while akioâs car is obviously a symbol of sex and sexual violence and the power that he alone wields as the only person who can drive it, iâm not really a fan of the interpretation that âany time someone gets in the car it means they are Literally Actually Having Sex in that moment.â while i do think that itâs probably true some of the time (tougaâs first car ride with the âiâm not old enoughâ line and the car scene with akio and anthy in episode 37 in particular are the ones i read in this way,) i donât think itâs as straight-forward as that, and generally, trying to decode metaphors to what they Actually Represent in the literal real world is not the most interesting way of approaching analysis to me. i do still think there is significance and meaning to which characters get in the car with who, though, and especially where in the car they sit. specifically i think it says something about the charactersâ relationships to one another.
letâs start with the pairs we see sitting in the backseat together. the first are touga and saionji in episode 25, who have a lot outside of their car scene to imply a sexual (or at the very least homoerotic) relationship between them (see the motorcycle scene in episode 36, with similar symbolism to the car.) after that is ruka and shiori in episode 28, who have by far the most overtly sexual car scene, and is probably another one where the sex is literal. last is touga and nanami in episode 32, where touga assaults her (another sexual relationship, although enitrely nonconsensual this time.)
compare that to the characters who sit in the backseat alone: miki and juri. miki is in the car with kozue, but she doesnât sit next to him, instead she sits in the front seat. this, in my opinion, means that while their relationship does have its weird incestual undertones, itâs never actually been sexual, and it isnât here either. juri is in the car with ruka, and similarly they do not sit together; their relationship is also not sexual (even though ruka does assault her earlier in the episode, it doesnât continue in the car.) itâs possible that sitting seperately in the car implies one-sided feelings, but i donât think thatâs likely since there's no implications of that between touga and ruka who do the same thing, and personally i donât think itâs true for the kaoruâs either. and also, if the positions had anything to do with attraction, touga and nanami would obviously not have been sitting together.
then thereâs the front passenger seat, and here the significance is that itâs next to akio. most of the people we see sitting there* (touga, utena, anthy, kozue) are people who are direct victims of akioâs grooming and abuse (the only exception being ruka.) i also think thereâs something about how sitting in the front seat feels like it gives you more freedom than the back, even though thatâs not true. like you get the special privilege of sitting next to the person driving the car, but you donât actually get any control yourself.
(*i am deliberately not including wakaba here, because although she does sit in the front seat on her âdateâ with akio in episode 30, they donât go to the infinitely looping metaphor-highway at night, and i think that distinction is important. like how utena is in the car several times, but only in that place after akio has turned the relationship explicitly sexual)
