Katzenklavier wrote:

Prior to this, Dios was the fairytale ideal of a prince and the symbol of purity and goodness in the world. He was a symbol without flaws or imperfections. However, the people kept on demanding more, refusing to take care of any of their own problems. They were dependent upon his protection. Eventually, an exhausted Dios attempts to save a drowning girl, and nearly extinguishes himself in the process. His sister Anthy, deeply in love with him, stays with his wounded body while a hoard call for his assistance. She eventually locks him inside and uses her magic to seal him away. The infuriated crowd determines that because she's keeping the prince from their daughters, she must be a witch. They stab her repeatedly, physically and otherwise, until she herself is sealed in stasis along with her brother.

I'm not sure if Dios tried to save a drowning girl; in the tales of the rose, we see him a) being tricked by his sister to fly up into a castle and b) being so exhausted by his efforts to help that he can't even get up.

Nemuro

At some point, Akio infiltrates Ohtori Academy. It is my personal belief that he has not become Chairman at this point, as none of the Black Rose members refer to him as such during Mikage's flashbacks. Then again, they only tend to refer to him as "that man" and "you-know-who" depending on the translations.

If anyone here knows Kanji, can you tell us both what Nemuro (根室教授) means, as well as what specifically the 100 boys are saying when they say "that man."

It is noted that many are drawn in before they even come to the school, as Saionji, Touga, and Utena all encountered the siblings' potential resting place when they were children.

I'm not sure I would call it a "resting place." How can that torture be a means of rest? Both Dios and Akio deal with people in the middle of a crisis. I tend to think that Dios still exists, albeit in some spectral, "Imaginationland"-esque way.

It's unknown and left up to anyone's theory if it was ever possible for her to retrieve Dios, who was likely only Akio's illusory "shining thing."

Ooh! Great insight! Why have I not thought of this?

Dallbun: Haha, most of your theories deserve individual discussion threads themselves.

Absolutely! And while I would love to spawn a bunch or add onto existing threads, I really would like a discussion that deals with the bigger picture. Often, I focus too specifically on minor details of the series, so this is my attempt to put all the pieces together. Or at least get discussion generated about the topic.

Also, it seems unlikely that there was one event that pushed Dios over the edge from powerful princess-saving to near-fatal exhaustion. It appears to have been the result of the many, constant demands upon him.

Agreed. I did mention that, but it's such a huge block of text that I could easily see how that would be unclear. The drowning was the last straw on the camel's back and the catalyst for the transformation.

Also interesting, but it seems like you're unnecessarily complicating (and limiting) things.

Quite true. There's no evidence to suggest the church is directly tied to the exact location where the two met their "demise." It is a theory I presented to explain the significance of that location, which is present frequently throughout the series, but is never explained. It's the beginning point for three of the main characters' backgrounds, motivating Utena, Touga, and Saionji alike to seek the power of Dios. An amalgamation of Akio and Dios appears there and reveals his tortured sister. Perhaps a sort of grave that the ghosts haunt. I think of the church as essentially a mausoleum, which is made all the more interesting by Akio's Lucifer symbolism. It is worth noting that it sports a gigantic rose symbol in one of the windows. But I digress, it's only a personal theory and not cemented by the story at all.

There's no evidence that the church was built over the cabin, and saying that it was has a host of implications... including setting the Tale of the Rose firmly in Japan. Who are these Christian church-builders (who presumably went about their work after 1850) who knew the Tale of the Rose and wanted to honor it?

Excuse my confusion. How does that imply that it's in Japan (ugh I'm not that familiar with Japanese history)? From the usage of the word "conversion?" My mistake there, because I didn't mean that complication. I think that's again tying it down too much to a specific place or time. I'm saying the cemetery and adjoining church might be a grave for Anthy and Akio, possibly explaining it's significance. The fact that it's Christian might just tie into the loose Christian symbols the series is littered with.

I don't have the video on-hand, but there seems to be no implication from the screenshots that Mamiya's grave is located at that church.

There are none. Again, just a tangent that might suggest the church is close to the school. I don't believe Ohtori has a cemetery on location. But of course, the fact she visited Akio shortly afterward doesn't mean there wasn't a long car drive in between scenes.

Yeah, that's pretty clear. Akio couldn't have been engaged to the chairman's seventeen year-old daughter for decades.

I'm contradicting myself here, but it could be possible as Akio technically seems to have the ability to alter time. A few people have suggested the Ohtoris have been puppets for decades and simply have their memories routinely wiped. I just think the series hints more as to it being a recent development that he has limited control over, hence why he has to put on a facade and then poison (?) Kanae. Of course, if he did have complete control, I could see him creating the scenario where he has to sexually pleasure Mrs. Ohtori for profit.

