much a Wakaba character. But she's a Wakaba character to another Wakaba character, who is filling the gaps left by the Utena character as she moves in to fill in the gaps left by the Touga character, who is not a girl and doesn't get to go to this school.

A lot of the matchings from Oniisama-e to Utena are very very obvious and deliberate, but none of them are one to one. Any one character in one show matches two or so in the other, but generally in large, chunky ways. Chromosomal crossover-like.

[monika]

(It's all quite Ouran-like, with the Sorority becoming the Host Club.)

[Fencedude]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
(It's all quite Ouran-like, with the Sorority becoming the Host Club.)

[/ QUOTE ]

MOAR TYPE MOAR

I always get sad when I reach the end of your and aqua's posts.

(also, I really, REALLY need to finish Onii-sama E)

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Tomoko is very much a Wakaba character. But she's a Wakaba character to another Wakaba character, who is filling the gaps left by the Utena character as she moves in to fill in the gaps left by the Touga character, who is not a girl and doesn't get to go to this school.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's actually exactly where I wanted to go with it. Damn my lack of conciseness!

[ QUOTE ]
A lot of the matchings from Oniisama-e to Utena are very very obvious and deliberate, but none of them are one to one. Any one character in one show matches two or so in the other, but generally in large, chunky ways. Chromosomal crossover-like.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you. This is what I meant: some characters are occupying two or more roles, concurrently, and in different situations. Nanako is a normal girl, by and large, and she's developed enough as a character that it's easy to try and peg her into one place or the other. But just as "every woman is the Rose Bride" and Nanami and Utena are two sides of the same coin, so does Nanako embody ideas that are going to be common among characters of her type.

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif Now I must train another ten years.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
You should just call it "Monika and Aqua's magical mystery mindfuckery circus!"

[/ QUOTE ]

But that would be admitting defeat in getting other people to join in. /images/graemlins/depresse.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Awww... I didn't mean it like that... I meant like, come join as Monika and Aquapermanence crack the whip to send your brain flipping through the burning hoops to go splat in the sawdust....

...

Perhaps I need a better metaphor.

[monika]

I get a whip?

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
I get a whip?

[/ QUOTE ]

In keeping with established themes, you can have a riding crop.

It comes with your choice of pointy librarian glasses or a spandex military-style unitard and jackboots.

[Teiresias]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
I get a whip?

[/ QUOTE ]

In keeping with established themes, you can have a riding crop.

It comes with your choice of pointy librarian glasses or a spandex military-style unitard and jackboots.

[/ QUOTE ]

What, no jodhpurs? No askot?

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Fencedude said:
MOAR TYPE MOAR

[/ QUOTE ]

::shrugs::

I like to think that the original Sailor Moon series was also instrumental in the way Utena (and later Tutu and Ouran) developed, particularly in its use of the dark underworld characters.

SPOILERS!!!

In the original Sailor Moon, Naru, Usagi's friend, is introduced as the daughter of a jewelry store owner. She's cute, upbeat, and active. As far as we know she has no special powers, but nevertheless she becomes a target for energy-gathering enemies. Naru also later develops a relationship with Umino, an awkward school friend with a noble heart and a self-deprecating demeanor. This progression is closely mirrored in Utena by Wakaba, who also has brown hair and is a minor princess in her own right.

Like Wakaba, Naru also fell under the spell of a handsome older man who at first only wanted to use her to advance his organization's goals. I refer to Nephrite, the second of Queen Beryl's generals (and the second most powerful, if I recall correctly). Nephrite is second in everything, being neither as trusted as Kunzite nor as eager as Jadeite, nor as faggy as Zoisite. Unlike Jadeite, who did little to conceal his activities (he posed as a radio DJ in one episode and used his real name in the broadcasts for crying out loud), Nephrite established the franchise's trademark trend of carefully targeting superior individuals and drawing out their energies using household objects as talismans.

