I feel I can agree with your interpretation - I admit I interpreted the scenes themselves involving some level of consent on the part of Anthy and Utena - although I feel you could probably offer some expansion as to why Anthy repeats her actions with Akio over the course of series (and if you feel there is any 'catalyst' or 'stimuli' that could prompt Anthy to partake in 'doing it' or if it is something more of a ritual that she has fallen into)

Giovanna wrote:

Also flame option: If coercion is rape, what's Touga doing to half the student body?

I anticipate that our flame option is going to require some level of separation as to Touga's 'doings' to the female students as opposed to his 'doings' to the male students*

*You'll probably agree that this only seems to apply to Saionji.... so .... I'd better leave before- ...too late

Last edited by Internal Clock (09-09-2013 04:45:01 AM)

Giovanna wrote:

If coercion is rape, what's Touga doing to half the student body?

Well, he's raping them. And/or sexually assaulting them.

There's some allure in it, and it doesn't dehumanize Touga or turn him into The Rapist, but it's still sexual assault and intimidation.

There is, yes, something to be said about the choices they're making, but the guilt they may feel, that Akio/the Devil may use against them, is unnecessary guilt in most of the cases, as it's survivor's guilt or "I made the adult in charge of me rape me when I was fourteen because I got in his car and he was hot." It's a bit suspect.

The Akio and Anthy interactions are all abusive, to me, because they're all predicated on false pretenses that allow the two of them to hurt children easier. If being abusive or a rapist dehumanized a character completely, though, Anthy would never be able to get out or get past her own guilt, which at least movie-Akio has the excuse for of being dead, if he was even ever truly alive. What's keeping Anthy in the cycle of abuse is the dead nightmare buried under her roses and vacuous smiles.

I'll be blunt here: I think Akio is a rapist, and I think what he does to both Anthy and Utena is rape. Then again, I also think that what he does to Touga and Kozue is rape as well (since, among other things, they're underage students) so God knows how valid any of my views are...

Having said that, I think the problem with what Akio does is that a lot of it falls into the "dubious consent" grey area, in which it should definitely be called rape if it happened in real life but doesn't quite code as such within the context of the piece of fiction that it's part of -- and I should stress that the term "dubious consent" only applies to fictional situations. In Utena's case, for example... she could ostensibly be said to be consenting on the grounds that she ends up naked in bed with Akio and isn't overtly saying "no", but there are several factors that would render any consent there completely invalid, such as the fact that she's a middleschooler and he's an adult with a stack of power over her both as the acting chairman of her school and as Ends of the World.

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

There is, yes, something to be said about the choices they're making, but the guilt they may feel, that Akio/the Devil may use against them, is unnecessary guilt in most of the cases, as it's survivor's guilt or "I made the adult in charge of me rape me when I was fourteen because I got in his car and he was hot." It's a bit suspect.

This is another thing that makes the scene in ep 33 uncomfortable for me. It feels to me like Akio is silently and psychologically intimidating her there, just by being a grown man who's on top of her and looking down on her while she gets agitated by what's inevitably about to happen. I also get the impression that, although she's not explicitly saying "no", it's almost like she feels she can't say "no", if that makes any sense; as if saying it would be like admitting to herself that she's being violated, so instead she keeps rambling and wracking herself with guilt -- which may well be what Akio wants.

Akio/Anthy is unquestionably abusive, as far as I'm concerned. I think the reason Anthy has stuck with him for so long, besides her nonexistent self-esteem and fear of the outside world, is that he's literally all she's had since the rest of humanity branded her as a witch. I suppose the fact that he's family makes it that much harder for her to leave him, too. =/

I'll admit I have this kind of knee-jerk reaction to a lot of Akio's sexual conquests that goes along the lines of THAT IS A CHILD GET YOUR DICK OUT OF IT OR I AM GOING TO RIP YOUR RIBS OUT ONE BY ONE.

Yeah, I know, "child" isn't 100% accurate, these are adolescents and their powers of agency and consent are consequently greater, but that's still how I feel about it.  Except for Anthy.  She's like... how old now?  Really old.  So that falls more under the reactionary category of "bleh?" than FROTHING RAGE.  And Utena, well, it happened, it was horrible, and then she shoved him in the face.  Yay catharsis!

