Huh. At first I thought these were all mistakes or misinterpretations, but in fact they're all pretty interesting minutae. Good job, Shadow! Now, I think what this thread badly needs is some pictures.

A) Quick-changing Student

When Nemuro is speaking to the student at the beginning of the flashback in episode 22 (Nemuro Memorial Hall), they look like this.



Their conversation continues over a few brief shots of other students, other places in the building, and Nemuro staring out a window.



When we get back to the conversation (in which there have been no apparent breaks), the student is in a lab coat with a clipboard.



B) Nemuro's Optometry

Most of the time, Nemuro's glasses are tinted purple.



However, in the scene in episode 23 when Nemuro and Mamiya have the "Olympia" conversation, they've turned clear. This is apparently shortly before Nemuro burns down the building, and it's implied that he has resolved or is in the process of resolving to do so when the scene occurs.



But wait, there's more! This is apparently not an animation oversight, because when Mikage flashes back to Tokiko slapping him during his final duel, his glasses are shown to still be clear at that point. So they weren't clear for one scene, they apparently turned clear. And the glasses have pretty distinctive frames - it's not a case of two different pairs.



This begs the question: were Nemuro's glasses also clear during his "false" memory of the fire? Well, it's hard to tell, due to the tinting of his entire body during those shots.



Speaking of which...

C) Roses are Pink, Mikage is Too

Tokiko and Mamiya are tinted orange and purple, and Mikage is pink, during both his false memories of the fire...



...and his correct ones.



Note that the second shot is a bit misleading. Tokiko is still the same colors she was last time, it's just that she appears very purple because she's turned away from the fire and purple is the color of shadows in these shots.

Finally, white chocolate is neither white, nor is it chocolate. Discuss!

Last edited by Dallbun (11-09-2006 04:07:19 PM)

I'm totally half-assing this, but purple seems to be the Akio/Anthy Color of Ultimate Manipulation (+1). Maybe the purples are meant to suggest the things that are being manipulated, i.e. his worldview, or what he sees as his relationships to Tokiko and Mamiya, and the clear is used to suggest that he is finally acting on what he thinks is his own resolve. There's also the possibility that the purple is used to suggest his own detatchment, and that Tokiko, in pink, represents maybe....nont...detatchement? Pink does seem to be a defining color on this show. During the fire scenes, the roles are switched somewhat. Tokiko has a definite detatchment towards Mikage (although there's anger, so....I think I'm shot down. Damn), whereas Mikage in pink has a clarity (or so he thinks) and a reason for setting the fire.

This is absolute crapola, but I'm gonna post it anyway, because I think there's something to Tokiko and Mikage switching colors during the fire, and  think the colors are related to Mikage's glasses. The rest...I can't offer much (not that I did here)...

satyreyes wrote:

Thing to notice in Quick-Changing Student, however: The student is still wearing his green uniform at the end of the talk, it's just that now he's wearing a lab coat over it.  Lab coats don't take long to put on.  It's possible that he really is just a fairly quick-changing student.

I suspect that it represents Nemuro's disorted memories - it may have been two entirely different conversations mangled into one in his mind, for example. Or that the students are pulling practical jokes on him. "Labcoat? What about it? I've worn it all this time. Are you all right, professor?"

Lightice wrote:

I suspect that it represents Nemuro's disorted memories - it may have been two entirely different conversations mangled into one in his mind, for example.

Oooh, I like this one. I think that makes the most sense by far. After all, the students are all completely interchangable in Mikage's memories, and he's not exactly a reliable narrator. If this little change is intended to represent that, it's pretty cool!

HonorableShadow wrote:

If you guys want to add more stuff about the Black Rose Arc (yes, I know how to spell it.  I noticed right after I had posted and I was like "Oh crap, everyone's going to think I'm dumb now." ) feel free to!

Fixed.

Also, great thread. I'm going to be writing a paper on SKU for Psychology, and I think I might pick the BRS as my topic, not sure yet. I'll hammer out some ideas here later, I think...

Mikage is my favorite character in all of Utena and probably one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I wrote a  fanfiction about 2 years ago regarding him, Tokiko, and Mamiya, trying to get into each of their heads, which I spent a long, long, LONG time on (more than a year) and it still didn't turn out like I wanted it to. I would go back and rewrite it, but I've given up.

