Utena Ep 10-12
Apr. 28th, 2024 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizardjayOver the past couple days I've been trying to edit this to be more complete with my thoughts. But then I watched episodes 13-15 and have gone completely insane, so I need to just post these so I can start writing THOSE.
EPISODE TEN
LOLOL Touga wasted NO time in burning Saionji's book. And lying to his face like that about trying to get him unexpelled..... Stay classy 😂
I'll admit. I did Touga a disservice. I thought HE killed his old cat, not Nanami. WTF Nanami.
Touga and Nanami's... thing.... is SO uncomfortable.
I guess the two of them live at home? Since Nanami can see him out her window? Unless Touga deliberately chose a place outside her dorm window so she'd come out and beg him to stop training. He WOULD do that. Honestly even if they live at home, he still chose a place outside her window. STOPPPPPP
UGH the duelist ring goes on Nanami's ring finger. (It goes on everyone's ring finger. STILL.)
Nanami is such a fun duelist. Of course she doesn't follow the rules!! Why NOT aim to kill?? It's not like she's here for Anthy.
I wonder what becomes of the cat Anthy gifted Touga.
(Also, ANTHY I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU. THIS GUY IS SCUM. WHY ARE YOU GIVING HIM A CAT. Maybe she knows about his backstory cat and is sending some elaborate message. Maybe this is the exact same cat, rescued from the water. Maybe the cat isn't housetrained and she wants him to suffer. Maybe she's nice despite everything and thinks he would enjoy a cat. Maybe, since she somehow attracts animals, it only took her five minutes to get the cat and therefore this is the lowest-effort gift she can possibly give. WHO KNOWS.)
EPISODE ELEVEN AND TWELVE
These are going together bc I forget which scenes are in which episode. You'd think it would be easy; 11 is the leadup to the first Touga vs Utena duel, and 12 is the aftermath and second duel.... and yet. I wrote up all my comments and had nothing for 11, and I think I was slipping stuff from 11 into 12.
Overall summary of my thoughts: I LOVE WAKABAAAAAAAAA
For real, she has no idea what exactly is going on, bc Utena won't tell her anything, but she's such a good friend! When Utena slapped her (!!!!) she slapped right back! She will not back down!!
Is Anthy living with Touga?? (And is he living at home or not?) Does the school condone mixed gender living spaces? (I mean. It condones or doesn't know about this dueling group, so. FAIR ENOUGH.) Then again, she had to handwrite her name on the dorm room at the beginning. Does she.... exist, according to the school? We've at least seen her go to cooking class.
Seeing Utena in the usual uniform was SO uncomfortable.
If Touga has his way Anthy would be (metaphorically??) in the rose garden forever and he'd never let her out. He says this to her face. His depths of creepiness keep getting deeper.
When Wakaba and Utena sat down for the last time to talk, they were at the location where the shadow puppets always are. I'd always assumed that was wallpaper and on a small scale, but it's a big stone wall!
Jury gives Utena a sword (her sword? if so, sorry, it broke)... whose side are you on?
I really don't appreciate making Anthy kneel down and kiss (??) the sword 😖 but it's fun to see more magic powers! The rose bride can imbue the sword with.... magic cutting powers... that Touga doesn't actually USE during their fight, but it looks exciting! And he loses the power at a critical moment; perhaps when Anthy stops thinking his win is inevitable?
It might be telling that Saionji DIDN'T use these magic powers when he had Anthy. (Though, he wasn't taking Utena seriously that first battle. So who knows if he'd have bothered to go all out). This might be another Secret that Touga got directly from End of the World.
(Btw, how the HELL did Saionji ever have Anthy? When Touga is demonstrably better than him? Did Touga throw the match? Did they never fight?)
Relatedly, it's interesting how we get our first indications of Anthy's internal thoughts in this episode. She misses Utena I THINK.
I'm also curious about the timeline here. Were they all doing this dueling thing last year? Was Miki dueling as an elementary schooler? Are there retired duelists? Has Anthy always been the rose bride? I'm not sure if the show is really concerned with a realistic timeline or not, but I'll be paying attention!
Utena is fighting this battle primarily to bring back her sense of identity as a prince. Rather than necessarily for Anthy's sake, though she does think of her. I don't exactly blame her-- my girl is getting manipulated SO creepily by a boy several years older than her! And she does do a better job of at least asking about and thinking about Anthy's wishes than anyone else. But everyone is always seeing Anthy through their own lens. (It really doesn't help that Anthy is going along with this and making it really hard to know what she wants. She has her reasons I'm sure, but GOD.)
One of these episodes just had one million balloons floating through the air as the council met. For fun, I guess. Also, for some reason they were all standing that time instead of sitting. The whiplash of thinking "ah, cycles of abuse--- BALLOON" seems to be the essence of Utena.
There was one moment, maybe at that council meeting, where Miki did his stupid stopwatch thing, looked at the time, and then clearly said... a slightly different number? What does it all MEAN!!! If I put all the numbers together, will it make a secret message? Is it nonsense??
M started doing some handedness research on the duels, which mainly was finding that people tend to switch hands between normal swords and the sword of Dios. Maybe the spirit of the prince is left handed or something. Google results seem to indicate handedness is significant but obviously we can't click on anything bc of spoilers. (Coming back later: Utena was fully right handed in Utena vs Jury, but otherwise mainly uses her left after she gets the sword of Dios...) Yet another thing to keep in mind...
To keep up my part of the research bargain, I need to go back and make a catalogue of Miki Stopwatch Moments, which I hope to include in the next batch of episodes.