Likewise, a lot of the difficulty that Kanae has with her relationship with Akio is the lack of intimacy which, here, isn't so much of a problem, unless he's using that to sleep with her, and I got the overall impression that he could barely stand to be near her.  And Mrs. Ohtori's a grown woman.  She can make her own damn terrible decisions, no one's skewing her world view in any way that it hasn't been skewed already.

So really I'm most pissed about Touga.  That shit is chronic.

Giovanna wrote:

Also flame option: If coercion is rape, what's Touga doing to half the student body?

Preying on their insecurities and self-image problems in an ineffective attempt to fulfill his own desire to be loved?  It's pretty much a lose-lose proposition.

And if I was feeling particularly snarky, I could say, "recreating the scenario of his own trauma," (I just spent like half an hour looking to see if there was a more technical term for this.  It was not a fun time. ) although I think this would apply more specifically to younger boys that to the army of fangirls he seems to prefer.

Internal Clock wrote:

I feel you could probably offer some expansion as to why Anthy repeats her actions with Akio over the course of series (and if you feel there is any 'catalyst' or 'stimuli' that could prompt Anthy to partake in 'doing it' or if it is something more of a ritual that she has fallen into)

I suspect by the series the catalyst is 'It's Saturday and it's dark and he's already half undressed giggity giggity.' The repeating the act over the course of the series is partly ritual, for sure, but I think as the series develops and their relationship becomes strained, sex is not only how he asserts dominance, but it's how she fights back. I think Anthy chooses to have sex with him because from underneath him she has the most power to hurt and scare him. Passivity in day to day life is not something that tastes good to Akio. A lot of the strained moments we see between them (ie. when the teacup breaks because he grabbed her) begin with Anthy being incredibly passive and unengaged with him. This, above all else, is the most dangerous thing Akio could see happening, and she knows it. She taunts him with it. Later on, she does it after sex, and it's finally scary enough for him to comment on it. By that point in the show, Akio may be instigating the act out of habit, but he's also far and away the one suffering more from it. I think this is something the show goes go great lengths to illustrate: the development of Anthy's feelings toward Utena and the world at large seen through her frighten Akio. He is not a happy man at the end of the show, and not nearly as confident as he was 30-odd episodes ago. Does he stomp around the duel arena being all smug telling Utena what's what about Anthy? Yep. Was it entirely for Utena's sake? Very much doubt it. He was trying to remind Anthy of her place also, because he was terrified she was beginning to forget it.

Internal Clock wrote:

*You'll probably agree that this only seems to apply to Saionji.... so .... I'd better leave before- ...too late

Actually in my headcanon the only real rape in the story is what Wakaba probably did to Saionji when he was a little suspiciously deep in his sleep. Bwaha.

Aelanie wrote:

The most important one is that regardless of how it happened, all responsibility much fall fully and completely on Akio. Regardless of the manner in which Utena and Anthy arrived in their situations, he must not be excused from his role as the ultimate initiator and executor of the sexual coercion and misuse of both girls. This is something which must be conceded, and in the minds of most people, coercion - which means anything less than an informed, fully considered and clarified assent by adult parties - is rape, plain and simple.

I don’t concede this, because I don’t agree that all responsibility falls on him. I do agree that he shouldn’t be excused from being the ultimate initiator and executor of these events; I’m not attempting to apologize for someone who is pretty much in every way a horrible individual, nor am I condoning his behavior. I’m saying that what transpires between these characters isn’t done with anyone completely in the dark. Even Utena, the far and away most innocent of them, if ignorant to the full weight of her actions, knew several things very wrong with them, and did not attempt to stop him. She attempts, poorly, to stop herself, but never him. And this is from a character that pretty explosively rejects Touga earlier on. Are there differences? Of course. Akio’s quite a bit sneakier than Touga. But at the end of the day a character we see mount considerable offenses against things she thinks are wrong or doesn’t want to have happen, is letting this happen with very little in terms of a serious attempt to stop it. This is, ultimately, a rape; Utena is too young and too ignorant to consent to it. But she did choose it, as a free agent, knowing full well that she shouldn’t. Episode 33 is haunting because she’s made her decision before you even see her face. Maybe it was when he invited her out at all. Maybe it was when they were checking into a hotel. But the moment we see her, hear her, she knows what’s coming, and that she isn’t necessarily wanting it to stop. She’s terrified, confused, conflicted, yammering because she doesn’t know if she wants things to go faster or slower, and doesn’t know what to do at this point if she were to change her mind, and a gentleman seeing all of that would probably not have made her go through with it. But Akio’s no gentleman, obviously.