Thanks to Lightice for the theory of Nemuro's distorted memories, which I think is a very valid theory.  The entire Black Rose Arc is based on the distortion and manipulation of memory, which later becomes a big theme in Utena's remembrance of what Dios showed her while she was in the coffin in the church. I read somewhere a long time ago that Mikage is, in essence, another "side" of Tenjou Utena - the person Utena could have become if she had become obsessed with finding her "prince" and getting those memories back. He says as much, in their confrontation in Nemuro Hall, when he tells her that they are the same, saying "don't touch my precious memory!"

Mikage's precious memory is Tokiko and Mamiya, but he's been so obsessed with getting those memories back to how he wants them to be, not how they actually were, that I think all of his flashbacks are rather disjointed, not just the inconsistencies with the students and the glasses. Watching the last two episodes of the Black Rose again, it's pretty clear that he's still trying to make sense of what happened between him, Tokiko, and Mamiya. There are large gaps in the storyline there as it jumps back and forth, and watching those episodes is like watching a film that has had half the cels cut out of it, making you almost want to fill in the gaps yourself. I'm pretty sure that in the last how many ever years, as he's been trying to justify his actions to himself over and over, he's erased parts of what happened and fashioned other things that never did (Mamiya setting the fire), as Akio has to some extent also justified all his actions to himself. Mikage wanted to be Mamiya's "prince," another addition to the "Utena gone bad" theory.

The distorted memories theme plays itself out in the Black Rose Arc beautifully, as the duellists board the elevator and tell their own memories to Mikage. By the end, those memories have degenerated into the simple emotions of hate, jealousy, or anger. Mikage then does a masterful job of building these base emotions back up to another "memory," one in which the duellist is the victim and is justified for revenge.

Last edited by Ger (11-03-2006 02:10:51 PM)

Dallbun wrote:

I guess it's also worth noting that the labcoats are standard issue - it's not just this guy who wears one.

http://aglick.web.wesleyan.edu/Dallbun/ … sSmall.bmp

It also presents a beautiful difference between the students (who are all in faded sepia-type tones like that of a faded photograph) and Nemuro in his brilliantly colored clothes.

Yet another point towards the jumbled memories theory. Of course he's not going to remember precisely what his students looked like (notice how they all look an awful lot alike?), but he does remember that which is most important to him.

On a side note, I like the guy in the red bow tie. It amuses me somehow.

Lady Chani wrote:

Dallbun wrote:

I guess it's also worth noting that the labcoats are standard issue - it's not just this guy who wears one.

http://aglick.web.wesleyan.edu/Dallbun/ … sSmall.bmp

It also presents a beautiful difference between the students (who are all in faded sepia-type tones like that of a faded photograph) and Nemuro in his brilliantly colored clothes.

Notice, too, how Nemuro is the only one wearing an ID card.

This thread makes my panties happy but I need to rewatch a couple episodes to properly contribute. For now, I'll throw this out:

The glasses get clearer and then fall off in the process both of where he becomes Mikage, and more importantly, where he accepts the worldview he's given. His eyes are flawed in reality, he needs glasses. Once he truly becomes a creature of Akio's, it doesn't matter what he needed on the outside, because the illusion is self-correcting anyway. He sees what he's supposed to see, whether he wears glasses or not. Furthermore, his glasses were originally tinted: sunglasses. He was sensitive to light to wear those habitually, but in the series, what does this mean? He's sensitive to light. He can't handle it, and the more he slips into Ohtori Academy, the less he needs that physical protection, because the less light there is to hurt him. Again, the illusion is self-correcting, giving him what he 'needs' instead of what's real. In this case, even more layered, because the light of reality, the light he couldn't quite bear on his own, is dimming. It's like the series is showing you there's a flaw that makes him an ideal student in Ohtori. He was blinded by light. I think a lot of people like him, that try to see the world logically, suffer this way.

And a contrast...Anthy wears glasses in Ohtori Academy and removes them when she leaves. Mikage's illusion fit him well enough to lose his glasses, but perhaps Anthy needed them to accept the world Akio is giving her. Her position is a more informed one, and we know she sees through Akio's BS, so she voluntarily wears a device to make the illusion real to her. Like 3-D glasses.