(Could also write essays if she wasn't lazy and unstructured.)

Honestly, I think there was confusion about the nature of the relationship he wanted with Mamiya, even in his Nemuro days. Without any of Akio's influence there dragging any negative subconscious aspects to his surface personality, I believe he was attracted to Mamiya sexually as well as wanting to make his own psuedo-family with Tokiko, placing him there as 'father figure'.

His attraction to Tokiko could have been more abstract than solidly sexual: he viewed her as a certain archetypal figure, a conglomeration of his ideas of the perfect spouse and mother. His initial attraction to her at first seemed to be on a more calculating, scientific level: this is an attractive female, everything in place here. These are legs, these are breasts, those are lips. (The slow camera pan up her body to her face basically showing his eyepath.) The blinking finger pointing out what he was focusing on in that scene showed the butterfly, the family of cats, Tokiko pouring the tea, and her lipstick print on the teacup. The butterfly doesn't strike me as symbolic about their relationship so much as the mental state of the character, Nemuro. He's still mentally intact, and hasn't 'descended' into the Mikage state yet. The 'family' of cats show his own desire to be part of such a closely-knit group. The cats themselves, though, are symbols of the feminine. Along with this, what he chooses to focus on was Tokiko's hand tilting the tea kettle: an intrinsically feminine task, especially keeping the culture in mind. The action is submissive, serene, and also motherly. She is providing and nurturing.

The scene where this romantic interest really seems to strike him shows Tokiko in a motherly light as well. She scolds Mamiya for being reckless and not taking care of himself, become so passionate over his welfare that she sheds tears. In the next, she is sitting quietly and peacefully at the bedside of an obviously ill child, and caring for him, administering medication. Her voice is pitched at that half-lilting lullaby tone used to calm frightened or upset children. Nemuro is touched especially by these scenes in particular, and the maternal nature of her actions in both of them causes me to believe what he was truly interested in with Tokiko was not necessarily a sexual, erotic love, but rather the love of a mother, someone pure, compassionate, and sheltering. His own romantic interest in her as a female blurred this considerably, but we can see his world-view shattered when he sees Tokiko, Virgin Mary, on Akio's lap. (Fruedian, anyone?)

As far as Mamiya is concerned, I think he wanted to be a father figure towards him at first, because it fit in the neat and tidy scenario of Mother/Father/Son. However, I think, near the end, he started developing more sexual feelings for him, allowing more confusion and even causing him to 'descend' a little bit more. Note that right after his meeting with Mamiya in the rose garden, after he makes his statement that he doesn't believe that Nemuro and Tokiko's efforts will succeed, but he respects and admires both of them, we see a quick flash to the framed leaf. These feelings toward Mamiya weren't truly expressed, possibly not even consciously known, until his transformation into Mikage.

Clarice wrote:

...oh Christ I'm suddenly thinking of Utena in The Importance of Being Earnest.

*dies*

Oo, I loveth you guys - the whole Nemuro/Mikage/Mamiya/Tokiko relationship has always been a bit fascinating to me, but I could never really completely figure it out. I sort of wish we'd had a bit more time with these four in the series, honestly - especially the real Mamiya as opposed to Anthy-Mamiya. We don't even get to see the real Mamiya until the end of the arc, for god's sake!

Oh, and then there's the fact that we're seeing all of this through Nemuro's rather deluded purple lenses, so I suspect some parts of those memories were tampered with, to put it simply. Makes it even more hard to figure out who the Real!Mamiya really was and how he really acted.

Clarice wrote:

I'm with you on that one -- I mean, we don't even know for sure if ANY of Anthy!Mamiya's actions and/or words can actually be attributed to the real Mamiya. [pulls out hair] I'd say something more but I am horrendously jetlagged, so...tomorrow!

While I don't have any conclusive evidence, I believe that it's real Mamiya in all those scenes that we quickly see real-Mamiya version of, in Mikage's duel. I mean, in those scenes Mamiya implies that he doesn't want eternity, comparing himself to dried flowers and all that - but when the Castle has appeared and the hundred boys start talking about duelling, suddenly he's basically demanding Nemuro to duel for him. I think that's the transition point between real and imaginary Mamiya.

Ivy-chan wrote:

His initial attraction to her at first seemed to be on a more calculating, scientific level: this is an attractive female, everything in place here. ..... The scene where this romantic interest really seems to strike him shows Tokiko in a motherly light as well. ....  His own romantic interest in her as a female blurred this considerably, but we can see his world-view shattered when he sees Tokiko, Virgin Mary, on Akio's lap. (Fruedian, anyone?)

