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 Top10-23-2013 02:06:40 AM

Pratyeka
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Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

Sorry if this has been posted before - I did a search and came up with nothing, so here goes:
Recently, I've been listening to the OSTs a lot, and trying to understand/take in as much as possible, so I've been checking lyric sites whenever I don't know a bit of a duel chorus. On the fan-favorite Tenshi Souzou, though, there's a weird discrepancy at the end. Every place I check has the roma-ji of "kuudou" and the matching kanji 空洞 for the oft-repeated final word. However, to my ears it sounds nothing like kuudou. My best guess - what it actually sounds like to me - is "utsuro", which can be written with the same first kanji, "空ろ”, and also means hollow. The scans here at Audiology look like they have "kuudou" in the liner notes, but can anyone verify that what's actually sung is "utsuro"? Has anyone else even noticed this? Am I very strange and detail-oriented? (Yes.) Let me know!

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#2 | Back to Top10-23-2013 02:23:12 AM

Yasha
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

...you are definitely right as far as the word itself goes. I can remember that particular ending very clearly, and it does sound like 'utsuro.' Isn't that the one that ends "Inside I'm hollow hollow hollow" or something of the sort?

At any rate, I have run into it before where there's a few different kanji that can be used to say the same thing, and it ends up in a situation like this. I believe Rinbu Revolution is itself an example, as it can also be read Rondo Revolution, which makes more sense, actually. But I think 'rinbu' was the kanji that was used and 'rondo' was just a possible alternate reading. That's what I would assume is going on here.

Man, I don't even remember where I read half this stuff. It's been a long time.


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#3 | Back to Top10-23-2013 06:55:56 AM

Pratyeka
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

That's the one. 
I was never clear about the Rinbu/Rondo thing. I saw it written both ways in roma-ji, but at the time I couldn't read a speck of Japanese, so I didn't understand why.  Related, I know the "mawaru" kanji used in Penguindrum's title isn't one of the 3 normally associated with that reading (周る、回る and 廻る), but is the kanji read as "rin" or "wa" that can mean ring or loop, plus the "ru" hiragana (輪る) which happens to be the same "rin" in "Rinbu Revolution". As far as I know, you can't just take "rin", add a "ru", and make "mawaru", so I think Ikuhara definitely plays fast and loose with his preferred kanji.

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#4 | Back to Top10-25-2013 08:07:41 AM

Yasha
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

I verified that the song does say 'utsuro', that 'utsuro' also means hollow, and that it has its own separate and distinct kanji so it is not an alternate reading of the kanji for 'kuudou'. So basically, yeah, I think Ikuhara or Seazer or whoever was just using whichever kanji he wanted. I would assume there was some reason or connotation to one of them that explains it, but I couldn't find that out for sure.


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#5 | Back to Top10-25-2013 12:34:05 PM

BioKraze
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

That's...very interesting! emot-keke

This reminds me of when somebody here (satyreyes, I think might've been the one?) picked apart the official Utena Encyclopedia lyrics to Wakaba's duel theme (Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth 16th Century -- talk about word salad!), and had determined that the Romanization of "Piirasu" should not have been Paris, but instead Pyrrhus (trope namer for Pyrrhic Victory, which I believe the duel between the show's resident besties and the tearjerker ending to that episode certainly references*).

/rambling!Bio

*I haven't watched this episode yet, but I've absorbed the analysis everybody here's done like a microfiber shammy. Second best thing! emot-keke


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#6 | Back to Top10-25-2013 12:50:53 PM

Atropos
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

^ Don't the references to "the walls of Troy" elsewhere in the song suggest otherwise?

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#7 | Back to Top10-25-2013 03:17:40 PM

BioKraze
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

Atropos wrote:

^ Don't the references to "the walls of Troy" elsewhere in the song suggest otherwise?

Heh. Well, I'll be the first to admit I never really paid attention in class. emot-tongue Like, any of them. There's a reason I tell people not to believe me unless you confirm my data with a more credible source. *nodnod*


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#8 | Back to Top10-26-2013 12:51:33 AM

Pratyeka
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

I don't really know how to connect Troy/Pyrrhus/Paris, but I do know I've only ever heard Paris (the city) as "pari" (パリ) in Japanese, so I would have guessed "parisu" (パリス) to be the romanization of the person's name. ピーラス (piirasu) sounds much closer to Pyrrhus to me as well.

