(Just a quick comment, I'll post more once other people do and I can steal thier ideas...I mean once I've organised my thoughts)

Oh um ...spoilers?

Makio (good name) is a confusing character, and from a plot perspective seems to be nothing more than a vehicle for the faux-Dios. When he arrives in prince form he basically states out lound in dialogue his symbolic and narrative purpose and intent from the show: "Stay here and be a living corpse Anthy because I said so."
His desperate search for the key to his rusting car contrast family explicitly with Anthy's desperation to get moving before her Utena mobile rusts. Akio stopped being a character when they made the movie, he became a plot device. He merely exists to show that his car is rusted, and he can't move on (much like his series counterpart) he is incapable of escaping the closed world ...ever and he dies in despair... if he ever existed (still not sure about that) he's been there too long and he can't move on ... grow up? He exchanged the flashy red Akio mobile for a little green block (analogous to his character shift?).

Once I figure out exactly what they are lacking in Ohtori Academy I might have a better idea of why he’s such a wet fish.

^ Eidt: I type too slow

Last edited by Kashira (08-30-2007 06:15:16 PM)

Kashira and Alithea, you both made good points that we should look at Makio from the prospective of what his role is in this movie rather than just compare Makio to Akio side by side and find Makio wanting like most of us (me included) have done.

(God I wish I could wield words together much better)

I think the biggest problem with the movie is that they condenced it way too much as well as totally reinventing so completely and as a result, the movie ended up with way too many WTF moments, the only reason I liked the movie as much as I did was because I saw it before I saw the series, if I had watched the series first thean the movie, I would have dismissed it as a very pretty soundtrack with many freaky scenes.

I do remember that sometime ago in this forum, that Makio might represent Akio as he might have been soon after Anthy sealed Dios away but I cannot remember where it was posted anymore.

Razara wrote:

This makes it seem as though Movie-Akio was a really nice guy who treated his fiance well, and really as a textbook example of a prince.

Except for the raping his sister part, but that's another story.

I read an article by a victim of incest who protested the tendency of the public to paint her father as a total monster. He indeed molested her and hurt her badly psychologically but he was also a great guy in many other ways and people needed to see that also and not think in black-and-white terms.

Series Akio makes a great archetype (there is something delicious about a man so voracious that even knotholes in trees are not safe from him), but M-Akio is more human.

Of course! Post away.

Huzzah!

A work in progress! I'll be back in the morning. Er, mid afternoon. Same thing for me, though.

Kashira wrote:

Makio exchanged the flashy red Akio mobile for a little green block (analogous to his character shift?).

I think the scene where he lets Kanae out of his Pimpmobile, dances with her on a red carpet surrounded by people, and then enters the ugly green taxi driven by a man without a face is about how his relationship with Anthy was sketchy and something he didn't want anyone to know about. His convertible, with the open roof and gorgeous appearance, represented the life he lived in the public's eyes. Makio was a seemingly charming young man who wore tight pants, loved his fiancé, and could do gymnastics, but that was only when he knew that the Shadow Girls (i.e. news anchors/tabloids) were watching him.

After he's finishing waltzing Kanae around the premises, Makio enters a taxi to meet up with Manthy (that sounds a little like a sweet transvestite, but movie!Anthy and series!Anthy are so different). From the outside, while he is still aware that the Shadow Girls are filming, their conversation and actions seem perfectly normal for a brother and sister. However, given that he left Kanae with his car and red carpet, I think Akio might have hidden Anthy from her, which might account for why Kanae is more devastated by his death.

Now, when a man who owns a snazzy ass ride like the Pimpmobile* gets into a shitty little taxi to go see an underage girl, you can bet there's something smelly afoot. Whereas his sexy convertible is pretty easy to find, a taxi is virtually untracable. No one would know that Makio had visited little Manthy. At least, no one but the Shadow Girls, but like I said, they were acting perfectly normal for a brother and sister, sketchy taxi aside, so he had nothing to worry about. Even Manthy (it's too weird! she's Anthy again!) wouldn't be the wiser.

Inside of his art studio, the light is darker, and the filming a little more crude. This shows that the scene itself will be darker and possibly that Akio isn't aware he's being filmed anymore. When the record that had been previously playing Akio's "perfect life" soundtrack starts skipping, it means that his relationship with Anthy is the imperfection or scratch on what had seemed a beautiful being.