For example, after establishing a base for his dark astrology in an abandoned mansion, he took on the identity of Masato Sanjyoin (no relation to Chigusa Sanjyoin of "Four Days in Ohtori", I assume) and targeted tennis star Rui Saionji (no relation to Kyoichi Saionji, right?) by possessing her racket with a competitive will that would make her shine and burn out her life energy.

For whatever reason Naru got it into her head that this rogue tennis instructor was the awesomest guy in the world, and she fell head-over-heels in love with him despite not knowing what he was up to and not being able to get close to him. He then tried to take advantage of her energy, but found himself instead experiencing a change of heart and falling in love with her. Nephrite was killed by another of Beryl's underlings, who stabbed him with poisonous flower thorns.

In the context of an Utena comparison, then, Nephrite occupies both the roles of Saionji and Mikage in his relations with his compatriots and with Naru. Of particular note is the odd rivalry he has with Zoisite, who constantly taunts him and makes a point of how much he's in Kunzite's pants. This is actually mirrored in the relationship that Saionji has with both of the Kiryuu siblings: he disapproves of Nanami's greed and obvious clinginess around her brother, and he feels the need to prove himself against Touga's one-upsmanship and close relationship with Akio. (See the video game opening animation: Akio and Touga have their little naked man-chest dance down, and Saionji can barely follow along with the steps.)

[monika]

I believe Episode 25 of Ouran brings us our Anthy character, but I'm not sure yet. In any case, I'm going to go cry in a corner now.

[gsilver0]

This thread is so absolutely nuts.


But I want to hear more of the Goldfish warning theory.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
gsilver0 said:
But I want to hear more of the Goldfish warning theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm actually curious as to why the principal has antennae on his head. Is he an alien? An insect? Is he wearing one of those headbands with the bobbly antennae on them?

He's sort of a figurehead in the school and he acts much like the students themselves, and ever so rarely takes on a leadership role. He's also very diminutive, but that's not too rare if Tanakayama is any indication, and his practicality and country sensibilities overshadow his role as a disciplinarian and administrator. One would almost suspect that he was a farmer who let the town build a school on his land on condition that he be put in charge (and collect a subsidy?), but that's pure speculation at this point.

[monika]

So I finally got off my lazy ass, put down the Ouran for half an hour, and finished the last episode of Tutu like I've been meaning to do for weeks. (Well, maybe my motivation for putting it off was somewhat more something something, but whatever.) It was very much exactly like I remembered it being before I forgot it.

I'd like to trace another path through the Utena-Tutu continuum.

Once upon a time, as explained to us in Utena, there lived a prince and his sister. The prince was a good prince, and he loved everyone and made all the young women of the world princesses. Except his sister, of course, who was his sister and thus not someone he had any desire to have sex with, because that would be wrong.

This sister wanted to protect the prince, because she saw that he was being pulled in too many directions by too many princesses. She, as his sister, claimed him for herself, and blocked everyone else off.

This angered a great many people. They stuck her with swords and whatnot. Everyone thought it was fitting. And selfless.

As the years turned, the girl continued to suffer in silence. The prince continued to look for someone to be her prince, since, again, he didn't even consider incest, since that would be wrong.

Some time (shortly) after an encounter with a young girl that left him with some very bitter notions about the candidate pool of princes for his sister, something happened to the prince. He changed in such a way that allowed him to be her prince. In fact, it was almost as if he took part of his personality and put it in a monkey for safe-keeping, so that the rest of him could go bang his sister and save her from her suffering. He, one might say, shattered his own heart.

However, this newly formed mod-prince realized something he'd probably already realized before and then forgotten. His sister had the very very important role of protecting him from these swords, which were originally meant for him. There was a very delicate balancing act in place here. He had to make enough princesses out of girls to satisfy his desire to feel love for the entire world but he couldn't do too many as to wear him out and return him to his weakened state. He also had to make a princess of his sister enough to ease her pain but not enough to actually protect her from her attackers. (Also note that for every girl he didn't make a princess, that was another sword.) For a real prince would have taken those swords for her, and then where would they be?

