The Revolution of Utena

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
If it cannot break its egg’s shell, a chick will die without being born.​
We are the chick. The world is our egg.​
If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without being born.​
Smash the world’s shell!​
For the revolution of the world!​

The student council speech in Revolutionary Girl Utena is instantly attention grabbing. Derived from a passage from Hermann Hesse’s Demian, this short speech is a recurring introduction to the student council- which, in and of itself, resembles a private club of occultists (or perhaps philosophers) more than it does a government body.

This is also, for quite a large chunk of the anime, one of the few places where we hear any of the characters talk about revolution directly. Elsewhere, revolutionary themes are generally downplayed, more a thematic undercurrent than the immediate narrative subject.

Which brings up a question – what can we observe about the ‘revolution’ of Revolutionary Girl Utena?

To start, the narrative is not using revolution in the sense of the masses rising up and overthrowing their masters. It can be read as an allegory for such a revolution- Utena serving as the embodiment of the proletariat, burdened with a sense of false consciousness (Her desire, throughout most of the show, is to become a prince- not to overthrow the prince), and her various rivals representing various forms of opposition. But this understanding doesn’t quite fit right. None of Utena’s friends and rivals represents a force in opposition to revolution- instead, they are all themselves individuals who want to be revolutionaries.

But what do they want from their revolutions?

Ultimately, almost every duellist fights for revolution as a response to trauma. Not all of the characters’ traumas are shown- we learn some of their traumas through the course of the anime, but at least one doesn’t have his trauma revealed until the movie, The Adolescence of Utena. In the narrative itself, the act of revolution is an attempt to overcome one’s trauma, to escape it so that they can finally live their lives rather than, as the poem says, ‘dying without being born.’

This puts the allegory in much more concrete grounds. Trauma becomes representative of material conditions that cause people harm; these material conditions then spur the individuals harmed by them to respond, and seek an escape from those conditions.

However, in spite of this allegory roughly fitting with the events, there are other lenses through which Utena can be viewed.

Utena revels in a sort of esoteric feminism, one which doesn’t talk down to the watcher by explaining itself, or restrict itself to a single set of interpretations. Utena is a revolutionary figure, in that sense, not because she is responding to her material conditions or her trauma, but in that she has chosen to fight for herself and for other women.

The Revolution of Utena is, then, an esoteric revolution; an egoist’s revolution; a feminist’s revolution. Utena fights for herself because she is herself; her greatest moments of weakness are when she ‘loses herself,’ gives up, and allows society to impose itself on her.

This analysis is, of course, incomplete. I’m planning to do more work on it, but the scope of Utena itself means that a detailed analysis of the show will take quite a while to prepare.

As such, and in order to push myself to produce the content more regularly, I’m going to try to break the analysis up into smaller chunks- and then to cobble these chunks back together, and build a final analysis.

Here’s an outline of what I intend to do, in the order I intend to do it-
First, an episode-by-episode lets watch and analysis of the show and it’s narrative, the different threads thereof, etc.​
Second, an overarching analysis of the different character and story arcs, progressing through the full series.​
Third, a lets watch of the movie (The Adolescence of Utena)​
Fourth, an overarching analysis of how I am interpreting the themes and ideas expressed in Utena, as a whole.​

I might also include a lets read of the manga, if there’s any interest in that.

I can’t promise any specific schedule on this, right now- I’m trying to balance several commitments, and I’m not doing terribly well at it, I think. However, I can say that I’ll be staggering releases over patreon and the other platforms I’m hosting this analysis on over time. I’ll get back to everyone on schedules when I know what they’ll be.
 

Hakazin

Member
Pronouns
Female
I can’t promise any specific schedule on this, right now- I’m trying to balance several commitments, and I’m not doing terribly well at it, I think. However, I can say that I’ll be staggering releases over patreon and the other platforms I’m hosting this analysis on over time. I’ll get back to everyone on schedules when I know what they’ll be.

I'd be shocked if you weren't taking your time with this project. Utena's a story where the themes and messages are so tightly layered that you almost have to go slow if you don't want to miss anything.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
So, I’ve spent a little while musing over what, precisely, I should be doing with the first part of this- the more direct ‘lets watch.’

This is, I’ll note, not a blind watch. I’ve watched this show before, even though it’s been a little while since I did, and while I don’t have photographic memory I do still remember the general overarching plot.

So do I simply go through and describe the events that happen in every episode? Do I treat later episodes as spoilers, not for myself, but for the people who read this or who might even watch the show alongside my review? Since I’ve already said I would do an analysis of the whole show, its themes, etc. on a season by season and overarching basis as I complete them, do I do the thematic elements within the individual episodes and risk becoming repetitive, or do I keep the thematic analysis to a minimum to avoid repeating myself?

After spending a couple weeks thinking about this, I’ve come to a conclusion.

Fuck it, I’m gonna wing it.

---

The first episode opens with the voice of a young girl telling a story. Rather than being animated, it is all still pictures with minimal moving parts, and sudden shifts between parts.

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This scene is recounted as a memory, which it is. It is also recounted as a fairy tale, which it also is.

Once upon a time, years and years ago​
There was a little princess, and she was very sad​
For her mother and father had died.​
Before the princess appeared a traveling prince​
Riding upon a white horse.​
He had a regal bearing and a kind smile.​
The prince wrapped the princess in a rose-scented embrace​
And gently wiped the tears from her eyes.​
“Little one,” he said, “who bears up alone in such deep sorrow.”​
“Never lose that strength or nobility, even when you grow up.”​
“I give you this to remember this day. We will meet again.”​
“This ring will lead you to me, one day.”​
Perhaps the ring the prince gave her was an engagement ring.​
This was all well and good, but so impressed was she by him​
That the princess vowed to become a prince herself one day.​
But was that really such a good idea?​

This introduces us to Utena through the past- as she remembers it, stylized and fragmented, an aspect of her personal mythology.

After a brief cut to a title screen- labelling this episode ‘The Rose Bride’- we meet another character (Wakaba) who is waiting for Utena, who she calls her ‘boyfriend’.

It’s worth noting here- although the anime is clearly playing around with gender roles and expectations, as well as terms, Wakaba still uses feminine pronouns to refer to Utena, as do the two girls who tease her about Utena leaving her waiting. While I don’t want to disappoint my trans readers, and I don’t really want to spoil anything major... having watched the show (heck, having watched the rest of this episode), this seems to be more about troubling gender roles, rather than troubling gender identity, although there is obviously a certain degree of crossover there.

Due to that context, and since Utena makes a very clear statement on the issue in not very long, I’ll be using ‘she/her’ when I talk about her.

Anyway, moving on. We get a panning view of the middle school the students are attending, and meet Utena, who is confronted by a teacher because she is wearubg… well, we’re told she wears the male uniform, but it’s very clearly a different uniform than what all the boys are wearing.

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After this confrontation, we immediately cut to a scene of Utena squaring off against what is apparently the entire middle school basketball team, and beating them solidly on her own. She is then flooded with a crowd of her schoolmates, all girls, who congratulate her on her victory.

After this, she’s offered a place on the boy’s basketball team, which she refuses on the following grounds:

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Well, I said it would be a strong statement, no?

The conversation goes on, and Utena clarifies- she’s a girl, but she wears the boy’s uniform because she wants to be ‘A noble prince who saves princesses.’ It’s clear that Utena’s been deeply influenced by her childhood experience- meeting a prince and being saved from her grief by him- and has idealized the notion of being a prince, desiring to become a prince and to save other girls.

The basketball captain is confused by this. I guess that’s to be expected from a side character who has less than a half-dozen lines.

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While she walks the empty halls of the massive middle school, Utena notices a smell, and turns to look at a small greenhouse shaped like a birdcage. There is a second shot of the greenhouse/birdcage, panning from top to bottom- and then we move into the cage, and find a dark-skinned girl with purple hair tending flowers in there.

Utena looks at her through the windows of the greenhouse for a few moments, comments on ‘the scent of roses,’ and looks at her ring and comments about how the scent makes her remember the past.

We then transition to Utena standing, not where she was before, but on a balcony overlooking the courtyard that the flowers are caged in, looking at her ring. While there, she watches what she interprets as a lover’s quarrel between the young girl we’d seen, and a taller boy with green hair.

When the green-haired boy slaps the shit out of the girl, she becomes notably more concerned.

Green-hair grabs the girl, and pulls back to strike her again, but has his hand caught by a red-haired boy.

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Before we can see any more, Utena is interrupted by Wakaba, who springs on her back and almost knocks her out the window. Wakaba recognizes the green-haired boy- Saionji- which leads to an introduction of the other two characters as well.

The red-haired boy is the Student Council President, Kiryuu Touga.
The green-haired boy is the Student Council Vice President, Saionji Kyouichi.
The purple-haired girl is Himemiya Anthy, who has an undisclosed position on the council.

When asked if Saionji and Anthy are dating, Wakaba angrily denies that that would be the case, and insists that they’re only down there together because they’re both on the student council. Wakaba, I’ll note, didn’t see what happened just now- and Utena chooses to… tease Wakaba for liking Saionji instead of telling her that the dude was literally about to beat the hell out of a girl.

Wakaba turns it around, and asks Utena if she’s jealous, which Utena doesn’t really have an answer to, and then capitalizes on Utena’s awkward pause to tease her more.

These kids… well, I guess that’s normal priorities for fourteen year olds.

Anyway, we then make a cut to an ominous student council meeting, complete with dramatic music.

The other members of the council- Touga, a blonde girl with curly hair, and a feminine looking boy with light blue hair- chastize Saionji for his cruel treatment of “The Rose Bride,” who is pretty clearly Anthy- and Touga tells him that “Just because you’re engaged to her doesn’t mean you’re free to treat her as you please,” because the student council “exists by the will of End of the World” and if they discover Saionji’s treatment of Anthy, there will be a punishment.

Saionji laughs this off, tells the rest of the Student Council to mind their own business, and insists that everything is fine and that “The Bride and I are just a happy pair of lovebirds” and says that neither he nor Anthy want the others interfering with them.

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Given how uncomfortable Anthy looks, and the context of us seeing actual abusive behavior less than a minute ago, I’m gonna sum my opinion of Saionji up at this point with ‘Fuck this asshole.’

Anthy makes a noncommital but clearly forced comment about how she is, currently, Saionji’s bride, and how she has to go along with what he wants. Saionji gloatingly walks off with her tightly in his grip, and gloats about what a nice couple they are- and says that if anyone disagrees, they can duel with him and take the Bride for themselves, as according to the rules of the secret society of the Student Council.

Touga warns Saionji that a new Duelist will soon arrive, and Saionji blows him off before he can finish his statement.

The show is really going all out in establishing that Saionji is just a total asshole. Literally the worst.

Anyway, things cut to Wakaba and Utena again. Now, they’re talking about Utena’s ring- which has an emblem resembling the white rose of their school’s emblem, but with a red rose instead of a white one.

Just in case it hasn’t been driven in thoroughly enough yet, Utena says that she was given the ring by a prince on a white horse, making it almost painfully obvious that, yes, the young girl with the same hair as her in the opening fairy tale memory sequence is, indeed, her.

You know, if you hadn’t put that together already.

It’s also established that Utena has forgotten the details of the meeting- she remembers there was a prince, she remembers that the ring is supposed to lead her to someone (presumably, the prince), but she was too young to remember any of the details.

Wakaba empathises with Utena, and shares a story about how when she was little, her mother would call her the princess of the onion kingdom, and she believed that she was actually the princess of a kingdom of onion people.

Cute story, but it’s not quite the same as strangers on horses handing out magical rings of destiny, I think.

As the two walk back inside, they notice a crowd reading out a love-letter pinned to a corkboard on the wall. The letter is addressed to Saionji, and is clearly a heartfelt love confession. Utena chastizes the crowd angrily for reading out some poor girl’s confession and mocking it, and then notices Wakaba staring at the letter and crying.

Wakaba runs away, and Utena follows. They come to a stop under a tree, Wakaba sobbing as she crouches, leaning on the tree for support. Utena asks if Wakaba wrote the letter, and Wakaba nods.

Utena then immediately confronts Saionji, and after some back and forth he admits to pinning the letter up for people to read and mock. Utena, enraged, challenges him to a duel after school. Saionji is confused for a moment, and then basically goes ‘oh, so it’s you, then’ before accepting the duel and telling Utena to meet him in the forest behind the school later.

The forest is, aparently, forbidden, but clearly neither of them actually cares because the scene immediately cuts to an image of the woods and then a scene where shadow puppets gossip about there being a duel in the forest behind the school, and warning the brave hero who fights for her friend’s sake that there are rules in the forest- before asking if she knows what they are.

(spoiler: she does not, in fact, know what they are)

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later that evening, Utena makes her approach into the forest, which is an unsettling place. Pale trees stand like columns with dark, shadowy depths hidden behind them. The trees obscure as much or more than the shadows do.

Utena comes to a halt in front of an abstract statue-gate, which spreads great stony wings, birdlike, over her. A handle rests in the center of a spiral carved into the center of the statue-gate.

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As Utena grasps the handle, the water resting in the spiral ripples, and a single drop of it un-falls from it, flying forward to meet with her ring, where it bursts into a splash of mist, floating in the air. She draws her hand back- it is cold- and the statue-gate makes a mechanical clanking noise as water spews forward and the scenery re-shapes itself.

Shadows shift in the mist, reforming themselves, almost in sight but not quite comprehensible in how they move.

The statue-gate opens in front of Utena. The mist clears, and we see it’s new form- a rose in full bloom, now revealing a further forest- and beneath it, a dark and open passage into something unseen which is not the forest behind the statue-gate.

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Utena pauses, confused- “What is this entrance?” before continuing on, through the gate, to the pathway behind it.

It goes straight for a moment, before spinning around a single pillar which erupts fro beside it, like nothing so much as a great corkscrew rising towards the sky in the middle of a garden of trees.

Utena follows the path, and a song begins as she walks up it, slowly.

How tall is the path? It seems impossible to say. As it nreaches the top, she finds herself reaching a courtyard suspended above the forest, above the clouds, in the yawning emptiness of the heavens.

And above her there is a castle, hanging from the empty sky, glimmering with lights and bristling with towers, shining a beacon upon the arena which is as bright as day.

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As Utena expresses confusion, Saionji walks up. The castle, he says, is nothing more than a mirage. “Think of it as a trick of the light.”

As Utena continues to express confusion (and in her defense, this is all very strange) Saionji expresses his own confusion- how is it that someone who isn’t even a member of the student council should have a copy of the Rose Seal? Utena is, yet again, confused, and Saionji clarifies- her ring is part of a set, worn by the council, known as the Rose Seals.

Before anything more can be said, Saionji barks for Anthy to come and prepare them for the fight. She walks in, wearing a red dress, and pins roses to the combattant’s chests while Saionji explains that it is the Rose Bride’s duty to serve as both referee and prize in the competition.

Anthy then explains to Utena that she will lose the fight if the rose is knocked off her chest, wishes her good luck, and gets the shit slapped out of her by Saionji for having the nerve to wish his opponent good luck.

Anthy apologizes, and Utena takes a great deal of offense, demanding to know why Anthy would accept this treatment- to which Anthy answers that, as Saionji is the current champion, she has to do whatever he wants her to.

Utena questions whether this means that Anthy isn’t Saionji’s girlfriend, and after a moment of awkward silence (how is one supposed to answer that, given the context?) Utena says that it doesn’t matter.

All she has to do is beat Saionji, and he’ll no longer be the undefeated champion, which means he won’t be able to abuse Anthy any more.