Possibly, but it's also possible that Akio knew exactly what the research was leading to all along.

Then why bother with it in the first place? Akio can be surprised by new phases in the duels. The most obvious is when the Rose Bride's sword fails, and Anthy instead draws from Utena. That clearly elicits a shocked reaction. In my mind, he's playing the game as much as anyone else - he's just a lot better at it. But he's not all-knowing. If he knew where the research was leading, that begs the question of what he needed to reap from the Black Rose members to open the gates to the dueling arena, if not knowledge. Maybe that ties into the reason behind their deaths?

Possible, but I don't see how a bunch of relatively unexceptional, easily-manipulable students who already have (practically infernal) contracts with him could ever constitute a threat. More likely they were just no longer useful.

Seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth. Having a hundred students burned to death is the least subtle of Akio's evils, second to his final duel with Utena. But then, there's the option that they were just a lot more useful dead.

Presumably all of the rings remain in their Duelists' coffins, no?

I considered that. We do see Mikage drawing out the rings from the coffins, but he doesn't draw a hundred. There are only seven used, including Mikage's own ring. It could be argued that his number of manipulations was limited to the amount of duelists, but Kanae is the exception to that. So why the limit?

I always took Nemuro's research of "opening of the road to the duel arena" to be part of the process that created Akio's projector and/or gave him some of his power in the area.

Really interesting point!

In the movie, it's Juri who almost drowns, and Touga who dies saving her.

Oh shit. You're right. My memory on the movie is a bit spotty...I tend to phase out and lose all memory after the car part. Nevertheless, it's interesting that Juri's story in the movie is similar to hers in the series. I do feel as if a bit can be derived from the movie continuity when it overlaps with the series' themes, but in this case, it was just memory failure. Wah wah wah.

Utena is discovered by Akio in a church, yes. I tend to take Akio at his word there, since it fits perfectly into his plans to build up a princely Duelist anyway, and the rose signet signifies a contract with Akio, not with Dios.

I think it was Dios, but not the same Dios that Anthy loved. A sort of Dios phantom wedged between his former and future selves. It doesn't make sense to me for him to be Akio, who spends much of his time later trying to break the threatening bond between Utena and his sister. Mainly because pseudo-Dios was honest, and I don't think in Akio's nature to be that. His eyes are more mature and sad, his shirt unbuttoned to perhaps indicate sin, but he still maintains compassion for Anthy and acknowledges his own inability. He seems like he recognizes what he's becoming, and this is a genuine last attempt to save her (which it eventually does). If it were pure Akio manipulation, I think, then the fake version that Utena treasured for so long would have been a lot more accurate.

In general, I'm not sure I like an explanation where Akio and Anthy only became active within the last X number of decades. Besides the fact that their origin is so deliberately timeless, and that they give such an impression of age, they've clearly been through the drill many times. Anthy is completely resigned to her role (and quite good at it), and Akio complains, as you said, about failing again at the Rose gate... but then he's totally blasé about sending out another batch of Rose Signets at the end.

Totes legit. I did make a few half-hearted attempts to potentially ground down the timeline, but I tried to focus more on ordering the major landmarks in the series more than actual conceptions of dates or times. Like everything with SKU, the interpretations are extremely loose, but any sort of analysis is just one more piece in the puzzle. This is an attempt to look at a potential big picture with special relevance paid to Mikage and the Black Rose seminar's role.

minervana: I'm not sure I would call it a "resting place." How can that torture be a means of rest? Both Dios and Akio deal with people in the middle of a crisis. I tend to think that Dios still exists, albeit in some spectral, "Imaginationland"-esque way.

Semantics. "The Turgid Bowels of Cthulhu's Wet Dreams" is probably a lot more appropriate. And I do think Dios exists when we get to the Utena timeline, because frankly I think it's impossible he couldn't have. But as you noted, as a spectral spirit of the castle or a projection of Akio. It's clear that the castle and Dios react differently to Utena than all others, allowing her to win every duel save two. In the first one with Touga, he severs that all-important loyalty with her prince and by the last one, she no longer needs him for her strength. It really does raise a lot of questions about Dios! As I stated before, I don't think Akio is the ultimate power, and that he's just as subject to the rules of the castle as anyone else. That's why he has the duels in the first place and can't predict every outcome. So does that mean that Dios has power and a distinct presence? If so, then why in the end did he apparently abandon Utena? Aaargh!

