This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)

#1 | Back to Top08-24-2009 10:38:29 AM

angelina
Wakaba Wrangler
Registered: 08-21-2009
Posts: 12

Manga vs. Anime

I'm sure this has come up a million times, but being new here I have to offer my two cents... ;)

Despite having seen the anime ever so many times, I only recently started reading the manga. I'm up to about chapter twenty-one or twenty-two. I read exceptionally fast (kind of a curse when it comes to manga for many reasons) and expect I'll be covering the rest shortly. My thoughts so far:

The first few chapters introducing Kaidou, Utena, her aunt, and so on - It's hard for me to really form an opinion, these scenes having been left out of SKU-anime entirely. I kind of liked seeing Utena pre-Ohtori, but I think all of her pre-Ohtori moment could have been summed up in one, maybe two chapters tops. I think it took something like four or five, and that just seemed to drag on for me.

The peculiar part that i have mixed feelings about is Utena thinking her mother's new love interest is her prince. Clearly there is some implication that this man was involved with Ohtori, bearing the school ring and having gone there. Now, it begs whether this is a coincidence or if this person showed up with the goal of influencing Utena towards Ohtori.

In the anime, there is no suggestion that prior to Ohtori, Utena had received any letters or cards with hints on them about Ohtori. In the anime, it seems as though she's more or less clueless about this. To me it seems that EOTW would have to have had special interest in Utena to summon her to the school. It also make me wonder, both in the anime context and the manga context, who in the student council was also summoned similarly or otherwise.

Because Utena began receiving cryptic messages prior to Ohtori, I'm inclined to think her mother's lover was another manipulator in the story. I've also always been inclined to think that EOTW had some special interest in Utena from the outset, and I think that many would agree with this assumption in both anime and manga contexts.

So - as of chapter twenty, it seems like we're in the Akio arc somewhat. That was always a hint in the anime, each time I watched, that the climax was drawing near. Still, the manga seems to have moved so quickly to this point that I don't feel any sense of character development in the series. In fact, maybe I'm babied by the anime - but I think that the manga stinks in comparison so far because of the lack of character development. That's one of the best facets of the SKU anime and part of what I believe has connected so many of us with it.

Those of you who have read the whole manga (and please, don't worry about spoilers for me in giving your opinions) might have some insight into the following questions for me:

- Kaidou and pre-Ohtori: your thoughts?
- Black Rose arc: strictly anime or does this factor in?
- I'm at Ep 20: what is there left for me in this since it's at the Akio arc already? I'm feeling pretty cheated, somehow.

Thanks!

Last edited by angelina (08-24-2009 10:39:27 AM)

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#2 | Back to Top08-24-2009 03:30:17 PM

Nights1stStar
Ballgoer
From: Clawing Out of Her Coffin
Registered: 02-04-2009
Posts: 157

Re: Manga vs. Anime

(The below contains spoilers. Just a warning.)

Yeah, the RGU manga's not known for its good character development. I mean, Juri falling in love with Touga? What sort of crime against humanity compelled Chiho Saito to turn one of the most amazing anime characters of all time into a psychotic fangirl? (Answer: homophobia emot-mad )

The problem with the opening chapters is that, compared to the machinations inside anime Ohtori, they're shallow and easy to understand. Kaido does not become important. He's just there in the beginning as a plot device

No, the Black Rose Arc does not happen. There are two bonus chapters at the end of the series, one featuring Mikage and the other featuring Ruka. They have nowhere near the amount of tension, symbolism, and moral gray areas of the anime.

If there's one really good reason to read the manga, it's to compare manga Anthy to anime Anthy and really appreciate the latter. Some people consider Anthy an "evil, crippled bitch", but better a morally gray witch-princess than the flat damsel-in-distress she is the manga. People like anime Anthy because she's representative of what a real-life victim would be like: "If you can't break of out of prison, just become the cell's top dog, even if that means literally becoming the warden's bitch; no matter how bad prison is, the streets are worse." One of the highlights of the series is seeing whether Utena will still help Anthy even after realizing that she's no longer her perfectly-pure princess. And she does, because Utena realizes that despite everything she has done, Anthy still gets the rawest deal as the show's resident pincushion. The key to escaping is naturally, showing Anthy that she could escape to a world better than Ohtori, except Anthy has to leave herself. Utena can't do it for her.

