I copied the whole thing a while ago, so here goes:

    “Shoujo Kakumei Utena” Privacy File 1: The Case of Kiryuu Touga, or on depicting seishun in film by Enokido Youji
    - from the July 1999 issue of “Shousetsu June” magaine

    Right now I am working on an animation film called Shoujo Kakumei Utena Adolescence Mokushiroku. I have also worked as the scriptwriter of the anime series of the same title on which the film is based. And though I have finished my part, I am waiting for the film itself to be completed…

    The other day at another interview, I said that Adolescence Mokushiroku is a seishun movie, and I was asked if in other words this movie is about seishun. I thought a little about it and replied, “not exactly, it is a movie that is made according to a worldview typical of seishun.” Yes, this movie depicts seishun. We staff members are trying to depict seishun. However, why are we trying to do this? Afterwards, I have tried to ponder on this question myself. Now that I come to think of it, my own younger days was never much fun. Seishun is communication that becomes painful even if you try to run away to some place where you are not hurt. It is a season where mental wounds are unbearable. One is anxious out of lack of experience, and day in day out one is easily swayed by one thing or other. And yet one is nostalgic about such times nonetheless. One cannot help but make a film out of it. It must be that there is a kind of joy in this that is not found anywhere else. So what is this joy that is only found in seishun and not anywhere else? I get annoyed whenever I hear people say  “just go and experience anything while you are young,” because that is just what adults who are now in a safety zone say.  And even I myself must be in this mental safety zone now. (Maybe it is not all that safe at all, but at least I seem to have learned the trick of pretending to myself that it is safe.) However, if you ever escape to a real safety zone, there must be something that you lose in exchange. Therefore, I think there is value in depicting seishun. In this film, Kiryuu Touga is one of the key characters. Although the TV series touched upon Touga’s younger days, the film goes into more details – the wound of Touga that was never directly depicted.  In his younger days, Touga was a normal kid who enjoyed happy times with his friend Saionji Keiichi and his younger sister Nanami. However, he came to know his unfortunate fate from the time he was ordered by his parents to wear his hair long. His parents sold him to the Kiryuu family. Although he was an adopted son on the surface, the instinctive Touga knew what that meant. And in order to protect his younger sister, he accepted his lot. Being sold. We did not go into depicting what Touga’s parents obtained by going as far as selling their son. We would like you to think of it as a kind of metaphor. And Touga accepted in silence the sexual abuse from his new parents. His personality changed while he made a magnanimous show of enjoying the abuses in order to prevent his personality from splitting. The change took place in a spot so deep in his mind, that even those closest to him did not notice. Saionji and Nanami never noticed out of their innocence. And Touga never told his secret to anyone. It is said that a human being gains whatever he lost in exchange. So what did Touga gain in exchange at that point in time? It was the sense of alienation from being abused every night and seeing his innocent friend and sister during the day. The alienated self. The alienated self. Seishun itself is also the continuing process of alienating the self. (However, it is not so much that you come to be gradually alienated, it is more like “you come to be aware of the self which was alienated to begin with”.) And it is out of this awareness of alienation that you come to obtain a higher humanity and sexual self-awareness. In the TV series, Saionji always felt that he was one step behind Touga. Although the two are more or less equal in terms of ability, what Saionji lacked was that sense of alienation. We get a lot of feedback that it is painful to watch Utena. That is fine. It was our intent to depict relationships that are painful. Surely this action of ours may be due to the fact that we are trying to not lose that something which we will eventually lose someday. As we get older, we may be sure of only the safety zone. The trust of your community and friends is important too, but do not lose sight of the real sense of alienation; it is precisely because this sense of alienation that relationships with people become precious. Perhaps it is this very idea that makes us want to depict seishun.

    “Shoujo Kakumei Utena” Privacy File 2: The Case of Arisugawa Juri, or the kingdom where miracles do not occur by Enokido Youji

