didn’t anybody tell you that too many secrets make you sick ? good thing it is i, mrs helloanthy* and i am here to tell you that. you can tell me your secrets and it will make me stronger every day. why not start with your most secret number (bank number or other personal information is extra healthy).
* i’m not a woman but i am helloanthy’s wife so that is what i go by. i took over because the real helloanthy is too sick with something other than secrets to type on this ipad
simultaneous juri/shiori and utena/anthy sword pulls would have resulted in enough Toxic Yuri Energy to blow akio's stupid ass projector into smithereens, hence ruka's evil heterosexual meddling in episodes 28 & 29. not that it would be possible for utena & juri & their respective cancelled purple-haired girlfriends to beat the system by playing into it but I'll be damned if the four of them couldn't unintentionally wreak some havoc in the meantime.
nobody in the whole world loves her except 4 me. always thinking about her every single day every single hour every single minute. fifteen minutes of screen time in show and fifteen hours of screen time in my heart. anthy hates her ass as is her right, the manga doesn’t acknowledge her, utena doesn’t gaf about her, not even the musical ABOUT HER ARC gives a fuck about her but I do. me me me me me me!! kanae ohtori #1 fan forever
While many fans of Revolutionary Girl Utena would refrain from employing such reductive terms to describe a narrative that so heavily critiques and deconstructs the role of archetypal figures in storytelling, it is nonetheless a widely held belief, albeit implicitly, that Akio constitutes the ultimate “villain” of the narrative. Akio constructs the borders through which their world is framed, and is thus uniquely culpable for all its violence. And yet, I would like this challenge this notion somewhat. While Akio may be the primary frame through which the narrative is constructed, we cannot ignore the hints that this narrative may also be, at least in part, retroactively framed. During the famous “Cantarella scene,” for example, the audience is shown that Utena and Anthy will ultimately escape the world of Ohtori through a cut to an empty room, time overlapping as the possibility to imagine a future becomes realized. Thus, if the narrative lies partially beyond Akio’s scope, it is fair to argue that Akio is being framed just as much as he frames others.
No character within the narrative, whether a bit player or a protagonist, is bereft of a complex psychological motivation underpinning their every action. So why is Akio, one of the most crucial players in the show, denied his nuanced psychological portraiture? Akio is as complex as any other character, if not more so, and thus merits our attention and analysis. In this essay, I will read Akio through a framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis as I interrogate and unpack the deeper implications and motivations that indubitably undergird his challenging and variegated psychological landscape, in an attempt not only to understand his violent patterns of behavior, but also, even, perhaps, to justify them.
found this really beautiful art for one of the soundtrack albums but was irked by anthy being Straight Up Green. little edit where i gave also gave her a little bindi. her forehead looked naked
Mr. Mikage, I have a test tomorrow and big test anxiety. Is there any advice for me?
Is your problem really the test itself, or is it that you have attached your sense of self worth to the result you will get at this test?
Are you worried about how the people around you will react if you fail? Will your parents be disappointed? Will your friends laugh at you?
I am sorry to tell you this, but they will. Because people are shallow and hypocritical, and never see your true value as an individual.
But do not fear: it doesn’t have to stay this way: you have a way out, a last option that could solve all your problems. You must kill Anthy Himemiya.
the chairman's panopticon-ass tower is also built to be comphet hell (phallic symbol, everything akio has going with the projector, the elevator, the back-lit screen in front of i guess? the bedroom? and the half-moon bed that simultaneously brings anthy & utena close while also being symbolically pulled apart-- it also places them at the same level, unlike the bunk bed! they're quite literally eye-to-eye) but it -and akio- fails at accomplishing what it set out to do.
note: the more i think about it, the more i realise their shadows on the screen do merge-- intrinsic to each other, so the screen ends up giving us more representation, however briefly.
utena and anthy don't just connect and be honest to each other despite it all. they don't just let everything fade back into barely-there subtext as the genre has historically been subjected to. what necessitated the subtext to be subtext eventually breaks down when the illusion the system set up does, and it's clear as day at the end of it. every single heteronormative role provided to utena is, by the end, thrown out, destroyed, not worn. and you don't get some grand 'i love you' from either anthy or utena. you don't need to. it's all there in what they do-- in anthy accepting and choosing to reach for utena, in utena consciously continuing to choose anthy, and in anthy deciding to leave. you get one single photograph of them, and it's one we've seen them take before with much of the context seemingly left out, or written out of our frame. but then you see the picture in its entirety. or at least, in a different light.
and the tower never could censor them or obscure them completely.