I think this is a lot of the problem he has. Clarice also mentions the possibility of yet another family gone wrong, and that's the case here. SKU says very, very little about parents, strikingly little, in fact, to the point where that deliberate absence makes you consider them all the more. (I've yapped repeatedly about conclusions I draw about Saionji and Touga's family lives.) I also wrote an essay involving Mikage (although it sucks compared to the awesome that is Clarice's ), it centered around genius, and basically a conclusions I'd draw about Nemuro's childhood was that his parents were knowingly negligent. This is different from Touga's parents; Nemuro's might have been nurturing, and weren't, because the parents of such children very often mistake intelligence and unusual maturity for having 'grown out' of such affections. Or to give them the benefit of the doubt, they might have done what seemed to them like affection for such a unique child. They might have purchased a chemistry set for him, or supplied him with research texts, but then kinda forgot to hug him a little.


The result becomes stunted psychosexual development of the sort that would leave Nemuro with a very ambiguous internal idea of women. His mother was never emotionally defined on her own. Couple this with what probably wasn't the most active sex life, and Nemuro's experiences haven't provided him with a solid difference between 'mother' and 'lover'. (We view his walking in on her with Akio as traumatic in the way it would be to walk in on your lover with someone else. Keep in mind the strangely possessive shitfit a lot of boys throw the first time they catch their mother's screwing.) This leaves Mamiya as an ambiguous son/brother to him. How it becomes sexual? I think the seed is there from the beginning because again, sexuality isn't a concept that's defined itself for Nemuro, so he's never sorted out where or when it would apply. I agree though that it became truly sexual when Anthy came along.

Akio and Anthy place her as Mamiya because he needed something close to what he wanted without being what he wanted; she couldn't appear as Tokiko and have it work. (Mamiya's also the target of the protective impulse driving him.) Like Clarice says, it becomes sexual because that's just how Akio rolls, and because it loosened Nemuro up a little, and because it was always latent as a possibility anyway.

Clarice wrote:

I think the Saionji/Wakaba/Tatsuya thing was actually the most wrenching of the duels and their lead-ins, whatever way you look at it.

Tell me about it, I cry like a bitch. But I think it's also the one Mikage was most invested in. Keiko's, the only one after, is pretty self-orchestrating, he doesn't put his foot out to trip events at all. I got the impression he thought Wakaba would be his best shot, and pulled the most strings to accomplish it. At least he's a man of his word; he could have as soon not done what he'd promised Saionji. Odd scene that, how he manages to sit five feet from Saionji without him noticing. Also, that shot is on my list for the body language thread.

As for Miki, he knows the name just fine until Akio says Mikage and Mamiya never existed in the school. This is a rather awesome display of power on Akio's part given there's a whole damn society around Mikage and Mikage is an extremely well known figure. Even Utena was easier for people to forget; popular girls come and go, but Akio pretty effectively wipes a very powerful person off the face of...the school, anyway. I've never really examined this beyond 'holy christ dude', but it's really rather shocking...

I also wonder about Mikage 'graduating'. It's such a big deal for Utena to leave the school, but Akio pretty much sends Mikage out on his own. Has he matured in the same way? I doubt it. If it's perfectly within Akio to boot out completely insane people into the real world because their use is spent...what does that say for our duelists? Anyone else? I've always wondered how one defines where the world begins and Akio's reality ends...it's another thread, though. I just question sometimes how different the two are.

Ivy-chan wrote:

As a side note, a fun point about Mikage is how short, (read: of normal height for a Japanese male,) he is compared to the basketball player-like heights of the other young men on campus. I think Utena might be a bit taller than him by an inch. So, every time we see him with another person, he's specifically placed so that he might seem taller. With Saionji, we have Saionji kneeling on the floor, while Mikage is sitting on a chair. I find that amusing.

If I am remembering a picture I saw at one stage correctly -- it was a height chart, and I imagine it is somewhere at Empty Movement; if I wasn't such a lazy whore I'd go and find it -- Utena and Mikage are actually supposed to be the same height; it was a reflection of the fact that they are supposed to be "equals" of a sort, with Mikage as the shadow and Utena as the light source. However, I can think offhand of at least one scene where their heights show disparity. Hmm. But I agree, Mikage tends to sit back and relax suggestively around people (or sit foward in a predatory fashion), and though this puts him at a lower level the way he uses it gives the power to him. It's also kind of amusing, being as he's the one who brings people down to his level through the elevator and then sends them back up changed into what he requires them to be.

