Revolutionary Girl Utena

>it's a Nanami episode

Attached: 11117188.jpg (960x720, 127.68K)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=6H0D8VaIli0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)
youtube.com/watch?v=Q-AHUFHHNXw
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

>it's an Anthy takes out her bottled up anger on Nanami episode

Is this worth watching? Penguindrum was incredibly good.

>it's a Nanami episode
Nice.

Attached: 1610218426725.jpg (255x254, 14.8K)

Suddenly.

Attached: Tsuwabuki - total badass.jpg (720x540, 52.14K)

Anthy needed even more slaps on the face.
Fucking bitch.

>t. Juri

>be the reason your brother is the way he is
>play the victim card
>still act like an utter cunt about it
>get rewarded

>>be the reason your brother is the way he is
Nope. Akio is a spoiled, savior-complex brat who had his life saved then bitched about people not exploiting him anymore cause it made him felt good.
>play the victim card
Hard to not be a victim when you're a child being stabbed by an angry mob with pitchforks. But you know, details.
>still act like an utter cunt
Hard to not be pissed off when you're reduced to a puppet-slave to play out your insecure manchild of a brother's fantasies, and become an effigy to shoulder all the world's fears, anxieties, and vitriol.
>get rewarded
I don't think you know the difference between "reward" and "salvation".

Anthy is not 100% innocent (which is makes her a great character), but her hands are clean of everything that happened before the series started. It was only after centuries of shit that she became somewhat malicious.

Nanami has the best episodes, the black rose shit should have been replaced by a nanami mini-arc
utena would be nowhere near as good without anthy messing with nanami, the two make an excellent unintentional comedic duo. They’re also the two hottest girls, anthy is very lickable

>Nanami has the best episodes, the black rose shit should have been replaced by a nanami mini-arc
The Black Rose arc is the best in the series.

How can anyone think this, are you the same fag that’s always disparaging my darling nanami? Stop having shit taste

I haven't been to an Utena thread in 4 years, and Nanami is best girl. But I'm still right. At the very least, the BR arc is equal to the Final arc in quality. It's so good, it's actually insane.

But the first “arc” (if you can even call it that) is the best. Early Utena is one of the funniest anime out there and that humour is largely lost in the overly symbolic later episodes. I still like the whole thing but it’s better earlier on.

You like Utena more for it's comedy? Huh. First time I've seen someone say that. But that's so weird though, it has far less comedic epsiodes after the Student Council arc, I think it's literally only maybe 3 funny episodes in total and that was it? How'd you even stick with it?

It’s funny up until the black rose stuff.
>how’d you even stick with it?
It’s not like it doesn’t do other stuff well, the characters and intrigue of the overarching plot are enough to carry through to the end but the early episodes have all that whilst also being funny.

Huh. Well alright, clearly we were looking for different things while watching Utena. You're the first person I've ever met to have been into it for the comedy (mainly?).
If you like that, check out the most recent Utena stage plays, they lean A LOT more into the comedy than the series ever did (and they're genuinely hilarious).

Nanami episodes are the best episodes.

I guess I need to rewatch Utena because I have no clue what any of you are talking about

>it's a Nanami episode
Looks like I'm not skipping to the shadow girl play this time.

i want to milk this cow

Nanami laid an egg LMAO. What is she, an alien from outer space or something? Loser!

It's fun

I actually would love to see more Kozue episodes.

the shadow girls are also aliens, seems ohtori has quite the infestation

It's really good

God, I wish. The three episodes she did show up in were enough to make her my favorite, imagine the results if she got more.

Attached: 634.jpg (960x720, 181.55K)

I'm glad the Black Rose gets love, I'm only now watching the show for the first time and I'd get th impression people would treat it as the odd one out, when the atmosphere and the work it does with the cast is incredible.

Penguindrum is putrid shit compared to Utena

How so? I'm planning to get on it once I'm done with Utena.

It's good, but it's not as good as Utena.