And then we cut to the beginning of the fight, where Anthy summons an actual sword out of her chest, and presents it to Saionji. As he draws the sword from Anthy’s chest, Saionji demands that it grant him the power to bring the revolution, and bells placed at some ambiguous location in the distance but within view of the arena start ringing.

Where Saionji has the Sword of Dios- that is the Sword of God- Utena has nothing but a bamboo training sword. A bokuto. The fight is clearly in Saionji’s favor, and he mocks Utena- as being pretty good for a girl, but ultimately no match for him, and unable to be the prince who saves the damsel in distress.

And then he cuts her shinai in half.

There is some back and forth boasting, with Saionji graciously accepting his victory before he’s won (the fight ends when a rose is cut from a chest, not when a sword is damaged) and Utena charges.

As she does, she has a flashback to her memory of the prince, and what she was told. “Little one, who bears up alone in such deep sorrow. Never lose that strength or nobility, even when you grow up.”

Saionji and Anthy are both surprised by Utena’s boldness- charging an armed man with a broken piece of training equipment- but Saionji responds quickly and charges as well.

The two clash, and Saionji’s rose is torn from his chest, to his shock.

He looks at Anthy, who, for the first time in this episode, smiles at him- though really, it’s more of a smirk- and tells him to “Cheer up, Saionji-sempai,” or as it’s translated in the subtitles, “My schoolmate.”

Up until now, Anthy has addressed Saionji as ‘Saionji-sama,’ and the sudden downgrade in status clearly hits Saionji hard.

Touga, who is standing on an observation platform somewhere where the arena can’t see him but where he can see it, in spite of both being towers floating above the clouds- watches with a pair of binoculars. He observes that Utena attends ‘The Academy’s middle school’, and makes a creepy comment about her.

Oh, I should note. Saionji and Touga aren’t middle schoolers. They’re high schoolers- I believe they’re both 17, but can’t be bothered to check. They attend ‘The Academy’s high school,’ but they seem to have a single collective student council? Anthy is also 14, so the whole thing between her and Saionji has that special extra layer of ‘fuck this guy’ on top of all the rest.

We then cut to Utena walking home, venting out loud to herself about how weird her day has been, and musing that she should just forget about it- at which point she runs into Anthy, who addresses her as Utena-Sama, identifies herself as the Rose Bride, and says “From this day forward, I belong to you.”

And that’s the end of the episode.
 

Amorous Intent

New member
Pronouns
she/her
I feel like I need to point out the color of the roses that Saionji and Utena wear: green and white respectively. It's notable in that in every duel we see throughout both the series and the movie, the roses are color-coded to match the character's hair, with the sole exception of Utena herself. I don't think the colors symbolize anything specific, except for this: Utena's rose is white to represent the purity of her cause in fighting; everyone else's is polluted by their own needs and what they project on Anthy.
 

Hakazin

Member
Pronouns
Female
Utena then immediately confronts Saionji, and after some back and forth he admits to pinning the letter up for people to read and mock. Utena, enraged, challenges him to a duel after school. Saionji is confused for a moment, and then basically goes ‘oh, so it’s you, then’ before accepting the duel and telling Utena to meet him in the forest behind the school later.

In retrospect, this scene is where Utena's characterization really crystallizes. Her desire to be ‘A noble prince who saves princesses' gets stated earlier, but challenging the green-haired dipshit Saionji to a duel it's demonstrated. Utena is perfectly willing to throw herself into situations she does not understand whenever her prince complex is triggered if she feels that there's a wrong to be righted.

Of course, once we get to the next episode, we'll also be introduced to one of Utena's major flaws in this regard.
He looks at Anthy, who, for the first time in this episode, smiles at him- though really, it’s more of a smirk- and tells him to “Cheer up, Saionji-sempai,” or as it’s translated in the subtitles, “My schoolmate.”

Up until now, Anthy has addressed Saionji as ‘Saionji-sama,’ and the sudden downgrade in status clearly hits Saionji hard.

Understatement of the century, that. It may have been Utena who won the duel, but it was Anthy who delivered the finishing blow to Saionji's self-esteem. Again, very strong characterization, and for someone we know very little about at this point.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
Well since this isn't a blind watch I will say that Utena does her fair share of projecting on to Anthy as well before the show ends.
I actually have a hot take about this, but I'm going to leave it for a while instead of making it right now, because it's a take that makes more sense with stuff from later seasons.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
The day after the duel, Utena walks to school as if nothing happened.

She’s greeted by some of her fans, a group of three young girls who call out to her. Utena waves back, while the girls stare and blush, and as she passes them by, they gush as one about how cool she is.

We get a few panning shots of locations at the academy as well, and are given its name (Ohtori Academy) for, I think, the first time. (That, or I missed being given the name while I was focusing on other stuff.)

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We also get a good view, from above, of Ohtori Academy- showing us the general layout of it’s quite large campus, and the general shape of the location.

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Something I didn’t catch on my first watch, but which I was told later when I discussed the show with the friend, is that the academy is designed similarly to a type of megalithic grave from Japanese history- the Kofun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofun) – a large keyhole-shaped tomb/monument, either built into a hill or with a hill built around them, roofed with monolithic slabs of rock.

An interesting piece of trivia, for now. We’ll come back to this more later.

After the title card flashes- identifying this episode as ‘For Whom the Rose Smiles’- we see Utena entering class. Wakaba is already there- meaning she didn’t wait for Utena this morning at all- and Utena looks at her and remembers what happened yesterday (in the form of a brief flashback).

She takes a moment to gather her resolve, and then greets Wakaba, asking her about the book she’s reading.

Wakaba doesn’t respond.

In the first episode, Wakaba was incredibly lively and energetic- almost manic in her energy- and was, if perhaps not in love with Utena, still comfortable calling Utena her ‘boyfriend.’ Now, she’s closed off- silent.

It seems that vicious public mockery has had an effect on how she behaved, even if the people involved didn’t know it was her they were mocking. Who could have guessed?

Further, Utena hadn’t been there to comfort her while she was crying, but instead, immediately went to challenge Saionji to a duel- presumably without informing her. I imagine that, too, is a hurtful experience.

Utena waits a moment, and then turns and walks past.

As Utena makes her way to her own seat, Wakaba snaps the buck shut and raises it, displaying it’s title (Magnolia Waltz) to Utena, who turned at the noise.

Wakaba then speaks.

“Always.”​
“She’s always loved this guy.”​
“But, after she’s rejected, the next day she recovers, another man appears, and the heroine ends up with him.”​
“When I read this before, I thought it was the lamest, stupidest book. Now I read it, and I think it’s the greatest thing ever!”​

I suppose she’s gotten over her grief, without needing Utena there to help her.

Utena and Wakaba smile at one another, and Wakaba is back to her usual incredibly exuberant self. Wakaba declares her love for Utena.

And then Anthy walks in.

The scene cuts to an elevator, rising at some indistinct pace. There is a voiceover- one we can recognize as Kiryuu, the student council president- reciting the following speech as the elevator progresses upwards, with the members of the student council appearing on it as black shillouettes.

If it cannot break its egg’s shell, a chick will die without being born.​
We are the chick. The world is our egg.​
If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without being born.​
Smash the world’s shell!​
For the revolution of the world!​

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At the top of the elevator, the members of the student council play cards. Kiryuu asks if the other members have received letters from End of the World, and the two attending members- the blue haired boy and the blond girl with ringlet hair- say that yes, they have received their letters.

Kiryuu drops exposition, and states explicitly that the student council has been receiving these letters, and then following the instructions within them. He then switches to a more justifiable conversation point- the previous day, Saionji had lost a duel, and now the Rose Bride is engaged to the winner (Utena).

The question of who this new participant is is floated, and Blue identifies her. Apparently, her popularity has preceded her- implying but not quite stating that this member of the student council is also a mddle schooler.

Kiryuu… basically pervs out on the idea of Utena being popular as well as ‘regal and lovely’. It’s pretty gross, but before things go any further, Ringlets interrupts to bring things back to the fact that most of them had literally not even heard of Utena before today, and now, Utena is the champion of the duel system. How did this happen? Could it happen again?

This concern is basically blown off by Kiryuu, who re-asserts that End of the World has everything under control, and that the council simply needs to follow their instructions ‘as they see fit.’

It’s then revealed that the letters predict the future- they reveal things which will happen, before they happen. How they do so is left unclear- we don’t actually see the contents of any of the letters, or what they say.

However, since she’s seen the castle- and therefore had it proven that the letters are accurate predictions- Ringlets has decided to continue on as she has been, and to follow what she’s been told in the letters.

The stakes of the contest are then made clear- whoever wins in the ring, becomes engaged to the Rose Bride. At some point, the person engaged to the Rose Bride will be able to enter into the Castle in the Sky. The person who enters the Castle will then gain the power to bring revolution to the world.

Each member of the student council desires this power- and so, they must fight.

Now, obviously, in the real world revolutions don’t work by gaining possibly magical powers by participating in secretive ritual fights with other seekers of revolution. However, lets step back and consider this in a more abstract sense.

The student council have letters, texts which make certain specific and tangible predictions about how the future will go. The members of the student council are all given leeway to choose how to go about interpreting these letters, and deciding what to do with the knowledge within- but they have, for themselves, verified that at least some of the observations in the letters are true, and do genuinely predict things that happen.

These letters have also informed them that in order to bring revolution, they will need to do specific things- gain control of the Rose Bride through succeeding in conflicts with their rivals, and then maintain control of the Rose Bride until it is time to enter the unreachable castle and take power for themselves, power which will allow them to create the revolution.

When we consider things in this sense, the participants in this process- the ‘Duellists’- can be considered as abstract representations of existing movements, each attempting to position themselves so that they can be the one who takes power and does the revolution. Utena, then, is something new- a force which had not been expected by the established participants, even though she had apparently been hinted at in the texts they were engaging with, and who upsets the status quo between them by displacing the movement which had been thought to be best positioned to seize power, and puts herself- without knowing what she is doing, or the importance of it- in the position they have all desired to take for themselves.

Stepping away from the analysis by abstraction, and back to the show itself, Utena and Wakaba are walking out of the academy after class, and talking about rooming arrangements while holding hands.

Wakaba is surprised that they were assigned seperate rooms, because they are, of course, very good friends-

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After Wakaba complains about God’s cruelty, Utena says that they can’t help it- the student council decides rooming arrangements.

What a perfectly normal thing for a student council to decide.

It seems Utena has been assigned a room in a building that hadn’t been used for 10 years. Wakaba teases her about having to clean up the mess, and then gives Utena directions to her room, in case Utena decides she doesn’t like living alone.

You know, like friends do.

The actual building is pretty nice- with a clean foyer and expensive-looking architecture. Despite looking well maintained, no-one is there, and Utena makes her way upstairs to her room assignment on her own.

Her room is… rather less maintained than the rest of the building.

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Utena closes the door, stands outside, and thinks. It’s been 10 years, supposedly, but I’m going to be real- that’s way more than ‘left shut up for 10 years in an otherwise maintained building’ level of wear and tear.

After a bit, she psyches herself up to go in and start repairing things, and opens the door again.

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It’s already been fixed- cleaned, repaired, everything- apparently by Anthy.

Utena has been standing by the door all this time, and frankly, doesn’t seem to have been sitting there all that long anyway. The room is on the second floor. How did Anthy get in? Given the show, I’m gonna just say it was magic and move on.

When Utena asks what Anthy is doing there, Anthy says that the two of them will be living together from now on. Utena objects that the room is a single, but, wouldn’t you know it, it turns out Anthy’s name is on the wall too:

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Does it count as magic if what you used was a magic marker?

Quickly accepting the not-at-all-sketchy circumstances, Utena settles in, and observes that it’s a funny coincidence that the two of them are roommates, and apologizes for leaving Anthy to clean the room by herself. Anthy clarifies that it was no accident- as the Rose Bride, Anthy is ‘engaged’ to the reigning champion of mystical revolutionary fight club- with the implication that either she, or the rest of the council, pulled strings for the room assignment.

Utena asks if Anthy’s all right with that. Anthy doesn’t answer.

A bit later, the two are sitting at a table having tea. Utena has some questions- what was that castle? The sword Anthy pulled out of nowhere?

Anthy responds that they’re mysteries.

Utena asks whether this means that Anthy doesn’t know where they came from either, and why Anthy goes along with the whole thing if she doesn’t understand what is happening.

Anthy responds with a question of her own: Why does Utena dress like a boy?

Utena responds that she likes to, and Anthy says, “That’s my answer.” Then she asks whether them being there is a problem for Utena, and Utena dissembles for a bit before realizing that Anthy used a plural term, and noticing a very small monkey eating a cookie.

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Anthy introduces the monkey as her friend, Chu-Chu. After a brief interaction where Chu-Chu chokes on the cookie it was eating, and Utena gives it a spoonful of tea to wash down the drink, Utena asks Chu-Chu if it wants to be friends with her, too.

Chu-Chu accepts (nonverbally, of course- the only noise it makes are repeated ‘chu’ sounds) and the two shake on their new friendship. Anthy is impressed- apparently, Chu-Chu doesn’t usually like new people.

Next, Utena asks about her ring- or rather, the Rose Seals. The Rose Seal marks it’s wearer as a ‘Duelist,’ and every member of the Student Council wears one. Now that Utena is the reigning champion, other Duelists will come to her, and challenge her to duels.

Utena does not accept this. She’s not interested in being part of some secret society and fighting meaningless fights.

Meanwhile, Saionji sits in his dojo and stares ominously at a pair of Katana, resting on a decorative stand. He takes one and draws it from it’s sheath, doing a quick drill to familiarize himself with it’s weight and balance, before spinning it around and pointing it at Kiryuu’s neck.

After realizing it is Kiryuu, Saionji lowers his sword, and the two talk. Kiryuu asks if the Kendo team captain (ie, Saionji) intends to fight a middle school girl again. Saionji confirms this, and asserts that power and revolution belong rightfully to him. Utena’s earlier victory was a mistake, and nothing more.

He also asserts that Anthy belongs to him, and that she’s his to “do as I command forever,” as is written in his exchange diary.

Kiryuu’s response is either a deadpan joke or genuine confusion- “You keep an exchange diary?”

Later that evening, Utena sits down to a meal that it seems Anthy made. Utena is surprised that the two of them are the only people in the entire dorm, which is a pretty fair thing to be confused about, given the place is quite expensive looking and seems to be made to seat dozens of students.

Chu-Chu shows up, and Utena asks it to get Anthy, but Chu-Chu refuses to leave without Utena.

Outside, we see Saionji confrontin Anthy, angrily asking why she won’t obey him. She apologizes, and says that she is engaged to Utena now. Saionji challenges this- didn’t Anthy dedicate herself to him entirely when they were engaged?

Anthy admits that this was the case, but says that that is the past. Her engagement to Saionji is over. Saionji should forget about her.

For a moment, Saionji appears sad- pure sorrow, no other emotions.

And then he lashes out, crying ‘You shameless-!’, and slapping Anthy so hard she literally gets flung to the ground.

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As Anthy gathers herself up, hand to her cheek, Saionji watches her, literally trembling with rage, and tells her that she is a disgrace.

It’s at this point that Utena shows up, and objects strongly- saying that it is Saionji who is the disgrace, and glaring at him.

Chu-Chu is also there.

Saionji congratulates Utena on her timing, claims he lost their duel because he let his guard down, and demands a rematch so that he can reclaim his ownership of Anthy.

Utena tries to refuse, re-asserting that she doesn’t care about any of this- she fought him yesterday to get revenge on behalf of her friend Wakaba, and she doesn’t care about this ‘Rose Bride’ business. Saionji says that she’s already a dues-paying member of the Mystic Swordfight Party, since she’d fought with him the day before- and that if she refuses to continue participating, the Student Council will make her disappear from the campus, according to their highly specific regulations.