Ivy-chan wrote:

Mikage's 'graduation' did seem more like Akio booting him out after he lost his use, rather than him maturing enough to leave campus on his own in any case. I thought of Akio's 'reality' spread diffusely through the town Ohtori is located in, getting more concentrated toward the school in the center. Then again, it seems to be portable, since Nanami seemed to make it to India with all the crazy Ohtori factors in tow. (Unless you speculate she didn't really leave the campus at all.) Also, it seems to be pretty much linked to the mind, so someone breaking free from it on their own by maturing into an adult is pretty much free of it, whether on the campus or not.

I really, really wonder what happened to him. This is where I swing between the "was he dead and when he was "graduated" he just got laid to rest?" or "was he expelled into the real world and just expected to get on with his life?" schools of thought, neither of which sit quite right with me. I admit I am charmed by the thought that when Nemuro re-enters the real world he does so at his correct age, as it was only the influences of Ohtori that held him static at the younger age, but...honestly, I can't conclude anything really solid from the information we're given. I can theorise, but little else...

Giovanna wrote:

The result becomes stunted psychosexual development of the sort that would leave Nemuro with a very ambiguous internal idea of women. His mother was never emotionally defined on her own. Couple this with what probably wasn't the most active sex life, and Nemuro's experiences haven't provided him with a solid difference between 'mother' and 'lover'. (We view his walking in on her with Akio as traumatic in the way it would be to walk in on your lover with someone else. Keep in mind the strangely possessive shitfit a lot of boys throw the first time they catch their mother's screwing.) This leaves Mamiya as an ambiguous son/brother to him. How it becomes sexual? I think the seed is there from the beginning because again, sexuality isn't a concept that's defined itself for Nemuro, so he's never sorted out where or when it would apply. I agree though that it became truly sexual when Anthy came along.

Akio and Anthy place her as Mamiya because he needed something close to what he wanted without being what he wanted; she couldn't appear as Tokiko and have it work. (Mamiya's also the target of the protective impulse driving him.) Like Clarice says, it becomes sexual because that's just how Akio rolls, and because it loosened Nemuro up a little, and because it was always latent as a possibility anyway.

I definitely agree with that -- and I find the thought of his flipping out over the Akio/Tokiko thing as compared to the Oedipus complex quite fascinating. I also like the idea that Nemuro really didn't know how on earth to take his feelings for Mamiya and hence why this turned into something sexual later; I doubt that it would have done that in the natural course of things, but the ambiguity of it certainly opened up a viable window for Akio and Anthy to climb through. Which interests me; I can't decide if Akio does this because sex is a useful tool, or because he personally sees it as a binding bond between two people. I then start to wonder what this says about his sexual relationship with Anthy. Damn these tangents, brain!

Giovanna wrote:

Tell me about it, I cry like a bitch. But I think it's also the one Mikage was most invested in. Keiko's, the only one after, is pretty self-orchestrating, he doesn't put his foot out to trip events at all. I got the impression he thought Wakaba would be his best shot, and pulled the most strings to accomplish it. At least he's a man of his word; he could have as soon not done what he'd promised Saionji. Odd scene that, how he manages to sit five feet from Saionji without him noticing. Also, that shot is on my list for the body language thread.

I shall look forward to that. It's one of my favourite random-as-fuck moments from Mikage, him just turning up in Wakaba's dorm room like that (because one would sincerely hope that's not a frequent habit of his...damn, no wonder he's so popular on campus, ). It was that moment, actually, that first made me wonder if Mikage was actually some sort of ghost...which he kind of is anyway, but about then I started thinking to myself "Er, what is the DEAL with this guy?" Because even for SKU, that's a pretty whacky thing to be able to do at will.

Giovanna wrote:

I also wonder about Mikage 'graduating'. It's such a big deal for Utena to leave the school, but Akio pretty much sends Mikage out on his own. Has he matured in the same way? I doubt it. If it's perfectly within Akio to boot out completely insane people into the real world because their use is spent...what does that say for our duelists? Anyone else? I've always wondered how one defines where the world begins and Akio's reality ends...it's another thread, though. I just question sometimes how different the two are.

I tend to think that it bodes ill for the duellists -- although they are still in the school at the end of the series, I don't think it's just because they haven't matured enough to leave, it's because Akio doesn't toss his pawns out of the game until he needs to sacrifice them for a reason. He lets the occasional wildcard in -- which is what I believe Ruka was -- but until people have no use, he'll keep them. Nemuro's use was over, and so he was so politely asked to leave the school. What happened to him outside is anyone's guess.