Akio and Anthy (there's no reason to dance around names) develop a symbiotic relationship, where they each bring each other and protect each other from an equal amount of pain, keeping each other numb. But it's a downward spiral - the pain keeps getting worse, and one of them is going to have to stop protecting the other first.

This is Akio. Near the end of Utena, he already just starts letting it slip, more and more often, until he finally just abandons the idea and strings her up as a sword magnet so he can finish his near completed work and they can move on.

We all know how that turns out. (Those of us who've watched Utena, anyway.)

Anthy is bitter at Akio now. Why? Because she took the sacrifice twice in a row. Somewhere along the line, he forgot both the love that allowed him to make other girls princesses, and the love that he felt for her as a non-princess sister.

Anthy is not the type to suffer in silence for no reason. She suffers in silence because she wants people to know she's suffering in silence, and she wants them to repay the favor. Not even that. she wants them to acknowlege that they owe her big time. And Akio didn't. He took it as a matter of course. And that's why she's pissed.

So anyway, going back to our original prince, the original original one, Dios, well, he split his heart up right? So now he's just hanging around being an empty shell of a man somewhere.

And that is where we are at the start of Tutu.

The majority of Tutu is spent gathering and restoring the heart of the prince. This brings Mytho from the empty shell Dios of Utena to the Dios of Utena backstory, a prince who loves everyone in the world and wants to make all the girls of the world princesses. The other players we have are Drosselmeyer as Akio, or rather, the post-castration dead form Akio, who's split up and hid the prince's negative emotions, his emotions, in easy to find places, and the Raven as Anthy.

I'm going to, again, skip over the analysis of the Raven as Anthy. I'm probably so mean I'll never tell you. Nyah!

In the last episode of Tutu, we see something that looks very familiar. At the center of a series of concentric crow circles, we have Mytho protecting his heart with his sword. Crows in the circles attack at his heart, almost one at a time, and each time strike his sword instead.

Familiar, but not the same.

The differences:

- Mytho has a sword to protect himself with. Anthy didn't.
- Anthy is attacked by the uncaring unfeeling swords who had long ago lost their owners. Mytho is attacked viciously by sentient, mocking crows, who are all easily recognizable as people he knows.

Why these differences?

In the case of the swords attacking Anthy, Akio saw it as a necessary thing to keep the swords off of him. The Raven knows his raven army won't come after him. At the end of Tutu, the Raven is actively mocking Mytho knowing the (expected) outcome. The pain Anthy felt was nothing to Akio other than pain that he didn't need to feel himself.

Mytho at the end of Tutu tries to shatter his own heart again. He is stopped by Duck and Fakir, who don't fully understand what's happening but know they do not want another Akio-powered cycle on their hands. Nor do they want an Anthy-powered cycle on their hands. They want a Dios-powered cycle. They want Mytho to win and save the princess and defeat the Raven without destroying himself. And they do it with hope and determination, which is so much better than love.

(I'm keeping this post to Utena-Tutu, but I'm nodding at Gankutsuou right now slightly and hoping someone notices.)

Anyway, you see the event that set everything here in motion was the prince's love for everyone, and his desire and drive to make princesses of all the girls in the world. Had he not done that, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't have grown tired, Anthy wouldn't have grown bitter (nor actually would she have been singled out in the first place as much, since there would have been plenty of other non-princess girls around.) and no heart-splitting ever would have taken place.

And what does Fakir give Mytho in the end? Freedom to live freely. And, probably not realizing exactly how much of the right thing it is to do, he chooses monogamy.

With Touga.

[meryl]

I'd like to see you take these ideas and write it up as one essay and put it online somewhere so we can see your whole argument.

[monika]

That essay would be far too tl;dr. Also, tl;dw. And we have a hard enough time generating discussion this way. And these ideas come in bursts anyway. I'll archive this thread eventually, like I did with this one. (http://larself.com/revolution/utenastuff/morethanseems.htm)

Oh, and this. (http://larself.com/revolution/index2.php?page=story)

[Dagger]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
With Touga.