And I don’t think that everyone necessarily agrees with such a strict definition of rape. Between adults and not adults pretty much anything is rape, and most do agree on that point. But between adults? What’s seduction but a focused effort to coerce another into sex? And many of us not only enjoy seduction, but expect it. As far as I can tell, coercion in regards to sex and how it’s popularly used is basically a descriptor for seduction when the consent is not as established at the outset. And it’s often portrayed in a far more glamorous light than it is here. It’s a horrible message to send to men about what we want if we’re going to call it rape afterwards.

Aelanie wrote:

The problem with your analogy is that the societal issues of women's rights and pay inequality are fought on a societal scale, where empowered women can and have banded together to support each other. However, the victims of sexual battery are very often alone and isolated, without aid or support, and with no means or hope of finding any.

You’re right. My point was, though, that if women want to be empowered, that can’t simply extend to when it’s safe and bolstered by numbers. The expectation has to be on each and every one of us to refuse to be victims and to make decisions to protect ourselves. In every abusive relationship, there’s that first threat. That first impact. If you don’t leave then, for whatever reasons, because you’re part of a long cycle of abuse, because you’re threatened, afraid, or alone, you’re still by complacency allowing the next attack. You don’t deserve it. You deserve help. But you’re not empowered. That’s an expectation placed on women by other women only when it’s easy. Or when they’re far away.

Aelanie wrote:

But one important thing I have to say is that you can be a "victim" without being "helpless".

This was essentially the entire point of my post.

Aelanie wrote:

Maybe they did have sources of support they could've turned to. Maybe there are choices they could've made that would've prevented it. That would've been well for them, but not having done so, regardless of the reasons why, places no weight of responsibility on them one way or the other. None of that is important to the attribution of blame. It rests fully and solely on the aggressor.

We’ve just agreed that not all victims are helpless. Some have resources. Support they could have turned to, choices that would have prevented. If they did not access those supports or make those choices, they bear some, not all, not half, but some, responsibility for what occurs after.

Aelanie wrote:

Did Anthy know what she was doing? Did she allow Akio to inflict his sexual aggression on her without resistance? Yes. Does that make her in any manner responsible for his actions? No. They are his and his alone.

I never said Anthy was responsible for Akio’s actions. She’s responsible for hers. What another physically overpowers you into doing against your will (not what I think happened) is not your fault. What do you do about it after? That is up to you. In her case? I think her complacency in their sexual relationship is because she’s using the act as well. They use sex against each other, and the victor is not necessarily as clear as it seems, I think.

Aelanie wrote:

That indeed was Akio's intention: to rob her of her agency and make her his pawn. I believe that no one could rationally argue that her finding herself in that situation was the result of an "informed,  fully considered, and clarified assent" - and if that cannot be said to have been given, then the question of sexual battery has, for me at least, a very clear answer.

That was absolutely his intention. It’s what he does and what happens to her. She doesn’t give a fully considered and clarified assent. She waded into the deep end not knowing how deep it really was. But she knew it was deep. Utena is as dumb as a sack of bricks sometimes, but if she’s so dim as to think it’s a good idea to get into a car alone at night with a man that’s been making sexual overtures to her for several episodes now, and that it’s an even better idea to go into a hotel with him, and that these things should occur with nothing less than a kick in his balls and a run in the other direction, well. She’s too young to give informed consent, but she’s not that young or ignorant.

Nanami would have been, though.

