I got my best friend to watch Utena the other day. We both stayed up until 5 a.m. trying to squeeze in as much as possible. The farther we got into the series, the more excited she was to get to the next episode, and when we finished an episode she'd exclaim "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLAY THE NEXT ONE!!!"

Ten episodes from the end, she wanted to watch the movie (she had to leave in a couple hours, and I had already sent my DVD collection with her (we were watching it on my computer))...needless to say, her opinion of it was very "....W...T...FFFFFFFFFF" and she was in fits of laughter by the end.

She finished the series last night, and had this to say:

Shel says:
dfhgskdlfjg

Shel says:
At least they didn't turn into CARS

Shel says:
Athough, Anthy stabbing Utena was -very- W. T. F.

Shel says:
THEN IT WAS ALL TAKE HER GODDAMN HAND ALREADY YOU FREAK!

Ah, good times.

Frau Eva wrote:

Although this all brings up something I've randomly been feeling lately...I've honestly just been getting the impression that no one can say anything bad about Shiori here without getting a lecture about motivations. I understand her motivations, I sympathize with her teenage angst, but can I just say that she acts like a crazy bitch sometimes? I know it's mostly because she's been maligned for so long by many fans, but...it seems like the board is overall pretty accepting of all the characters. It seems like a similar thing with Juri fans back in the day, who could never admit that it's pretty much her own fault she's still moping around like an emotard. But this could just be an impression, and I'm just gauging things.

Like dollface said, we've already had this conversation, and so I'd rather we not start another one.

I'm overly defensive of Shiori, and that's just how I am. It always bothered me when people automatically condemn Shiori as an evil demon from hell, and not being able to stand up for my opinion, which I was unable to do for a really long time, always killed me inside. I don't really expect any of you to understand this, and I probably seem stupid for caring so much. But I haven't said much in Shiori's defense as of lately, so I think that you'll all agree that I'm improving on this matter.

Either way, I'm sorry for standing up for my beliefs. Honestly, I'm just glad that I'm standing up for what I believe in at all, even if I'm being rather obnoxious while doing so.

In the case of dollface's friend, it's just rude that she continues to insult Shiori, even though she knows that it upsets her. When you do or say something that you know is going to upset a lot of people, or even one person, obviously they're going to get defensive of their opinion. It's human nature, but some people enjoy provoking this nature. We all like to believe that we're right, even when the correct answer and the wrong answer aren't very far apart.

Like in Frau Eva's story, I showed my ex-boyfriend D.N.Angel a few years ago, which, at the time, was my favorite anime. He complained about everything that happened, said that everyone was gay, and laughed when my favorite character was trying to kill himself. He knew that this offended me, but he continued to make these comments anyway.

If it's been gone over before, then my mistake. I was just under the impression that Yasha's talk was over derailing threads, and not general defensiveness. But its been a while since I've looked at it, so eh.

Anyway, I just try to look at both sides sometimes, so I presented each situation as I wasn't sure which would fit best. But yeah, it seems from your description that she's doing the first situation and just being obnoxious. Again, don't feel too bad about it being over an anime character. There's a point when someone is being negative for no reason other than to make you uncomfortable. This can happen with music, movies, anything. Once she's voiced her opinion once, there's no reason for her to keep repeating it. I had a friend once who took a perverse delight in bashing Amelia from Slayers in front of me because I liked her. And even though I liked the character in a more passive way and wasn't even touchy about her, it just gets...old and obnoxious. And another person who bashed Relena constantly, and even though I have only a luke-warm-like of Relena, it still got obnoxious. There's really no point in ANYONE devoting so much hate to a fictional character. And someone isn't your friend if they can't eventually decide to agree to disagree.

At this point, its not even about Utena anymore, its about her respecting your opinion and you two's friendship. You may want to tell her something like, "Hey, I know you don't like Shiori, and that's fine, but could you stop saying it so much? I get the picture, and its kind of getting on my nerves. I wouldn't insult a character you liked all the time, would I? All I ask is that you keep an open mind, since the series isn't nearly over yet. And if you still don't like her after seeing everything, then we'll have to agree to disagree."

Last edited by Frau Eva (07-23-2007 03:45:13 PM)

bella wrote:

One of my friends actually wanted to watch Utena because I talk about it all the time and she wanted to know what the hell I was talking about when I went into my crazy rants. I don't know how she's taking it. She seems to hate Touga and Anthy and Saionji. She'll probably fall in love with Akio.

She hates Anthy already?
Your friend might be on to something here. How did she feel about Kozue and Shiori and Nanami?

Razara wrote:

I'm overly defensive of Shiori, and that's just how I am. It always bothered me when people automatically condemn Shiori as an evil demon from hell, and not being able to stand up for my opinion, which I was unable to do for a really long time, always killed me inside. I don't really expect any of you to understand this, and I probably seem stupid for caring so much. But I haven't said much in Shiori's defense as of lately, so I think that you'll all agree that I'm improving on this matter.

Either way, I'm sorry for standing up for my beliefs. Honestly, I'm just glad that I'm standing up for what I believe in at all, even if I'm being rather obnoxious while doing so.

Don't apologize for standing up for your beliefs. Apologize for being obnoxious, if you do it. Apologize for pissing people off, if you do it. But standing up for what you believe in is not in and of itself something that should ever be apologized for.

I remember towards the end of a stormy friendship I got into a huge fight with the friend in question because during a conversation about books Catcher in the Rye came up and I spoke briefly (this was through IM, I think it was about six sentences) about why I couldn't stand Holden (who with the exception of Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman is probably my all-time least favorite literary character). This was when I found out that he was one of her all-time favorite literary characters and she liked him not despite but because of all of his glaring shortcomings and identified with him so strongly that when I criticized him she felt like I was criticizing her. She then attempted to explain his motivations to me and tell me why I shouldn't dislike him. Throughout the conversation I kept telling her that she had every right to like him but I didn't, and didn't feel that his situation excused his behavior. She ended up completely flying off the handle and we didn't speak to each other for quite a while.

