Damn you people, it's late and I should be sleeping and yet all I want to do is to this analysis. You jerks.

Giovanna wrote:

At the same time, it's the nature of genius to feverishly work itself. This isn't to say you never see lazy geniuses, but there's a compulsion I've seen in many of them (myself included, though I'm not technically on the level of a genius), to think ceaselessly. These are the people that are constantly doing something, but only certain somethings, unable to tolerate the boredom of idleness. This is Mikage's kind of genius, the sort that will not sit still. The sort you can give a very boring technical job to, because they have to be working their minds or they become restless. A genius of Mikage's sort with nothing to work on is like a tiger in a small space. There's nowhere for the mind to go and so it paces back and forth getting more and more agitated. This sort is certainly useful, but it's the computer, where the power is in the person that administers the commands. If there's a warning in Mikage, that he represents a dangerous flaw in Japanese social thinking, it's that he makes Japan the computer, and someone else is Akio tapping away at the keys.

I think it's quite natural here that the first thing I thought of was Sherlock Holmes, because it's stated numerous times that Holmes uses cocaine not for the recreational purpose one usually sees it used for nowadays, but as a distraction. He had to have something to do, and if there was nothing to interest him he had to stop himself thinking somehow or else he'd go mad. You could apply this principle to Nemuro and say that when Nemuro went mad he became Mikage. It's fairly obvious that of the two personalities Nemuro is the stable one, if rather socially inept. I rather enjoy the idea that Nemuro's descent into Mikage was in some part due to idea being planted into his head that he couldn't think his way out of. It's also implied that Nemuro was seeking to build a perpetual motion machine, which fits into the idea of keeping Mamiya alive (this is illustrated by the motif of the dried black roses, which appear later in the apparent chronology of events in a water-filled tank, implying life is being returned to that which life was taken from). A perpetual motion machine, from my understanding, goes back and forth like a pendulum anyway. It's the empty movement of the series, but it preserves something in a state that makes it seem like it is alive. Nemuro doesn't appear to believe that this is possible in the beginning, but he buys into the idea when he has a personal stake in it. Why was he involved beforehand, however? Because, as Gio says, it was just something to do. I don't think Nemuro would have worked at an impossible problem forever, but for whatever reason he did. And then Akio gave him reason to look beyond the constraints of the ordered system he was functioning in and things went rapidly downhill from there. Really, it's like someone raised on classical physics being given a key to the world of quantum mechanics.

I love the idea of the machine and its master, because it sits well with the metaphor the anime draws with the robot. Nemuro and Mikage are servants. They're there to catch monkeys. They're not designed to know why. Mikage thinks that he does, by which token he's a more advanced model of what Nemuro was, but ultimately it is revealed Mikage is as much a toy as anybody else. He doesn't even get to see Akio. He gets his last phone call and then goes bye-bye.

As for satyreyes' question: why does Mikage believe killing Anthy will preserve Mamiya? I suppose the implication there is that Anthy is kept alive by the Sword of Dios. The Bride does not die, even though a sword is pulled from her chest. Mikage admittedly pulls this stunt on several other people, but the Rose Bride is later shown to be eternal, which of course raises a question that bugged me from the moment we first saw Anthy hung up like a slab of meat -- does Mikage know what Anthy's eternity is? I would guess no. It's yet another thing Utena and Nemuro/Mikage have in common, in that they seem to think Anthy holds eternity without suffering. Utena has it proved otherwise. Mikage and Nemuro, not so sure.

...and I've lost my train of thought. Bed, now.

Clarice wrote:

Damn you people, it's late and I should be sleeping and yet all I want to do is :shlick:etc-wankgirletc-wankgirletc-wankgirl:shlick: to this analysis. You jerks.

I hear ya.

And though I'm also waiting for an answer to Jellineck's question (because I don't really have one that hasn't been said before), I have a question of my own that I don't think has been really touched on (though has been mentioned) in this thread.  Why was Mikage seeing Tokiko in Utena's place?

At first, I'd have said that Utena was his obstacle in getting Anthy, the Rose Bride.  Though Tokiko wasn't so literally an obstacle, she challenged Nemuro to be more human and such, something he ultimately couldn't accomplish -- possibly because of Akio and Tokio kissing, or just because he tried to make the concept of family into an equation which was ruined when he saw them kissing (the latter being more Nemuro's fault than Akio's).  So Mikage somehow mixed up Utena and Tokiko, or closely related them in his head or something, and made some delusion that Utena was like a Tokiko-reincarnate that he must conquer.

But now I'm not so sure.

Tokiko is just...a lot of things to Mikage that it's confusing as to how he'd mix the image of Utena with Tokiko.  He knows Utena exists, and protects the Rose Bride, so I'm not so sure that it's a delusion.  At first, I thought he did it purposefully, maybe to help himself be motivated.

Tokiko was his almost-family.  Tokiko was his turning-point when she kissed Akio.  Tokiko was one of the only people Nemuro/Mikage respected as a person, or at least the closest thing to that.  Tokiko is Mamiya's sister, and Utena is engaged to Anthy.  Maybe that could be a link?

But I just don't know.  Any thoughts?

dabouse1 wrote:

And though I'm also waiting for an answer to Jellineck's question (because I don't really have one that hasn't been said before), I have a question of my own that I don't think has been really touched on (though has been mentioned) in this thread.  Why was Mikage seeing Tokiko in Utena's place?

Jellineck's onto it, I think, but I would probably add that Nemuro's admiration for Tokiko partially came from the fact that she could feel something so strong for another person. Nemuro strikes me as rarely having had opportunity to connect with people, and the attitude of the boys he worked with is probably the kind of environment he has always been in. Utena is brash, open, and unafraid. If something is wrong or she doesn't like it, she tells people. Tokiko has a similar personality, though she is elegant and womanly where Utena is tomboyish and frank. If that makes sense. Nemuro has always been shuttered and inward-turning, and he even says that when she cried, for him it was like seeing tears for the first time. He suddenly realised emotions had a point. And he wanted in on it. This is something that seems to come naturally to both Tokiko and Utena, hence the mental association. There's also that echo of the strong desire to save somebody, and Mikage seems to feed off that to some degree. I also wonder, to some degree, if we're not seeing a glimpse of Nemuro beneath Mikage when he watches Utena berate Anthy and whispers: "Tokiko." By that stage he's already on the slippery slope to graduation, and it may very well be that he is realising for the first time how his "pure" desire to save Mamiya has turned into a jihad based on false principles and illusionary sensualism. Or something.

As to the purpose of the Black Rose Arc, from the practical viewpoint it was necessary to introduce Akio and say upfront a) what a prick he is and b) how much influence he has over ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. From the narrative, I see it as a gauntlet Utena was required to run in order to test the purity of her purpose and her sword. But that's debatable. I think we were having this discussion elsewhere, because I remember seeing something a few weeks ago where we were wondering if Mikage/Nemuro was an aborted attempt at opening the Rose Gate, and Akio kept him around simply as training fodder for a new Engaged. I could probably go on in this thread for ages, really, but I need to go take some Nurofen before my head goes boom.