Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Revolutionary Girl Utena
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ChibiKangaroo
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Yea, I was expecting there will be some reveals about this prince she dreams of. My main point from these episodes has to do with the show reinforcing masculine/feminine which is why I said they seem right now to be presenting Utena as both. For example, when the cranky lady confronts her about her uniform, Utena openly acknowledges the distinction between boys and girls uniforms but merely indicates she likes the boys version. She says it "looks good" on the boys and theres no rule saying a girl can't wear it.
So the point was right now, the show is not contradicting distinctions between masculine and feminine, it is merely saying nothing is stopping Utena from seizing the masculine if she chooses. If they had chosen, they could have also had Utena deny that her outfit was the boys outfit and instead say it was the princes outfit. So that's what I'm saying, at this point Utena is absorbing masculine features by her own acknowlegment but not specifically doing the same with any feminine ones. So in that context maybe it's more accurate to say she is simply de-emphasizing her femininity through omission. Last edited by ChibiKangaroo on Mon Apr 24, 2017 6:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DanQ
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Frankly, assumption that Ikuni hates man because all male characters are portraited as kinda a-holes... have you looked at female characters? Reeeeeally not stellar examples of angels either. So... he hates women too?
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Chiibi
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Lol Utena is full of unlikable bitches too, sure....but Utena is not the only thing the man has directed. It's like he's against heterosexual romance too; like Animegomaniac pointed out, he only seems to like and promote lesbian romance. >_> |
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Cryssoberyl
 Posts: 240 |
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So what? Why is it such an issue for you if he likes a certain kind of topic and wants to make stuff about it? I guess next you'll suggest all yuri creators are misandrists - or that all yaoi creators are misogynists?
Here's the actual full quote, for context. Please note the bolded portion.
Basically he is tired of het romance, both in general and specifically how often it takes center stage any time the main character of a work is female - and I'm right there with him. We have more than enough het media, to put it mildly. He wanted to make a work with different motivations and different content, and he did that. Yes, the man likes lesbians and wants to make stories involving them. Good, let him. We need more of those. |
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Shay Guy
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Going back to the opening narration: "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?" So right from the beginning, it questions her goal.
As for the linking her goal with maleness specifically, well... Once upon a time, a king and queen learned that they were to have a child. They were delighted, but also concerned. Would the child become a noble prince, destined to lead armies to victory and fetch cats from trees? Or would it become a sweet princess, destined to sing duets with woodland creatures and read letters about friendship? Should the nursery be painted a daring pink, or a soothing blue? So they decided to consult the wise men of their kingdom, and after stroking their beards thoughtfully for three days and three nights, the wise men declared, "When the child is born, we will have a midwife present. Midwives are better than anyone in the land at telling whether a baby is a boy or a girl, and this one shall tell us which one she thinks the queen's child is. If the child is a boy, it will be a prince; and if it's a girl, it will be a princess." ...Yeah, OK, that was a roundabout way of getting at it. But whatever desirable qualities are associated with princeliness, there's a logic to her drawing from maleness in order to achieve it. How else for a narrator-certified princess to become a prince? She says in episode 1 that she wears her weird kitbashed boy's uniform as part of that attempt. She just hasn't questioned the associations there -- what she hopes to get out of becoming a prince, and what exactly the uniform has to do with it. Maybe some of it is just because the Man doesn't want her to. Hell, maybe she wouldn't have bothered if the girl's uniform didn't look so goofy.
And if y'all remember the talkback thread back when Jacob reviewed YKA, Arale Kurashiki mentioned Ikuhara saying that (quoting AK) "bears are portrayed in society as either dangerous predators or cute mascots, a description you can also apply to lesbians in anime". So, different symbolic logic.
Lest we forget, the Takakuras were an opposite-sex couple, one of Momoka's two obsessed childhood friends was a woman, and the Invisible Storm was all-female. He targets his anger at systems more than people; it's just that those systems often have male faces. |
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Top Gun
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Oh, it becomes clear very quickly that Kill la Kill owes a TON to Utena. The basic conceit of a socially-exalted high school with a nigh-omnipotent student council pursuing a secret agenda, the strong-willed rogue outsider (and her hyperactive best friend!) who opposes them, the organized series of duels between them, the consecutive revealing of each council member's backstories and motivations...at least at the beginning, Kill la Kill is crammed with Utena homages. Obviously the two series have different purposes and go in two very different directions. |
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DanQ
Posts: 114 |
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Yes, he also directed Penguindrum, where "lesbian romance/rape" of character Yuri Tokikago was portrayed in pretty toxic light, I would say. (Not to mention that "takarazuka styl" of tragic lesbian lovers with suicidal tendencies.) Not saying he doesn't like lesbian romance (Au contraire!), just... we can't simplify his work to just that aspect/point of view. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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Personally I'd like to see more romances that differ from the heterosexual norm, though I always am apprehensive about it with Anime since anime has long had problems representing such relationships in an honest manner and instead relies heavily on fetish and contrivances. I don't know how far Utena goes into that other than the symbolism, since people seem to constantly hint that this is NOT a love story between Utena and Anthy. I would hope that it is not a tease, which would be consistent with the norm. But I suppose I will find out in coming episodes.