[/ QUOTE ]
/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

What do you consider to be the main evidence for Rue as Touga--her role/behavior at school, or the fact that she has reddish hair and was adopted by someone with cruel intentions when she was a child? Or are they basically equal in importance?

[monika]

It's a package deal, is it not? /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

I go into it a bit in this earlier post. (http://forums.animeondvd.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&amp;Number=1384299) There's the red hair. There's the abusive adopted father. There's the pure skill. There's the position at school. There's the idolhood. There's the friendly bitter bitter rivalry with Saionji/Fakir. There's a lot of things.

But I think most importantly, there's the character motivations, the internal turmoil, the desire for true love, the desire to be a princess, the desire to change the world. Perhaps these traits are the natural result of the more superficial things that have happened to both of them, or perhaps it's the other way around; characters like this end up getting abused and whatnot. Most likely it's a combination of the two, and that each story needed a character like this.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Some time (shortly) after an encounter with a young girl that left him with some very bitter notions about the candidate pool of princes for his sister, something happened to the prince. He changed in such a way that allowed him to be her prince.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, are you saying that Dios didn't become Akio until after he'd rescued Utena from her coffin--after witnessing young Touga and Saionji fail to do so?

I admit that the idea never occurred to me, even though the imagery used is (in hindsight) pretty clear on that point. I'll have to re-watch their dialogue in that scene, but now that I think about it I recall that Dios sounded pretty resigned to the fact that Anthy couldn't be saved by his own power, and was placing his trust in child-Utena to grow up strong and do what he couldn't. But I don't think he actually believed that Utena would be able to--he was probably just saying it so that she wouldn't fall into despair and die. After all, he's still a prince.

[ QUOTE ]
In fact, it was almost as if he took part of his personality and put it in a monkey for safe-keeping, so that the rest of him could go bang his sister and save her from her suffering. He, one might say, shattered his own heart.

[/ QUOTE ]

So if meeting with Utena was what set Dios upon changing himself, then it also makes sense that Chuchu, Anthy's closest friend, appeared at that time. Dios thus gave Anthy unconditional, nonsexual, and self-sacrificing companionship in the form of a monkey, and a lover who would fulfill her as a woman and a princess in the form of Akio.

In the manga, Utena was similarly rescued by the Prince (Mister Licky-Lick, was it?) and, as she grew up was sent postcards that eventually formed a picture of Ohtori Academy. It was only after she received the last letter that Utena transferred in to Ohtori, which eventually led to the revelation that <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>she and Akio were two parts of a composite being</span>, a yin-and-yang resolution that wasn't really brought up in the series conclusion but showed up in both Utena's uniform in the movie and in her frequent overlapping with the image of Dios.

[ QUOTE ]
The majority of Tutu is spent gathering and restoring the heart of the prince. This brings Mytho from the empty shell Dios of Utena to the Dios of Utena backstory, a prince who loves everyone in the world and wants to make all the girls of the world princesses. The other players we have are Drosselmeyer as Akio, or rather, the post-castration dead form Akio, who's split up and hid the prince's negative emotions, his emotions, in easy to find places, and the Raven as Anthy.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I recall, "Tutu" and "Chuchu" have the same spelling. Both are also very unrewarding roles best suited to well-intentioned animals who can tote around heart shards.

Utena herself was often compared directly with Chuchu: both took the brunt of Saionji's displeasure over keeping him away from Anthy, and both were left alone in the dorm those nights Anthy snuck off to be with Akio. They also share a cultured appreciation of cake, and if I'm not mistaken there's one foreboding scene late in the series where Chuchu wields the Trowel of Dios and is routed by an earthworm.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to, again, skip over the analysis of the Raven as Anthy. I'm probably so mean I'll never tell you. Nyah!

[/ QUOTE ]

What kind of bird was it that witnessed Nanami killing a kitty?

[ QUOTE ]
Mytho at the end of Tutu tries to shatter his own heart again. He is stopped by Duck and Fakir, who don't fully understand what's happening but know they do not want another Akio-powered cycle on their hands. Nor do they want an Anthy-powered cycle on their hands. They want a Dios-powered cycle. They want Mytho to win and save the princess and defeat the Raven without destroying himself. And they do it with hope and determination, which is so much better than love.