It’s not clear whether this is a death threat, or a threat of expulsion from the Academy. Either way, Utena is forced to accept the challenge, and agree to another duel. As Saionji leaves, Anthy asks why Utena agreed- she had said she wanted no part in further duels. Utena says she had no choice, since otherwise she’d be expelled, which I suppose clarifies how she interpreted the threat, at minimum.

Utena decides she’ll lose on purpose, so there’s no problem. Anthy is visibly not happy about this, but says that Utena should do as she pleases.

Utena, I think it is worth noting, is an incredibly oblivious dumbass who hasn’t put together two and two to come up with ‘Abusive relationship’ quite yet.

The scene cuts to another shadow play, where shadows on the wall talk about the upcoming fight. They do a bit about a western duel, where one of the two gunslingers throws the match- and then say that losing might be harder than the Hero thinks, as a hand carries a small potted cactus in front of them, as if the shadows are passing behind actual terrain.

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Utena finds herself once more in front of the gate, and we revisit the scene from before- ripples unrippling into a droplet that unfalls, unlocking the environment into an indescernable mass of twisting forms and shifting shadows, mechanical-organic-environmental noises echoing from the mists. She climbs up the stairs- but this time, waiting for her at the top is Anthy, who summons various pieces of regalia onto Utena’s uniform as she climbs.

It’s an excellently animated sequence, which, I suppose, is why they use it over and over and over again throughout the show. (I’ll probably not describe it again until we get to the alternate ascension scenes)

Anthy pins a rose, once again, to both Utena and Saionji’s chests.

Saionji says there’s no point in explaining the rules again; Utena already knows them. Utena agrees, and Saionji draws his sword and settles into a ready stance.

And then Anthy summons the Sword of Dios for Utena.


And then the fight is on.

This time, Saionji is on the aggressive, and charges in to try to strike Utena down quickly. He strikes again and again, and she simply parries, until he finally knocks her sword away and strikes at her rose.

Utena instinctively protects the rose and dodges, even though it puts her life at risk.

Saionji approves- you don’t lose the duel by taking blows, you lose the duel by losing your rose.

They clash, again, and Saionji says that just because Utena has the sword of Dios doesn’t mean that she knows how to use it; she doesn’t have the skill to stand against him, so he will win.

He then kicks Utena in the stomach while their swords are locked, launching her backwards into a tumble as Anthy watches, wide-eyed. I wonder why she’s supposed to be surprised. Because she expected Utena to have thrown it, or because she’s realizing that this is what it looks like when Saionji slaps her around?

Saionji now has Utena on the ground, disarmed, and at his mercy- so he gloats. He’s won. The sword is his now, Anthy is his now, his glory has been restored.

He raises his sword above his head to strike Utena down, and after a cutscene where a spirit that looks an awful lot like the Prince from Utena’s memory descends from the castle to possess her, over the course of about fifteen seconds or so that must have taken a fraction of a second for Utena to not have been struck, but also, to still have the opening Saionji had left when he raised his sword, Utena lunges and strikes the rose from Saionji’s chest, breaking his sword in the process.

Amusingly, his sword is broken in the same place as hers was in their first duel.

Everyone is surprised- even Kiryuu, who had been watching through binoculars from the observation platform- so clearly the thing with the possession wasn’t like, a thing that didn’t happen. But what they saw isn’t exactly clear, so I guess we don’t know for sure what they’re even reacting to.

After a few moments, we return to the dorm, where Utena briefly holds Chu-Chu back from eating an entire fucking cake. Anthy enters, Utena lets Chu-Chu go, and the cake is gone forever.

Anthy asks why Utena didn’t throw the fight, and Utena says she didn’t do it for Anthy, she did it for… Chu-Chu, so Saionji wouldn’t tease him.

Anthy stares at this absolute dumbass as she laughs at her stupid joke, and after a few moments, her eyes soften.
 

Hakazin

Member
Pronouns
Female
Chu-Chu is also there.

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Chu-Chu is very offended by your decision to downplay his role in events.
It’s not clear whether this is a death threat, or a threat of expulsion from the Academy. Either way, Utena is forced to accept the challenge, and agree to another duel. As Saionji leaves, Anthy asks why Utena agreed- she had said she wanted no part in further duels. Utena says she had no choice, since otherwise she’d be expelled, which I suppose clarifies how she interpreted the threat, at minimum.

Utena decides she’ll lose on purpose, so there’s no problem. Anthy is visibly not happy about this, but says that Utena should do as she pleases.

Utena, I think it is worth noting, is an incredibly oblivious dumbass who hasn’t put together two and two to come up with ‘Abusive relationship’ quite yet.

And here we see the other side of Utena's central struggle. Her desire to "be a prince who saves princesses" on one hand, and her bull-headed stubbornness on the other. Utena has strong preconceptions about how the world "should" work, and she often projects those preconceptions onto other people without quite realizing she's doing it.

Needless to say, this causes problems.
 
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MagnificentLilyWitch

Active member
Pronouns
She/Her
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Utena closes the door, stands outside, and thinks. It’s been 10 years, supposedly, but I’m going to be real- that’s way more than ‘left shut up for 10 years in an otherwise maintained building’ level of wear and tear.

After a bit, she psyches herself up to go in and start repairing things, and opens the door again.

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It’s already been fixed- cleaned, repaired, everything- apparently by Anthy.

Utena has been standing by the door all this time, and frankly, doesn’t seem to have been sitting there all that long anyway. The room is on the second floor. How did Anthy get in? Given the show, I’m gonna just say it was magic and move on.

When Utena asks what Anthy is doing there, Anthy says that the two of them will be living together from now on. Utena objects that the room is a single, but, wouldn’t you know it, it turns out Anthy’s name is on the wall too:

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Does it count as magic if what you used was a magic marker?

Quickly accepting the not-at-all-sketchy circumstances, Utena settles in, and observes that it’s a funny coincidence that the two of them are roommates, and apologizes for leaving Anthy to clean the room by herself. Anthy clarifies that it was no accident- as the Rose Bride, Anthy is ‘engaged’ to the reigning champion of mystical revolutionary fight club- with the implication that either she, or the rest of the council, pulled strings for the room assignment.
Oh Anthy you rascal you.

Even this early you can see how Saionji wants this twisted ideal of control and adulthood.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
The third episode of Utena begins, once again, with the mythicized scene from Utena’s childhood. This happens quite a few times throughout the series- I suspect as a way to pad out the runtime by a few moments as much as to repeat the history.

I’m a little disappointed that it is always the same opening sequence; it seems as if an opening sequence which shares most of the details, but has little changes here and there could have been an interesting narrative feature, and a way to take the repetition of the myth and actually make it into something of a reflection of Utena’s current state, since it is so deeply entrenched a part of who she is.

Unfortunately, since it is mostly just stock footage, I probably won’t mention it again. If you’re watching along, though, this is something you should probably watch out for.

This episode is titled ‘On the Night of the Ball’, and the episode proper begins with Utena stirring from her sleep. As she gets out of bed, she looks at her ring, and muses that it’s the only real evidence of that moment from her childhood. I suppose that implies that the opening scene can also be interpreted as a repeating dream- one that Utena is aware of, even if it doesn’t change- which means it’d be even more interesting if it did change, at least IMO.

Utena’s musing is interrupted by Anthy opening the door and wishing her a good morning, after which they cut to the end of breakfast. Utena is still getting used to her new arrangements, and asks Anthy if there will be more students moving in; Anthy says that it’s nice how quiet it is. Given Anthy is likely responsible for the room assignment, I suppose the implication is that Anthy requisitioned this dorm because she wanted a more quiet, secluded set of living arrangements.

Utena seems to have picked up on this, as she bluntly stumbles forward with “… I know you keep to yourself, but do you really have no friends at all?”

Which is quite insensitive. Chu-Chu is right there, as Anthy is quick to note:

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Utena is a little put off, but doesn’t press. As they go to school, she does ask Anthy to stop addressing her as “Utena-sama,” or “Miss Utena,” but is immediately undercut by her crowd of fangirls calling her by that name. Good comedic timing there. She attempts to save her argument with “It’s not a joke when you say it, though,” which is an interesting (if brief) look at how Utena believes she is seen by the other students- as a joke.

If so, she’s in on the joke, and entirely willing to perform to those expectations.

When Anthy responds with a mention of their ‘engagement’ as the Rose Bride and duelling champion, Utena responds that she’s not interested in all that- she doesn’t want a bride, all she wants is a normal boy- at which point Kiryuu steps out of the shadows and says, “That’s great news. Completely unrelated, I happen to be a normal boy.”

I’m not even kidding, that’s literally what goes down.

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Anthy says good morning to Kiryuu, and Utena asks if she knows him. Utena… You literally saw them talking like, two days ago.

Ok to be fair a lot has happened in those two days and it was like, literally a five second interaction before you got shoved out of a window by your very good friend Wakaba, but still.

Kiryuu takes point, and says that of course Anthy would know him- she’s the Rose Bride. Utena realizes this means he’s one of the duelists, and Kiryuu asks if she’s told anyone about the secret society fighting for ultimate power in the forest behind their school. Utena says she hasn’t; who would believe her if she told them something that crazy?

Kiryuu says that’s good, compliments her on her nobility, and strokes his hand through her hair. Utena responds by smacking his hand away, and asking ‘Mr. President’ to keep things platonic. He pushes back: Surely, they should be friends, since they share a bond? He raises his hand, with a rose seal on his finger.

Utena is surprised, but she really shouldn’t be. She knew he was a duelist. She knew that he’d have the ring. I have to wonder if there’s some error in translation here, because there’s no reason for her to respond to him saying this in the way she is. Utena asks how Kiryuu got that ring, and he responds that he was given it so that he could meet her.

Utena suddenly wonders- Could Kiryuu have been the prince from her memory? As she stands, paused in thought, Kiryuu walks beside her and says he’d “like to get to know (Utena) much better.” He pauses a moment, then walks into the school as she stands, shocked by the idea he might be her Prince.

On the student council balcony, Kiryuu briefs the other members of the student council on the fact that Saionji had fought Utena again, and lost again.

The blue haired boy observes that Saionji has been sulking in his room, and probably isn’t coming to class today. Ringlets focuses in on more important matters, and asks again- who the hell is Utena? Is she a comrade?

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Kiryuu answers that she’s not; she has not received any letters from the end of the world. So where did she get a rose seal, and why is she wearing it? Kiryuu has no fucking idea, so he simply asks ‘Why indeed?’

We then cut to Utena watching Kiryuu as he stands, surrounded by his own group of fangirls. He’s obviously popular, just like Utena, but with a key difference: Where Utena’s popularity is, to her, nothing but a sort of silly performance, he stands over his fans with a smug expression on his face. It seems that, to him, his own popularity is real.

Utena’s observations are interrupted by Wakaba tackling her out of the window she’s watching him through.

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Fortunately, Utena is superhumanly strong enough that she’s able to catch onto the window and hold herself and Wakaba up, instead of plummeting headfirst to her death (or at least serious injury) in the courtyard below, and literally fling them both bodily back into the hallway.

The two of them settle in to talk, with Wakaba realizing quickly that Utena had been watching Kiryuu, and doing the ‘ah, I get it, I get it~’ thing before warning Utena off.

It seems Kiryuu is known as the biggest playboy on campus, and a major heartbreaker. Utena seems… not quite relieved? Wistful, an a little sad, as she says that there’s “No way a playboy like that can be my prince on a white horse.”

Wakaba changes the subject- who did Utena end up dorming with, in the end? When she learns that Utena is staying with Anthy, Wakaba is a little nonplussed. She warns Utena that she should steer clear of her, due to rumors about her.

Meanwhile, Anthy is cornered by a trio of girls, who are blaming her for Saionji’s decision to lock himself in his room and cry.

Anthy doesn’t say anything.

After a moment, the bullies are interrupted by a newcomer- a young girl, ‘Nanami,’ who tells the girls to back off.

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As the bullies run off, Nanami introduces herself to Anthy, and says that she can see why Anthy is popular- and that her popularity is probably why she was nominated to be this year’s dance queen.

Anthy is confused. She’d literally heard of none of this.

Nanami reveals that there will be a dance party that weekend, and that at that party, the ‘Dance Queen’ will be elected. Anthy, it seems, is one of the nominees. Nanami presses Anthy to attend, with the promise of friendship.

Anthy is even more confused.

Later that evening, while Anthy plays cards with Chu-Chu, Utena presses Anthy again over her question from that morning. Does she really not have any friends?

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Anthy once again points out that Chu-Chu is right there, and Utena doesn’t really have a response. Before she can think anything up, the doorbell is rung; there is a delivery for Anthy and Utena.

Apparently, the committee deciding who the Dance Queen will be also gives out dresses to the contestants; Anthy is given a pale green dress to wear at the party.

Also, Kiryuu decided to send a dress to Utena as well. Because of course he did.

Utena is very upset. The dress has frills. It is entirely not her style. She hates it. She refuses to go to any party where she has to wear something like that.

Anthy nods along, and goes ‘that’s nice, I’m not going either.’

Naturally, Utena is confused. Shouldn’t Anthy be looking forward to the possibility that she’ll win the position of Dance Queen? Anthy states outright something that, really, should have been obvious all along: She doesn’t like places with a lot of people, so she’d prefer to avoid the party.

Utena insists- Anthy ‘has’ to go to the dance, because she needs friends.

Chu-Chu objects, and Utena is caught off guard again.

There is a pause, as Anthy stares pensively at her cards, and then she turns and smiles.

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There is another shadow play, but this time, the shadows on the wall are talking about the dance. They dance around the point, but they fairly clearly call it out as a shameless trap- even if they do mislead a bit on the way to that conclusion.

The dance itself is in an absolutely absurd mansion, with a great hall three stories tall, balconies, and possibly the most bougie architecture that you can imagine.

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Kiryuu stares out at the grounds, and is interrupted by someone covering his eyes and asking, sing-song, ‘guess who?’ It’s Nanami, who, of course, was Kiryuu’s younger sister all along. An announcer inside welcomes everyone to the party, and the two siblings walk in, Nanami clinging to her brothers arm.

The two catch sight of Utena and Anthy. Kiryuu’s eyes widen, and Nanami’s narrow with a smirk. As Utena’s fans gush over the sight of her in a dress, Nanami asks if her brother is pleased. He’s been talking a lot about Anthy lately, and surely he’s happy to see her at his party? She walks away. He doesn’t seem to have heard her. He mutters Utena’s name under his breath.

As Utena complains about her dress and Anthy apologizes for putting Utena in a position where she’d have to embarrass herself, Nanami makes her way to the two and welcomes them to the party. She compliments Anthy on her dress, and pulls her away to where the nominees wait. A moment after that, Utena remarks, pleasantly surprised, that Anthy had a friend after all.

Chu-Chu is offended.

Kiryuu then shows up, and compliments Utena on her dress, with a look on his face like… well, see for yourself.

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There’s a quick back and forth, and Kiryuu asks Utena to dance with him, before grabbing a hold of her and saying they make the perfect couple.

Meanwhile, Nanami pulls Anthy to the center of the hall, and then lets go of her hand and leaves her there. Anthy, awkwardly, makes a start of following her, but is intimidated by the crowd all around her. They morph, in her vision, into a swarm of indistinguishable faces, their chatter turning to laughter as they seem to circle closely around her.

And so Anthy looks down to the ground, resigned, trying to ignore where she is.

Meanwhile, Nanami stands a bit away, in the shadow of a pillar, and the three bullies from earlier make their way up to her. They talk about how Anthy is wearing a ‘special dress,’ and Nanami nods at a member of the wait staff, who grabs a bottle of champagne and moves into position.

