On another note, when people not dueling are watching the duel near where the bells ring, where exactly are they? There's no where on campus that could be as high as the tower or the forest. Assuming that the duels DO take place in Akio's room in the tower, and they are shown watching from a distance, then they can't be in the tower. But they can't be in the forest either because only the dueling people are allowed to pass the gate into the forest?

I think they're watching from these two tower things in the background:



At least that's what I assumed. The ridges here seem to confirm it:


But in terms of where they physically occur (I'm sure the towers are illusions too,) I'm not sure.

Last edited by HonorableShadow (07-21-2013 04:35:31 PM)

I found something interesting in ep 38, during the revolution duel:

After Akio shows the castle to be an illusion and the dueling arena warps into his room, he looks out from where they are talking




and this follows with a panning shot of what he's looking at








he's in the tower, looking at the tower? there's something fishy going on here.

I think that the tower he's looking at is the physical tower. They are still in the forest. Surreal and magical sights all appear in the forest, like the cars, Dios, the desks and shadows, etc. Akio either controls them or knows them well enough to manipulate them. Furthermore, they appear to symbolically emphasize something.

I believe in this situation the projector is a symbol. So the projector is shown in the battle for that reason. Is it the same projector as the one in the tower? If this is true, and we take Akio's word for it, that there are no princes and castles, then how can there be witches and flying swords? The projector in this battle exists as much as the Akio cars in the other battles. Symbolically, they're in HIS room, and HE controls the projector. He controls the projection of the prince and the castle, symbolizing how he controls Utena's ideals. He is the fabricator of Utena's illusory ideals. And this makes sense - he saves Utena, and this memory gives her the prince ideal and rose ring that lead to her becoming a duelist. He deliberately creates that memory for her, and so creating a duelist. He IS the projector.

Last edited by whyknot (07-21-2013 10:57:47 PM)

Slightly relevant to the conversation, but I recall seeing a screencap of the stock "showing off the campus" footage in the Saturn game, when Dallbun was doing the Let's Plays of it. Notably, the screencap shows the forest...with the stairway AND the Dueling Arena sticking out of it like nothing's wrong and nobody's going to notice it and think "hey, that shouldn't be possible if we're grounded in reality. What gives?"

Relevant because I'm of the camp that believes "Ohtori Academy is Akio's playground, and if he says it happens, it damn well happens." Or, it's another of the illusions nobody sees because they're being fooled by the other illusions present. I think the only two who'd be able to see through the illusions for the majority of the series are Akio and Anthy. (Mikage and, possibly, Chigusa don't get a pass because they're even more victim to the twins Himemiya and their deceptions than anybody else. That's personal opinion, though, with fervent hope that it's canon.)

Fake Edit: I'll go see if I can't pull up the screencap I'm talking about. It's plain as day that something's gone wrong, but nobody except the viewer notices it.

Dammit. I've been sifting through the first playthrough for the last hour or so. Thanks for the update, Atropos, depressing though it may be.

I myself always thought the non-match-up quality of physics and time in the series is meant to show A & A warping the  characters' perceptions of reality - likely accomplished through more supernatural means than projector science at work.