(I'm keeping this post to Utena-Tutu, but I'm nodding at Gankutsuou right now slightly and hoping someone notices.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking of Akio-powered cycles, there's an unfinished series (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1503) from the 80's called Glass Mask about a young actress who succeeds through determination and love of the medium, who enlists at the (financially troubled) private academy of a former stage star (<span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>Madam Tsukikage, who was disfigured when a stage light fell on her and is holding out on the performance rights to a famous play</span>) and is secretly supported by a young and princely producer known only as Mr. Purple Rose. Compared to the other metafictional works discussed in this thread it's not nearly as laden with double meanings, but as a straight melodrama and discussion of the stage form, it fits well with the themes that have been brought up here. And there's a nice scene with a blindfold near the end.

Though it ends without major resolution, the series can be watched as an exploration of a world in which a defeated Akio character is rebuilding himself in a business-driven world, having observed the harsh fates dealt to his contemporaries who survived previous cycles, such as theater directors Tsukikage and Onodera. His methods are much the same, and are not inseparable from Tamaki's in Ouran: find an unknown child with big potential and raise it carefully with love of the vaguely creepy paternal-but-maybe-older-boyfriend variety.

[ QUOTE ]
And what does Fakir give Mytho in the end? Freedom to live freely. And, probably not realizing exactly how much of the right thing it is to do, he chooses monogamy.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif I'm just reminded of how much it sucks to be Kanae.

[monika]

Ouran ends tonight in Japan. I am so sad...

Also, I'm more convinced Eclair is Anthy now, but I'm going to wait a bit longer before doing some more Ouran analysis.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Some time (shortly) after an encounter with a young girl that left him with some very bitter notions about the candidate pool of princes for his sister, something happened to the prince. He changed in such a way that allowed him to be her prince.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, are you saying that Dios didn't become Akio until after he'd rescued Utena from her coffin--after witnessing young Touga and Saionji fail to do so?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's an interesting question that also hadn't really occured to me (in such solid terms) until the other day.

As I don't have time for analysis, here's what I'd say happened, in order.

Utena's parents die
Utena gets in coffin
Touga and Saionji try to save her.
Dios shows her Anthy
She resolves to become a prince.
Dios is like "Damnit, nobody understands what being a prince is all about."
Dios shatters his own heart, creating Akio.
Akio takes Utena to the funeral.
Touga and Saionji notice Akio and Touga assumes he saved Utena. (Saionji assumes Touga did.)

And yes, Tutu and ChuChu are the same name in Japanese.

[Dagger]

So... I noticed that no one seems to have mentioned Melody of Oblivion, which shares many staff members with Utena. The stylistic similarities are obvious, and we could go on and on about whether it's a pure parody or a serious attempt to improve on some aspects of Utena or just an attempt to deliver sexy harems of mooing cowgirls. (Sorry, Nanami.)

I'm not sure where I would place MoO (pun, as always, intended) in the extended cycle. The sentient, humanoid vehicles are suggestive--have the people-turned-cars from the Utena movie figured out how to turn back into people, if only temporarily, and only if they serve a duelist? (Think of brides and the fleet of red cars in the Utena TV duels.) And just how are they related to Kino's motorrad?

Maybe it was inconvenient to make the duelists in Utena wear rings, which are so easily lost--now they have the appropriate mark imprinted directly on their bodies. Anyway, one could alternatively say that Miki, Jury and Saionji turned into Aibar machines as a kind of compromise, but I don't know where I'm going with that (although Sky Blue is in some ways suggestive of Miki).

The problem with putting MoO after the Utena movie, though, is that it's a cycle in which the Anthy figure (the Melody) is reduced to the level of Dios--a helpless, ghostly being who can only watch over the duelists and give them a silent tip or two when the going gets tough. She took an arrow in the heart to save her lover/brother/prince, and that was part of what turned him into the Monster King. So it would seem, anyway. Solo is extremely powerful and easily compared to Akio, but he might actually be more analogous to Mikage or a failed Utena, given how the role of the Monster King has been passed on and on. It's as if its inheritors are being possessed by the original monster.