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Shay Guy
Posts: 2116 |
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I wouldn't quite say that it isn't a love story... but their relationship isn't as simple as "the prince penetrates the dragon with his long, thick sword and he and the princess live happily ever after". You can see in episode 2 that Anthy's pretty cagey about the whole Rose Bride thing. Her desires are a puzzle so far, and Utena isn't a very deep thinker by nature. See a wrong, right a wrong. But love requires communication. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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The fanbase for those genres certainly are.  Like have you talked to many fujoshi? Tons of them bash girls in anime "for getting in the way of their precious headcanon ships". It's disgusting.
Then it's best to either exclude male characters or give them minor roles where they don't interact with the heroine that much. Don't demonize them or kill them off. That's the part I have a problem with. I will of course say same goes for yaoi series with female characters. It's like people don't understand how it's indeed possible to support a team without throwing the opposing one under the bus. |
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Cryssoberyl
Posts: 240 |
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Those people are wrong. Utena is, on its most basic level, a love story between Utena and Anthy, and was intended to be so by Ikuhara from the beginning. However, this plan was met with resistance by Saito Chiho, the prestigious manga artist they had brought in to handle that aspect of the project, so - in the series at least - he had to be subtle, although he maintains that he "did it anyway" to the extent that he was able, as you will see. This information comes from the episode 37 voiceover commentary track originally recorded for the CPM release, and subsequently rereleased with the Nozomi discs as well. A transcript of that commentary, along with a great deal of other related material, is available here at the Empty Movement fansite, although I strongly urge you to finish both series and movie before reading or viewing any of the creator material. In any case, with the movie, that dissent had been silenced due to the success of the series, and he was able to make their romance as overt as he had always wanted it to be. How do I know that? I asked him myself. https://archive.li/pd6Jm That is to say, a question I submitted as part of a Rightstuf promotional interview with Ikuhara was included in the final questions. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Really, now!? That explains a lot.  I always thought the UtenaxAnthy romance writing was a bit weak and forced for the TV series....like they seemed like friends pushed into the roles only because of the concept of the Rose Bride ownership. But that really clears things up. I never knew the staff fought about it. lol
The OP would certainly have you believe otherwise....for all of its shippy scenes between them. In fact, the scene of them lying together in the grass grew so popular that have you noticed how many other shoujo-ai series started copying it for THEIR openings?
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Cryssoberyl
Posts: 240 |
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I'm pleased I could enlighten you. One of the most unique things about Utena, quite apart from the work itself, is the amount of staff material we have available to us, and the clarity of picture they provide. From multiple interviews, to voiceover commentaries, to Ikuhara's own essays and episode-by-episode remarks as included in the rereleases, to chief screenwriter Enokido Yoji's rough drafts of scripts, we have an incredibly clear picture of the story of Utena's background development.
To my knowledge, no other anime even comes close to this level of transparency - certainly not in the West, where translated creator materials are obviously much harder to come by. |
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whiskeyii
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Probably the one downside to watching this via YouTube instead of the special edition DVDs is the lack of access to director commentaries and the like. One of them explicitly details how Ikuhara worked around Saito's involvement to bring about the "lovey-dovey" relationship he wanted.
Which is actually deeply ironic to me; while Saito's manga explicitly refers to Utena and Anthy as "friends" (or at least the translation does), it does depict Anthy explictly kissing Utena, something which is sadly not present in the anime. It's hard to say if she changed her mind, or if she was following the Prince-Princess dynamic much more faithfully than the anime does. |
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Cryssoberyl
Posts: 240 |
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As I understand it, Saito's objections were mainly grounded in commercial viability; she wanted and expected Utena to be a huge money-making project, and was concerned that girl/girl romance elements would detract from that. How much of that is personal bias and how much was simply trying to read the market, only she knows, but either way, she apparently relented after the breakout success of the anime - and the subsequent blooming of the Utena/Anthy doujin market.
As Ikuhara reports, seemingly she did nothing to stop the explicit romance in the movie from happening, and after the fact, I've heard her quoted as saying, with regard to the pair, "Please think of them as a married couple." (Even so, she makes clear that, in both series and movie, and certainly her own manga, Utena/Touga is her personal preference...as unpleasant an idea as that is.) |
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