My life-imitating Utena moment is not so much a moment as a series of moments, all of which were kind of disturbing. This story revolves around hair.

I am a natural blonde; I've had long, thick wavy blonde hair for years. When I first watched SKU around four years ago, I locked onto Nanami immediately because my hair looked exactly like hers. She was, and still is, one of my favorite characters. I cosplayed her several times, because I was kind of in awe that we looked so similar. I also have an older brother; he is tall, skinny, very effeminate looking, and has long red hair.

You can imagine the look on my face once the parallel hit me.

I didn't let it bug me until people started to comment on it-- "Hey, look! You and your brother look just like Nanami and Touga! ... hey, that's kinda weird, you know?" Then it started to get really irksome. I had been getting tired of having the long hair for a while, and called my hairdresser and requested a haircut. I wanted it as short as possible without looking awkward. I also wanted a dye job! What color, she asked, already shocked that I wanted to lop off twelve inches of perfectly good hair. My answer?

Pink!

(It sounded like a good idea at the time. I mean, come on. Pink hair's awesome.)

Know what I looked like when I walked out of the salon?

Yes, you guessed it. I looked just like movie!Utena. I looked in the mirror, and this was my thought process: "Hey, I look like Utena! ..... OH MY GOD I LOOK LIKE UTENA." To make matters even worse, my brother was letting his hair grow out even longer than before. I was so pissed off. I couldn't just walk back in the salon and ask for them to re-dye it, because getting a professional dye job is expensive; and also, I would have been completely pleased with how my hair looked if it hadn't been for the fact that I had a Touga-clone for a brother. (Trust me, my hair looked badass.)

So I had to live with my Utena-look. Fast-forward to six months later, when my hair has started to grow out and the pink dye is fading so that it's barely noticable. I call my hairdresser to set up another appointment. She asks me if I want to dye my hair another color. My answer?

"Hmm... blue!"

So I got my hair cut short in a boy's cut, because I had always wanted to try that, and dyed a bright cerulean blue. I figure this is the last of the Utena hair mishaps.

It's at this point that another thought strikes me: "Hey... you know, [my brother] has been curling his hair lately. And it's been getting lighter with the new shampoo and product he uses. It almost looks... orange. And my hair is short... and blue.

...

Fuck."

I blame this entire experience on my inability to think ahead; of course I could've considered the idea that switching from blonde to pink to blue would have been like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but I was too blinded at the time with the idea of changing my hair color. (This is exemplified by the fact that my next hair color after blue was purple. So I had shoulder-length purple hair and my brother had long orange curly hair. I am the queen of foresight, clearly.)

At the moment, I've gone back to pink, and my brother's hair has not gone back to being straight and red. Actually, I've briefly considered trying to convince him to cosplay Juri, because he could pull it off.

Christi_Morelei wrote:

INSANE SAGA OF THE HAIR

What the christ!

You're missing my favorite characters.

As for me, hmm. Swap out the genders and don't account for looks at all and I grew up with Touga. I was Saionji.
I don't recall any attempted molestation, and we were a little young for her to pimp the whole school, but it was very much a WHY MUST SHE ALWAYS BEAT ME GRR I WANT TO KILL MY BEST FRIEND RAWR (punch randomly at things although in my case never people) kind of deal. Glory for another in outshining those close to them, etc. She was even student council president in high school, although since no one mentioned any dueling game or seductive authority figure, I had the good sense to not compete with her anymore by then. Oh, and it wasn't kendo. It was dance.

Giovanna wrote:

You're missing my favorite characters.

Well, green hair is hard to pull off; after a certain period of time, it looks like there's moss growing on your head and nobody wants that. Also, I don't think they make permanent hair dye in Akio's shade of hair, whatever shade that is. Silver? Some combination of lavendar and periwinkle? It's never one single stable color. I did have red hair for a while, though. It looked horrible on me. Not exactly my best decision ever.

Razara wrote:

I'm willing to estimate that two out of three people who watch Utena can relate to Juri in some way.

Hmm, it wouldn't shock me, although I'm sure its to different degrees. I certainly can relate to her, I'm still hopelessly in love with someone I don't have a chance with and who is a bit cruelly innocent. I also almost got a locket for their photo, before deciding that'd be a little too weird - I do, however, carry a very small print I made of a photo I took of them around with me in my wallet, tucked in among the dollar bills and change.

On a different note, I can relate to Utena's desire to be a prince - I can't say I ever exactly wanted to be a prince, but I never wanted to take the role of damsel in distress, and I have always wanted to be able to defend those who I care about or those who are weaker than I am. I've beaten up some of my friends' exes ; For a while I was the Utena to my friend's Anthy, with her boyfriend starring as Akio, although she was never the empty doll that Anthy was.

A painting of an upside-down castle, by an artist who has never heard of Utena, let alone seen it, is officially the coolest thing EVER. I mean, upside-down castles are cool in that creepy swords-of-hate sort of way, but the fact that it's insinuating itself on the brain of someone who you'd never expect to think of it? It just shows how universal Utena really is.

Razara, I think you're dead on about Juri, which is probably the biggest reason why she's so popular.