LOLOL Touga wasted NO time in burning Saionji's book. And lying to his face like that about trying to get him unexpelled..... Stay classy 😂
I'll admit. I did Touga a disservice. I thought HE killed his old cat, not Nanami. WTF Nanami.
Touga and Nanami's... thing.... is SO uncomfortable.
I guess the two of them live at home? Since Nanami can see him out her window? Unless Touga deliberately chose a place outside her dorm window so she'd come out and beg him to stop training. He WOULD do that. Honestly even if they live at home, he still chose a place outside her window. STOPPPPPP
UGH the duelist ring goes on Nanami's ring finger. (It goes on everyone's ring finger. STILL.)
Nanami is such a fun duelist. Of course she doesn't follow the rules!! Why NOT aim to kill?? It's not like she's here for Anthy.
I wonder what becomes of the cat Anthy gifted Touga.
(Also, ANTHY I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU. THIS GUY IS SCUM. WHY ARE YOU GIVING HIM A CAT. Maybe she knows about his backstory cat and is sending some elaborate message. Maybe this is the exact same cat, rescued from the water. Maybe the cat isn't housetrained and she wants him to suffer. Maybe she's nice despite everything and thinks he would enjoy a cat. Maybe, since she somehow attracts animals, it only took her five minutes to get the cat and therefore this is the lowest-effort gift she can possibly give. WHO KNOWS.)
EPISODE ELEVEN AND TWELVE
These are going together bc I forget which scenes are in which episode. You'd think it would be easy; 11 is the leadup to the first Touga vs Utena duel, and 12 is the aftermath and second duel.... and yet. I wrote up all my comments and had nothing for 11, and I think I was slipping stuff from 11 into 12.
Overall summary of my thoughts: I LOVE WAKABAAAAAAAAA
For real, she has no idea what exactly is going on, bc Utena won't tell her anything, but she's such a good friend! When Utena slapped her (!!!!) she slapped right back! She will not back down!!
Is Anthy living with Touga?? (And is he living at home or not?) Does the school condone mixed gender living spaces? (I mean. It condones or doesn't know about this dueling group, so. FAIR ENOUGH.) Then again, she had to handwrite her name on the dorm room at the beginning. Does she.... exist, according to the school? We've at least seen her go to cooking class.
Seeing Utena in the usual uniform was SO uncomfortable.
If Touga has his way Anthy would be (metaphorically??) in the rose garden forever and he'd never let her out. He says this to her face. His depths of creepiness keep getting deeper.
When Wakaba and Utena sat down for the last time to talk, they were at the location where the shadow puppets always are. I'd always assumed that was wallpaper and on a small scale, but it's a big stone wall!
Jury gives Utena a sword (her sword? if so, sorry, it broke)... whose side are you on?
I really don't appreciate making Anthy kneel down and kiss (??) the sword 😖 but it's fun to see more magic powers! The rose bride can imbue the sword with.... magic cutting powers... that Touga doesn't actually USE during their fight, but it looks exciting! And he loses the power at a critical moment; perhaps when Anthy stops thinking his win is inevitable?
It might be telling that Saionji DIDN'T use these magic powers when he had Anthy. (Though, he wasn't taking Utena seriously that first battle. So who knows if he'd have bothered to go all out). This might be another Secret that Touga got directly from End of the World.
(Btw, how the HELL did Saionji ever have Anthy? When Touga is demonstrably better than him? Did Touga throw the match? Did they never fight?)
Relatedly, it's interesting how we get our first indications of Anthy's internal thoughts in this episode. She misses Utena I THINK.
I'm also curious about the timeline here. Were they all doing this dueling thing last year? Was Miki dueling as an elementary schooler? Are there retired duelists? Has Anthy always been the rose bride? I'm not sure if the show is really concerned with a realistic timeline or not, but I'll be paying attention!
Utena is fighting this battle primarily to bring back her sense of identity as a prince. Rather than necessarily for Anthy's sake, though she does think of her. I don't exactly blame her-- my girl is getting manipulated SO creepily by a boy several years older than her! And she does do a better job of at least asking about and thinking about Anthy's wishes than anyone else. But everyone is always seeing Anthy through their own lens. (It really doesn't help that Anthy is going along with this and making it really hard to know what she wants. She has her reasons I'm sure, but GOD.)
One of these episodes just had one million balloons floating through the air as the council met. For fun, I guess. Also, for some reason they were all standing that time instead of sitting. The whiplash of thinking "ah, cycles of abuse--- BALLOON" seems to be the essence of Utena.
There was one moment, maybe at that council meeting, where Miki did his stupid stopwatch thing, looked at the time, and then clearly said... a slightly different number? What does it all MEAN!!! If I put all the numbers together, will it make a secret message? Is it nonsense??
M started doing some handedness research on the duels, which mainly was finding that people tend to switch hands between normal swords and the sword of Dios. Maybe the spirit of the prince is left handed or something. Google results seem to indicate handedness is significant but obviously we can't click on anything bc of spoilers. (Coming back later: Utena was fully right handed in Utena vs Jury, but otherwise mainly uses her left after she gets the sword of Dios...) Yet another thing to keep in mind...
To keep up my part of the research bargain, I need to go back and make a catalogue of Miki Stopwatch Moments, which I hope to include in the next batch of episodes.
no subject
Date: 2024-04-29 02:39 am (UTC)Wakaba is the BEST ♥ ♥ ♥ Anthy definitely goes through it a bit in these episodes... And Utena in the regular uniform breaks my heart. ;__________;
no subject
Date: 2024-04-29 11:39 am (UTC)