Clarice asked:
How tall is Mikage?

SKU Characters Height from Tallest to Shortest in feet and inches.
Ohtori Akio = 6ft 7in
Tsuchiya Ruka = 6ft 6in
Kiryuu Touga = 6ft 4in
Saionji Kyouichi = 6ft 4in
Ohtori Kanae = 5ft 7in
Arisugawa Juri = 5ft 7in
Tenjou Utena = 5ft 5in
Mikage Souji = 5ft 5in
Takatsuki Shiori = 5ft 4in
Kaoru Miki = 5ft 3in
Kaoru Kozue = 5ft 3in
Kiryuu Nanami = 5ft 2in
Shinohara Wakaba = 5ft 1in
Himemiya Anthy = 5ft 0in
Sonoda Keiko = 5ft 0in
Tsuwabuki Mitsuru = 4ft 1in

Tamago wrote:

Clarice asked:
How tall is Mikage?

SKU Characters Height from Tallest to Shortest in feet and inches.
Ohtori Akio = 6ft 7in
Tsuchiya Ruka = 6ft 6in
Kiryuu Touga = 6ft 4in
Saionji Kyouichi = 6ft 4in
Ohtori Kanae = 5ft 7in
Arisugawa Juri = 5ft 7in
Tenjou Utena = 5ft 5in
Mikage Souji = 5ft 5in
Takatsuki Shiori = 5ft 4in
Kaoru Miki = 5ft 3in
Kaoru Kozue = 5ft 3in
Kiryuu Nanami = 5ft 2in
Shinohara Wakaba = 5ft 1in
Himemiya Anthy = 5ft 0in
Sonoda Keiko = 5ft 0in
Tsuwabuki Mitsuru = 4ft 1in

Does anybody know how much is that in cm?

I find feet easier.

Meanwhile, I'm Juri and Kanae's height! Whee!

Back on topic!!

Clarice wrote:

I definitely agree with that -- and I find the thought of his flipping out over the Akio/Tokiko thing as compared to the Oedipus complex quite fascinating. I also like the idea that Nemuro really didn't know how on earth to take his feelings for Mamiya and hence why this turned into something sexual later; I doubt that it would have done that in the natural course of things, but the ambiguity of it certainly opened up a viable window for Akio and Anthy to climb through. Which interests me; I can't decide if Akio does this because sex is a useful tool, or because he personally sees it as a binding bond between two people. I then start to wonder what this says about his sexual relationship with Anthy. Damn these tangents, brain!

For Akio I would imagine it's a bit of both, though more that it is a useful tool. Or at least, it's the tool he prefers. There are many little schemes of his in the series, most of the revolve around sex somehow, when the same ends could be achieved by other means. It's just sex is his preferred medium. Why that is...well what's more adult than sex, huh? If you're a psychologically stunted boy in a man's body striving to be as adultlike as possible, what're you likely to decide is the best thing for that? (Oh oh, let's contrast to Tsuwabuki, who isn't sexually aware because he's a boy still in a boy's body wanting to be an adult.)

And Mikage...well for god's sake with all the in this series how can we skip an obvious Oedipus opportunity. Mikage is probably the second best example (after Akio) of a theme that shows itself repeatedly in the series. SKU keeps emotional maturity way far apart from every other kind of maturity, and values it far higher. Mikage looks far older than he is, even though he's short. Really, by how he acts, moves, talks...we easily forget he's only supposed to be what...a year older than Touga and Saionji? His genius fuels much of this, but in the end he's got the emotional maturity of a little kid, still confusing his idea of women as mothers and sex objects.

I wonder, though, has Mikage deteriorated in a full-blown pedophile? His sexuality has become so warped, and Mamiya isn't the only suggestion of him wanting to stick his peener in a young boy. See: First post in my body language thread...I think he wouldn't have minded rolling around a bit with Miki. If you want to really split hairs, he gives a strange look to Tsuwabuki, though I can explain that with different reasons....

Hmm...I'm about 6' 1"...3 inches shorter than Touga and Saionji - damn those people are tall...

Clarice wrote:

I'm Kozue's height.

...

So. Who wants to come 'round my place Saturday night?

But... that would mean you're also Miki's height, and Miki at this stage of the game isn't someone I'd go to for an evening's romp

Anyway, Giovanna, you must explain the look you are referencing, please.

Last edited by A Day Without Me (01-16-2007 08:12:50 PM)