Okay, so I just went to Japanese wikipedia, and it has Paris (the person) as パリス (parisu) and Pyrrhus as "ピュロス", which could be romanized as "pyurosu". Searching ピーラス returns nothing. Maybe they were trying to be confusing. I would still back "Pyrrhus".

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#9 | Back to Top10-26-2013 06:07:01 AM

satyreyes
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

It wasn't me who had that idea.  It was DerJakob, here, who suggested Pyrrhus.

I notice with amusement that animelyrics.com translates the same word as "Byrsa," a Carthaginian citadel.  Carthage, of course, was involved in several wars with Rome, but never with Troy as far as I know; they are nowhere near each other.  Pyrrhus also had nothing to do with Troy.  Yes he did, just not the Pyrrhus most of us think of when we hear that name; Xu Yuan explains here why Pyrrhus is the most likely answer.  By contrast, while Paris is the central figure of the Trojan War, I can't remember where in the Iliad he "brings his sword down on the aged king."

Sorry, drifting OT.  It is indeed true that in music and in titles of things, Japanese authors sometimes play fast and loose with kanji, picking the kanji they prefer and assigning whatever reading they like to them.  I think the liner notes just took the kanji too literally; the word is clearly "utsuro."

Last edited by satyreyes (10-26-2013 06:20:17 AM)

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#10 | Back to Top10-26-2013 07:19:02 AM

Atropos
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

Ah! That makes sense, then.

...still doesn't explain what exactly the name "Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth 16th Century" is supposed to MEAN, but still...

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#11 | Back to Top10-26-2013 09:10:28 AM

BioKraze
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

Atropos wrote:

Ah! That makes sense, then.

...still doesn't explain what exactly the name "Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth 16th Century" is supposed to MEAN, but still...

I think it's not supposed to mean much of anything, just an ISO-standard word salad. IIRC, most of us are convinced that, like Ikuni himself, J.A. Seazer doesn't care if the lyrics/title to the music makes sense, so long as it sounds cool.

Which, to be quite frank, is something I know I'd do.


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#12 | Back to Top10-26-2013 07:12:48 PM

Yasha
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

My gut instinct points me toward butterflies and moths being the same kind of thing, but only the moth would willingly burn up in the lantern. I would suggest looking for themes of self-destruction in 16th century history.

Then again, Bush's gut told him what to do too emot-keke


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#13 | Back to Top10-26-2013 10:16:35 PM

Pratyeka
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

The "magic lantern" (gentou) refers to an old-fashioned type of slide projector. Wiki says the Magic Lantern was developed in the 17th century, but that similar devices had been created as early as 1650 or so. Since the device was used mostly by magicians, conjurers, and charlatans make people believe something was there that was not, it seems reminiscent of Akio's planetarium projector to me.  Without thinking about it too long, my basic analysis would be something like: Wakaba's duel sequence was the story of someone who, for a short time, was turned from moth to butterfly through the power of Akio's manipulations (the 16th Century charlatan machine), and the sudden return to moth status is what pushed her to become a black rose duelist.
Re: topic, any discussion of lyrics is on-topic to me. I'm sure there's a lot of lyric discussion I've missed, but there's also more than a few of these inconsistencies worth discussing, imo.

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#14 | Back to Top10-27-2013 07:12:18 AM

Atropos
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

I wouldn't look too deeply into it, since the duel music for the first two arcs was not written specifically for the show. school-eng101

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#15 | Back to Top10-27-2013 09:38:43 AM

BioKraze
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

Atropos wrote:

I wouldn't look too deeply into it, since the duel music for the first two arcs was not written specifically for the show. school-eng101

I vaguely recall reading that as well. Weren't those songs written for some older projects Seazer did in the Seventies or something? emot-confused


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#16 | Back to Top10-28-2013 12:04:08 AM

Pratyeka
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

Wait, titles and all? I had no idea emot-aaa  Honestly, I'm so surprised. Starting around arc 2, so many songs, like Kakuu Kakokei Majinai, seemed clearly written for the character arc. My whole life was a lieeee.

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#17 | Back to Top10-29-2013 11:20:39 PM

Yasha
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Re: Tenshi Souzou Sunawachi Hikari/Angelic Creation, Namely, Light

It's true! But I very much doubt that they have no relevance, because Ikuhara was very clear that he wanted Seazer's music in SKU from the time he first thought of the series. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the conceptualization/idea gathering happened set to a soundtrack of these songs. So it's probably more that the songs influenced how the characters developed, rather than the other way around. And certainly the specific songs were chosen for each duel because of the lyric interpretations.


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