Aelanie wrote:

I hope I've managed to convey these remarks in a calm, constructive, and disciplined manner. With all due respect however, I would ask you to reflect seriously on the amount of blame you are apportioning to Utena and Anthy - and much more importantly and consequentially, to the women in the real world who find themselves the targets of sexual aggression, however it may have come about.

You have, and I’m very appreciative of it. I know this subject is an especially touchy one, for you and a lot of others. I hope my responses aren’t against the spirit of your restraint here. A subject as touchy, personal, and potentially offensive as this is almost impossible to discuss without some stepping on toes. That doesn’t mean I don’t think we as a group are mature enough to handle it. Me, I just broke my toe yesterday so I’m all good for more.

That said, with all due respect, I would have to say that I have been reflecting on this issue for a very, very long time. This debate and my involvement in it is fifteen years old, so I’ve had a lot of time to ask if I’m being too harsh, or wrong, or assigning blame where I shouldn’t. And truth to tell? I’m actually harsher on Utena and Anthy as time goes on, and I see their actions filtered through what is clearly a story about the decisions people make. Not what’s forced on them.

It’s a television show. It’s a cartoon even. A cartoon framed in a culture not necessarily reflected in many of our views of the world. It’s a cartoon written by a god damn maniac ridiculous man. It has a lot to say, but at the end of the day, as someone who has been running an enormous website about it...it is just a cartoon.

Do I hold women at large, in real life, to this same standard of self-empowerment? Nope. But I do think the message that maybe we should expect more of ourselves is part of what the show’s about. It’s a tough message to hear. It makes a more comfortable world of victims and aggressors into a grey area where each of us has a will of our own to enforce, to a more significant degree than necessarily wanted, our own destiny. I like that message. It helped me grow. It made responsibility for my actions and choices mean more than that I was a victim as some point within them. So yes, I’ve reflected deeply, and personally, on this. I came to a different conclusion.

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

Giovanna wrote:

If coercion is rape, what's Touga doing to half the student body?

Well, he's raping them. And/or sexually assaulting them.

There's some allure in it, and it doesn't dehumanize Touga or turn him into The Rapist, but it's still sexual assault and intimidation.

Agreed! I'm not trying to dehumanize him at all. Since I'm god damn married to his biggest fan, I shouldn't probably even attempt that.

BUT. The overall enjoyment fans get out of characters like him, and the endorsement of his behavior, sets a very dangerous standard and says not awesome things about what women want from men. I feel for dudes.

'Be like Touga. But but don't be like Akio, he's a bag of dicks.'

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

The Akio and Anthy interactions are all abusive, to me, because they're all predicated on false pretenses that allow the two of them to hurt children easier. If being abusive or a rapist dehumanized a character completely, though, Anthy would never be able to get out or get past her own guilt, which at least movie-Akio has the excuse for of being dead, if he was even ever truly alive. What's keeping Anthy in the cycle of abuse is the dead nightmare buried under her roses and vacuous smiles.

Absolutely. If the beauty in Utena’s lesson is that you make awful mistakes, one that hurt you terribly, and still overcome them, Anthy’s is even more stark. Maybe even feels a little wrong. You can do absolutely horrible things to others. You can abuse, hate, punish, and still redeem yourself. She doesn’t try to escape her actions. She owns them and resolves not to do that crap anymore. Akio isn’t redeemed because he chooses not to be. He can’t forgive anyone, he won’t seek forgiveness, or even admit his actions have been wrong. Granted, he enjoys a position for his actions that’s far more favorable than Anthy’s ever was, so I don’t really fault him for not wanting to change. I wouldn’t either. But he doesn’t, and that makes him pretty much a bag of dicks. I’d be a bag of dicks, too.

gorgeousshutin wrote:

Note how despite depicted as an overtly sexual boy, Touga was not shown having sex with Anthy after temporarily winning her from Utena: rather, he simply make use of her as a weapon that could help himself get further into the duels and closer to power.  Did he tried dominating Anthy the Rose Bride into becoming his subservient tool while he was  the Victor Duelist?  Yes.  Was he sexually assaulting Anthy?  Not from what we saw on screen.