Nanami thinks to herself: “The girl who stole my brother from me is about to be humiliated.” She smirks viciously as she watches from behind a pillar. The member of the wait staff approaches Anthy, then pops the bottle of champagne. It sprays out, covering Anthy and eating at her dress while the bullies and Nanami- their ringleader- watch.

We move back to Kiryuu making his move on Utena, and she rebuffs him. She’s not here because she likes this sort of party, or because she likes him. He asks why she is there then, and she hesitates.

She turns to him and almost asks him the question that she’s been thinking this entire episode- “Is he the Prince I remember?” But then she stops herself, and shortly after, hears Anthy scream.

She looks over the bannister and sees Anthy sitting in the center of the room, her dress in tatters, dissolving further by the moment. The crowd stares at Anthy as she shivers, trying to cover herself. Utena runs to help, and Kiryuu stays and watches. He looks, and sees Nanami watching Anthy from the shadows.

He puts it together instantly, and is moderately put out. She really had to pull this, right when things are going his way?

As Utena makes her way down the staircase, she cries Anthy’s name and throws off her dress to reveal she was wearing her school uniform underneath all along. Literally everyone turns to stare at Utena, ignoring Anthy, as she jumps down from the second floor, using a table as a landing pad, landing next to her friend. She then tears a tablecloth from a nearby table- wrecking the arrangement of glasses on it- and wraps Anthy up in an impromptu dress that fits far better than a literal tablecloth really should.

Chu-chu puts some music on, and Utena and Anthy dance together while literally the entire room stares at them. Nanami glares, upset that her plan to humiliate Anthy has backfired, only to have her brother approach her and tell her to show some restraint in her pranks next time.

She feigns confusion, and asks who the fuck “The girl dancing with Himemiya” is, Kiryuu tells her that she’s Utena, and complains that she took off the dress he sent her to wear at the party- and Nanami realizes she’d been aiming at the wrong target.

I think this episode is interesting just from the fact that it introduces Utena to both Nanami and Kiryuu, who are- I think it’s pretty safe to say- both very manipulative, self-centered people. Kiryuu is focused almost entirely on overtly manipulating Utena into a relationship, whereas Nanami is more focused on subtly maneuvering Anthy into a traumatizing situation to shame her for… Kiryuu talking about her too much. What’s particularly interesting is that the reason Utena and Anthy are caught in the siblings’ traps is because of the pressure of normative social roles; Neither Utena or Anthy really wanted to go to the dance, but Utena pressured Anthy into going because she felt it was odd that Anthy didn’t have more friends, and was willing to go to a party she didn’t want to in order to try to help Anthy get those friends. Anthy also conformed to social pressure- though, in her case, that is just as much because she felt it was her duty as the Rose Bride to obey Utena’s order.

And what gets the two out of the trap? Utena rejecting social norms- throwing aside her dress, destroying two tables set for the party, and generally making a scene in order to help a friend in need.

Nanami’s bullying, Kiryuu’s pressuring, they’re both part of an underlying structure of social norms which the sibling understand and use towards their own ends- cruelty and hedonism. It’s a great introduction for the two, and gives them interesting character.

Overall, I’d say that it was a good episode on those grounds alone.
 

Hakazin

Member
Pronouns
Female
Utena is very upset. The dress has frills. It is entirely not her style. She hates it. She refuses to go to any party where she has to wear something like that.

Anthy nods along, and goes ‘that’s nice, I’m not going either.’

Naturally, Utena is confused. Shouldn’t Anthy be looking forward to the possibility that she’ll win the position of Dance Queen? Anthy states outright something that, really, should have been obvious all along: She doesn’t like places with a lot of people, so she’d prefer to avoid the party.

Utena insists- Anthy ‘has’ to go to the dance, because she needs friends.

Chu-Chu objects, and Utena is caught off guard again.

There is a pause, as Anthy stares pensively at her cards, and then she turns and smiles.

"Wait, why are you trying to subvert gendered expectations people have for you? I'm the one who's supposed to do that!"
As Utena makes her way down the staircase, she cries Anthy’s name and throws off her dress to reveal she was wearing her school uniform underneath all along. Literally everyone turns to stare at Utena, ignoring Anthy, as she jumps down from the second floor, using a table as a landing pad, landing next to her friend. She then tears a tablecloth from a nearby table- wrecking the arrangement of glasses on it- and wraps Anthy up in an impromptu dress that fits far better than a literal tablecloth really should.

More specifically, she's wearing her dueling uniform. How the heck she had it hidden beneath that shoulderless dress is beyond me, but it sure is one heck of a look.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
The fourth episode begins in media res, which is honestly a literary technique I dislike.

Utena and the blue-haired boy from the Student Council stand atop the duelling ring. The boy- Mickey- has challenged Utena in order to ‘get that music back.’

What music? Well, since it’s in media res, we have no earthly idea- which is part of why I honestly dislike the technique, we get a bunch of front-loaded plot that makes absolutely no sense without the context that builds up to what is happening and just sort of alienates you and makes you double check to make sure you didn’t accidentally skip an episode.

Still, Mickey is going to fight Utena to claim Anthy for himself, in the pursuit- apparently- of music.

This already tells us quite a bit about him, to be honest. Where Kiryuu is meant to be a social manipulator and playboy, thus being coded as a member of the ‘Upper Class,’ Mickey is being portrayed as fighting for art. He is the starving artist to Kiryuu’s bourgeoisie, and this means he fights for different reasons- though both would, of course, consider themselves as fighting for their ideals (perhaps even shared ideals).

From this perspective, Saionji… I’m actually not sure where to place him, honestly. He seemed to style himself as a martial artist, and specifically a practicioner of Kendo, so I suppose that he’d be the descendent of Samurai- or, in other words, from a more explicitly noble background than his two fellow council members.

There’s also Ringlets, but, well, I’ll leave her for after she gets introduced and named properly- though I will note, she’s sitting on the viewing platform, watching the match through a pair of binoculars just like Kiryuu did in the earlier matches against Saionji. I suspect this is meant to hint at a parallel relationship, Kiryuu and Ringlets viewing Saionji and Mickey in overall similar ways. Not really much to work off of for that angle yet, though.

After the ominous battle declarations are all made, we jump scenes to Mickey playing the piano and being congratulated by Nanami for his role at the party the other day. She presses a little further- why did he drop out of the piano competition?

Mickey ignores that question, and observes that the piano needs to be retuned. Nanami’s response is that the piano was just retuned recently- and Mickey says that, in that case, he might be the one who needs retuning.

He plays a song- The Sunlit Garden, a regular part of the soundtrack- and observes that this is the only song he ever plays that means anything to him. It’s an emotion he can’t express- a person he can’t express that feeling to- and he can never get it to sound quite right.

Nanami flips through the songbook while Mickey tries to explain, a slight blush on her face, until she comes to a certain page and her eyes turn cold.

In between the pages is a picture of Anthy Himemiya, tending her roses.

The episode card comes up. This one is titled, ‘The Sunlit Garden – Prelude.’

Returning from the title card, we are in Utena’s class. Wakaba is depressed; she’s gotten her worst score ever, and wishes she could get higher grades in math. Utena responds that she would need to be better at logic for that, and Wakaba responds with something her mother told her once-

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… I’m sorry, but your mother’s advice isn’t really applicable here, Wakaba.

Wakaba wishes she could be as good at math as Utena, and Utena shows her her grade, a whopping… 38. Oof. Apparently Utena is usually better at math, but she was ‘lazy’ this time.

(or, possibly, engaging in supernatural duels instead of doing her homework. Who can say, really?)

Wakaba, naturally, suggests that Utena needs to cultivate a sense of logic. Fixing her friend with a glare, Utena admits that she needs to take a make-up exam with her score, so she’ll need to study anyway.

Meanwhile, Anthy is, it seems, tending one of the school courtyards. As she fills her highly ornate watering can with water at a large faucet, she hums so quietly that I almost thought it was a trick of the soundtrack and fidgets impatiently. When it fills, she shuts off the faucet, gathers the watering can, and is slapped by Nanami’s Goon Girls, who are now bullying her over Mickey being in love with her.

They blame her for Mickey dropping out of the piano competition, and she responds with confusion- she literally has no idea what they’re talking about. They continue pressing, of course, as Nanami waits in the shadows and watches.

And then Mickey arrives and chases the bullies off, before helping Anthy gather up her things. He apologizes to her, presumably after learning what the girls were bothering her about, as he does so.

Nanami disappears back into the shadows as the two talk. I’m honestly not sure, at this point, whether she’d planned for Mickey to interrupt things, or if that was a surprise. Either way, the two end up walking together and talking, and Utena notices them as they pass under her window. She asks Wakaba who he is, and Wakaba lists down his accomplishments; he’s a gifted pianist and fencer, who studies college-level material even though he’s in middle school.

But, Wakaba wonders, why would he be hanging out with Anthy Himemiya?

… Wait, he is on the student council, right? If not I might have missed this the first time, but after commenting on the fact that Anthy and Saionji were talking to each other with ‘well obviously it’s just because they’re both on the student council,’ it seems a bit off for Wakaba to ignore ‘they’re talking student council business’ as a reason why the two are hanging out. Also, it seems like that’s a pretty important accomplishment for him to have made as well, so why not add it to the list of Impressive Things The Boy Has Done if you’re going to go through them?

If he isn’t on the council, then I missed that detail on like, my entire first watch. He’s more involved with the council than Saionji is, either way.

Later that day, Ringlets runs into Mickey at the library, and… I should probably mention the stopwatch thing, shouldn’t I?

So basically, Mickey has been periodically clicking a stopwatch throughout the entire show. I honestly don’t get it. I don’t understand why he does it, I can’t really think of any good reason for him to do it, he just… does it anyway.

It makes me wonder if there’s some gag that makes sense in Japanese that I’m missing, to be honest. A pun about stopwatches, perhaps, that means his use of the stopwatch is basically a visual gag? IDK.

Anyway, Ringlets pats Mickey on the shoulder, and we finally get her name- Jury- when Mickey notices her.

It seems Jury has been looking for Mickey and he’s not at his other two usual haunts (His room and the council offices) so she figured he must be here. She looks at what he’s doing, and it seems he’s going over someone else’s test.

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Jury notes that Mickey grading someone else’s test is odd, and he deflects with the observation that “Happiness can sometimes be surprisingly close by, can’t it?”

Jury is confused, and decides to just talk about the test. Whose was it?

Well… It was Anthy’s. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be implied that he swiped her test results for a chance to visit her room, buuut… the next scene is him at her room, talking to her about how her teacher tries to trick students with confusing problems, but it’s fine, because he’s broken down how all the problems work for her.

Utena is a bit jealous- having someone correct her work sounds great to her. She wonders if she should get a ‘logical boyfriend’ who can help her with that.

Coincidentally, Mickey introduces himself, and…

Ok this actually frustrates me, because when he introduces himself it’s as Miki, but at every other point through this episode it’s been subtitled as Mickey. I actually prefer Miki, and at a quick check that seems to be the proper spelling of his name, so I’ll go with that from this point. It’s still odd that they’d switch between the americanized spelling and a japanese spelling within the same set of subtitles.

Looking Jury up to be safe as well, and… yeah, it’s Juri.

Why would you fuck your subs up like that, smh. I guess Utena was a 90s anime, so adaptation weirdness is a thing, but you’d think someone would have fixed the subtitles at some point if that were the case.

Anyway, he introduces himself to Utena, and when Utena asks how he knows her name, he reveals that he’s a duelist by flashing his Rose Seal at her.

Utena gets serious, and asks if Miki is on the student council, and whether he’s here to challenge her for ‘The Rose Bride’ like the others. Miki clarifies quickly- he might be a member of the council (which means that Wakaba’s confusion earlier was just her being a derp, I suppose) but he’s not interested in duelling over Anthy- he swears.

Except we already know he will anyway, because in media res is a sin.

He goes on to share a few problems he believes will be on the make-up exam Anthy is taking, and advises her to memorize the formulas for them. Anthy thanks him, and he turns into a blushing mess for a moment before the conversation turns back to duelling.

Utena, as before, is aggressively refusing the call to battle. She wants no part in the duels, is only forced to participate because the alternative is expulsion, and blames the time she spent on the duels for her needing to take the make-up exam in the first place.

Miki is surprised. He didn’t know that Utena was taking a make-up exam- and now, Utena is embarassed by the realization she outed herself over that.

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The scene cuts back to Miki practicing piano. This time, he’s interrupted by Kiryuu, who comments on how Miki’s playing has improved. He wonders- has Miki found the ‘shining thing’ he has been looking for, all this time?

Miki responds that he may have. If so, he may finally be able to regain what he lost once, so long ago.

He remembers a piano in a garden. A boy and a girl sit together and play on it. The style is similar to Utena’s memories- blacked out features and no animations- but there are clear differences. Where Utena’s memories are like a page from a fairy tale storybook for young children, bright and colorful and overdone, his are more like woodcuts- all monochrome grays and browns flowing together in a not-quite-real way.

Butterflies flutter through the garden as the two, and a sound like birdsong, but distorted and mixed into an indistinguishable chittering rush of uncontrolled music, flows for a moment- and then he’s back in the piano room with his photo, hastily taken, of Anthy gardening.

Kiryuu states that he’s jealous. If Miki ever finds that ‘shining thing’ he lost- implied by the flashback to be the innocence of childhood- Kiryuu wants to know what it was like to have it.

Outside, Nanami is fuming. She’s listening in, but she doesn’t understand. What is the ‘shining thing’ the two talk about?

We cut to the shadow play, where the shadows on the wall gossip about a boy who was attracted to one of them when they were younger- until he discovered she liked things that weren’t girly, and left her.

They then warn young lovers, and boys who dream of love, that the girls they are attracted to might not be the same as the images they build up around them.

And then it is evening. Miki has found his way to Utena and Anthy’s dorm again, this time with Nanami in tow. He asks if it’s ok if Nanami joins them, and when Utena asks if she’s his girlfriend, he instantly flushes and denies that being the case.

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After the denial, Utena shrugs and invites the two in, and Nanami enters with a broad smile.

While the four sit and study, they talk about the rumor of how this dorm was supposed to be a ‘haunted house,’ and how it got so clean.

(The answer is that Anthy does all the cleaning and housework by herself, which is… not great.)

Nanami compliments Anthy on her skill, and then begins to enact her cunning plan to ruin Anthy’s life. She pulls a snail from her bag, and asks to borrow an eraser. She imagines she will use sleight of hand to make it look like Anthy was keeping a snail in her eraser box, feign shock and horror at it being there, and make Anthy look like a weirdo in front of Miki and Utena.

And then she opens the eraser box and it is absolutely swarming with snails.

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There is absolutely nothing feigned about Nanami’s shock as she cries out and jumps backwards, screaming about snails. Anthy observes that it’s where she keeps them, and Utena reminds Anthy that she asked her to keep them elsewhere. Miki is somewhat impressed, and thinks it’s cute to keep snails.

Nanami reassures herself that this is fine- she has an alternate plan to discredit Anthy- she’ll just slip a garter snake into Anthy’s desk, and act horrified at it’s presence there. This will, of course, make Anthy look like a weirdo in front of Miki and Utena.

Unfortunately for this plan, the mongoose that Anthy keeps in her desk takes offense to it.

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Or perhaps it was just hungry?

Anthy notes that’s where she keeps the mongoose. Utena notes that she’s asked Anthy to find somewhere else for it. Miki thinks it’s cute that Anthy has a mongoose in her drawer.

But don’t worry. Nanami came with another backup plan. She pulls a live octopus out of her bag, which she will slip into Anthy’s closet.