But in the manga, where Anthy is 100% a victim who doesn't do anything wrong, it's easy and obvious for Utena to want to save her. And that's not the only thing simpler. In the manga, Princes obviously and non-subtly exist. Dios is a genuine Prince very capable of directly helping Utena, Utena can save Anthy without Anthy actually doing anything herself, Touga devotes himself to Utena immedately after losing the first time, and Akio (god forbid) is actually redeemable! The one believable plot change was having Miki fall in love with Utena instead of Anthy. Sure, it doesn't accentuate his desire for purity and intellectual equals, but it's still a more palatable characterization than some of the other examples I've just listed.

Basically, continue reading the manga if you want to see RGU written as a straight-up-fairy-tale, no subversions, no symbolism, no GLBT, where there's a clear-cut-line between good-and-evil, everyone's motivations are straightforward and simple, and princes and princesses are genuinely princes and princesses who are pure and upright no matter what the situation tends to be.

Last edited by Nights1stStar (08-26-2009 10:51:06 AM)


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#3 | Back to Top08-24-2009 05:51:35 PM

brian
Atlantean Singer
Registered: 10-22-2006
Posts: 589

Re: Manga vs. Anime

Major spoilers





Major spoilers




Major spoilers




Major spoilers





Major spoilers



In one respect the manga is much more clearly subversive. The key is that Utena did not remember one final
statement by Dios: "If you do not lose your noble heart then we will meet again - And you will save us." Utena travelled to find a Prince to rescue her only to find that she had to rescue him. And the only way to do that was to kill him. That's very powerful and in that respect Saito showed more courage than Ikuhara.

Utena discovers that her Prince is not just an ex-Prince but a fallen god. She is still in love with Akio all the way to the end, he is still first in her heart but she still kills him because she knows that is what is needed to set everyone free.

Utena's guilt over the way she treated Anthy is much more powerfully described in the manga and so is the possibility of second chances. The attraction between Anthy and Utena is much more subtle in the manga but it is not absent. They kiss!

It's also much more clear that Utena has chosen the right path for both of them. Utena kills Akio to protect Anthy and then leaves Anthy to find her own strength and make her choice of following her.

The first manga is your only chance to see Saionji depicted as a human being and does a good job of depicting Touga as almost a prince.

Last edited by brian (08-24-2009 05:52:41 PM)

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#4 | Back to Top08-26-2009 11:37:47 AM

Nights1stStar
Ballgoer
From: Clawing Out of Her Coffin
Registered: 02-04-2009
Posts: 157

Re: Manga vs. Anime

brian wrote:

In one respect the manga is much more clearly subversive. The key is that Utena did not remember one final
statement by Dios: "If you do not lose your noble heart then we will meet again - And you will save us." Utena travelled to find a Prince to rescue her only to find that she had to rescue him. And the only way to do that was to kill him. That's very powerful and in that respect Saito showed more courage than Ikuhara.

Utena discovers that her Prince is not just an ex-Prince but a fallen god. She is still in love with Akio all the way to the end, he is still first in her heart but she still kills him because she knows that is what is needed to set everyone free.

Utena's guilt over the way she treated Anthy is much more powerfully described in the manga and so is the possibility of second chances. The attraction between Anthy and Utena is much more subtle in the manga but it is not absent. They kiss!

It's also much more clear that Utena has chosen the right path for both of them. Utena kills Akio to protect Anthy and then leaves Anthy to find her own strength and make her choice of following her.

The first manga is your only chance to see Saionji depicted as a human being and does a good job of depicting Touga as almost a prince.

(Spoilers, naturally)

Utena saving Dios is actually less subversive than in the anime. Utena's the main character, after all, and we expect the main character of magical girl anime to directly and obviously save the day, even or especially if she doesn't plan to.