What Touga wants out of the girls he seduces is for them to want him. He measures Anthy unwilling or even incapable of this desire for him, so he doesn’t even bother or try. That doesn’t mean he’s not sexually coercive with the girls he does sleep with, and while all involved are underaged now and that changes the assigning of blame a touch, I don’t think most people interpret Touga as ignorant to the nature of his actions. He knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t regard the girls he seduces as equals. He wants something very specific from them, a salve for his self-esteem, and unbeknownst to them, tricks them into providing it.

Touga is much more ‘grown up’ than Utena is. Technically he’s underage, but we do not assign the same weight of wrongness to Akio’s sleeping with him, because whether we mean to or not, most of us seem to interpret Touga as much more consenting figure in the situation. He’s still underage, though, and by our own standards, it’s still rape. Or is it because he’s male that we give Akio a pass on that one?

MikoGalatea wrote:

I'll be blunt here: I think Akio is a rapist, and I think what he does to both Anthy and Utena is rape. Then again, I also think that what he does to Touga and Kozue is rape as well (since, among other things, they're underage students) so God knows how valid any of my views are...

They’re just as valid as anyone else’s that’s thought about it! This show does not help you at all with these things. That’s why the debate is so rich. But you are being a lot more consistent than I am, at least. Whether it should or not, Touga and Kozue never register as rape to me because I think they’d make the exact same decisions informed and old enough or no. Anthy is old enough, even if she doesn’t look it. Utena? She’d probably not have done what she did as an informed adult. So that registers to me as more rapey? Probably a bentass way to view this, but there it is.

Kita-Ysabell wrote:

And Utena, well, it happened, it was horrible, and then she shoved him in the face.  Yay catharsis!

You know, I think that’s why, in the end, I don’t rage over Akio’s actions more. I mean, the dude pays for it in the end. Gio’s headcanon silly post-series fic aside, it’s unlikely life’s going to go very well for him after the series. At least not for a long time. At the end of the story, he is the only character that is truly, completely, inexorably alone. And it’s his fault.

Kita-Ysabell wrote:

Likewise, a lot of the difficulty that Kanae has with her relationship with Akio is the lack of intimacy which, here, isn't so much of a problem, unless he's using that to sleep with her, and I got the overall impression that he could barely stand to be near her.

I guess when you get to his age, your fuse for completely vacuous people with nothing at all to say and pretty much no reason to exist gets short. I do get the impression he genuinely dislikes being around her though, and that it’s not just an act to isolate her or piss her off or some other use it would otherwise have.

Yasha wrote:

Kita-Ysabell wrote:

Preying on their insecurities and self-image problems in an ineffective attempt to fulfill his own desire to be loved?

:sighs: Isn't he just dreamy?

Ladies and gentleman, my wife.

Aelanie wrote:

But one important thing I have to say is that you can be a "victim" without being "helpless". Having power, or lacking it, does not alter the origin and thus responsibility of the wrong inflicted. It is still a wrong. Maybe they did have sources of support they could've turned to. Maybe there are choices they could've made that would've prevented it. That would've been well for them, but not having done so, regardless of the reasons why, places no weight of responsibility on them one way or the other. None of that is important to the attribution of blame. It rests fully and solely on the aggressor.

I agree with this as far as the aggressor's actions.  There is nothing a person can do that causes em to deserve to be raped.  And yet I don't feel that this ends the discussion.

I'm going to use an extreme example in order to better illustrate what I mean.  I am not saying that what happens to Utena or Anthy is tantamount to this extreme example.

Let's say I tweet the following: "lol hi evryone, its 2am and im in the alley behind subway w/ a big bag of unmarked nonsequential benjamins, come say hi!"  By tweeting this, I am not asking to be mugged.  I do not deserve to be mugged.  If I am mugged, then the mugger is fully responsible for eir own actions -- which were criminal, while mine were not -- and the mugger ought to be caught and put in jail.  This is America and I can tweet what I want.  But there's no denying that my tweet -- while it was not the immediate cause of the mugging -- was certainly a proximate cause.  And that means I bear some responsibility for the crime (though not for the mugger's own actions!!), because a mugging was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of an action I was responsible for.