For some reason, she still thinks this will draw reactions of horror and shock from Utena and Miki.

And then, as she opens the door to Anthy’s closet, a massive, completely absurdly oversized octopus baloon expands out to crush her underneath it.

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It turns out that Anthy saved the giant octopus baloon from last year’s school festival. She’s been keeping it in the closet to keep it out of the way.

You know, as you do.

I’m sure you can predict how Utena and Miki respond to the whole thing, based off of the last two times this happened.

And with that third incident, Nanami finally admits defeat. How can you possibly discredit someone as a weirdo when her friends already know she’s way weirder than any of the fake things you can come up with, and are ok with that?

Meanwhile, while Nanami has been having an Adventure, Utena and Anthy have been dedicatedly studying, taking advantage of Miki’s help in order to become familiar with the material on their makeup exam.

Or, well, Utena has been dedicatedly studying.

Anthy made herself a flipbook instead.

RIP Anthy’s grades I guess.

Utena asks Miki and Nanami whether they want a snack, and then both Utena and Miki realize- having paid actual attention to her for the first time in a while- that Nanami is absolutely defeated and lost.

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After a few moments, Utena verbally pokes Nanami again, and she snaps out of her funk, and agrees that snacks would be nice. Actualy, she made a lunchbox- which she pulls up to show them- but unfortunately, Chu-Chu has requisitioned it’s contents for his own personal consumption.

Anthy scolds Chu-Chu for that, and Nanami is just like, yes, of course, what else did I fucking expect at this point- which is, honestly, a mood and a half.

Anthy makes shaved ice, and that’s apparently the final straw for Nanami. She flips out and goes into a full rant about how weird the whole thing is, how she’s owed respect as an upperclassman, and all these animals and now getting served shaved ice for dinner is, apparently, disrespectful. Or so she interprets it. Honestly, based on the context, this is just her venting frustration at being completely unable to rely on anything she’d known before coming in.

Miki notes that Nanami had said she wanted to be Anthy’s friend, and Nanami changes the topic, and then Utena and Miki notice that Anthy had just up and left.

Utena ascribes this to Anthy… not being good with groups like this. Which, well, it isn’t wrong and hooray, Utena is finally learning, but still… you don’t think that having someone like, actively bitch her out as being weird and incivil might have had something to do with it? Just a thought?

Anyway, Utena and Miki get up to look for Anthy, as she settles down at a piano in another room and muses to herself that ‘maybe she should have made takoyaki instead’.

She starts playing The Sunlit Garden, and the sound echoes through the house.

Utena, Miki, and Nanami follow the music back to where Anthy is playing. While Utena comments that she didn’t know Anthy could play, Miki has a flashback to that scene, playing music in a garden, and comments that it sounds like when his little sister played.

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Utena and Nanami visibly hear this and react, but it’s Miki who has the strongest reaction at all- Growing incredibly happy, and concluding that he’s finally found the Shining Thing he lost.

And, since this is a two episode story, the rest will have to wait until the next update. Though I will say, this episode gave a good opportunity to show some of the more cartoonish reaction faces that this anime is, honestly, really good at when it chooses to use them.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
The fifth episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena is part 2 of the two-episode arc introducing us to Miki, and begins with a scene of Juri and Miki fencing, with a pair of unseen observers commenting on their skill; “They both fence at the national level,” it seems.

The round ends with Miki’s win over Juri. As they remove their helmets, Juri notes that this is the first time that Miki has beaten her- and that this shows a distinct improvement in his skill. Miki counters that he hasn’t perfected his technique, and Juri tells him that it’s his lack of perfection which makes him strong- a strength she calls the strength of purity.

I have to imagine this means a sort of ‘purity of character,’ rather than ‘purity of technique’?

Juri continues, saying that usually, Miki’s sword is meek; today, it was stronger. She then smirks at Miki, and asks a question.

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Miki flushes, and looks aside, but before he can stammer out an excuse, Juri is already walking away, with a few parting words. “Your sword is not for battle.”

We cut to the title card; this episode is “The Sunlit Garden – Finale.”

At some point- presumably in the future- Anthy smiles at a blooming rosebush in her greenhouse garden. Miki approaches her, with the same overly ornate watering can from the last episode. Anthy accepts the can, and tends her garden.

There are several panning shots of the greenhouse, and a flash of memory- back to the garden Miki once played (the piano) with his sister in. Miki smiles, looking up at the cage-like bars of the garden high above him, and observes that this is just like the garden from back then. In spite of that statement, we can see that the actual surroundings could not be more different- one is the open, expansive yard of what appears to be a rural estate, where the other is a greenhouse.

It’s clear that Miki is talking about something other than the literal physical surroundings- probably his emotional state- but he doesn’t explain. He simply smiles at Anthy, who gazes back without understanding what he is smiling about, and then grins awkwardly back at him.

Chu-Chu and Utena, fortunately, choose this moment to enter, breaking whatever tension exists before it grows too strong. Anthy and Miki turn to look at Utena, who makes a… complicated expression, and asks if she’s interrupting.

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Miki flushes and looks to the floor. Chu-Chu stares back up at him.

We then cut to the piano room. Anthy sits at the piano, Miki beside it, and Utena behind it, as Anthy plays The Sunlit Garden yet again. Miki observes that this is the feeling he’s been looking for, and Utena turns and asks him what he means- after all, this is the song that Anthy played last night.

Miki agrees that it is the same song, and explains that he and his sister wrote it when they were little. Utena points out that it’s a famous song, and Miki explains that for as long as he can remember, his twin sister and him had played the piano ‘as (a) toy,’ in their garden. As they played, the adults around them would always be amazed. Utena is impressed at their good fortune- both twins, progidies with the piano. Miki brushes off her impressed remark, and observes that all his happiness had been in that garden- but that, one day, he destroyed it with his own hands.

We flash back to the past, where Miki and his sister are having a conversation; Miki has signed them up to perform a concert, and his sister- as yet unnamed- is unnerved at the idea of performing in front of strangers. Miki assures her that he’ll be there with her, playing the piano with her like always- and that there’s nothing to be scared of.

And then he got sick. He would need a week of bed rest- a week that would prevent him from performing at the concert. His sister is dragged from his bedside, to the concert hall, and forced to perform without him- and then, instead, she flees the stage and hides, away from where anyone can see her.

From that day forward, she never played the piano again.

It was only after that day that Miki realized how important playing the piano with his sister had been to him- how much he had enjoyed spending that time in the garden with her. And since he had set up the concert and talked his sister into it, he blamed himself for losing that.

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He continued to play the piano, but it never had that same feeling again, no matter how hard he tried to get it.

But when Himemiya- Anthy- plays the piano, he can feel that same sensation- that same indescribable element of music that had, in the past, been so precious to him.

He had found his ‘Shining Thing’ once more.

Utena asks- is Miki saying he is in love with Anthy? And Miki flushes, unsure of how to respond. After a few moments of silence, he simply begins to play the piano.

Utena turns to Anthy, and asks her- what does she plan to do about Miki’s feelings? Anthy’s response is much more instant and clear- she is Utena’s bride.

Miki’s breath catches as Utena responds that she’s told Himemiya that she wanted her to stop it with the whole ‘Rose Bride’ thing. Anthy responds that it’s just how things are- she is Utena’s bride- and Utena gets more animated, and tells Anthy that she doesn’t accept that. “It’s ridiculous to make a girl into someone’s bride because of a duel,” and so Himemiya shouldn’t be defining herself as simply ‘The Rose Bride.’

“I can’t forgive a system that deprives someone of their personal freedom!” is Utena’s first heartfelt statement of revolutionary sentiment- spoken against the system which told Anthy she had to be the bride of whoever won her in combat.

Looking at this in light of earlier analysis- where I posited that Anthy represented, in some ways, the proletariat which every revolutionary movement wants to claim- is interesting, because this is the first time we see one of our duellists- our representatives- actually attempting to engage with the Rose Bride/Proletariat as a person, rather than an abstract thing. Utena has power over Anthy- but instead of wanting to use her power over Anthy, she wants Anthy to reject that power and refuse her own ‘right’ to rule her. In this sense, Utena is operating from an explicitly liberatory perspective- but she’s also operating in opposition to the understanding of ‘how gaining the power to bring revolution works’ that she’s been presented with, and which her fellow duellists have accepted as being an essentially accurate framework.

In addition to the interesting implications when considering Utena as a (symbolically) anarchist figure, it’s also an intriguing window into Utena’s position in a feminist context. Utena is not just positioning herself as an opponent to the duellist system she’s been forced to take part in; she’s also positioning herself as an opponent to the commodification of women through the institution of marriage, semi-symbolically but also in a very literal sense. Anthy is not only being commodified in a metaphorical sense as a sort of proletarian-shaped object, but also in a more directly literal sense as a woman who is being traded among a group of people who she is, quite literally, treated as being essentially an extension of.

This is only a look at a single interaction between the two, of course, but it’s an interesting interaction- and another interesting element is that Miki, of course, is there, watching them.

As the argument continues, we move to the Student Council Elevator, and rise- along with the council- up to their magnificently absurd offices.

As Juri, Miki, and Touga- who I’ve recently been informed I accedentally flipped surname and personal name around for, quite embarassingly- stand on an empty platform under an open sky, they discuss why they’re meeting. Juri points out that they hadn’t received any new letters from End of the World, and Touga agrees that they gather when the letters tell them to- but that, today, they are meeting for another reason.

Miki has called for an urgent meeting, to propose a straightforward agenda- that the student council be dissolved.

Touga notes that this is quite sudden, and Miki argues that duelling to possess Himemiya is ridiculous, and that he can’t stand by and allow this system to continue- a mirror of what Utena said earlier. Clearly, while Utena’s rhetoric might not be getting through to Anthy, it has gotten through to Miki.

For the moment, at least.

Juri comments that love can certainly change a person, and comes to the (correct) conclusion that it was Anthy’s test he was grading/helping with. Touga observes that youth can “keep you from seeking what you truly seek,” and Miki responds that their actions are only going to smash the things that people value.

Touga and Juri respond simply-

“Smash the world’s shell/For the revolution of the world.”

We then see Miki walking through the halls, before approaching a room. As he reaches for the door handle, the door opens and a young girl with blue hair rushes out, only to bump into him and send his books to the floor.

As the girl’s eyes meet Miki’s, their expressions change. Hers goes from confused to a small smile, and his eyes harden. He moves to walk past her into class, and she moves to stop him from doing so, commenting- “You’re being rude.” He demands she move aside, and she points out that he’s dropped his music book. He notices, and gathers it up- and as he does so, she asks whether he’s going to ask her to play the piano again.

He responds that he’s lost all hope for her, and asks why she’s even here if she doesn’t want to play the piano anyway. She responds that she’s free to come and go when she pleases, brushing him off as she leaves.

He stares after her as she greets and talks to a couple other girls, then goes into the music room. Inside, by the piano, is Touga- hair tousled, and shirt open and unbuttoned.

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It’s very obvious what was going on in here.

As Miki makes a few uncertain steps towards Touga- it’s unclear with what intent- Anthy appears in the door behind him, and wishes them both good morning. Touga ignores this, and tells Miki- “Unless you defend the precious things you possess, people will take them away from you, Miki. Even if the student council were dissolved now, someone who wanted the Rose Bride then couldn’t have her. Only the one she is engaged to can make the Bride do what they want.”

This is obviously Touga acting to make a point to Miki. Simply asking people to give others their freedom- to stop trampling on other’s ‘precious things’- won’t stop them from doing so. You have to take up arms and defend what you hold dear, or someone else will take it.

And if you want to have something, you need to take it for yourself.

Miki repeats quietly, “Do what they want,” as Touga buttons his shirt and walks out of the classroom. As Anthy settles in at the piano and begins playing, Miki asks her idly- when did she learn to play the piano? She doesn’t remember, she says; she was too young. Miki mulls on that, and then observes that Anthy was probably as cute as an angel when she was younger- an interesting parallel to Kiryuu telling the younger boy that he and his sister were cute.

Miki… seems to mirror the ideas and behavior of the people he’s recently talked to. Quite a bit so, in fact.

As Miki reminisces that his sister’s piano playing was so wonderful, he decides- he is not willing to lose that feeling, not again.

He asks Anthy if she likes the piano. She says yes.

He asks if she will play for him again. She says she would… if Utena told her she could.

He asks if she’ll play for him tomorrow. She says that she will, if Utena says she can.

He asks if she needs Utena’s permission for everything.

She says she is the Rose Bride.

He asks whether, if Utena asked her to never play the piano again, she would stop playing.

She stops, turns, and smiles at him.

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“Of course. I must do whatever the person I’m engaged to wants.”

Miki gasps, and then we have a dreamlike scene- not as alien as distant memories, but distorted, colors blurring and scenery abstracted just enough to make it obvious this is still a memory, if a recent one.

Touga sits by an open window, pale pink curtains flapping in a heavy wind, and says that ‘Only the one she is engaged to can make the Bride do what they want,’ mirroring Anthy’s own statement.

His sister smirks at him from beside an open door.

Touga glances at him, laying half-dressed on a soft purple bed with gossamer curtains that straddle the line between a dark pink and a pale violet, and continues.

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“Unless you defend the precious things you possess, people will take them away from you, Miki.”

Miki has come to a realization- he had spoken, the other day, of needing to dissolve the student council so no one could trample on the things Anthy holds precious. But he did so because Anthy was precious to him, and he wanted to defend her- and to take her for himself to defend.

And since that is the case, his first step to defending her has to be taking her for himself.

Here, Miki is acting as someone who had heard the arguments for both sides in a passive way, and sort of casually imitated them without understanding, finally reaching that moment of understanding- of true comprehension of what the words mean, and the actions they call for. Of course, instead of Utena’s argument, he was, ultimately, swayed by Touga’s argument- by his desire to have Anthy for himself, and to protect her- that is, to protect his shining thing.

In another room, Utena and Wakaba are talking about Utena’s re-examination. Utena tells Wakaba it’ll be a breeze, since she’s got the best tutor she’s ever had; Wakaba asks who the tutor is, but is interrupted by cries of fangirlish glee as Miki walks right into the room, and stops by Utena’s desk.

She greets him, and tells him that Anthy is in the greenhouse, if he’s looking for her. He responds that he wanted to speak to Utena instead, and she proudly tells him that now she can do linear equations and simultaneous equations. Wakaba puts two and two together and realizes that Miki was Utena’s tutor, and Utena nods.

As they talk, Miki draws a white rose from his pocket, offers it to Utena, and tells her that he’ll be waiting for her in the arena after class.

She stares at the rose for a moment, and then we cut to another shadow-play. This time, it’s pirates.

The pirates set sail with hundreds of men, to claim the precious treasures of the world for themselves. As they sail out, the captain is asked by one of her crew- with all her riches and plunder, why doesn’t the captain have what she wants?

The captain is confused, and the crew member continues- isn’t that why she isn’t giving up on being a pirate?

As the pirate captain works up to declaring what she really wants, the boat springs a leak; both captain and crew go under, drowning in the salty brine of the seven seas.

As they drown, we move back to Utena- who stands, once more, before the gate. She unlocks it, and climbs the tower once more, meeting Miki at the arena on top of its summit- at which point they recreate the opening scene from the last episode, with some details altered.

Miki declares that he must have that music once again. He doesn’t want anything else from Anthy, just the music she can provide him- a music he has alienated from her person, commodified as a ‘thing’ to be possessed, and which he now seeks to claim (along with Anthy herself) as his private property.

Utena tells him that he looked much better playing the piano, and Juri agrees.

Then, Anthy summons the Sword of Dios for Utena, the bells ring, and with Miki’s solemn declaration that he will take the Rose Bride for himself- even if that means hurting Utena- the battle is started.