Also, Utena doesn't neccessarily "kill" Akio. In the final duel, Utena kisses Akio, thus fusing him and Dios back into one person, and all three of them apparently ascend to a higher plane of existence.

The manga makes formerly vicious characters like Akio, Touga, and Saionji nicer. While you could say it makes them "better", you can also say that's its a copout. One of the best things about the RGU anime is that it has no qualms about showing malicious (but not flatly evil) characters and pointing out how hard it is to redeem them; take Anthy, for example, who has to endure centures of abuse + a million swords to realize that she doesn't have to be the Rose Bride. This struggle is a good thing; after all, if the evil sides didn't sometimes win, victory over them would be nowhere near as sweet. But in your average magical girl anime, all you have to do is find the right magical jewel and say the right magical spell and BOOM! The world-destroying Big Bad is suddenly an avatar of good.

Naturally, nothing so cheesy happens in the RGU manga, but when Touga kneels to Utena and promises to serve her forever immediately after losing his first duel, something is lost. When it's revealed that Akio, deep down, still yearns to reunite with Dios, something is lost. It also makes Utena's "sacrifice", in the end, less of a "sacrifice", because she's not killing someone she loves; she's giving him what he wanted all along. When a central theme of the franchise is about how hard it is to enact "change" and "revolution", the story loses verisimilitude when the bad guys so easily become good.

(Spoilers end)

So, angelina, if you didn't want to read through all those spoilers brian and I wrote, I think the final conclusion is, yes, the manga has enough different interpretations to be worth finishing. Whether or not you actually enjoy those different interpretations, though, will be entirely dependent on whether you like your RGU: Lite.

Last edited by Nights1stStar (08-26-2009 11:44:59 AM)


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#5 | Back to Top08-26-2009 12:22:41 PM

brian
Atlantean Singer
Registered: 10-22-2006
Posts: 589

Re: Manga vs. Anime

SPOILERS

Nights1stStar wrote:

Also, Utena doesn't neccessarily "kill" Akio. In the final duel, Utena kisses Akio, thus fusing him and Dios back into one person, and all three of them apparently ascend to a higher plane of existence.

That's an interesting idea. I prefer to think that the stakes were higher. Anthy warns her that if she does it she "will cease to exist." What does that mean? Die? Die retroactively so that she never existed? Cease being a Prince? Go back to the hum-drum world of mortals? Get expelled? I'm still puzzling over that.

But it makes sense that they all ascended to a higher plane of existence, although it doesn't seem to be any place that Akio or Anthy want to go to right at that moment. But Akio is better off not being able to manipulate people further, and for Utena, a higher plane of existence may be the purpose of life itself. That might explain her mysterious smile. The manga is worth it just to see that smile.

So to summarize:
Downside - Juri, Shiori, Miki, Nanami, Ruka.
Upside - Saionji, Touga, and Utena, that is to say an Utena who loses all self-doubt and acts knowing that she is acting truly for the best of others rather than herself, and does so effectively. That is neither more nor less realistic than the doubt-ridden Utena at the end of the anime.

Anthy is so complicated that it takes all four versions together to do justice to her.

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#6 | Back to Top08-26-2009 01:30:58 PM

NajiMinkin
Hacker Ringleader
From: The Incredible Edible Egg
Registered: 06-23-2007
Posts: 2537

Re: Manga vs. Anime

One thing that must be remembered with the manga is that, regardless of whether we read it only after having watched the anime, it came first. They experiment with themes, they experiment with outfits... It is not a censored version of the anime in which homophobe Chiho Saito made everybody straight and dumbed it all down. It was the other way around; crazy man Ikuhara came in, took over and turned Saionji into a raving lunatic, Juri into a leopard-free lesbian, Miki into a moe boygirl with jungle fever, and so on and so forth. The manga was the birthplace and the building blocks of the anime, which in turn was the source of inspiration for the movie and its manga.