What is as good as Utena? Why did ikuhara do absolutely nothing of note after he made it

It's one of the few shows out there that are actual 10/10

A person after mine own heart, that's assuring. Yes, unfortunately, the Black Rose arc was and still is treated as the "black sheep" of the series, no pun intended. It's placement is a bit of a tonal whiplash, it's noticeably weirder and more abstract, and within the series, it practically as a fever dream, something that happens and is never mentioned again, but to me, that's precisely what makes it so good. If you're someone who really loves Utena and wants to understand everything about it, then the key to all the mysteries is none other than the Black Rose: it's a condensation of the whole series, and it's what cements its thematic foundation. Every character is a parallel to another, a sort of alternate look at the cast you've been watching until now, manifested through the side cast. Every Black Rose duelist and the character they take their soul swords from are one and the same, even the ones upon initial examination seem like they have no relation/similarities between them whatsoever, like Keiko and Touga. Admittedly, it's all very confusing at first, but the BR storyline actually makes a lot more sense AFTER you finish watching the series, which is why it doesn't usually make a good first impression on viewers.

He's being a memeing retard. He literally just means he really likes Utena. Penguindrum is great, although it suffers from Retard Jap Changes Entire Plot Because Real World Tragedy Just Happened (And It's Too Similar) Syndrome.

>Its placement*
>it's noticeably weirder and more abstract than other arcs*
>it practically functions as a fever dream*

Great post, user.

Black rose arc has the best episodes. Wakaba, Keiko, Shiori, Tsuwabuki etc. The only legitimate reason to hate it is the time wasted on the boring underplot

Exiquisite prose, but that's only to be expected from enjoyers of high class shoujo anime. I also agree with the content of it.
The Keiko episode was my favorite in the entire series, because its the first time I've seen a show do that with a background character in the series. Extra painful when she's relegated back to the sidelines at the end. Of course, that was precisely what the Black Rose was all about, to showcase the side characters, only for Utena to mog them in turn, despite Utena's motive being the least informed out of all of the characters. Might makes right, and even though Utena was only going off half-cocked, Utena was always one hundred percent serious and straightforward, which I believe influenced her victories. The only time she lost was when she doubted herself.

>keiko
Oh come on no one gives a shit about nanami friend no. 2. Wakaba a cute but shiori is shit and while I empathise greatly with tsuwabuki as I too worship nanami his episodes are meh. Only unironic fags/dykes like the black rose arc.

The content of you post is shit, but we've a limited number of posters in the thread as is, so I'd rather discuss things with someone I disagree with than not discuss them at all. Thus, I will ask you to elaborate on this point.
>Only unironic fags/dykes like the black rose arc.

Then Utena is a 20/10

Utena is both pretty artsy and also faggy. Yet because it’s actually very good it gains fans from people that wouldn’t usually like that kind of thing, i.e Yea Forums posters. But the parts of utena aren’t equal in their fagginess, in fact it gets gayer as it goes along but the episodes after black rose are made more palatable by having a generally comprehensible plot. the black rose arc on the other hand is both extremely faggy and nonsensical plot wise, so clearly only an unironic fag would enjoy it.

It's been 30 years and Utena fans are still some of the most insufferable in anime lol
yes your show is good, great even, but fucking hell get over yourselves.

The primary/secondary character dynamics that run through the series are fascinating. Constantly comparing and contrasting the flashy leads with the more ordinary supporting characters yields some very interesting examination of social status and power balance, the value of talent, luck, priviledge etc. and Black Rose really puts that to the forefront. It's, well, about the experience of being a supporting character in your own life and dealing with that reality, in a way that's deconstructionist for sure, but even more so, it's a brilliant showcase of the interior realism of the characters.

>B-BUT UTENA
Dude stop there's no need to compare them Penguindrum is good in its own way.

>plot plot plot
Filtered.

I didn't enjoy the black rose and final arcs very much therefore they're not good. You cannot convince me otherwise because I'm too stupid to understand your arguments.

Attached: 1620261326254.jpg (740x687, 170.05K)

Finally someone that gets it
You’re the filtered one. Utena is only good because of nanami

is it just me or is every Utena thread plagued by some Nanamifag that insists the show is bad and Nanami is the only good thing for years now?

There are at least 3 of us nanamifags and I’m pretty sure we all like the show just fine. You’ll find me defending utena whenever it comes up in non-utena threads but it’s more fun to bait and nanamipost in Utena specific ones.

