My favorite plot twist in Revolutionary Girl Utena was Nanami.
Fuck. Like. Youāve been learning steadily over the course of this series thatĀ the cast is comprised of misogynistic, pedantic pricks involved in a 10-way love triangle where someone is bound to pick up an STD somewhere along the line, my guess being Akio, thereās like 12 kinds of incest going on and everyone is bisexual and playing mind games with each other in this grapple for power over one unfortunate woman.
And keep in mind, Nanami abused said woman at the beginning worse than everyone else- at least publicly. Nanami is built up at first to be this queen bee bully bitch who lives for male attention, particularly from her brother, and since everyone else is going at it regardless of familial relation, you would assume that Nanami, the very opposite of whatās set up as our āheroic and chivalrousā young heroine, would jump her brother at the very first sign of requited affection.
And then towards the end the plot just hits like a brick and Nanami both witnesses the abuse of Anthy by her brother and is propositioned by her own and she just snaps. Thatās disgusting, youāre my brother, my love for you is platonic.
And itās kinda been glaring at you in the face the entire time, Nanami is innocent, sheās more of a child than anyone in this cast, even her cruelty is childlike. She wanted attention, but not sexually. She didnāt want her brother to fuck her, she wanted him to stop chasing after other girls and pay attention to her because theyāre lonely and filthy rich and she sees him as the only genuine thing in her life that wonāt leave her and he TRIES TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HER.
Like. When Nanami is so squicked by all the flippant incest sheās not just shaming her brother, but everyone who mistook a young girlās frustration with her brother (mingled with probably naive attempts to emulate behavior of the kind of girls he associates with) as incestuous. Everyone (in the story and watching) was so quick to jump to that conclusion because everyone else was doing it, and Nanami is the wake up call towards the end- this isnāt normal. Even if sheās a brat, she wonāt put up with this behavior. And how her character just becomes progressively independent and self-serving after this realization, that even her brother whom she trusts more than anyone would be willing to use her. And she tempers towards the end, more calm, more āadultā but clearly still her bratty self, and you realize that she was the most normal character outside of Wakaba maybe. I love Nanamiās arc.
edit: the language I used in this post was kinda flippant and Iām sorry if it offends anyone, I didnāt originally intend it to be seen by so many people and was trying to hyperbolize a lot of the tropes in the show, not make light of things like incest and abuse. I wrote more about it here. So please, keep that in mind if this post is upsetting. Iām not going to rewrite it because it already has like 300 notes I just want to make it clear that I donāt find abuse or incest funny and I wasnāt trying to slut-shame the cast rather than point out the use of sexuality as a weapon and how Nanami was ultimately one of the few people who didnāt buy into that device.
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