The young boy lunges forward, remembering his conversation with the girl he seeks to claim for himself, and is parried aside. He pulls back, then jabs again and again, and while his blows are parried aside every time, he quickly comes to control the match through his superior skill- using less power with every simple forward jab than his opponent, whos parries grow swiftly wilder and less controlled.

Despite this, he compliments Utena- she is still skilled enough that he can understand how she could beat Saionji twice.

As she gasps for breath, he compliments her idly- and then informs her that he will, of course, win the battle. As he does so, he turns and looks at Anthy. In her eyes, he believes he can see a desire to be free (of Utena)- and he reassures himself that the proper way to give her that freedom is to win her for himself, so he can protect her beautiful music.

As he does this, Utena has caught her breath- and lunges forward with an attack of her own. He snaps to attention and moves forward to attack as well, swearing he’ll defend Anthy with his blade- And then Anthy cheers for Utena, and he falters.

Utena strikes true, and rose petals flutter to the ground.

As they do, Miki flashes once again to that old garden where he played with his sister- and the memory shatters, as the bells ring Utena’s victory.

He collapses to the ground, and Utena asks him if he is finally satisfied, before turning and walking away- not staying to listen to his answer. As tears well in his eyes, Miki wonders- why can’t he find someone to be his ‘Shining Thing’?

He is interrupted by Anthy, who congratulates him on his valiant attempt, and tells him that she’d like to study with him again in the future.

As he stares, we hear a slow and faltering rendition of The Sunlit Garden. In the music room, Miki’s sister is playing, while one of her friends leans against the piano. The friend asks if she really used to play the piano as a child, and Miki’s sister laughs- saying she never had any talent, and never liked it much.

As she explains: “A long time ago, a boy who lived next door wrote me a love letter. It said, ‘I love your piano playing.’ But he misunderstood about my piano playing. You see, I always just played together with my brother. When I was little, everyone just assumed I played well. It’s because my brother’s a genius. Even with my sloppy playing, he could still follow it. But when they announced that we were giving a concert, my brother got sick and I had to go on alone. Since I couldn’t do it on my own, I just fell apart on stage.”

Elsewhere in the Academy, Miki tells Utena that he was careless last time- and that next time, he won’t lose.

So much for this being a positive learning experience for him.
 

Hakazin

Member
Pronouns
Female
This already tells us quite a bit about him, to be honest. Where Kiryuu is meant to be a social manipulator and playboy, thus being coded as a member of the ‘Upper Class,’ Mickey is being portrayed as fighting for art. He is the starving artist to Kiryuu’s bourgeoisie, and this means he fights for different reasons- though both would, of course, consider themselves as fighting for their ideals (perhaps even shared ideals).

From this perspective, Saionji… I’m actually not sure where to place him, honestly. He seemed to style himself as a martial artist, and specifically a practicioner of Kendo, so I suppose that he’d be the descendent of Samurai- or, in other words, from a more explicitly noble background than his two fellow council members.

I got introduced to a slightly different read of it from a friend, with the male members of the Student Council representing aspects of an Ideal Prince. Touga is charming and personable, Miki is studious and talented, and Saionji... well, you were pretty on the mark with the Samurai comparison.
Ok this actually frustrates me, because when he introduces himself it’s as Miki, but at every other point through this episode it’s been subtitled as Mickey. I actually prefer Miki, and at a quick check that seems to be the proper spelling of his name, so I’ll go with that from this point. It’s still odd that they’d switch between the americanized spelling and a japanese spelling within the same set of subtitles.

Looking Jury up to be safe as well, and… yeah, it’s Juri.

Why would you fuck your subs up like that, smh. I guess Utena was a 90s anime, so adaptation weirdness is a thing, but you’d think someone would have fixed the subtitles at some point if that were the case.

Speaking as someone who has the Blu-Ray release, I did not notice that problem at all. They probably got a new translation for it.
We cut to the shadow play, where the shadows on the wall gossip about a boy who was attracted to one of them when they were younger- until he discovered she liked things that weren’t girly, and left her.

They then warn young lovers, and boys who dream of love, that the girls they are attracted to might not be the same as the images they build up around them.

A-Ko, B-Ko, and C-Ko veer between hilariously obtuse and hilariously unsubtle in their plays. This is one of the latter cases.
And, since this is a two episode story, the rest will have to wait until the next update. Though I will say, this episode gave a good opportunity to show some of the more cartoonish reaction faces that this anime is, honestly, really good at when it chooses to use them.

It is! Describing Utena as a comedy isn't the first thing that springs to mind, but it does a good job when it leans in that direction.
The round ends with Miki’s win over Juri. As they remove their helmets, Juri notes that this is the first time that Miki has beaten her- and that this shows a distinct improvement in his skill. Miki counters that he hasn’t perfected his technique, and Juri tells him that it’s his lack of perfection which makes him strong- a strength she calls the strength of purity.

I have to imagine this means a sort of ‘purity of character,’ rather than ‘purity of technique’?

Or it's Juri is politely dissing Miki by implying he's a trash fencer.
Miki has called for an urgent meeting, to propose a straightforward agenda- that the student council be dissolved.

Touga notes that this is quite sudden, and Miki argues that duelling to possess Himemiya is ridiculous, and that he can’t stand by and allow this system to continue- a mirror of what Utena said earlier. Clearly, while Utena’s rhetoric might not be getting through to Anthy, it has gotten through to Miki.

For the moment, at least.

What I find particularly interesting about this scene is that Miki is directly parroting Utena's statements in it. Personally, I read it as him getting swept up by Utena's liberatory rhetoric without actually internalizing it.
As Miki makes a few uncertain steps towards Touga- it’s unclear with what intent- Anthy appears in the door behind him, and wishes them both good morning. Touga ignores this, and tells Miki- “Unless you defend the precious things you possess, people will take them away from you, Miki. Even if the student council were dissolved now, someone who wanted the Rose Bride then couldn’t have her. Only the one she is engaged to can make the Bride do what they want.”

This is obviously Touga acting to make a point to Miki. Simply asking people to give others their freedom- to stop trampling on other’s ‘precious things’- won’t stop them from doing so. You have to take up arms and defend what you hold dear, or someone else will take it.

And if you want to have something, you need to take it for yourself.

Which is borne out by the instant reversal of Miki's new stance the minute Togua starts manipulating his sister complex. Miki may approve of Utena's high-minded idealism in the abstract, but he only grasps the aesthetics. At the end of the day, he's still trying to treat Anthy as a prop, as a commodity, that he can project his own desires, feelings, and expectations on to.

Now, the interesting question that you could ask is if Utena is doing this as well. But that gets into territory that we haven't covered yet.
Miki has come to a realization- he had spoken, the other day, of needing to dissolve the student council so no one could trample on the things Anthy holds precious. But he did so because Anthy was precious to him, and he wanted to defend her- and to take her for himself to defend.

And since that is the case, his first step to defending her has to be taking her for himself.

Here, Miki is acting as someone who had heard the arguments for both sides in a passive way, and sort of casually imitated them without understanding, finally reaching that moment of understanding- of true comprehension of what the words mean, and the actions they call for. Of course, instead of Utena’s argument, he was, ultimately, swayed by Touga’s argument- by his desire to have Anthy for himself, and to protect her- that is, to protect his shining thing.

...And then you go and say the exact same thing I did, and in a much more comprehensive way. Well played.

(Also, I dare anyone to find a heterosexual explanation for why Miki's eye is directed to Togua's form in this scene.)
She stares at the rose for a moment, and then we cut to another shadow-play. This time, it’s pirates.

The pirates set sail with hundreds of men, to claim the precious treasures of the world for themselves. As they sail out, the captain is asked by one of her crew- with all her riches and plunder, why doesn’t the captain have what she wants?

The captain is confused, and the crew member continues- isn’t that why she isn’t giving up on being a pirate?

As the pirate captain works up to declaring what she really wants, the boat springs a leak; both captain and crew go under, drowning in the salty brine of the seven seas.

My previous comment on the Shadow Play Girls shouldn't be read as mutually exclusive. It's perfectly possible for them to be subtle when they choose to be.
As she gasps for breath, he compliments her idly- and then informs her that he will, of course, win the battle. As he does so, he turns and looks at Anthy. In her eyes, he believes he can see a desire to be free (of Utena)- and he reassures himself that the proper way to give her that freedom is to win her for himself, so he can protect her beautiful music.

As he does this, Utena has caught her breath- and lunges forward with an attack of her own. He snaps to attention and moves forward to attack as well, swearing he’ll defend Anthy with his blade- And then Anthy cheers for Utena, and he falters.

95% of trying to figure out Anthy's actual motivations is noticing where she's doing things on her own initiative, as opposed to doing things because it's expected of her position. She doesn't actually have to cheer Utena on here. She certainly hasn't done it for anyone else so far. And yet, she does, at the exact moment that it would break Miki's confidence.
As he stares, we hear a slow and faltering rendition of The Sunlit Garden. In the music room, Miki’s sister is playing, while one of her friends leans against the piano. The friend asks if she really used to play the piano as a child, and Miki’s sister laughs- saying she never had any talent, and never liked it much.

As she explains: “A long time ago, a boy who lived next door wrote me a love letter. It said, ‘I love your piano playing.’ But he misunderstood about my piano playing. You see, I always just played together with my brother. When I was little, everyone just assumed I played well. It’s because my brother’s a genius. Even with my sloppy playing, he could still follow it. But when they announced that we were giving a concert, my brother got sick and I had to go on alone. Since I couldn’t do it on my own, I just fell apart on stage.”

Elsewhere in the Academy, Miki tells Utena that he was careless last time- and that next time, he won’t lose.

So much for this being a positive learning experience for him.

Some might say that this scene removes any subtlety when it comes to explaining Miki's character motivations. I say that I know writers who use subtlety, and they're all cowards.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
Happy Halloween, y'all! Apologies for the delay, I've been sort of depressed and haven't been able to motivate myself to update this for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the pace in a bit, since I do have some commentary that I want to make about the series as a whole that I'll need to finish doing the episode-by-episode reviews to get rolling.

This one's technically been available to patreons for a while too, but it's not like I have very many of them, lol.

---

It is late at night.

On a dimly lit street, Nanami walks alone. The sound of a dog barking in the distance echoes, but not quite loud enough to cover the sound of her feet.

Not quite loud enough to cover the sound of someone else’s feet approaching.

Nanami looks behind her. The footsteps grow louder, closer. She pauses under the light for a while, staring into the darkness- and then she starts running.

The footsteps start running as well.

As she comes to a tunnel, Nanami trips, sprawling in the street- and is, after a moment, almost hit by an approaching car. The car swerves, and then pulls to a halt. A woman opens her door, and leans out of the car- “Are you all right?”

In the distance, lit by the car’s headlights but not quite enough to be seen, to be a distinct figure, a man stands.

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As the driver berates Nanami, the man turns and walks away, disappearing into the night as Nanami watches.

This episode’s title card is labelled ‘Beware, Nanami-sama!’ Based on that opening sequence, that seems like an appropriate warning.

The next day at school, at a cafeteria, Touga, Miki, and Nanami sit together for lunch.

Nanami is trying to explain to her brother that she thinks someone is trying to kill her- A flower pot nearly fell on her, ‘some logs’ fell near her, and she almost tripped down a staircase.

As Miki comments on her bad luck, Nanami leaps onto the table, grabs her brother by the hand, and tells him that surely, this is the work of someone who can’t stand how popular, stylish, and cute she is.

Touga stands up, tells Nanami to stop reading detective novels, and leaves. He has important student council business, apparently.

A little later, Nanami sits on the steps to the academy courtyard. Her flunkies are nearby, as is Miki.

Nanami vents to them- her brother is too unfeeling, he doesn’t get what she’s going through. Miki attempts to empathize with her- “Sibling relationships can be so complex”- but Nanami takes offense at this, and he quickly changes the subject. Has Nanami done anything to offend anyone recently?

Nanami’s flunkies instantly respond.

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“She has, but nothing that would get traced back to her.” “Her policy is to not get her own hands dirty.”

Girls… You know that people can figure out who the instigator of something is by patterns other than ‘She literally did her dirty work by herself,’ right?

Anyway, Nanami interrupts her friends’ attempts to reason out who might have a grudge against her to re-assert that someone may be trying to kill her at that very moment- only to get beaned in the head by a baseball immediately after saying that.

Utena runs up, apologizing- apparently, she was pitching, and she threw the ball a little harder than she intended, or something? And asks if anyone has seen where the ball went.

Nanami instantly concludes that Utena is behind the plot against her life, and accuses her of that, openly and to her face.

As Nanami climbs to her feet and flails her arms about, her three nameless hangers-on grab hold of her, keeping her from charging Utena- which she doesn’t actually seem interested in, given she’s mostly flailing her arms and screaming at her. Utena, nonplussed, simply asks if she can have her ball back.

We then have a scene cut to Utena, Miki, and Nanami walking through the halls. Utena is laughing- apparently finding Nanami’s accusations against her funny. “I’d never do anything like that! First of all, I have no motive to kill you.”

Nanami concedes that’s the case, but brings up Touga’s interest in Utena. Utena responds that Touga “likes to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong,” which I’m sure is an attempt to localize some sort of expression that makes more sense in context than that, and Nanami starts to press further, but Miki notes that there’s someone in Anthy’s greenhouse, in spite of a keep out sign on the door.

Inside the greenhouse, Touga and Anthy are talking. Utena, Miki, and Nanami crouch by outside, listening in to what’s being said.

Touga demands that Anthy finish the job- ‘They’ can’t be allowed to live. Anthy responds that she can’t, and Touga asks if she’s afraid. “The plan can’t be changed now,” he points out. “I want the killing done at once.”

Nanami stares, shocked, as Miki and Utena question what they just heard, Touga continues- “Now do it! What’s the problem in killing vermin like them?”

Anthy responds, “It’s not that. No matter how much you may hate something, a life is a life! Maybe, if we just wait, they’ll go away on their own.”

“You can’t be that naive,” Touga responds, as Nanami watches, eyes wide, from just outside the greenhouse.

Nanami concludes that Touga is behind the plot against her life, and envisions a scene- Touga and Anthy stand together on the roof, depicted in grayscale, not quite embracing, with Touga swearing (lips unmoving) that nothing can come between them. Anthy agrees- with this they can finally be together. Touga lifts a rose pot over the side of the roof by grasping the single rose growing from it, and Anthy drops the pot by slicing the rose free with a garden shear.

As this vision concludes, Nanami screams and bursts into the greenhouse. Touga and Anthy look back over their shoulders at her, Miki, and Utena- and as Touga begins to ask Nanami why she’s there, she says that she knows that he’s grown cold to her- but does he really think she’s in the way now?

Touga is confused, and asks what she means. Instead of answering, Nanami bursts into tears, calls her brother a fool, and runs away.

Utena watches Nanami run away, then turns to Touga and tells him she misjudged him. Even if he’s student council president, he can’t just murder his own sister.

Touga, still confused, asks what she’s talking about. Utena says “Well, you were talking about killing just now,” and Anthy turns with a can of bug killer in her hands and just goes “Well, yes?”

Utena has an ‘oh shit, I’m a dumbass’ moment with Miki, as they look at each other.

Meanwhile, Nanami is running through the halls, sobbing, still entirely convinced Touga wants to kill her.

At this point, a wild horse breaks into the school, and charges through the hall, straight at Nanami. As she cries out in fear, she gets tackled to the side by a faceless stranger.