As for my vague thoughts on the manga? It's a lot more sweet and easy to stomach for people transitioning into Utena. Give them the manga so that they can have a bit more of a grasp of the plot and then show them the rest of the SKUniverse. For those who already know and love the show, reading the manga should be the equivalent of meeting the family of a dear friend; maybe what you like about this person isn't what they inherited and you're taken aback at how different they are from their parents, maybe you note with mild interest the similarities they all share and feel some satisfaction at identifying sources of your dear one's traits, or maybe you just find them to be the cutest things in the world and even though they're a bit cheesy you love them like mad. The bottom line is that these are two different things, more so than is normal in book VS. movie or manga VS. anime. I'm almost inclined to believe that in a lot of cases, one who liked either the anime or the manga a lot might despise the other form of Utena.

More specifically, I really liked Kaidou and had hoped he would show up later. If they ever made a sequel to SKU, I would hope it'd be about him and his search for Utena. Notable about Kaidou is his similarity to Suzuki, Yamada and Tanaka; I wonder if the Be Pa-Pas evolved him into them, kind of? It'd be weird. I also draw strong similarities between him and Tatsuya, both in looks and personality. As for the aunt and the love interest, I found those to be major plot holes and thus annoying. Had it been revealed that what's-his-face was actually Akio (to whom he looked so similar), it would have been quite interesting! But as is, one is just left to wonder. Could he be an escaped prince, like Utena and Anthy ended up being? I wish it was addressed!


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#7 | Back to Top08-26-2009 03:22:55 PM

hollow_rose
Egghead
From: Ohio
Registered: 10-26-2008
Posts: 1074

Re: Manga vs. Anime

I also like the explanation of why she goes to Ohtori -- the cards, every year.....it's a better reason to go than just "well this rose crest for this school matches my ring!"


20 threads dead so far.

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#8 | Back to Top09-01-2009 03:44:53 PM

Agito
Eternal Eschatologist
Registered: 08-25-2009
Posts: 901
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Re: Manga vs. Anime

I'd like to know where you can get the complete manga. I've hit a dead spot at chap 21 on this online manga site.

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#9 | Back to Top09-01-2009 07:43:02 PM

Melancholic_Soul
Dancer Romancer
From: VA
Registered: 04-28-2009
Posts: 1514

Re: Manga vs. Anime

^You could probably find it online... I bought the last three GN's at AMA 4, the first two at Borders,  and the movie!Manga a couple years back online...

--I read the manga first, and as (I believe I was) a 9th grader, I found the story absolutely amazing. Thinking back on the manga, I realize that though it challenged me to some degree to think, it was nowhere near as mind twisting as the anime, however there is someting to be said about a dark haired Akio... something hot...

I was introduced to SKU in the following order:   Manga,[Fanfiction], Movie, Anime, Movie-Manga... a weird combination, but it worked for me. the differences between manga!Juri and anime!Juri are vast, and I've decided that anime angst ridden Shiorisexual Juri is my favorite. Still, there are few things more epic than Manga!Juri's ownage of Utena's Baseball...

I do believe that it would be worth it to finish the manga, though. There are parts that I go back and read sometimes, because they are my favorites, and promote actual feeling within myself. Sort of like when I read Sailor Moon GN 8 and 9 when Sailor Saturn appears and.... sorry off topic... u_u

((Except now, years later, anime as an entertainment medium has lost some significance, as I have yet to find an anime of psychologically similar proportions... Instead I must nurture the shoujo-ai fan in me instead of the part that likes to think...AKA my brain -____-))


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#10 | Back to Top09-01-2009 09:01:58 PM

OnlyInThisLight
KING OF ALL DUCKS
Registered: 01-15-2008
Posts: 4412

Re: Manga vs. Anime

Light can't really handle the manga.  I get too ASASDFGHJKLprincelyTougaandstraightJuriASFGHLAHGKL.  And as much as I reread it (yes, I own and have re-read it in an attempt to like/analyze it) what little meaning it does have is far too outweighed by all the...well, cheesey romantic unoriginalness.  Sorry.  Evening the very ending, save Utena's sad smile, was just a bunch of pretty, dramatic sounding words. 

(And I thought the manga and the anime were made alongside eachother?  Hence why Ikuni and Chiho mention a couple of little spats concerning Utena's creation and development)

But you shouldn't take my word for it, because what I just wrote was so trollish it shames me.