The Keiko episode is PHENOMENAL, easily among the best in the whole series, and Keiko herself is actually a wonderful character if you really pay attention to what's going on her. OK, let's talk about this. Basically, the Keiko-Nanami dynamic is a mirror of the Touga-Akio dynamic. Touga is Akio's slave, but the reason he got close to him in the first place, is because he wanted what his master has: power and influence. To Touga, Akio was the "ideal man", someone with great charisma and sway over people, and he hoped that by getting close to him, he would acquire such things too, and he did: but at the cost of his dignity. However, this all changed when Utena showed up in the picture: Touga had fell in love and with her.... but Akio wants her for himself. Suddenly, there's a schism between the slave and master, Touga is now no longer content in serving Akio, he wants to replace him instead, to become the man who charms and, in a very sleazy way, "own" Utena. This has all happened with Keiko. Keiko is an average girl that got close to Nanami because she's rich and popular, and gladly became her lackey to have a taste of her wealth and power, which she did, but also at the cost of her dignity (which we see in her episode, being treated like shit by Nanami and doing menial chores). However, when Touga showed up, she fell in love with him, but Nanami got in her way, she "owns" Touga, therefore Keiko set out to replace her master, to have Touga for herself. This is why she takes his soul sword. Visually, it's analogous to rape, but the real narrative symbolism is that she had now replaced Nanami as Touga's "special someone". Touga, too, attempted to become Utena's "special someone" near the end of the series. They're perfect mirrors of each other, and this is the case with every other BR duelist.

Thanks user.

Excellent points you've made here, and there's also something else about the frank of genius of using the side cast as the main narrative focus: it allows you to examine the main cast without the veil surrounding them. I've said this once, and I'll say it again: every Black Rose duelist should be looked at as if they are the same characters whose souls swords they take. By examining Wakaba, you examine Saionji without his power and status. By examining Kozue, you examine Miki without his veneer of innocence and harmlessness. By examining Shiori, you examine Juri without her guise as the "wronged and wounded maiden". HOWEVER, there are two characters who don't take soul swords from anyone: Mikage and Kanae, and these two in particular are the true key in understanding the true thematic crux of the narrative, but that's perhaps a post for another day.

Very good post. However, I am now imagining the entire cast as Brazillians.

Utena but the duels are in capoeira.

I love how the show pays this conflict between Nanami and Keiko off in the episode where Nanami breaks and loses her status upon being led to believe Touga isn't her brother too.

You are now watching this with "Emperor of a Mundane Universe" playing in the background:

youtube.com/watch?v=6H0D8VaIli0

>Mikage and Kanae, and these two in particular are the true key in understanding the true thematic crux of the narrative, but that's perhaps a post for another day
Please do tell user, your posts are very insightful.

Or how her flunkies immediately abandoned her as soon as she got down in a rut. It's played for laughs, but even gags in Utena usually have thematic significance behind them. Utena examines a lot of things, and one of them is the master-slave dynamic, both willing and unwilling slavery. The wilful slave has something to gain from his master, until his master tries to take something the slave has his eyes on. The unwilling slave has nothing to gain from his master, and it drives him to become bitter and callous, so much so he takes on the characteristics of the master without realising it.

Utena is already a below 5/10 show, you are telling me Penguindrum is even lower than that?

Thank you user, I'm humbled. OK, I'll just say this for now, and if the thread stays alive, I'll elaborate on it once I get some rest: Akio and Utena are the same exact character, but the manifestations of different stages of that character's life. By examining the one, you examine the other. Mikage and Kanae are Akio and Utena, respectively, but with subtle differences here and there. I'll come back to this later, so hopefully the thread stays alive till then, give me an hour or so.

Name your top 5 shows

Fucking nerd. Explain why touga doesn’t get a rose frame if you’re so wise in your utena ways.

Attached: utena.png (1536x1152, 3.15M)

You're still around, gridman? I haven't seen you since that Utena boom a few years ago, how've you been?

Reflections upon reflections upon reflections. The whole show is like a kaleidoscope, I love it.

You probably just watched the show and are likely underage. Screencap your post and come back to it in a couple years

I’m bad
You’re incorrect, utena’s actually one of the earlier anime I watched and I’ve seen it multiple times.