But! One could argue that MoO is a searching cycle, with Anthy as Sayoko borrowing the Utena figure of Bocca to look for the Utena she knew in her cycle. Aibar machines are a great way to travel, after all. Sayoko was sacrificed to monsters by her family for the sake of her brother. Kurofune saved her, but the chains on her wrist remained. Her dislike for the angelic Melody could make her Wakaba, or it could make her someone who has come to despise the part of herself that continues to stand by Akio or Akio's vessel. From this perspective, her exasperation with the whole Melos thing results from the fact that duelists, even the Utena of the new cycle, are still getting sucked into Akio's shadow game and, in the process, not helping her.

That's a start. Anyone else want to have a crack at it?

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Dagger said:
That's a start. Anyone else want to have a crack at it?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Melody of Oblivion was too visually reminiscent of Utena for me to get into it when it first aired, combined with the hype around it being a GAINAX show and the general obtuseness of the characters at the beginning. I may give it a look one of these days, and I'm especially interested in knowing what the whole cow-girl thing is about. But it does at the very least stand as a good example that there are shows for all tastes that can fit into the Extended Cycle Theory.

Ouran was similar for me at first--it looked like it was largely a bunch of playing around without any particular aims, and I probably would have watched it as a straight visual parody if Monika hadn't started getting in-depth with the characters. For the record, I still can't tell Kaoru and Hikaru apart.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
Dagger said:
That's a start. Anyone else want to have a crack at it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm... at least we're talking about a show I've seen. It could be a search cycle... but if Sayoko is Anthy, Bocca as Utena would be a found Utena. Maybe Bocca is Wakaba, who was turning into Utena at the end of the TV series. Or maybe not. Hmmmm.....

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
The Melody of Oblivion was too visually reminiscent of Utena for me to get into it when it first aired, combined with the hype around it being a GAINAX show and the general obtuseness of the characters at the beginning. I may give it a look one of these days, and I'm especially interested in knowing what the whole cow-girl thing is about.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't show up until the last disc. Initially it's brilliant-- I mean, blatant random fanservice. Turns out something deeper and more sinister is going on.

MoO actually does pretty well for a show that is desperately trying to be Utena-like without being Utena-like. I quite enjoyed it without being able to defend it well. It doesn't really seem GAINAX-y, unless you count the fanservice.

[monika]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:

For the record, I still can't tell Kaoru and Hikaru apart.

[/ QUOTE ]

ohgod ::clutches mouth and runs away::

[monika]

Does anyone have a few million I can borrow? I need to personally license Ouran, like, right away. I promise I'll take better care of it than any other potential licensor would. I truly mean this, from the bottom of my heart, I truly do.

[aquapermanence]

You can't build a business on good intentions.

You need some wicked intentions to balance them out.

[monika]

Is that what they're teaching you?

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
Hmmm... at least we're talking about a show I've seen. It could be a search cycle...
::snip::
Initially it's brilliant-- I mean, blatant random fanservice. Turns out something deeper and more sinister is going on.

MoO actually does pretty well for a show that is desperately trying to be Utena-like without being Utena-like.

[/ QUOTE ]

This actually reminds me of another show that can be fit into the extended cycle through the mutual involvement of staff: Ikki Tousen, which had character designs by Shinya Hasegawa. Although the style of direction is different, the characters themselves in close-up and long-range shots are very reminiscent of the style used in Utena.

To get into it, Ikki Tousen is a fighting show loosely based on the story of The Three Kingdoms. Specifically, the characters from that story have been reincarnated into beads which imbue the wearer with their personality and destiny. The story begins when the main character, Sonsaku Hakufu, transfers into a new school and greets everyone by kicking their asses.