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#11 | Back to Top09-01-2009 09:11:54 PM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
Website

Re: Manga vs. Anime

NajiMinkin wrote:

More specifically, I really liked Kaidou and had hoped he would show up later. If they ever made a sequel to SKU, I would hope it'd be about him and his search for Utena. Notable about Kaidou is his similarity to Suzuki, Yamada and Tanaka; I wonder if the Be Pa-Pas evolved him into them, kind of? It'd be weird. I also draw strong similarities between him and Tatsuya, both in looks and personality. As for the aunt and the love interest, I found those to be major plot holes and thus annoying. Had it been revealed that what's-his-face was actually Akio (to whom he looked so similar), it would have been quite interesting! But as is, one is just left to wonder. Could he be an escaped prince, like Utena and Anthy ended up being? I wish it was addressed!

Seconded!  I really enjoyed the beginning of the manga, and (contra angelina) I didn't think the pre-Ohtori chapters dragged on too long at all!  But I am sad that we didn't take anything with us when we left them.  I liked Kaidou (who I also relate to Tatsuya), I liked the jigsaw puzzle postcards, and I thought the drama with Utena's aunt could have been going somewhere interesting -- but no, all of it, poof!, into the same literary void where Chekhov's Gun goes when it's not fired by the end of the last act.  And then I thought the Ohtori chapters were pretty weak.  I didn't like Touga; a strong point of the anime for me was the ambiguity of his "redemption," the way he learned a lesson but maybe not the right one, and that was absent from the manga.  I also disagree strongly with brian's impression that Saionji is more of a human in the manga than he is in the anime; in the manga, frankly, he is pretty much a cookie-cutter Nasty Person with just a hint of innocence about him, while in the second and third arcs of the anime the conflict between his innocence and his selfishness (and self-loathing) is ubiquitous and powerful whenever he gets near the camera.  So put me down for the anime, I guess.  But I don't hate the manga by any means; I just think it doesn't have the narrative space for character development that the show does, and correspondingly relies more on cliches.

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#12 | Back to Top09-01-2009 09:54:20 PM

Agito
Eternal Eschatologist
Registered: 08-25-2009
Posts: 901
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Re: Manga vs. Anime

Hmm....I didn't realize the two were so different. I've only seen 7 episodes of the anime and read the manga up to chap 21. I saw the movie too but I can't say I enjoyed it. If I remember correctly...I think it was chaotic and damn I had no idea wth was going on. Didn't they also turn into cars? What?

I'll have to give it another chance though since I saw the movie a long time ago.


- Upside about the manga is the fact that I don't have to watch and listen to the dramatic music of walking up the longest staircase every single time someone needs to duel. Do they do that throughout the whole series? =Þ

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#13 | Back to Top09-01-2009 10:03:57 PM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
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Re: Manga vs. Anime

Agito wrote:

Hmm....I didn't realize the two were so different. I've only seen 7 episodes of the anime and read the manga up to chap 21. I saw the movie too but I can't say I enjoyed it. If I remember correctly...I think it was chaotic and damn I had no idea wth was going on. Didn't they also turn into cars? What?

Ha ha, the movie is a different animal entirely emot-biggrin  And if you've only seen the first seven episodes, I can understand why you don't see a lot of difference between the anime and manga; the depth of characterization I love the anime for mostly comes later.  The first twelve episodes or so, the first arc of the series, establish where the characters are starting from.  It's the development later that makes these characters so special, and it's mostly this development that the manga omits.

- Upside about the manga is the fact that I don't have to watch and listen to the dramatic music of walking up the longest staircase every single time someone needs to duel. Do they do that throughout the whole series? =Þ

Get used to hearing a lot of Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku emot-smile  In fact, enjoy it!  Bang on the table while you're listening.  Improvise percussive riffs.  This became my favorite part of each episode my second time through the series, watching with my anime club.