>Akio and Utena are the same exact character

Attached: galactic.jpg (600x600, 138.13K)

No reply. Kek.
Yea Forums's equivalent to 'post body'. There's no right answer

Bumping for this busy user
Oh shit nigga, I'm pretty sure you're guy I asked for those Keiko frames all those years ago. That's crazy

I-Is it because they both seek control of Anthy? Only Utena does it from an unclouded, naive perspective, while Akio is more burned out and inattentive, more of what happens if you spend several lifetimes trying to control Anthy?
I am new to the Utena mythos, so forgive my entry level interpretations

always essential

THAT'S ME! WAIT! MY LAST EVOLUTION REVOLUTION EVER-LUTION!

OK! I'm back now, took a little nap and had something to eat, let's do this. I'll preface the upcoming psots with the fact that there will be major narrative/thematic threads that I won't touch on, not for the sake of brevity, but for the sake of scope. Utena's thematic substrate is a web- if you think about something, that directly requires to think about another, you can't examine much of it in a vacuum. If I were to go whole hog, I'd be here for the next 5 hours writing posts, so I'll just try to stick to the Kanae-Mikage and Akio-Utena parallel on its own as much as I can, while (You) keep in mind that it's not the whole story (especially with regards to Mikage, there's something huge about him that I will not discuss here). Also to keep your interest, I'll explain the parallel in backwards, and work my down to the foundation.

A-user?

>Ikuhara's Episode Commentary:
>14: "The Boys of the Black Rose"
>I saw a certain horror movie when I was in middle school. There was a secret mortuary in an underground chamber, and the dead were electronically transmitted (!), still in their coffins, to the “other world,” where they were forced into slavery.

>The movie’s story was utterly absurd, but the division of the world into opposite poles of “living” and “dead” felt real to me, somehow.

>Our world has been spoken of in bipolar fashion for ages.

>In my student days, there was a popular book that compared the “affluent” with the “non-affluent,” and sorted everything into categories called “loaded” and “broke.” It was the bubble era, and the aim of the book was probably to get a laugh by saying “They call us wealthy, but our lifestyle’s practically in the trash can!”

>But for some reason, I couldn’t laugh.

>Years later, the phrase “the winning side” was popular in the media. I thought it was horrid. And sure enough, people started using the opposite phrase “the losing side” as a masochistic joke. I still couldn’t laugh, though.

>One day, a girl I saw on TV said, “There are only two types of people in this world: the ones who are chosen and the ones who aren’t chosen.”

>That gave me a start.

>“To not be chosen is to die,” said the girl.

>I decided to try my hand at that.

>The Black Rose arc.

Bonsoir.

Sorry, had something to take care of real quick.

Let's start with Kanae, because she's a character that people rarely ever pay any attention to. It's all very subtle and never at all verbal, but once you connect the dots (I'll leave this for a separate post for whomever asks), you'll arrive at this conclusion every time: Kanae was once a Rose Duelist herself. Much like Utena, she took up the rose signet, fought in the duels, fell in love with Anthy, challenged Akio... and lost. Yup. Kanae is the "bad ending" Utena. We don't know much of her background, but due to the kaleidoscopic nature of Utena's cast, as beautifully puts it, you can assume that it's not much different from Utena's in essence. She's someone who was once "hollow", devoid of purpose and self-value, and sought to fill that void by becoming someone who could be of use to others: A saviour. Now the story already examines this in very blatant terms, so I won't beat a dead horse, but just real quick: there's a problem with this existence-defining altruism. The saviour's self-worth and respect hinge on it, and they lie squarely in the hands of the person/people they're trying to save. This leads to an unhealthy dynamic between the savior and savee: the former will always try to put/perceive the latter to be in a situation or context where they need their help, and the latter holds the key to their legitimacy and role as saviour. This ironically means that the "saviour" is the one who truly needs the help of the "savee", as it is the latter who gives them purpose and self-value, the "salvation" that they themselves need.

(1/?)

French is a stupid language, foreigners think it’s all romantic then you go to France and it sounds horrible. There is however a very rare accent that you seldom hear, that occurs when a french lady achieves a native level of fluency in english. Such an accent has all the romance that the normal - practically arabic - french completely lacks.

Am I the only person on this planet that liked Penguindrum more than Utena?