If this is hard to see, then imagine I had instead tweeted that my friend Jim is in the alley behind Subway with a big bag of hundreds, and Jim gets mugged.  Am I without responsibility then?  Of course not.  I knew what would likely happen.  Just because I didn't hold the knife doesn't mean I shoulder none of the responsibility.  This does not change when I am the victim instead of a third party.

In either scenario, I made an informed choice, knowing what the consequences might be, and a mugging happened down the road as a result.  That doesn't mean that Jim or I deserves to suffer.  But it does mean I don't get Crimefighter of the Year Award.  So I think Gio is on point, above, in suggesting that a lot of this discussion turns on whether we think Utena and Anthy made free choices and understood the probable consequences of what they were doing with Akio.  And I agree with her that they did -- because if they didn't, then the show is not about making choices.  That does not absolve Akio of one iota of responsibility for his own choices.  (In fact, it makes them more significant.)  It just means that the other characters must also take responsibility for their choices, and that this responsibility is not zero.  If it were, SKU would be a worse story.

Last edited by satyreyes (09-09-2013 04:22:54 PM)

That doesn’t mean he’s not sexually coercive with the girls he does sleep with, and while all involved are underaged now and that changes the assigning of blame a touch, I don’t think most people interpret Touga as ignorant to the nature of his actions. He knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t regard the girls he seduces as equals. He wants something very specific from them, a salve for his self-esteem, and unbeknownst to them, tricks them into providing it.

What I don't see is just how is Touga ever 'sexually coercive' with the girls he does sleep with.  Those girls are depicted as rabid fans who lust  after him - yes, it's lust, not love, because its conditional upon his looks, SC status, fighting ability, wealth etc, the 'material' things he possess that they gush over.   In the TV series, they are shown swarming him like hungry insects around a flower just like Nanami said (much like how those Shiori butterflies in the movie swarmed him).  One can say that Touga shows off seductive qualities to bait the girls into bedding him, yes . . . but being coercive to them?  I don't think so . . . unless mere seduction on its own equals coercion.  And while he does not see the girls as equal, I don't think that alone can mean he is coercing them into sex with him.

Touga is much more ‘grown up’ than Utena is. Technically he’s underage, but we do not assign the same weight of wrongness to Akio’s sleeping with him, because whether we mean to or not, most of us seem to interpret Touga as much more consenting figure in the situation.

If sleeping with Akio is 'wrong' for Utena and Touga, it's because the act hurts Akio's fiancee Kanae.

So let's compare the two cases:

Utena is a person ruled by her morals, and prides herself on doing what's right.  She herself told Wakaba stresses how Akio is an engaged man thus off limits prior to EP 33.  She knows she's doing something wrong - by her own moral standards - having an affair with another girl's fiancee (cause it hurts the girl), but still decides to let herself do it to sate her own desires.  She is seduced by Akio into committing evil, but she does end up committing a willful evil against Kanae by her own decision.

Touga, amoral to begin with, offers his body to Akio without a care about what's right or wrong with it.  Infringing on Kanae's property is not something that's remotely problematic by his own low moral standards - which, incidentally, means that he's guilty of a lesser 'willful evil' against Kanae (though it still is wrong, of course).

He’s still underage, though, and by our own standards, it’s still rape. Or is it because he’s male that we give Akio a pass on that one?

I think it's worth noting that Akio is really an immortal demi deity.  He don't see human beings as his equal, but rather, 'foolish lifeforms' (quote him calling Utena that on Ep38).  For him, raping a human in his school is likely the moral equivalent of a farmer breeding a heifer in his farm.

My, what a can of worms to open.

...Well, while I think that a grown man seducing a 14-year old girl is creepy as hell (and this guy being in a position of power over said girl definitely doesn't make this any better), I also think that presenting Utena as consenting to Akio's seduction works better for the story than having her be a victim of rape. Because making Utena responsible for her own mistakes makes her a more interesting main character, and it drives home the point better to have her willingly lose her innocence... and still being a hero in the end. So basically I agree with the OP (most of it, anyway).