As the horse runs outside, leaving chickens clucking in its wake, the stranger asks Nanami if she’s all right. She looks up to see her hero-

And we cut to the next morning, with people talking about what happened as Nanami walks, clearly dazed, down the path too and from school. As rumor has it, a prince appeared at the last moment, saving Nanami. As she sits in her class, she stares at a piece of cloth with his name written on it.

‘Mitsuru Tsuwabuki,’ the prince, is apparently a mystery- even Nanami only knows him because he used the cloth with his name (a handkerchief?) to bandage a small wound on her hand.

One of the gossipmongers squeals about how cool it is that he would leave without giving his name- but clearly, while he didn’t give his name verbally, he did give his name (in the form of the handkerchief).

We then cut to Miki and Utena talking about it, watching Nanami from some bushes. “But I didn’t think there was a prince in this school who could impress Nanami so much,” Miki observes. Utena agrees: “She has really standards, doesn’t she?”

They’re clearly spying on her as she goes to meet her prince. They’ve made their way to the elementary school segment of the academy, following her- and are curious as to who her prince might be.

There’s a gym teacher they look at, but Nanami walks right by him without giving a second glance, so he’s not it. Then she talks to an old man in a lab coat (presumably, a science teacher), and they question- does she like her men plain? After a momentary exchange, with the man pointing her towards something, the two seperate- and Miki and Utena conclude that it wasn’t him, either.

Nanami makes her way, instead, to someone sitting under a tree, reading a book.

… A 10 year old kid reading a book, that is.

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Nanami returns the handkerchief to Mitsuru, and asks him if he’d be willing to date her.

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Utena and Miki are still instantly weirded out by this- as are Nanami’s three hangers on, who also suddenly appear. Apparently they were following too? And might have been the ones telling Utena and Miki about the rumors.

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The sky goes red, and we cut to the shadow play once again. This time, two young girls are going camping, and one states that the best part of camping is making and eating curry. After swiftly making a curry, the other complains- the rice is hard and undercooked, parts of the curry are burned, and the curry is thin and watery in general. Is this really the best part of camping?

According to the curry fan, the sweet air of the campgrounds is the best spice of all.

Now, most of these are metaphors, but I’m not quite sure I get this one. Perhaps it makes more sense in Japanese.

We cut back to the school cafeteria, where Utena and Miki sit and are discussing whether this is ok. Utena is highly concerned- but Miki doesn’t think that Nanami is being serious about this. He believes that her real goal here is to make Touga concerned and jealous. Utena observes that Touga is Nanami’s brother, and Miki’s instant response can be summarized as ‘Yes, but she’s a bro-con.’ Nanami doesn’t care about anyone but her brother- everyone else is just ‘everyone else.’

But, since she’s convinced her brother has betrayed her, she’s decided to make him jealous by dating someone else. Assuming Miki is right, the fact that Mitsuru rescued her is just convenient timing.

As Utena muses that Nanami overreacts to everything, Miki notices that Nanami and Mitsuru are sitting nearby and talking. Both he and Utena are surprised that the two are actually hanging out, given what Miki just said- and Utena questions whether Nanami might be serious about this after all.

We then cut to a montage of Nanami using Mitsuru as essentially her private servant- having him bring her changes of clothes, having him steal the answer book for a pop quiz, even having him kneel and act as her personal easel when she didn’t have one on hand for an assignment.

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Utena, watching from a window, wonders if this is just how Nanami treats her boyfriends.

Naturally, this is the point when Saionji cruelly reminds me that he exists by popping in and offering his opinion on love and abuse.

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Shut the fuck up, Saionji. Just shut the fuck up.

The one highlight of this scene is that Utena’s response is literally to just say “Nobody asked you,” which is as appropriate a response as is possible without breaking school rules.

A little later, Nanami is confronted by a trio of identical boys her age, only distinguishable by hair color. They demand to know what she thinks she’s doing, ignoring them and dating a boy three years younger than her. It is, they say, a slap in the face to all of them.

Nanami asks who the fuck they are, and they say that they’re the three men who write her love letters every day. So… creepy stalkers who have entitlement issues, got it.

Nanami summons Mitsuru to fight the three off, and then steps away to gaze at the sky while the creepsquad get the shit beaten out of them by a kid half their size.

Nanami congratulates Mitsuru on his victory with a hug and a word of encouragement. He’s visibly been worn ragged- not in much better conditions than the unconscious creeps he beat up.

Utena chooses now to confront Nanami over her behavior. “Now I see what you’re really like, Nanami. (Tsuwabuki-kun) nearly killed himself fighting for you, but you just sat there and watched! He isn’t a boyfriend. You’re just using Tsuwabuki as your bodyguard!”

Nanami’s response is that, since her brother is trying to kill her, she’s allowed to do unreasonable things- and that Utena doesn’t understand how she feels, knowing that her beloved brother wants her to die.

Miki tries to explain that Touga did nothing of the sort, but Nanami assumes he’s trying to join in on criticizing her over her behavior towards Mitsuru and isn’t willing to listen to them right now. “Tsuwabuki is my boyfriend. I’m free to treat him any way I choose!”

As she walks away, Utena moves to talk to Mitsuru. He insists that this is fine- he wanted to be Nanami’s boyfriend, and is willing to put up with this for that. Utena asks why Mitsuru is willing to do all this, and he replies that it’s because fate brought him and Nanami together.

Nanami and Mitsuru actually first met years ago, when they were both younger children. A runaway bull got loose in the playground they were both at, and Nanami tripped and fell down, helpless to escape from angry bovine death, Mitsuru tried to save Nanami- But before he could even try, she was saved by Touga, who struck down the bull with a single blow.

As Mitsuru watched Touga asking whether Nanami was all right, he was stunned into silence. To him, Touga seemed like the pinnacle of coolness.

Which is why he decided that he needed to take Touga’s place for himself.

From that day, all he did was train to become ‘a cool big brother’ like Touga. But when he got his chance, Nanami didn’t remember him.

Still, this is just a minor setback. All he has to do is engineer another dangerous situation for Nanami, and he can save her again- and this time, surely, it will work.

Utena and Miki realize at the same time that Mitsuru was the one who had been acting to frighten and threaten Nanami’s life all along. He confirms- it was all him.

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Nanami, who was secretly listening in, comments that she understands now. It was a one-man show all along. She’s moderately upset, but Utena asks her not to be too mad at him- it’s the sort of dumb plan a kid would think up (I mean, it really is), but nobody actually got hurt.

As Nanami explains that she doesn’t care- that because of Mitsuru, Nanami falsely accused her brother- a runaway kangaroo gets loose in the school.

As the kangaroo charges at Nanami, Utena and Miki scatter. Nanami just stares at it and screams, but before the kangaroo can punch her out, Mitsuru jumps in to take the hit for her instead. As he tries to struggle to his feet, Utena charges in with a large brush-shaped broom, which gets broken apart with a pair of quick punches from the kangaroo. Utena flies back, and as Miki jumps to tend to her, the kangaroo approaches menacingly. It puts up its dukes to fight the two as they quake in fear, but then Mitsuru beans it in the head with a flower pot, and asks them to stay out of it- it’s his fight.

As they argue about it, the kangaroo makes its way to its feet, and charges towards Mitsuru. As he’s psyching himself up to save Nanami by boxing the kangaroo, gloves and all, Nanami swings in, grabs the dumbass kid, and runs away.

As he protests that he needs to fight and prove that he’s a good brother, Nanami demands that he run and tells him that “My brother’s my brother, and you’re you. I won’t cry for you if you die doing this. Why, you ask? Because, Tsuwabuki- I need guys like you to work for me! I can’t just let you get killed!”

Meanwhile, she’s desperately fleeing the kangaroo, her ten year old boyfriend tucked under her arm, clearly hoping that this whole thing doesn’t end up with her dead.

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After a few moments running, and drawing the camera closer to Nanami’s desperate face, Touga enters the ring and punches out the kangaroo with a single hit.

Chu-Chu rings the bell, calling the match as Touga’s win, and suddenly, the entire school is there- cheering for Touga, celebrating his victory. Nanami thanks Touga for coming to save her, and Touga tells her that her pranks are getting entirely out of hand. On the outskirts of the crowd, Anthy waves and calls out to Utena- “We took care of those vermin in the rose garden!” Miki finally explains to Nanami that the reason the rose garden was closed off was because the roses had an infestation of bugs. Nanami, tears in her eyes, calls out to her brother, and then breaks up with her ten year old boyfriend in front of the entire school.

He’s ok with that.

Mitsuru observes that if he can’t be Nanami’s big brother (Touga), he can be her little brother instead. Nanami sort of ignores that, and reaffirms that her heart belongs to Touga.

The three of them walk off into the sunset, and as the episode ends, Utena thinks to herself that Touga is really… something.
 

MagnificentLilyWitch

Active member
Pronouns
She/Her
Ah. The Nanami episodes are such fun.

Helpfull child has been introduced and
we got our first indication that Anthy *really* hates Nanami
.
 

Hakazin

Member
Pronouns
Female
Girls… You know that people can figure out who the instigator of something is by patterns other than ‘She literally did her dirty work by herself,’ right?

I'm sure they trust Miki not to tell anyone. He's a member of the student council, after all, so naturally he's going to be assumed to be a part of the in-crowd.

The sky goes red, and we cut to the shadow play once again. This time, two young girls are going camping, and one states that the best part of camping is making and eating curry. After swiftly making a curry, the other complains- the rice is hard and undercooked, parts of the curry are burned, and the curry is thin and watery in general. Is this really the best part of camping?

According to the curry fan, the sweet air of the campgrounds is the best spice of all.

Now, most of these are metaphors, but I’m not quite sure I get this one. Perhaps it makes more sense in Japanese.

It tracks pretty well for me. The context surrounding a thing can make someone overlook the fundamental faults of it. Curry eaten outside under the open sky is the best, even if it is undercooked, burnt, and watery. In the same way, someone can be the center of your world even if they're a ten-year-old, or an entitled jerk, as the case may be.

(There are at least three people who the metaphor could be referring to, and potentially even more once we get into later episodes.)
Shut the fuck up, Saionji. Just shut the fuck up.

I maintain that Saionji has a good character arc and becomes half-way sympathetic by the end of the series, but at the same time, yes. Saionji should shut the fuck up.
A little later, Nanami is confronted by a trio of identical boys her age, only distinguishable by hair color. They demand to know what she thinks she’s doing, ignoring them and dating a boy three years younger than her. It is, they say, a slap in the face to all of them.

Oh yeah, the three-part harmony guys. They exist.
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Nanami, who was secretly listening in, comments that she understands now. It was a one-man show all along. She’s moderately upset, but Utena asks her not to be too mad at him- it’s the sort of dumb plan a kid would think up (I mean, it really is), but nobody actually got hurt.

My question is if the recording equipment is a comedic element, a visual metaphor, entirely literal, or all three at once.
As Nanami explains that she doesn’t care- that because of Mitsuru, Nanami falsely accused her brother- a runaway kangaroo gets loose in the school.

Same question here, though I have to assume that the kangaroo is literal, if only because the plot wouldn't function if it wasn't.

Still, why does Ohtori Academy have a damned kangaroo?

The three of them walk off into the sunset, and as the episode ends, Utena thinks to herself that Touga is really… something.

No. No Utena. That's a bad thought Utena. Stop having bad thoughts Utena-

Oh, what am I saying, we're still in the middle of her character arc here.
 
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Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
"You see, you just have to give up. Because there really are no such things as miracles."

The sound of shoes squeaking on a hard floor echoing around her, Juri sits. A pair of soft, feminine hands embrace her from behind, covering her eyes. The world goes dark.

The scene shifts, camera panning across so many identical sets of pants, identical shoes, and- here and there- a loosely held foil. The sound of feet squeaking is now met with the sound of foils striking each other- more clicks than the sound of metal clashing against metal- as Juri fights one person after another, jumping on screen as she lunges forwards and defeats her latest opponent.

Miki is quite impressed when she finally collapses into her chair to watch other members of the club fight; "No one can beat you, Miss Juri!" Juri is less pleased- her eyes watch the new fencers, cold. She responds brusquely: "And what do I have to show for it? Will I smash the world's shell?

The title card shows. This episode is titled: Unfulfilled Juri.

Some time later, Juri stands in the halls as a teacher congratulates her and the rest of the student council for holding a 'regional council meeting' well. It's not clear what was involved, or whether we should care about it. After a quick bit of dissembling, the professor asks Juri to discuss the student council's upcoming plans with him over lunch. She accepts.

Meanwhile, only slightly down the hall, Utena is being berated by another teacher for her continued and flagrant disregard for the rules and traditions Juri was just being congratulated for upholding. It seems she brought Chu-Chu onto campus with her, and the teacher- the same one who, in the first episode, berated her for breaking dress code- is asking her where it says that students can bring pets to school with them.

Utena's response, of course, is that she didn't.

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As Utena continues to be berated, Juri stirs from where she's leaning against the wall, and turns to look out the window at Utena. (The hall they are at has a right corner, and windows facing inwards, to make this possible.) Chu-Chu slips out of the teachers' hand, leading to the teacher chasing Chu-Chu around in the background while Juri and Utena have a brief exchange.

Unlike Miki and Touga, Utena recognizes Juri as a member of the council, and when Juri tells Utena that she'd like to talk with her, Utena claims to be busy, and moves to help the teacher who had been accosting her with chasing down Chu-Chu.

They quickly get Chu-Chu trapped in an office with themselves, and close the door behind them.

As they do so, the first teacher- actually, apparently the Vice Principal- returns, and asks Juri if she's ready to go. She deflects, and says that a guidance counselor who had wanted to talk to him just went into 'that office'- specifically, the one which Utena and the woman (who is apparently a guidance counselor rather than a teacher) had just entered.

As the Vice Principal turns to look at the door, Juri looks out the window and claims that the guidance counselor had told her that the Vice Principal promised to talk to her about matters of student guidance over lunch that day. The Vice Principal tells her that that's absurd, and that he'd just promised he'd take Juri to lunch, but Juri responds very clearly and aggressively- "I won't repeat myself, sir. That's all I have to say."

The Vice Principal goes over, knocks at the door, and takes the counselor to lunch. It's quite obvious that he's frustrated by taking the counselor to lunch rather than Juri, even though the counselor is quite pleased that he's there.

So, breaking that down... The counselor hadn't told Juri about any lunch dates with the Vice Principal. But apparently there was one planned, and Juri knew about it. Moreover, she knew that it would be an effective way to get the Vice Principal off of her own back about what seems to have been an attempt to pressure her into a lunch date- and, importantly, to make Utena suddenly not-occupied, and free to talk with.

Which she immediately does.

The two talk, briefly, about Juri's reputation- a reputation that, to quote Juri, "Makes her sound like a wild animal."When Utena asks if the rumors are true, Juri shrugs it off- "Who can say." The two talk briefly about swordfighting, with Utena claiming that she's not a huge fan of it in spite of her reputation as an athlete (and her victories in the secret contest at the heart of the Academy). This leads to a discussion of why Duelists fight over control of the Rose Bride- with Juri stating clearly that the reason they fight is for a miraculous power, one which will allow them to revolutionize the world.

Utena begins to stretch and asks if she's in possession of that miraculous power- and, more importantly, whether the power will help her pass her finals. Then she turns to Juri and asks- Is everyone actually serious about these stupid duels over who gets to have Himemiya?

Um. Yes, Utena, they're clearly quite serious.

Nevertheless, Juri turns to Utena, smiles slightly, and says that she's right- it really is stupid to hope to control the Rose Bride. As she does, memories splash across the screen- this time, of a grayscale girl with a blacked-out face, who holds a rose in her hands and whispers: "Believe in miracles, and they will know your feelings."

Juri turns back to the window, and gazes out coldly. "Yeah... there's no such thing as miracles."