Hakufu is Utena's character type taken to an extreme. Innocent, ignorant, combative, defensive, jumps to conclusions, and is easily manipulated. She was raised for her role as the reincarnation of Sonsaku by her mother Goei (who's sort of an older Anthy type, reminiscent of Kanae's mother or perhaps Utena's aunt from the manga), yet is seemingly unable to control the power that appears from within her whenever her life and destiny are endangered.

Koukin is Miki, no two ways about it. He's a member of the Big Four, but he's also opposed to fighting and is weaker than the other members. He's a friend to Hakufu and tries to mentor and protect her, but he's also uncomfortable when reminded of her femininity and is an easy target for Goei's teasing.

Gakushu was the first of the Big Four to challenge Hakufu. He's an all-around top fighter with a size and strength advantage, but he also has a strict code of honor and a rarely-seen appreciation of sweets. He later becomes an ally and supporter of Hakufu, but his lone-wolf personality only gets him more deeply entrenched in his enemies' machinations. Saionji-type.

The third member of the Big Four is Ryomou, who has primary attributes of both Touga and Anthy. She acts as both friend and enemy to Hakufu, strikes quickly at others' weaknesses (particularly Gakushu's), and <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'>gets raped in a cabbage field</span>.

The other character alignments are weaker but there nonetheless, but thanks to the very high level of similarity between groups of characters from many different shows, I think it's time to bring up a topic that's surprisingly not mentioned much.

The Big Four

A convention of fighting shows, the Big Four are, as one show (I forget which) put it, cannon fodder characters whose purpose is to draw out the story. They're everywhere. They may have different names. But there's usually four of them. Four means death.

There are obvious variations on the Big Four in Fist of the North Star, Basara, Sailor Moon, Ikki Tousen, Sukeban Deka, Blood+, Otogi Zoshi and its sibling Kai Doh Maru, and of course we can't forget Boys Over Flowers. They don't have to be villains or even antagonists; their primary purpose is to add flavor to the show through differentiation of characters, which allows the authors to give the show more depth and variety and keeps it from being too simple.

There are less obvious variations in other sports, adventure, competition, and fighting based shows. For example, Initial D. In the first season, Ryosuke is the "boss." His brother Keisuke is Takumi's first opponent and reputedly the second strongest. Takumi then faces Nakazato, who challenges him to prove he can beat someone who beat Keisuke (rather than challenging Keisuke directly, as he appears to wish to do). His third opponent is Shingo, who insists on deadly rules and has an unsportsmanlike desire to harm others, and the fourth (at his home course) is Kenta, who thinks of himself as a student of Ryosuke's style but specializes in rain battles.

Similarly, in Utena, the Big Four are the members of the Student Council, with Touga as "boss." Saionji is the second strongest and most invested in proving his own position, so he naturally fights first. Miki is invested, but will only fight once he's weighed the situation and has a personal stake. Jury doesn't believe in the validity of the duel game at all--her first purpose in fighting is to show Utena that taking a challenge lightly will spell defeat. Nanami spontaneously announced her intention to duel as Touga's turn was coming up, citing her own mastery of Touga's sword style--upon which, as we saw, she put a variation.

The Big Four have applications to all sorts of drama. They needn't attack one at a time, nor do they need to be a linear power progression. That's often what happens, yes, but there are some good counterexamples. Take Berserk. Griffith has a few different choices to assemble a Big Four depending on whether he counts himself. I'd set it up as Guts, Corkus, Judeau, Casca for the arc that the anime covers, but if we move to later on in the manga we can see an even more dynamic group forming under Guts.

Depending on how far a series wants to go, the leader of interest can have any number of generals, each of whom can have their own individuated subordinates or faceless minions as they so choose. Sailor Moon R got by with a mere two enemies for a while. Giant Robo filled up its seven episodes with dozens of high-powered, specialized, and individualized superhero types on both sides, each with their own peculiar goals and allegiances. And Brother, Dear Brother ran in the complete opposite direction by focusing the attention of the series on three "famous" characters who were already at the ends of their story arcs and could be viewed as spiraling along the paths they'd drawn. Ultimately the use of the Big Four is a storytelling technique, and a convenient one, being not too many for a single author to work with and not too few to keep up the length. But what its use results in is that there are a lot of stories that follow an "average" or "straight-arrow" main character with the real interest and support coming from side characters whose direct consequence to the story is usually limited to what happens when they first appear. It's entirely possible that these characters only occur and exist out of a perceived necessity for having certain different archetypes represented, which in a strict sense makes the Big Four no more than yet another type of harem designed to target fanboys and obsessive collectors.