I sometimes think of the Ohtori timeline thus: a fixed beginning point, that started an endlessly rotating cycle with no apparent end. Anthy is the spoke in this cycle, since everything, even Akio, revolves around her, and if she's taken out the cycle collapses. This is driven by Akio's wish to force an impossible solution to a problem. Predictably, he fails, tries and fails again. The cycle ends when Utena opens Anthy's coffin and their hands touch; that's when the swords go berserk and the whole illusion is destroyed.

It's possible that Ohtori is actually built in some fundamental way by Akio and Anthy, that the students, the "real chairman," Kanae and so on are just cover for what's been Akio's long, ongoing quest to achieve power through various means. Maybe before the Meiji Restoration they were a samurai school

My guess is that Tokiko could leave because once her brother died, not only did Akio have no further use for her, but she had no "shining thing" that he could dangle in front of her face. She knows that Mamiya is dead and has no reason to deceive herself. What does she want with eternity now that he's gone?

All the talk about each character's "shining things" shows that all the characters are hoping for some resolution to descend from the sky and solve their problems for them. This hope is used to prolong their torment and further Akio's ends, but what Akio is too blind to see is that he's also doing this to himself. The comment about Dios being Akio's "shining thing" is astute. He wants the same thing as the other characters do, and like them he can't really get it. And on some level he wants something that never was and never could be. The tale of the rose implies that Dios was sexually frustrated and his help was met with contempt. Does Akio really want to go back to that life? Do I need to answer that?

One heavy undercurrent in the series, implied constantly but never stated, is how noble actions backfire. The entire story started because Anthy saved her brother's life from the hands of an angry, ungrateful mob. This made them immortal but it also prolonged their torment, and sealed Dios's nobility away, leaving a psychopath in his stead. The whole Ruka/Juri/Shiori triangle is a tortured, complex example of this. Utena is in some ways the "deus ex machina" of the story because she takes what seems like a hopeless cycle––or rather a cycle kept alive by bitter and broken hope––and breaks it.

minervana wrote:

Maybe before the Meiji Restoration they were a samurai school

For some reason I think this is very interesting. After all if the school changed abruptly and then became "stuck" for a while repeatedly it would seem to connect with the endless quests of the characters. As soon as the characters seem to be close to winning the whole game changes again.

minervana wrote:

This is a valid point. To be fair, though, if my sibling was dying of exhaustion because other people couldn't solve their own problems, I would probably step in and "seal him away" too, even if he didn't want me to do it. I'd be pretty mad at the world as well. I mean, you don't just let somebody kill themself because that's what they want to do. Even if you don't secretly want to boink them and be their princess.

Oh, I don't doubt there was something "noble" in what Anthy did. But the way Akio manipulates her into taking the swords suggests to me that Anthy believes she did something wrong there, and I'm assuming her need for him was at the heart of it. She took him away from the world, after all, whether it was for his own good or not. That's his power over her.

But one of the main questions for the series is if it's really set in Japan at all, especially the Ohtori area. It's certainly a Japanese show and there are more hints grounding it there than anywhere, but with the amount of French and other European influences, I think it's also intentionally ambiguous. My personal theory is that it's indeed set in Japan, but the Ohtori area (the school and perhaps the church) are part of their own sort of dimension. I guess something like a Bermuda Triangle where the laws of time and reality don't really apply. Even if it were definitely in Japan, I don't think Ikuhara would put much stock into correct Japanese history. He's more the type to think that something looks really cool and stick it in there. This is especially true as I think the Tale of the Rose is more part of the Ohtori world mythology than part of any real system. If it were, it's basis is a lot more in the work of Hans Christian Andersen than any Japanese stories (that I'm aware of!).

minervana: I sometimes think of the Ohtori timeline thus: a fixed beginning point, that started an endlessly rotating cycle with no apparent end. Anthy is the spoke in this cycle, since everything, even Akio, revolves around her, and if she's taken out the cycle collapses. This is driven by Akio's wish to force an impossible solution to a problem. Predictably, he fails, tries and fails again. The cycle ends when Utena opens Anthy's coffin and their hands touch; that's when the swords go berserk and the whole illusion is destroyed.