Why I think Makio might no longer be aware of his being filmed, the cinemetography shows (or at least implies) that Anthy sees Makio slipping a mickey into her drink, which he is unaware of later. He no longer addresses the camera and the Shadow Girls no longer address him. It's just Utena watching now. In the movie manga, they get straight to business and make it clear that Anthy is revealing her memories to Utena. I believe the scene inside the studio is completely in Anthy's memory.

A basic overview of the Anthy and Makio relationship as I see it is that they are both the skeletons in each other's closets. Or rather, in Anthy's case, the skeleton in her rose garden. I'll write a bit on that once I've thought it over more, though.

Back to the video, throughout the whole thing (which I think is all we see of living Makio) his bangs are covering the spot where his bindi would be. The bindi, possibly representing his third eye or ability to see through the illusions of Ohtori, is also a symbol of his supernatural abilities. The lack of that symbol might mean he's just an ordinary man at this point. He doesn't become the magical prince he is later until he is the physical manifestation of Anthy's ideal Makio. Anthy, on the other hand, does have her bindi. So I think we're allowed to believe that she is not mortal, but a witch (I know I'm kind of pointing out the obvious here, but it helps my next conclusion) like we were lead to believe in the series' Tale of the Rose.

Also in the Tale of the Rose, it is said that a prince can't make his sister a princess. In fairy tales, when a prince and a princess come together, it usually symbolizes sex. So when Makio fucks Anthy (I say "fuck" because it's not rape, but it's more corrupt than regular sex) and she tells him that he is her prince, they've just broken that sacred rule. They're executed because of it.

Earlier in the movie, Makio tells Touga the story of the Prince of the Rose or something like that turning out to be the Lord of the Flies (probably some symbolism there, but I've never read the book, only the best essay ever). It's basically the story of Anthy and Dios we learn in that Tale of the Rose episode. I also see it as being the story of movie!Anthy and Makio, only told by dead/Anthy's Makio, so heavily biased and idealized by her.

Er, I'm not sure if I've properly introduced this theory yet, but this all leads me to believe that there never was a movie Dios and that it's all just a fairy tell used to cover up the tragedy of Makio's death. Or at least, there was no Dios in the flesh. Dios was the prince she saw in Makio (note how his hair is half-way between Akio and Dios'), which was a paradox because a man can't be his sister's prince (I think the fact that there never was a real prince was stated several times in the movie). So really Dios himself was a figment of her imagination that she combined with Makio after his death. In the video, everyone's wearing at least semi-realistic clothes, but after he dies, Makio is wearing the clothes we see on that fairy tale Rose Prince. There's not even any spandex or ruffles in it! It seems very out of character, if you ask me.

Oh, and as far as the Ohtori campus itself is concerned, I mostly trust the movie manga's explanation for how it came to be. Anthy (who might be a witch because only gross girls like witches want to fuck their brothers) feels responsible for Makio's death, creates the campus out of greif, yadda yadda. Ohtori means phoenix, a mystical bird who rises from its own ashes, so this is the rebirth of one's happy life with their prince/princess out of the ashes of memory (there's probably some meaning in only Akio having the last name Ohtori, but I can't explain it properly).

I believe Ohtori is filled with ghosts/fallen princes and princesses and the people they haunt. All of these people come to Anthy's mystical land as kindred spirits. As mentioned by Alithea, there is Juri and Shiori, Utena and Touga, but also Miki and Kozue, Tatsuya and Wakaba, and Saionji and somebody. How these people are similar to Anthy to Makio, we see in the series, if not the movie as well.

Shiori cruelly (in Juri's eyes, at least) rejects Juri's feelings for her, which may or may not have driven one or the other to do something drastic in that boat later. I say this because as Shiori tells Touga about the locket, you see little Juri looking out at the water. Anyway, the heavily simplified Shiori we see in the movie is one of the few people who interacts with Touga, a definite ghost, when the very real Miki cannot. She also seems to have supernatural powers on campus, what with stealing the Shadow Girls' video tape, and only communicates with the other people on campus after the ground of Ohtori, burying Anthy's past, is broken and the real Makio revealed. So I think Shiori is Juri's ghost/fallen princess who carries her sword, but not in her heart as Anthy does for "Dios" and Utena.

Touga and Utena is old hat, so fuck that.