Hmm...
Kyoya, Honey and Mori, Kaoru and Hikaru, Tamaki.
Or, do I have that in reverse? /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[Dagger]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
...and of course we can't forget Boys Over Flowers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Any other connections to be drawn here? I took a break from Ouran to watch Boys Over Flowers (blasphemous, I know) and am currently a little less than halfway through. I would be tickled pink if someone felt like tackling it. It's not nearly as "Utena" as Oniisama E or Ouran, obviously, but I still suspect that there's some stuff there to work with.

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Dagger said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
...and of course we can't forget Boys Over Flowers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Any other connections to be drawn here?

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't seen enough of it to go in-depth, but the first episode set off my Utena alarm like mad. I felt like I was watching Utena with hazing. Er, with more blatant hazing.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
monika said:
Does anyone have a few million I can borrow? I need to personally license Ouran, like, right away. I promise I'll take better care of it than any other potential licensor would. I truly mean this, from the bottom of my heart, I truly do.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not worried about Ouran, we're just worried about the RBT teasers we'd be exposed to.

[Dagger]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
[ QUOTE ]
Dagger said:
[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
...and of course we can't forget Boys Over Flowers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Any other connections to be drawn here?

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't seen enough of it to go in-depth, but the first episode set off my Utena alarm like mad. I felt like I was watching Utena with hazing. Er, with more blatant hazing.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've seen up to episode 28 of Boys Over Flowers now... not enough to make any firm conclusions, but I'm starting to get a better idea about some of the characters. The rest of my post contains a lot of spoilers for that portion of the series, though, so watch out.

Tsukushi Makino, the main character, is in all likelihood Wakaba. At first I had a lot of trouble with connecting Boys Over Flowers to the extended cycle theory because I kept trying to see her as Utena... which IMO just doesn't work. However, she's a Wakaba who's beginning to learn to stand on her own and to stand up for her friends (as we see in the first episode). It's constantly emphasized that she's an ordinary, plain-looking girl, which also ties in with Wakaba's image (not to mention her self-image).

The Utena figure in Boys Over Flowers is the beautiful, idolized Shizuka... who, coincidentally, cuts her hair off and leaves for Paris rather early on in the series. (She wants to stop relying on her wealthy family and become a lawyer for the poor. How very noble.) Actually, her time in the show is in a way a kind of sojourn. She visits from France, where she was working as a model, wins Tsukushi's adoration and then makes the decision to return there permanently.

Paris is so far away that it may as well be an entirely separate world--and indeed, ever since then, none of the characters have seen her on-screen again. Like Tsukushi, she was a student at Eitoku Academy. She continues to be a legendary figure there even though she's graduated.

Based on his attitude, his inner tenderness, the readiness with which he's emotionally scarred, his tendency to be used as comic relief, his tendency to behave somewhat abusively toward the girl he likes, and his relationship with Rui (a possible Touga), Tsukasa would seem to be Saionji. I think I'll leave it at that for now; so far I'm not really sure what, if anything, to do with his elder sister.

I'm inclined to think that Rui is Touga. Touga makes sense because he longs for Shizuka/Utena but can never have her, because she's grown too far beyond him and what he represents--and also because he's the most princely of the F4. And because of the friendship/rivalry between him and Tsukasa/Saionji, his skill with women (when he chooses to have it), his slightly traumatic childhood (during which he wore a pageboy haircut), etc. It should also be noted that Shizuka, who first met him and began hanging out with him when he was a little kid, saved him from being a withdrawn and miserable loner.

Rui might also work as Dios (sometimes he acts almost as abstracted as Mytho), but I think the Touga evidence is probably stronger.