    - from the August 1999 issue of “Shousetsu June” magaine

    Shoujo Kakumei Utena is a story about young men and women who are called “duelists”. They are an elite group of chosen people who possess ability and beauty, and they become duelist on the condition that they must stand on their own in confronting the world. I have said this before – the awareness of being alienated is an important element. However, in order to emphasize true nobility, we came up with the setting that each of them has one point of fixation that they cannot let go of. They each have one formidable weakness in their hearts. That weakness is often depicted as “love”. I love you. I love so-and-so. Because I love. I cannot help but love. While love in its pure form is stupid, it is nonetheless a beautiful emotion. I would like to depict something that is beautiful. Never mind if I actually can depict it (okay, maybe not), but I would like to depict it. To give birth to something beautiful makes the world a richer place. It makes people happy. It makes you feel good. Therefore, I would like to depict something beautiful, even if it is just an illusion. I would like to see something beautiful, even if it is just an illusion. Isn’t this natural? Oops, I forgot that this is supposed to be an introductory piece to the film Shoujo Kakumei Utena Adolescence Mokushiroku. I totally forgot. There is a young duelist called Arisugawa Juri. She is the captain of the fencing club, and underneath her splendid beauty is a violent jaguar within. She is the proudest and loneliest character in the whole cast. In any case, she is in love with a childhood friend of the same sex. She is in love with Takatsuki Shiori who is in the same grade. While the TV series was being broadcast, we get a lot of feedback from fans asking why “Juri-sama” is in love with “something as unworthy as Shiori”. They did not understand the reason of Juri’s fixation. To be honest, I don’t understand either. I think Juri should give up on Shiori and move on to some other relationship. However, Juri has no use for such input from busybodies like us. There is no particular subtext to Juri being in love with Shiori. There is none depicted in this film also. Her sexual orientation is not that important either. The key point is how Shiori ｓｈould be interpreted in Juri’s universe. The value system Juri has that surpasses all secular considerations. Of course, Juri’s love is nothing but mental fixation. But then I think not only love – all human relationships are founded on mental fixation. And it is precisely for this reason that mental fixation is important. (No, I really mean it.) If you can control the mental fixation of another person, you can also control that person. And you will have an easy life if you can control your own mental fixation according to your own will. I once heard someone say (I am paraphrasing here) that while flowers are beautiful, it is not because the flowers in themselves are beautiful, but because you who consider the flowers beautiful are beautiful. I cannot agree more. There was a film I saw in childhood that I was very touched by, but when I rewatched it as an adult, I felt that the film was just a cheap trick that only kids would fall for. However, those things that remain beautiful in my mind is no lie.  Those things that evoke a beautiful image is ever so endearing. If I knew what they really were, the more I would be attracted to them. Isn’t love also the same thing? It is just nothing but mental fixation, but no one would laugh at that. I would not want to laugh at anyone who fell victim to some stupid love at a certain time at a certain place. Shiori uses Juri’s mental fixation. Although she would never consider Juri as a potential lover, she uses that as an option to her own benefit. It is not that Juri is not aware of Shiori’s true nature.  Juri could not give up on Shiori even knowing this. However, Shiori is not aware of how captivating it is to agonize over love in a Juri-like, or rather love-like, manner. It is precisely this that makes her even more captivating. There is something beautiful about young people who are bound by such circumstances. Shiori will never return Juri’s love. Shiori who is the greatest darkness is this movie is a kingdom where miracles do not occur. Could it be, that Juri is attracted to precisely this darkness…? However, there is a kingdom where miracle awaits. The next session will (probably) be about the climax.

    “Shoujo Kakumei Utena” Privacy File Finale: The Case of Ootori Akio, or the prince’s flaw by Enokido Youji