I think that's an excellent and probably one of the most solid ways of looking at it. However, my re-watching of the Black Rose arc had me noticing a lot of the clues in the background. I believe that makes the arc very important and relevant, distinguishing it from mere filler. My view of it now is that it's a sort of time loop with certain fixed stages. There's a beginning, a pre-Nemuro exploration period, post-Nemuro dueling sessions, and finally the end.

rijichouno: It's clear that Dios isn't some independently existing entity by the time that Akio is in power at Ohtori; it's been argued here that it's/he's a phantom projection of the castle or of Akio, but I think there's a third option: Dios is only the reflection of Utena's princely nature.  Dios isn't some external power who graces Utena with his power at opportune moments in duels; the appearance of Dios is synonymous with the manifestation of Utena's princely nature.  This fits perfectly with his cameo in ep 39: just as Utena is incapacitated on the ground, Dios is lost in the circular, meaningless child's play on the carousel - completely out of touch with his noble nature.  And when he gives Utena her "consolation," Utena sees this as the final insult needed to spur her forward precisely because that "consolation" is predicated on Dios treating Utena as an object - utterly different from the merging of the two we see in the duels.  It's essentially a replay of the moment where Dios first met Utena and she gained the resolve not to be the object for Dios to save/console (the princess), but Dios himself.

But you could also argue that Utena really isn't that princely in the first place. Questioning her "princeliness" is one of the key recurring elements of the series, with everyone from Juri to Anthy exposing the flaws in her ambition. Rather than actually caring for the princess, she cares about appearing noble and obtaining a certain ideal. That would make sense for the end of the series, when Dios is lost in what you described very aptly. But how could she manage to establish a connection with the castle in the first place necessary for such a projection? How is her motivation different enough than anyone else's - Juri, for example, who it was argued very well on this forum could be defined as a prince - to make such a powerful manifestation of her desires? Similarly, how could have Dios appeared to her as a child?

I see what you're getting at and I think it's a very good point. Just asking questions because I think it's very good to generate more analysis. Ultimately, I think the final answer is as always a combination of factors. Dios is probably a phantom and a projection of various people at the same time. Less concrete than Anthy, but still very similar.

Just a note that Ohtori could be firmly planted in Japan, no recourse to Bermuda Triangles necessary.  There have been European influences in Japan since the 16th century (the first were the Portuguese, by the way, if you remember the "Latin" reference to Touga early in the series; there are also many Japanese who were raised in Brazil); in Yokohama (near Tokyo), for instance, there's an entire neighborhood of old Western houses, including a cemetery.  And needless to say, Japanese school uniforms - hell, the whole modern school system - was inspired by Europe and the European model.

Very interesting to know! As I'm going to be a consultant for a Japanese culture class next semester, I need to learn as much as possible, so please everyone educate me further . But what I meant by a Bermuda Triangle also refers to the dimensional aspects of Ohtori as well as the historical influences. It's obvious that time does not always progress on a strictly linear basis there, that reality is very much subjective, that memory can be altered and erased, etc. I'm just going to make a pop culture reference and compare to the island on Lost. It's real, but not entirely. Just as random statues of Egyptian gods can pop up on the island, so too can pretty much anything that Ohtori desires on its campus/potentially surrounding area. I mean, for chrissakes, there was a bloody kangaroo randomly hopping around.

The castle, likewise, isn't a physical reality that one 'connects' to - it is symbol, pure and simple, of all the extraordinary things the Duelists are fighting for.

I think there's simply more reciprocity in the dynamic with the castle and Dios then that. This ties into my argument that Akio is a player as opposed to the master illusionist he makes himself out to be, and the significance of locality. Ohtori and the castle are not quite real, and by no means a 'physical reality', but they're not quite unreal either. I suggest they're reactive to the projections of the duelists rather than illusions entirely dependent on perception. The castle/Dios/power of Ohtori and the duelist are locked in an interdependent dynamic where one influences the other. Otherwise, how would there be a game? Why is Utena's projection so much stronger than the others? Why do aspects of the Power mold and shape the characters, some from an early age, into players? If it were all purely subjective manifestation, then there would be no deciding factor in the outcome of the duels. True, playing the game is entirely empty movement (hey that's the site!), as Akio reveals in the end. But the fact that every character is so deeply manipulated by their time at Ohtori suggest there there at least some interplay between the elements. What percentage of that is actually Dios himself is another question entirely.

This is one of the things I most love about Utena - it conflates symbol and realism, time and timelessness in a way that actually makes more sense to the subconscious than the conscious.

Absolutely, and by far one of the best things about the series - that it doesn't spell every damn thing out for you. My philosophy with Utena is that the answer is never yes or no, but always "ish."

I have a paper posted online on the first European 'invasion' in Japan, if you're interested Katzenklavier: http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl … tml?cat=37

Oooh thank you! I'm actually just reading on Japanese attitudes towards language and the influence of gaijin, so this will be a good way to understand some of the historical context.