To answer Satyr's question in the other thread: the episode where Saionji slaps Miki is episode 25.  I just looked it up.    It's when Saionji is convinced by Akio to duel again.  He comes to the rose garden to challenge Utena and claim Anthy, and Miki is there and tries to get in his way.  A casual blow from Saionji sends the poor boy flying.  Saionji grabs Anthy and issues threats.  Utena yells at him.  Cut to shadow girls and duel.

Last edited by Ico (05-08-2010 11:52:57 PM)

Malacoda: Do any of the other characters use such force when dueling?

I pointed out at some point that Wakaba's holding her sword to Utena's cheek echoes Saionji pushing his sword up under Anthy's chin. Similarly, her duel is also one of the most violent, second to Touga and of course the final Akio fight. As Gio has noted, she was probably the only one out to truly kill. I believe this is probably a reflection to her bond with Saionji. In an odd parallel to Utena, she too takes on the behaviors of her idealized prince.

Ico wrote:

To answer Satyr's question in the other thread: the episode where Saionji slaps Miki is episode 25.  I just looked it up.    It's when Saionji is convinced by Akio to duel again.  He comes to the rose garden to challenge Utena and claim Anthy, and Miki is there and tries to get in his way.  A casual blow from Saionji sends the poor boy flying.  Saionji grabs Anthy and issues threats.  Utena yells at him.  Cut to shadow girls and duel.

I need to rewatch the Akio Arc!

Katzenklavier wrote:

I pointed out at some point that Wakaba's holding her sword to Utena's cheek echoes Saionji pushing his sword up under Anthy's chin. Similarly, her duel is also one of the most violent, second to Touga and of course the final Akio fight.

Nanami's first duel is also up there.  She's the only duelist to keep fighting after losing her rose.  She might not have been out to kill, but she was so enraged she might have ended up killing anyway; certainly she had no interest in the foliage on Utena's chest.  We tend to forget about her because the duel is neither so viscerally personal as Wakaba's, nor so cruelly impersonal as Akio's, but it was pretty eyebrow-raising to watch Nanami's rose scatter and then watch the duel not stop.

Haelsyx, personally, I'd dismiss it as Plot Armor before appealing to the possible extraterrestrial origin of the cast (apart from the Shadow Girls, of course).  Events in most stories have to serve the plot.  Violence serves Utena's plot quite a lot more often than actual wounds do, so most violence doesn't end in real physical harm.  It would certainly be a change of pace if Utena realistically ended up in the ER (and Saionji in juvenile hall) after Saionji's kick knocked her for several loops, but that would be a different show.

I will be bad and admit that both the slap delivered to Miki that sent hiim flying and the kick delivered to Utena that was so shockingly brutal... were... kinda hot. ///*-*///

But yeah, the violence got more and more symbolic and brutal as the time went on. Shiori's car crash should have killed her. If she hadn't been driving a metaphor, that is.

haelsyx wrote: Why is it that the only legitimate wounds that reveal themselves are from slaps?

Or on clothing like here:


One would think that teens with sharp sword would get a cut somewhere from time to time, uh?

Anyway I was checking this thread 'cause I wanted to discuss an experience I had with Utena. I was watching the movie in my room and my brother came to see what I was doing. He watched the movie until the end of Saionji's duel; he saw Saionji be physical violent to Anthy and Anthy kissing Utena. He almost didn't see Utena grow hair and lost her pants.
Instead of finding this offensive:

He found this offensive:

I can't image what would have happened if he saw this:

or this http://ohtori.nu/galerie/v/movie/screen … 9.jpg.html

I was actually discussing the violence of the series with one of my friends a while back and to be honest, I'm happy with the way the series turned out. I mean in the sense of it not being overly gorey. Let's face it, episode 39 could have been a complete bloodbath considering all the impaling that happens in it. I feel that 39 was handled incredibly well, with showing minimal wounds and blood it helps to work on our emotions more than just "Wow, that's a ton of blood" like that happens in a lot of more recent animes. Sure it's unrealistic, cause by the time she gets into the coffin Utena should be a bloody mess, but I felt it affected my emotions more to have the wounds not exactly grandiose, so I could focus more on what is going on in the scene.

I have to completely agree that Wakaba and Nanami's duels are definitely the most violent (until Akio's duel that is). One of the reasons Wakaba's duel is one of my favorite of the show is the fact that it is so animalistic at it's core.