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#14 | Back to Top09-01-2009 10:12:28 PM

Setsuna
Tragedian
Registered: 02-25-2009
Posts: 1370

Re: Manga vs. Anime

- Upside about the manga is the fact that I don't have to watch and listen to the dramatic music of walking up the longest staircase every single time someone needs to duel. Do they do that throughout the whole series? =Þ

Get used to hearing a lot of Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku emot-smile  In fact, enjoy it!  Bang on the table while you're listening.  Improvise percussive riffs.  This became my favorite part of each episode my second time through the series, watching with my anime club.

I did the same thing! lol, I've always loved Zettai Unmei. And the epic walk to the dueling arena. You feel the tension built up and she walks and has that pissed look on her face.

But I love the anime, like the movie and am okay with the manga. I feel that you get this entire scenery and vast expansion of where Ohtori is in the anime and movie. But in the manga there are barely any back grounds. Also, I feel that you see the facial transitions and more character detail. Nanami and Touga and Kozue and Miki are so much more complicated and angsty in the series. In the manga they 'normalled' them up. emot-tongue Which allows less tension and feeling to the whole plot. I enjoy the manga, but its more entertainment to me. The anime is pure depth and mind fuckery.

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#15 | Back to Top09-01-2009 10:13:15 PM

BioKraze
Faceless Master
From: Yuma, Arizona (USA)
Registered: 11-26-2006
Posts: 8282

Re: Manga vs. Anime

satyreyes wrote:

Get used to hearing a lot of Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku emot-smile  In fact, enjoy it!  Bang on the table while you're listening.  Improvise percussive riffs.  This became my favorite part of each episode my second time through the series, watching with my anime club.

On the other hand, if you're of age and feeling rather ambitious, you could always play the Utena Drinking Game written by Chris Rain, creator of the Satellite of Revolution (think Utena meets MST3K).


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#16 | Back to Top09-01-2009 10:42:22 PM

Agito
Eternal Eschatologist
Registered: 08-25-2009
Posts: 901
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Re: Manga vs. Anime

BioKraze wrote:

satyreyes wrote:

Get used to hearing a lot of Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku emot-smile  In fact, enjoy it!  Bang on the table while you're listening.  Improvise percussive riffs.  This became my favorite part of each episode my second time through the series, watching with my anime club.

On the other hand, if you're of age and feeling rather ambitious, you could always play the Utena Drinking Game written by Chris Rain, creator of the Satellite of Revolution (think Utena meets MST3K).

That's just pure awesomeness. Well I got my hands on the whole series so maybe I'll give that drinking game a try with some friends haha.



About the Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku, if I have to get used to it then it'll probably grow on me.

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#17 | Back to Top09-02-2009 10:55:31 AM

NajiMinkin
Hacker Ringleader
From: The Incredible Edible Egg
Registered: 06-23-2007
Posts: 2537

Re: Manga vs. Anime

OnlyInThisLight wrote:

(And I thought the manga and the anime were made alongside eachother?  Hence why Ikuni and Chiho mention a couple of little spats concerning Utena's creation and development)

The manga was at least published first, but it was definitely not over by the time the anime was being made. It's like the first issue where Anthy has long sleeves and the rose seal looks weird and whatnot that I found it to seem pretty clearly pre-anime.

As for ZUM? When it comes up on my iTunes shuffle, I skip it ever time, but hot damn if I don't have it memorized down to the last "mokushikushimoshimokukumoshimokushikushimo!" I used to be able to say it so fast. It was crazydogggz!


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#18 | Back to Top09-02-2009 11:20:05 AM

satyreyes
no, definitely no cons
From: New Orleans, Louisiana
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 10328
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Re: Manga vs. Anime

That's "moshiku shikumo" at the end there, miss emot-wink

There's something nice -- ritualistic -- about all those stock scenes in the anime that there's no space for in the manga.  The staircase ascension, the Chick Speech, and "once upon a time many years ago" give the series a lot of its flavor simply because of their repetition.  I mean, how often do the characters really have conversations about the revolution of the world?  They mostly only talk about it during the Chick Speech or while pulling a sword out of the Rose Bride, both stock scenes.  But those scenes recur so often that revolution becomes the central motif of the show, right up there with roses and unhealthy relationships, hovering over everything the characters do.  Which to be fair is a strong point of the manga as well -- keeping revolution in focus, I mean.