    - from the September 1999 issue of “Shousetsu June” magaine

    So, the debut of the film is getting closer. There are probably those of you who have seen the promotional preview. I promised to talk about the climax this time. Utena and Anthy fight against the prince. The two girls destroy the system of the prince. There is nothing in this that deviates much from the TV series. Prince. Yes, a prince called Ootori Akio appears in this work. But what on earth is “prince”? The title “shoujo kakumei” indicates that a young woman frees herself from what controls her. And in this story, “the prince” is framed as the antagonist that controls her. And you know what? – I think the word “prince” is the greatest pitfall for any young woman. In the show, Akio is not the prince of some country; he is of common origins (most likely). However, precisely because of that, there is significant meaning in the fact that he calls himself and is called a prince, because it is closer to what the word “prince” has come to mean in the popular parlance. So, what kind of prince do we have in Akio? Ootori Akio is a student of the university of Ootori Academy. The reason why his last name is Ootori is because he became an adopted son of the Ootori family, whose family head has always acted as the President of Ootori Academy. He is good-looking, kind, graceful and talented. The president admires his talent and wants him to marry his only daughter. The President never saw the dangerous young man in Akio as he truly was to the end. The President, who has been in the same cushy job for years and lectures the students on ideals of humanity in pretty rhetoric, would never understand or even imagine Akio’s ambition and viciousness. It did not take long for Kanae (who worships her father and has been brought up in a protected environment) to fall for Akio (who was handpicked by her father). She was captivated by Akio body and soul. Meanwhile the President’s wife (who is also Akio’s mother-in-law) already had a sexual relationship with him, and was so enslaved to him that she followed Akio’s instructions to poison the President’s food. Kanae, not knowing the relationship between Akio and her mother, occupied herself with her father who has fallen ill. Finally, Akio is asked to act as a delegate of the President, and comes to control Ootori Academy… Now that I write this all down, as much as this seems to be the description of a dangerous man, it is nonetheless a possible description of a prince. Akio is a kind of picaresque character. In any case, Akio is not only just a dangerous prince. Never mind his relationship with Kanae and her mother (or is it really okay to not mind it?) – he had one fatal sin. He is engaged in a forbidden relationship with his younger sister night after night. That is the thing that disqualifies Akio as a real prince.  Of course, “prince” in this sense is the common meaning that that has come into circulation in the world at large. He is not a prince, but someone who pretends to be a prince. A younger sister craving for affection is nothing more than a mother substitute. And this fatal sin is incorporated in this film. Of course, it is not that the Utena staff wants to negate the idea of “prince”. It’s just that somehow it turned out that we ended up questioning the idea of “prince” in our work. It was not our motivation to begin with. In the beginning, we quite simply only wanted to depict sensual pleasure. But the more we pondered on what passes for sensual pleasure in the world nowadays, the imagery of prince somehow became something like Akio. It just turned out that way. Why? Because we were annoyed with such an obvious value. A cool prince appears out of nowhere, marries the heroine and they live happily ever after. We thought there is nothing convincing about this. If that is all it takes to be a prince, then it is too easy. (Of course, such sensual pleasure based on dependency is a serious matter. It is a most serious matter for mammals that cannot survive for several years without dependency after it is ejected from the mother’s body at birth.) And such easy sensual pleasure based on dependency is made by Akio into a selling point with which to control people. There is something brave about Utena who doesn’t buy into this shit. There is something attractive about this because she is for “real”. The happiness of prince and princess seems to lack this “for real”-ness. Yes, isn’t this “for real”-ness what we need most now?  When I look around the misfortunes around me, they are founded on the lack of this “for real”-ness. Even in hatred, this “for real”-ness seems to be missing. (Okay, it’s not like I can tell with perfect confidence how for real I am either). To be for real is tiring and troublesome, and more importantly it is accompanied with risk. It also takes up a lot of energy. However, is this not why we would like to examine the value of being for real? And is it not this very thing that we seem to lack? What I want to say is – people who are in love for real would not be chasing after the image of a prince.

There's already the theory that he killed Utena's parents (given that they died in a car accident, and Akio and cars go pretty much hand-in-hand). He and Anthy also seem to know that Juri doesn't like being offered orange roses (see: her decking Anthy for it in ep 7) and that Nanami has bad memories associated with kittens (see: ep 10); question is, how do they know?

Like I said, though, I'm not taking these ideas too seriously at all. I certainly don't believe Akio or Anthy had any hand in the original kitten incident or the past Juri/Shiori mess, and even with Utena's parents, it has to be asked what motive he'd have to do that - which could lead to a few more questions in itself. (For example, what made him decide to appear before Utena in the first place? There's certainly other questions besides that, but I can't quite brain right now. emot-redface )

Hi MikoGalatea, can you tell me which TV episode did they say Utena's parents died in a CAR Accident?  I might need it for fic purpose.  Thanks!

That being said, when even Miki's dad's remarriage (a event that drove Miki and Kozue to their final duel against Utena) is by Anthy's bewitchment . . .

HonorableShadow wrote:
Sorry to bring the topic back up, but the google cache version doesn't seem to be working anymore. Does anyone still have this?

I posted my copied version of it upthread at
http://forums.ohtori.nu/viewtopic.php?p … 92#p243792

No problem, Shadow.  Glad I can help

MikoGalatea ~

MikoGalatea wrote:

gorgeousshutin wrote:

That being said, when even Miki's dad's remarriage (a event that drove Miki and Kozue to their final duel against Utena) is by Anthy's bewitchment . . .

Hell, if we want to keep going down the "everything is Akio's fault" road, perhaps the reason Miki and Kozue's parents split up in the first place was because Akio seduced the mother, and then he sent Anthy to act as Mr Kaoru's "mistress". Who knows.

I seriously would not put this past Akio - that with him being the cunning and magically endowed planner that he is.  That, or it was Anthy who sex-changed ala "Mamiya", then went on to seduce Mrs. Kaoru too.

More seriously, though, I just wanted to ask you guys one thing: Would you look at these privacy notes any differently if they'd been written by Ikuhara instead of Enokido? I personally wouldn't, but I'm simply curious about what you lot think.

I wouldn't either.  Ikuhara interviews might all appear "off-the-mark" at first; but upon a closer read, I find a lot of what he says really capturing the "essence of the truth" while "mildly distorting rigid facts".  His interviews are kinda like Shadow Plays throughout the show: always somewhat relevant to what has happened SKU-wise.