Yes, and be aware that you are wrong. Utena has nanami, what does penguindrum have, penguins?

Constant dependence of the saviour on the savee to give them purpose, transforms the latter into a dehumanised value-object for the former to feed on, and transforms the former into a value-object for the latter to enslave. This is where we get off at the end of the series: Utena admits that she's been using Anthy as a value-object while ignoring her true wishes and needs, and Anthy admits that she's been using Utena as a surrogate for Dios while fully aware that this path has nothing but pain and agony in store. This is a good resolution to this symbiotic co-dependence: the saviour recognises that they've hinged all of their self-worth on this one purpose, and the savee recognises how they are accomplices in the harm done to the saviour. Both let go of their roles.

However, what happens when that co-dependence is immediately stopped without the subjects experiencing a resolution? When the saviour is stopped dead in their tracks before reaching any sort of end to their con? Well, you get Kanae. Kanae is an Utena who had continued on duelling as she always did, but never opened her heart to Anthy, and Anthy never opened her heart to her. They kept up the Prince and Bride farce, business as usual, and the curtains closed on them without warning. Akio swooped in and defeated Kanae. So what happened to her? Well, in surface story terms, Akio erased her memories of when she was once a duelist, and he turned her into simply yet another Bride for him to prey on. However, Kanae did not forget Anthy. Or rather, she didn't forget her feelings towards Anthy, though she's not aware from where they stem from. Kanae, saviour-slave, who haven't shed her chains, became embittered, if not melancholic towards her savee-master. Anthy forgot about her and ignores her, she doesn't need to be saved by her anymore. Her purpose and self-value have been stripped away from her. This is why Kanae displays an obsessive concern with Anthy that she doesn't quite understand.

(2/?)

Watch Sarazanmai.

Attached: sarazanmaiep1006.png (1280x720, 328.93K)

Remember the "subtle differences here and there" I mentioned? Well, here's something to point out: Kanae is an Utena who had begun to start her path on becoming an existence like Akio, but was cut down by the actual Akio before she could take his place. This is where Mikage comes in. I said that he's a parallel of Akio, but an asterisk should be added here: Mikage is a RECENTLY FALLEN Akio. Everything that has to do with this particular theme ends at Akio, he's the fallen saviour-slave who has failed to fulfil his purpose, and lost his shackles __unwillingly__*. However, hundreds if not thousands of years of being trapped in his own efforts to regain his role slowly transformed him into a monster who could be called anything but a hero. Mikage is a look at an early Akio, an Akio who had just recently lost his shackles, and tried to regain them. Here's his deal.

Actually, no before that, this is a good time to take a step back away from all of this, and address something about the Black Rose arc. The Black Rose arc takes place on a metaphysical plane that's not different from Ohtori Academy's, but is rather, an intensely pronounced section of it, where everything about Ohtori is ramped up to eleven, giving it an even more bizarre and surreal feel than what is usually seen there.

This is a good time to talk about Eternalism.

(3/?)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)

Put very simply, if time is a river in an "ordinary" universe, then time is a pool in an "eternalist" or "block" universe. Meaning, ordinarily, time only flows one way and can only be experienced in one direction objectively, regardless of how it's perceived by whomever experiences it. The past is a phantom, the present is momentary, and the future is undetermined. However, in a block universe, time does not flow, rather, it all exists at once. The past, present, and future are all equally "real" and "here", much like the water in a pool, it's not going anywhere, it's confined. Now imagine if one end of the pool is the past, the other end is the future, and the middle is the present. Now imagine swimming in that pool: the swimmer travels between all of these three phases as they please. Or to put it in another way, the swimmer experiences time as they want. This means that progression of time, in this case, is now in fact subject to the experiencer's perception. It's subjective, not objective. A moment in time can become an eternity if the experiencer wishes it, they can make it so that they could forever stay in that "slice" of time.

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar? Good, I think it does, (You) seem to have figured it all out.

(4/?)

Wait, I have something to attend to for the moment, I'll be back in 20-ish minutes.

They are the Huntertards of shojo anime. For them it's the only show that exists. Not even Evafags were this level of cretins in their worst years.

No. Utenafags are just vocal about their retardation.

youtube.com/watch?v=Q-AHUFHHNXw