I have a much longer post planned. I love this thread. BUT. Ahem.

The national legal age of consent is 13.

Assuming the school is in Tokyo Prefecture, however, a 'Youth Protection Law' raises this to 18. As far as I could tell with a quick googling, every prefecture has laws making the limit 18. So Akio is a disgusting pig either way.

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

I just don't get how Anthy ever gets a free pass when someone's listing up Akio's crimes and faults. The movie ought to make it impossible, because Akio's dead before it starts and never, ever there. But the TV show paints Anthy as an awfully cruel and manipulative person, just plain torturing ignorant teenagers and smiling faux-innocently or crying crocodile tears the whole time, but because she can play submissive, it seems we're geared to forgive her faster. We want to make excuses for Anthy, and to a degree, even I can make excuses for her, but they're just excuses, aren't they?

Anthy and Akio both are seemingly ageless, timeless, and incredibly powerful and they have nothing to do but hurt each other or torture teenagers. If she was all ugly and wielding a chainsaw, we'd probably feel less forgiving, is all. But since she hurts people subtly or through proxies, and she's cute and smiles and stuff, well, how bad can she be?

I'm one of Anthy's biggest critics, and to me, she's never actually forgiven. She's worse than Akio in many, many ways.

Aelanie wrote:

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

Anthy and Akio both are seemingly ageless, timeless, and incredibly powerful and they have nothing to do but hurt each other or torture teenagers. If she was all ugly and wielding a chainsaw, we'd probably feel less forgiving, is all. But since she hurts people subtly or through proxies, and she's cute and smiles and stuff, well, how bad can she be?

That works both ways though. If Akio weren't such a beautiful, suave, and stylish man - if he were fat, balding, and middle-aged, perhaps - people would undoubtedly judge him more harshly as well. As far as that goes, I consider Akio and Anthy equal in the "we're attractive so we get sympathy" department.

Is she really? I'm not hugely enmeshed in SKU fandom, I admit, but it seems most fans are less willing to condemn her than they are her brother. And I know there are at least some viewers who didn't/don't blame her at all.

Does Anthy ever explicitly say she's going to stop fucking with people, at the end? Or is she just leaving? Because those aren't the same thing at all and one is a lot nicer than the other.

Aelanie wrote:

Many people, women and men alike, simply do not have the inner strength to struggle with and overcome adversity. That makes them pitiable, but not contemptible.

I would argue that "inner strength" is a very subjective concept. Everyone has a finite amount of resources, for one, and the factors that affect that capacity are numerous and diverse. For instance, a person can be genetically predisposed to depression. And even then, what constitutes as a weakness depends entirely on the situation. In our culture, a woman who submits to the violence of her partner is seen as submissive and disempowered. But in other contexts, such traits and tendencies may be revered.

People are not fundamentally better or worse than one another. What ultimately operates as strength or weakness is circumstantial. Ultimately, it's all subjective.

Subjectivity at the core of this debate itself. How is rape defined? How encompassing is that definition? How is the definition a product of historical and societal context? To what extent does it hurt or help people? The strength of the show has always been its ambiguity, and I truly appreciate its ability to inspire such complex discussions on complex topics.

But. Just to play devil's advocate. Or, since I'm arguing that for the U.S. legal definition of rape, PC's advocate.

Gio, you argue that Utena ultimately had a certain degree of agency in her decision. However, she is only 14 and quite inexperienced at that. Her prefrontal cortex, theorized to be mostly responsible for judgment and complex decision-making, is far from being fully developed. The age of consent exists because children are not yet fully capable of assessing the outcomes of their choices. This is especially true when compared with adults.

Utena, as a child, was significantly impaired in her ability to analyze and ultimately make the decision. Therefore, she was unable to give consent. Should a five-year-old be held accountable for playing with a furnace and accidentally burning down a house? Only in Texas (ba-zing). Furthermore, Akio represents an extreme power differential. He used this to manipulate and prey on someone in a vulnerable position. Because this person was a child, his actions go beyond coercion and constitute as rape.

Last edited by Katzenklavier (09-11-2013 01:18:14 AM)