Utena waits a moment before saying, "It looks like we both agree, then."

As she says that, the PA system goes off, calling Utena to the student guidance office. Utena makes her goodbyes and leaves, happy that there's someone on the student council who understands her position.

As she leaves, Anthy walks up the stairs. She walks by Juri, pauses, turns back, and offers her a rose- one that looks that same as the one held by the girl in Juri's memory.

Juri rebuffs her with a smack that would do Saionji proud.

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As Anthy sits on the floor, cradling her face, Juri looks down with cold eyes. "Don't get too familiar." She then turns and walks away.

We then find ourselves ascending the elevator to the Student Council office again. It seems that another letter from End Of The World has arrived- this one demanding that the next duel take place this week. Touga observes that he and Juri are the next in line. Miki is surprised that Juri wants to fight, and opines that Juri "does not have a motive to fight." Touga states otherwise: Juri wants the power of the Rose Bride "Because she wants to disprove the power of miracles."

Miki turns to Juri to ask if it's true, and she blows the question off with a line clearly based off of her conversation with Utena earlier:

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As Miki asks what the heck that's supposed to mean, Touga wonders- perhaps to himself- whether Juri really wants to disprove the power of miracles, or if there's a part of her who still hopes that miracles are real- that she can use them to make her hidden feelings known, with the power of revolution.

Miki asks about Juri's hidden feelings, and whether she's in love with someone. Juri remains silent. Miki opines that it must be hard, not being able to tell the person you love about your feelings for them. Juri remains silent a little longer and then speaks, quietly, perhaps to herself, as the image of another girl overlaps her own: "Yes... I was in love."

We're then treated to a memory of the past- this time, not corrupted or seen through a fairy tale filter at all. Juri and a handsome young man finish a fencing match while the other girl watches. The match ends with Juri's victory, and the young man graciously accepting his defeat. She accepts his defeat, and compliments to her skill, with equal grace.

Then she turns to look at the other girl- who she sees, in her memory, offering her a rose and repeating again, "Believe in miracles, and they will know your feelings."

The three stand together against the wall; on one side of Juri is the girl who gave her the rose, and on the other, the boy who she had duelled. Both of them gaze inwards, though it's not clear whether they are gazing at Juri, or at each other. Juri looks at neither of them, and observes that even then, she "Knew that this love could never go anywhere."

We then hear the other girl monologuing about the boy; about how she knew that, in truth, Juri was always first in his thoughts, and how in spite of that, she still wanted to take the boy away from Juri- even if it meant taking everything from her, she wanted him to know her feelings. She goes on to say that she told Juri to "Believe in miracles," but that Juri must hate her for what she had done.

It seems that this monologue was written in a letter that Juri recieved recently. Her own attempt at composing a response, done in her head as she puts on a gown and locket, is interrupted by her emotions briefly running wild and her fist lashing out, smashing the letter (and a few other items) off of her desk.

She isn't over it. She knows she isn't over it. And she knows that there is nothing she can do about it.

We then move to Utena walking through a dark park, or perhaps a pavillion, with Chu-Chu clinging to her shoulder. She chides him for being afraid of the dark, and begs him to go to sleep soon. As she muses that she needs to sleep too, she notices Juri, sitting by the (very large) fountain she's walking by. They say hello to each other, and Utena comments on Juri's outfit- one much more 'girly' than her uniform. Juri responds by asking Utena about her uniform, and why she always dresses like a boy.

Utena thinks for a moment, then says that it is probably because of the prince. Juri is confused- Prince? What prince? Utena continues, explaining once again that when she was very young, she met a prince- who told her "Never lose your strength or your nobility," and that her ring (the rose seal) would lead her back to him. She goes on, musing that the prince looked so impressive to her back then, and that she wanted to be like him- that her ring is something she wears in the hope that she can be a little bit closer to him.

This makes Juri visibly unfomfortable. She fidgets, and then stands up, wrapping on arm around herself as she does so, as if to warm herself up or close herself off. Utena apologises- it must be a strange story for her to share like this.She repeats that she doesn't believe that Anthy has any strange powers, but she does believe that they must be linked, somehow, by destiny.

"Maybe you could call that a miracle."

Juri reaches down, and briefly cups Utena's cheek before moving to rest on her shoulder. She leans in, hand drifting down Utena's arm, drifting intimately close for a brief moment- and then she jerkily grabs Utena by the hand, leaning up, and demands that Utena throw the rose seal away.

"You make me sick. That 'nobility of yours... you have it because some guy you like tricked you into having it! Besides, if dueling for the Rose Bride is stupid, then this sentimental mush for your 'prince' is just as stupid! The only worthwile thing it's given you is nobility. The rose seal isn't meant for a girl like you!"

Utena finally manages to shove Juri away, and clenches the ring to her chest protectively, defending it.

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The two argue, and after a few moments, Juri challenges Utena to a duel- saying that if miracles are real, then she can use one to defeat her (and, backhandedly, saying that Utena would need a miracle to win the fight).

The scene cuts to Anthy in an otherwise empty room, after school is out. She sits at a desk, and plays a little game with her hands- walking them, in concert, across the desk while she sings a little song about rabbits dancing about. Then we cut again, to the shadow play. An actor says she is glad she caught a cold when she did- going on trips is a pain, and besides, this years trip is to a zoo, and she bets the animals there suck. "To heck with them! I won't waste my time!"

Another actor looks at her sadly, and says that she must have really wanted to go if she's acting like this.

Given the context, I think it's about now that I bring up- A friend was talking with a friend about my lets watch, and my analysis of the different members of the student council as being representative of different types of revolutionary. Saionji is the regressive; the man who wishes Samurai ruled once more, and who views himself as being a Samurai. Miki is an artist- Someone for who revolution is their muse.

But I wasn't able to place Juri in this framework neatly. It seems, however, that the friend-of-a-friend had an observation that fit- Juri is the revolutionary who has become convinced that 'revolution' can't happen, who has fallen into their depression and into a sense of malaise about the world- the sort of revolutionary whose favorite pastime is tearing into the hopeful, the young, and the innocent for their naivety, because they can't help but remember their own heartaches and pain every time there's someone whose hopes and dreams are still alive nearby.

In short; she's revolutionary sour grapes.

I think this episode backs that reading up astonishingly well, and I'm honestly embarassed that I hadn't picked it up myself before having it pointed out.

Moving on, up the stairs once again, we have another fight scene waiting for us. Juri tells Utena that if she wins using a miracle, Utena will have earned her personal conceits. Utena shoots back that she doesn't need a miracle to win, and draws her sword from Anthy's chest once more.

The two stand, swords drawn and pointed at each other. Utena charges and lunges, and Juri parries- clearly more skilled on every level than Utena, controlling the fight, coming just short of causing her injuries before stilling her blade.

As she fights, she observes that Utena is already tired- but while she speaks, she keeps flashing back to herself with her friends, standing between them, both of them looking past her to each other. As she does, she demands that Utena show her her miracle, and prove that miracles are real after all. As she does so, Utena lands in a crouch- and for a few moments, the image of the prince flickers over herself while she lunges forwards.

As the two close, Juri once again remembers the other girl- the one who told her to believe in miracles. Utena's blade comes close to striking the rose from Juri's chest, but is then parried aside by Juri, who howls, "There are no such things as miracles!"

The force of the parry is such that it launches Utena's sword into the air. Juri grabs the disarmed Utena, and bodily throws her to the ground, holding her at sword point and demanding her surrender.

And then Utena's sword falls, straight and true, slicing the sword off Juri's chest as it plunges from the sky.

Juri turns to Anthy, who was watching, and insists- that was an accident. It wasn't a miracle. It couldn't have been. Utena stares at a cleanly impaled rose and wonders- could it have been?

Anthy once again offers Juri a rose- pale and yellow- and says that one day, they will know her feelings. Juri glares at her, then shakes her head and demands that she mind her own business, stalking away. We cut to Juri talking with Touga, who asks if she still refuses to believe in miracles. She blows him off- "Who knows?" but says that if Utena truly does have the power to bring revolution, she wants to take that power for herself with her own two hands.

Touga asks if she wants to use this power to let 'them' know her hidden feelings. She remains silent as he walks, flashing back once again to the letter from a girl she used to know- "You must hate me for what I've done."

She opens her locket. Inside is a picture of that girl, cut from a school photograph- And Juri admits that, yes, she does hate the girl, because, well...

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After looking a moment, Juri closes the locket.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
Administrator
The mythologized scene from Utena's childhood seems to serve as a way to pad out the length of a given episode almost as much as it serves as an element of a specific, tangible story beat; it isn't used in every episode, but there are a few filler episodes where it is used in leiu of a more appropriate opening scene to the story.

Episode 8- The Great Curry High Trip- is one such episode.

The actual plot of the episode begins with Nanami and her gang of sycopants spying on Utena and Anthy, who are apparently partners in some sort of home economics class. Poor Wakaba is unseen; clearly, having been betrayed by Utena and replaced with a new Best Friend, she has fled.

Alternatively, it's because she's not the focus of this filler episode. But search your heart, and I'm sure you'll find yourself recognizing that my interpretation is actually the truer, even though it is unrelated to the 'facts'.

Anyway, Nanami and her crew have sabotaged the recipe; swapping the normal curry for, well...

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A special curry blend, made of spices folded in upon themselves 100 times using forgotten spice-making techniques, granting it incomparable heat and flavor.

The goal, of course, is to cause pain to Anthy and Utena for the crime of drawing Touga's attention. Nanami wants to watch them cry out in agony, unable to tolerate the heat of the ultracurry, and... well, not beg for forgiveness, because they have no idea that they've 'wronged' Nanami, but to suffer for her amusement.

So, she's back to her old tricks, basically.

Except, oh no, what's this? Her cronies fucked up; they didn't swap in the 100-fold curry. No, instead, they accidentally swapped in an even more powerful curry; one folded in upon itself nine billion times, to create a spice so intense, it is quite literally explosive.

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For all that she'd planned to make the two suffer, Nanami hadn't actually planned to bomb the two of them. I guess she's got some standards, though they can be summed up as 'is not actually a school shooter'... Well, that makes her a better person than the protagonist and love interest of Heathers, at least, but that's a bar set six feet under.

The student council is quite shocked by this, of course, and they meet to discuss what the fuck just happened. Both Utena and Anthy were injured, in a turn of events that even End of the World hadn't forseen. Miki blames himself; he says that he told Himemiya he wanted to eat a really spicy curry, and the explosion was, he thinks, the result of him telling her that. He feels an intense sense of personal shame, since, clearly, Anthy risked her own life to deliver the pinnacle of spicy curries to him.

Touga's response is a flat "I don't think we can lay all the blame on you, Miki," delivered in a tone that makes it clear he's doesn't really believe Miki can be blamed at all. Which, to be fair, is absolutely true.

It's the secret art of spice folding we need to blame for this.

It's just too powerful.

Fortunately, Anthy and Utena are fine; in great health, even!

Unfortunately, they've switched bodies. This is explained over an extended sequence of the two acting... basically like a stereotypical version of each other, with 'Utena' becoming reclusive and standoffish, and 'Anthy' becoming sporty and standing up for herself when Nanami's cronies bully her so Nanami can watch.

Truly, the art of spice folding is one to be feared and respected.

The sequence ends with Nanami admitting to responsibility for the whole thing, and then says that she can make right her wrong- all they need to do is get more of the spice, and make another curry with it so that the two can go back to their original selves. Touga accepts this- but adds that until Nanami brings them the secret spice, she's not allowed to come home.

Thus banished to India, Nanami and her crew set off on an adventure of a lifetime- filled with high adventure, incredible action, and several elephant attacks. Of course, since this is a filler episode, that's constricted to a shadow play talking about divine justice and a few snippets scattered through the rest of the episode showing them being attacked by elephants.

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While the four of them are off offending elephants, Utena is, herself, harassed by Saionji- who hasn't been clued into the fact that Utena and Anthy have swapped bodies, and is continuing to harass the person he believes is Anthy. He also gives her the Exchange Diary he keeps with Anthy- a little diary that one of them keeps for a while, and then the other reads and writes their own entries in.

It'd be a cute relationship thing if it wasn't, you know, an abusive asshole pushing the whole thing onto the person he believes to be his former victim.

Also it's absolutely framed like he's going to rape her before it's revealed that he wants her to write in the exchange diary, so, that's a thing too.

Utena is conflicted- she doesn't know what she's supposed to do, since she's sort of intruded on an existing state of affairs without having intended to. She doesn't really understand what Saionji thinks, or what Anthy thinks, or how to deal with any of that.

Anthy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care- since Utena 'is Anthy' at the moment, she views it as Utena's responsibility to handle the whole issue, and basically tells Utena to do whatever she wants.

Then, when Utena is like, 'it isn't right, though,' Anthy shrugs and literally throws the exchange diary in the trash, saying 'Well, then, I'll stop.' When Utena objects, Anthy clarifies- she continued with the exchange diary because Utena hadn't ever told her it was wrong, or to stop. If Utena thinks that it isn't right for 'Himemiya Anthy' to have an exchange diary with Saionji, then Anthy will simply stop doing it.

There's... a bit of framing here that makes it seem, to me, like Anthy is a little more canny than she usually lets on, though she's operating on an unusual sort of logic. She isn't simply listening to Utena- she's interpreting what Utena says in a way that lets her do a certain thing, which it would appear she has wanted to do for a while. But she didn't do so until she had the fig leaf that Utena had told her she was supposed to do a certain thing- thus putting the responsibility for her action on Utena, and absolving Anthy of any responsibility for what had happened.

But while Anthy treats herself as a non-actor, her 'non action' is very deliberate- she lets Saionji corner Utena and give her the diary, tells Utena that she is Anthy right now for all intents and purposes- and then when Utena says 'I (Utena) shouldn't do this,' Anthy interprets it as 'I (the person who is currently Anthy) shouldn't do this.'

Utena doesn't really understand what just happened, but expresses that she's starting to feel a bit sad for Saionji, which is... All I'll say is that her empathy is misplaced.

Fortunately, she realizes it is misplaced later that evening when she reads the diary, and comes across an... interesting sketch Saionji made.

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Having been inspired, Utena takes out a marker and starts making her own modifications and drawings, and returns the book to Saionji with all due vehemence.

Then Nanami returns, and Utena leaves Saionji defeated, once again, in the ruins of his self esteem.

Nanami has both a new tan and the secret spice, which, apparently, is traditionally stored in a... lamp. Much like a Djinn's lamp, in fact. Unfortunately, as she approaches a welcoming crew of Touga, Utena, Anthy, and Miki, she slips on a banana peel which Chu-Chu carelessly leaves on the steps, causing the lamp to fly out of her hands, crashing to pieces on the unfeeling concrete.

A nearby elephant trumpets and blows, creating a gale-force wind that blows the pile of curry powder away, leaving Nanami destitute. No more spice can be obtained; it takes 200 years to fold the spice to it's pure, refined form.

To cheer everyone up, Anthy makes them some curry. Right before they eat, Nanami's confederates swing back in, to reveal that Anthy hadn't used the 9-billion folded curry at all last time- meaning that it was never the cause after all.

The group stare at their plates in trepidation, realizing that the true culprit was Anthy's cooking. Then Saionji shows up, and starts ranting at 'Anthy' and demanding she re-write her entry in the diary as a love-letter to him. Before he can do any more, 'Utena' pulls him in, and offers him a plate of curry- which he takes a bite of, at the same time as Chu-Chu.

The resulting explosion returns Utena and Anthy to their rightful bodies, and also leaves Saionji helplessly trapped in the body of a tiny monkey, and Chu-Chu as, well...

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