Movie!Kozue might have molested Miki, based on the scene in the bathtub, making their story much akin to Anthy and Makio's, or it could also be the ol' "my sister and I used to play piano, but then I got sick so she's a slut now" story. Either way, she's his fallen princess (their part is so small, that's all I can really get out of their movie back-story. Sorry, Mister Vagina).

When it comes to Saionji, I get a bit confused. I know by the end that Wakaba is Saionji's true princess (I'll explain fully in a minute), but I'm not sure who he came in with. Maybe he had another Touga-esque person he envied and diddled with.

Tatsuya, who we see briefly talking to Wakaba (but might not actually see, if you know what I mean), could be the fallen prince she came in with. Her old onion prince turned smooth-talking asshole who just randomly moves away... In the series, after maybe a decade, Wakaba was still hurting. It might have been enough to bring them to Ohtori. And did you notice that when Wakaba was hitting on movie!Utena, she had Tatsuya's same haircut? I'm sorry if that last sentence smells a little funny because I just pulled it out of my ass.

But yes, Ohtori is filled with people in similar situations to Anthy and Makio/Dios. Each can only communicate with their ghost or hauntee (except for Anthy) and is otherwise stuck with only the dead or the living. Some of the more tragic and princely of the students are chosen by the roses of Ohtori to duel for the Sword of Dios (a romanticized version of the knife Makio embedded into Anthy's heart). She dresses them in prince's garb (much like she dressed her idea of Makio as Dios) and offers to be their replacement princess for a night.

But this all get shattered after Utena shows up. She seems just like any of the other duelists, but she's the only one who brings the world revolution. I think in the end, it's because she was the only one who had a true prince with her at Ohtori.

Movie!Touga loved her, treated her selflessly, broke up with her most likely for reasons concerning his "father," and died saving a young girl**. As she said in the elevator, "he really was her prince." Keyword, was.

Because Utena had a real prince to model herself after instead of a fallen prince to cling on to, she was the purest of the bunch; the only one with a white rose. The other duelists had red roses, stained by blood, anger, or passion. As the most pure, only she could embody Anthy's pure image of Dios, remove Makio's sword from her heart, and fill the empty void with love.

I'm going to wrap this up with some of my car schpeil and then add to it later. It's two in the morning and my logic is all fugged up.

There's a little inconsistency in something I said earlier. I said that the living and the dead couldn't communicate unless they were hooked together, but Miki sees Shiori and Juri together. However, that was in the room full of cars where you also see Dios and Miki's rubber ducky/Kozue.

The black cars are physical embodiments of the student's ghosts and I think may double as illusion projectors, much like Akio's planetarium. So in that room, the fallen ones could be seen by all. At the time, Utena had not gotten closure with Touga and truly become Anthy's prince, so I think a car of Dios may have been in there as well.

Post-Touga Utena was a real prince. Once she decided that she didn't want to just be Makio back from the dead and instead wanted to help Anthy escape from this world where people were held back by the ones they loved the most, she got attacked by the Magical Carwash of ZUM and got to be a perty car.

Wakaba, too, ended up being a beautiful car, which I think means she ended up become a true princess (as Tatsuya too might be considered a true prince) to Saionji.

Ack! Can't think anymore. G'night, guys. Excuse my typos for now!

*About Akio's car, has anyone figured out exactly what model it is? I had a hunch it was a 1960 250 GT Ferrari California Spyder, but there are a couple details that don't quite fit. I'd just like to know because I'm a fact-monger.

**I honestly don't see where the Be Papas get off making "true prince" movie!Touga the same character as Series!Touga. He's as bad as Makio! I miss my sex addicted asshole!

Edit: Car of Dios was the castle. Sorry!

Last edited by NajiMinkin (08-31-2007 02:26:32 AM)

I'm feeling a bit too tipsy right now for any analysis, but I wanted to post a link to this thread Movie Akio vs. Series Akio, which has a similar topic and might offer some relevant commentary:

http://forums.ohtori.nu/viewtopic.php?id=552

Last edited by rhyaniwyn (08-31-2007 01:33:38 AM)

Kashira wrote:

NajiMinkin wrote:

What Tamago said

Well that's what I get for trying to analyse after only one viewing.

One quick note, I think that when Makio referenced the Lord of the Flies he was probably talking about Beelzebub rather than the book. Similar to how he compared himself to Lucifer in the series.

Mmm, that makes much more sense. Danke!

I cannot believe I totally forgot about that thread rhyaniwyn posted, I remembered talking about Akio vs Makio but I thought it was an offtopic subject on a different thread...HOW EMBARRASSMENT!