Sound familiar? Now, it's not exactly the same as dollface's situation with her friend, as at the time I had read the entire book and didn't go on at lengths about how much I hated him (though I do inasmuch as I can hate anyone who isn't real). And from the sound of things I was a lot more polite about not liking him. But just keep in mind that even after seeing the whole series, even after seeing the motivations, she may never like Shiori. But the important issue here isn't so much her like or dislike of Shiori but the fact that she is being very unkind by going on about it at far greater lengths than is necessary.

I know that you're all trying to help, but I'm getting so sick of being the cause of thread derailment that it's making me not want to talk about Shiori at all. I rarely speak around most people in real life because I find that whenever I say something, it's always something stupid, so I find it better not to talk at all. I'm frequently finding that I feel the same way whenever I post on the forum, and not just about Shiori either.

Now talk about getting people to watch SKU, damnit.

I'm still trying to get my best friend to watch it. He's always reluctant to watch things. When we first tried to show him D.N.Angel, he didn't want to watch it, but he ended up loving it. I've showed him up to the ending of the Black Rose Saga, and he says he doesn't hate it, which I think is his way of saying he likes it.

Hiraku wrote:

bella wrote:

One of my friends actually wanted to watch Utena because I talk about it all the time and she wanted to know what the hell I was talking about when I went into my crazy rants. I don't know how she's taking it. She seems to hate Touga and Anthy and Saionji. She'll probably fall in love with Akio.

She hates Anthy already?
Your friend might be on to something here. How did she feel about Kozue and Shiori and Nanami?

Actually, I don't know. She didn't mention them when I asked her how she liked the show so far. (But I certainly can ask her!)  She's only on the first arc, and I know that she hates the filler episodes, which I believe would be the Nanami episodes. She wants to watch the second arc, though, so regardless of who she likes and doesn't like, I'm happy. And as far as hating Anthy, she believes that Anthy is too weak, as in everybody slaps her around. I laughed. She's hating her for all the wrong reasons.

Thanks, Gio. I'm sorry for being so angsty this morning.

Arki wrote:

I was dumped in the middle of an MSN conversation today::

Friend: I'm slowly watching Utena.
Friend: It's super.
Friend: I'm gonna go watch now.
Friend: *wave emoticon*
Arki: *barely managed to say goodbye*

She loves SKU more than me! I'm proud of her.

It's great when friends start to love SKU. My friend's little brother has taken to calling me Shiori. I walked past him in her house before we left for the movies and he said, "Hi, Shiori." And when the two of us were leaving he said, "Bye, Shiori! Bye, Utena!"

My friends are really fucking weird.

They all watched the Utena movie once, all together, at my house.

They said it made perfect sense.

What the hell? Are they on drugs? How can you make ANY sense of it the first time through? I *still* don't understand half of it, and I've been watching it twice a month for the last two years!

I'm not doing much better at not getting defensive about Shiori. I still don't know when to keep my mouth shut most of the time.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

That's so adorable.

When I see how her little brother and his friend interact, I can't help but wonder if that's how Touga and Saionji acted when they were kids. They seem to be going through an experimental phase, or something. It's still funny how they talk about SKU without really even knowing what it is. When we start talking about it, he'll say, "Is that the anime with the gay guys stripping on the car?" (He walked in during one of the camera scenes with Akio and Touga.)

Actually, they have a point. If you ignore the details and concentrate on the essentials then the movie does make intuitive sense. After all what is Waiting for Godot about? If you ignore all the confusing symbolism you can see it's a play about waiting.  SKU is a movie about freedom.

hyaene wrote:

hm... after seeing the first dvd i thought: "what a shit", but then, some months after i was kinda bored and decided to gon on with the next episodes and i really enjoyed them. maybe it's something like love at second sight °.
so everything i would do to make other people watch SKU is telling them to keep on watching.

Sadly it's sage advice and completely necessary. SKU just doesn't flatter itself in the first few episodes. I wouldn't even really give the first arc much credit in drawing the people that are naturally drawn to the material later in the series. The point seemed to be more to get the less frisky folk watching...which....aren't us.

I am trying to get a friend of mine to watch Utena: it is working. Him being a philosophy teacher I am looking forward to his interpretations. I introduced the topic of Utena via Neon Genesis Evangelion, like so many people I see a connection between the two. I told him about a comparative study I am planning on doing on Evangelion and Lain (the main point of which would be alienation and identity as perceived in these two animes) and, eventually, on Utena. He was familiar with Lain and Eva but not Utena so I gave him a brief description of the intro that appears in the beginning of some many episodes: a long time ago there was a princess (we all know the rest). I mentioned a few other things that stood out for me without giving out too many plot related issues. Basically, I mentioned the insistence on symbology, the growing emphasis on deconstruction and the breakdown of narrative structures, the underlying emotional entanglement regarding the incest and the importance of motivation in making sense of SKU. I didn't say much about the characters themselves except for an overview of Mikage who is my favourite Utena character.

I found Utena in a very convoluted way. I was reliving my childhood by watching Sailor Moon and decided to browse for essays about it. I found a very good one online that contained a whole essay on Utena. This essay made me very curious to watch Utena, even if up to that point I had never even heard about it or seen as much as a frame. If I had not been forwarned I might have been turned off by the first episodes but I knew that something great was in store. It turns out that I was correct.