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#19 | Back to Top09-02-2009 11:42:13 AM

NajiMinkin
Hacker Ringleader
From: The Incredible Edible Egg
Registered: 06-23-2007
Posts: 2537

Re: Manga vs. Anime

satyreyes wrote:

That's "moshiku shikumo" at the end there, miss emot-wink

I knew I'd messed something up in typing it! emot-tongue Thank you, Mister Tutor, sir. emot-wink

One of my favorite things about the stock animation was getting to see when the characters in them changed. It really accentuated the fact that everyone was just playing a part; any couple contained a rosebride and a duelist (whom anyone could be), any Black Rose duelist was one and the same... Each character fulfills an archetype in the duels and no more. And then I really loved it when the repetitive scenes got messed up. Like (spoiler for those watching the series for the first time and may have not gotten to this point yet?) Tatsuya in the elevator! That was so satisfying. It completely broke the trance of the Black Rose duels so that you really paid attention to what happened next. Subversion of the expected, my friend. Lovely stuff.

Which is to say that I found the anime really took advantage of the fact that it was an anime. It played with the tiniest things in the most magically wonderful of ways. The manga, while a sweet manga, did nothing crazy for the format it was in.

Edit (one week later): Whoops. Manga and anime were about the same time and were different interpretations of the same source material. emot-redface Upon review, I was wrong about that. Still, there was no censorship or whatever involved; my new and correct-er sources posit that they are different interpretations of a sole thing, and the same is true of the movie and the movie manga. Thus they're different, but thassokay. Ever'body rolls diff'rently.

Last edited by NajiMinkin (09-09-2009 06:04:49 PM)


http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f64/_u_t_e_n_a_/100x100/starryklimtsig.png

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#20 | Back to Top09-02-2009 02:00:54 PM

brian
Atlantean Singer
Registered: 10-22-2006
Posts: 589

Re: Manga vs. Anime

I had forgotten about Juri and the baseball!

A lot does seem to depend on what you discover first. In my case it was season 1 of the anime, then the manga, then seasons 2 and 3. The manga has the best artwork of all the versions, especially of Utena herself. Oddly enough, the movie manga does not do Utena as much justice. Manga Utena is less innocent than anime Utena, more honest, more self-analytical -- she knows she is going down the wrong path and does it anyway. Poor anime Utena discovers the identity and nature of World's End in Episode 38! I was offended at how dumb she was.

The first time I saw Akio and Anthy together in the manga I picked up on the incest motif and was unsurprised when it was revealed in Season 2. The look in Anthy's eyes when she saw Akio and Utena kissing expressed a universe of ambiguities that left me unsurprised by the anime menage-a-trois. I figured out right away that Anthy and Mamiya were the same person, because even that was hinted at in the manga. In other words I used the anime to confirm my expectations.

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#21 | Back to Top09-03-2009 12:42:31 PM

Riri-kins
World's End
From: Cloud Nine
Registered: 09-22-2008
Posts: 2354

Re: Manga vs. Anime

I read only a little bit of the manga way back in two-thousand two, and I enjoyed it.  I liked that we got to see more of Kozue and that Miki had a little more of a backbone. The scene where he's about to kiss the sleeping Utena makes me all warm and fuzzy. etc-love Plus, the art is just gorgeous.


Nights1stStar wrote:

Yeah, the RGU manga's not known for its good character development. I mean, Juri falling in love with Touga? What sort of crime against humanity compelled Chiho Saito to turn one of the most amazing anime characters of all time into a psychotic fangirl? (Answer: homophobia emot-mad )

I don't think she was homophobic. I think she was just trying to be a good business woman. See, Jeffrey Scott says the first rule of show business is to give the audience what they want, and then give them what you want. The target audience for shojo anime is mostly straight girls/women, and I remember reading somewhere that Ms. Saito didn't think anything with a hint of shojo-ai would be marketable. Though if it's true that Juri was made more like Nanami then that's a darn shame. I liked her anime personality.


Proud Saionji and Mikage fangirl
My Utena fanfiction: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2000115/Riri-kins

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