Neat essay, Naji!  Tonight is evidently "Satyreyes Praises NajiMinkin Night."  I'm not sure all the facts are in about whether M-Ohtori is a graveyard for false princes and the princesses they took down, but it fits; if M-Ohtori is nothing else, it's an illusory castle in the sky.

As far as Makio goes, would you summarize that the reason we all think Makio is lame is that Makio is lame?  He's nothing but a handicap for Anthy and the owner of a rusty Ferrari.

I have to agree that Akio is not Makio, Anthy is not Manthy, etc etc.  But reading your essay, I kept thinking "But if they're different characters, why do they have the same names?"  How is the movie like the series?  There are hints... Akio tethers Anthy to Ohtori in both, though for subtly different reasons... and there's the story of the boat that Juri tells in the Utena series finale.  But is there a more fundamental connection?  If Ikuhara had changed the names and character designs and called the movie "Quetzalcoatl High School: A Story Totally Unrelated To That Other One, I Promise," what would have been lost?

Giovanna wrote:

satyreyes wrote:

"Quetzalcoatl High School: A Story Totally Unrelated To That Other One, I Promise"

Did the Aztec high priests usually remove the heart with a palette knife?

Not as far as I know; it was just the funniest mythical bird I could think of.  Though it wouldn't surprise me.  Aztecs were kah-razy.

On an off-topic note, I'm currently playing Fatal Frame 2, a survival-horror video game wherein [ there's a village lost in the folds of time where a ritual involving identical twins killing each other is played out again and again.  I don't know the details yet, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if a palette knife was involved.  Disturbing. ]

Giovanna wrote:

Movie Anthy apparently of her own accord placed herself on a pedestal, to be desired by the student council (sexually, did I mention that?) and treated like a queen (lol Touga dries her off instead of Utena whoops) within the confines of a coffin she seems to know she's stuck in. She  enjoys antagonizing Utena when she's alone with her, and overall just doesn't come across as a particularly unhappy person. Sounds a lot like Akio to me.

But does movie Akio remind us at all of Anthy? While movie Anthy was, yes, drugged on the floor for most of the scene, what does she do when she wakes up? She says something that she knows will hurt him, but doesn't sound like it's meant that way. (Saionji...sempai.) Could it be, perhaps, that movie Anthy lords over Makio in her own subtle way just as Akio lorded over Anthy in the series? And doesn't Makio's guilt in the face of not actually stopping what's in his control to stop somewhat reminiscent of Anthy later in the series when she appears a little less enthusiastic about sleeping with her brother? They do both have suicide/attempts in common as well.

Ahem, the movie manga explains Anthy better. But anyway: Anthy may not have been drugged at all. She was simply doing what she thought he wanted. She was probably completely innocent and naive about psychology and perhaps even Right and Wrong. The essence of cruelly innocent. He may have brainwashed her into thinking that's what she should do, but by actually doing it, she made him worse and destroyed him. Her story is of blind idealism leading to tragedy and his of using his adoring sister to turn himself into something he could not stand to look at. Although I dislike much of the movie that scene has a lot of psychological truth with a lot a applications to many situations. That scene, along with a couple of others make it worthwhile.

Anthy had no clue what she was doing to Makio by worshipping him so. Her obediance and submissiveness was psychologically devasting to both of them. She may have been selfish and thoughtless but also completely innocent.

In the so-called Real World there are lots of people living in Hells jointly made for them by their own selves and by departed loved ones, and who are unwilling to expel the ghosts that imprison them.

Utena herself is so obviously deluded that Anthy can see her own flaws in Utena's. They are soul-mirrors to each other. It's not a pretty sight. They had both twisted themselves out of shape trying to hold on to inappropriate ideals. (I really miss that series Utena who would never make a pass at Wakaba or hurl Anthy onto the bed, but the more blatantly flawed characters do move the story along faster.)

Anthy may also have been trying to be a Camus-style Sisyphus trying to find inner contentment from pushing those rocks.

Last edited by brian (09-06-2007 03:03:11 PM)

brian wrote:

Anthy may also have been trying to be a Camus-style Sisyphus trying to find inner contentment from pushing those rocks.

Should I have understood that just from watching, or is there some sort of textbook to go with the course?

Lady Chani wrote:

I think I'd flip and fall out a window too.

And bury yourself in a garden too?