Yep. Whether you like Shiori or not, you have to admit that she makes Juri more interesting. ..well, unless you prefer manga!Juri. I don't, but I think I've seen someone who did.

And Touga is dead in the movie, so Saionji doesn't know him at the moment.. and look at movie!Saionji. Hm. Are there any others?

I think Ruka's presence in the anime makes Juri more interesting, just like Shiori. When he shows up, as someone from Juri's past, it just makes you wonder what happened between them.

Oh, and Nanami and Touga in the movie/manga.. that's another good one. Hm. What about why Akio and Shiori are so different in the movie? I think Akio must have been castrated, and his penis was wrapped in lace and then handed to Shiori. Penis = symbolizes power. Even his tower was castrated!

Pssh, all analysis is welcome. And.. I think the main symbolism interpretation thread would be fine, but then again, it isn't my thread. I don't think it's limited to just series analysis, though. And I was always curious about movie Juri and Shiori's relationship myself.

I'm also wondering why Ikuhara did the things he did to the characters in the movie.. there must be reasons. He claimed that Shiori was his favourite character, and that Akio was stealing all of his women, but I'm not sure. In Shiori's case, I think it might have been like.. "Oh, you hate Shiori now? I can make it worse. " Since a lot of the Shiori-bashers from the past apparently thought she was the ultimate evil, even worse than Akio.. so he actually made her that way in the movie?

As for Akio in the movie.. I think he took some kind of sick amusement in taking such a sexy, powerful character and turning him into a flop.

Either I got that wrong or he changes his answers to confuse people.. I wouldn't be surprised about either one.

Speaking of characters, I finally read the essay on Keiko in Empty Movement.. just, wow. It was really good. I'm still not crazy about Keiko, but she's a lot more interesting now. It also makes sense why she didn't just try dating Touga on her own.. she didn't want to be just another fling.

This is far from polished, so please forgive it for its roughness.

I, too am one of the few who favors Saionji, for many of the same reasons others have elaborated on.  For all his barbs, he is, at heart, a vulnerable child with a broken ego as his shield.  It's of interest that he, like several other members of the cast, is fairly astute in his perceptions, though unlike the others he only really seems to use this knowledge to either disenchant himself or provide himself with some shard of redemption of character; it's justification for his actions, rather than cerebral weapons.  It seems he can't -- or won't -- own up to his idea of himself; he has a solid-enough reckoning of what series of circumstances would make things easiest, but lacks the conviction in his ability to achieve those ends.  A teeter-totter, really.  He desires an end but hates the idea that change is the means.

These stagnating trates generally tend to grate, but Saionji manages to make them earn my sympathies, mostly on account of the causes of his turmoil -- he's kicked around by almost everyone, either because they know he's essentially all bark or because they like seeing him lose himself, and it's just terribly sad.  For all the bruising, there's quite obviously a sensitive person beneath -- it's what he's trying to protect with his repellent nature, after all -- and when it does briefly show it offers such absolution.  Unfortunately, it seems most fans have made up their mind about him by the time a peek into the damage is given.  The same seems to apply for Nanami, my other favorite character.

I'd say they definitely count. I love the Shadow Girls to death. I've found that most people prefer C-Ko to A-Ko and B-Ko, but I just loved seeing A-Ko and B-Ko act together so much more. E-Ko and F-Ko are pretty cool, too, although they're pretty much the same as the prior. Of course, you can't tell an Adolescence-lover that. Nah, I do love the movie a lot, but I think it gets overlooked a bit (not including movie!Akio and his torment). I mean, there isn't much analysis on events or characters in the movie, save for a few. That's the main reason I wanted to do one for Juri and Shiori.

Last edited by dollface (11-24-2009 04:34:04 PM)

Like_Autumn wrote:

And of course, the Shadow Play Girls (if they even count as characters).

Ducks and covers from the hyacinth bomb that will surely be exploding in this thread soon.

My favorite character is Anthy, no question. She has my favorite anime color combo, green eyes and violet hair. I never really identified with her aside from the "There's me, then there's everyone else" perspective. But I love her, though.

I tend to be drawn to the enigmatic, mysterious characters. If I like how they look and I know nothing about their background, I only like them more.

Coming in a very, very, very close second is Akio. I like villains, even redeemable ones. If they have pastel/white hair, automatic win. On top of that, the man exudes sex and power like a pheromone.

In a semi-distant third is Kozue. If it wasn't for the fact that's only 13, I'd like her better. If she's that much of a force to be reckoned with at that age, imagine what she'll be like when she's in high school. She radiates this confidence and security that I think may be lacking most of the cast, even Touga. I'm sure that if she were confronted head-on about that fateful day when she and Miki were kids, we'd see a different Kozue.

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

Of course, I don't know who's making the poll, or when, but I thought making a list might be helpful to whoever does it.

Hmm.. I can have a poll on my webspace that is viewable by anyone and no signups needed to vote or anything.  I haven't used that feature in years, but I'd be willing to host some SKU polls whenever we might feel the need for one.  The interface is kind of primitive, but at least it's a functioning feature! I think I can only run one poll at a time (though each poll can have multiple questions), but results can be archived when a new one goes up. I'd even make a super secret page on my website just for IRG polls. 

If anyone wants to maybe try to coordinate something, feel free to PM me and we can work out details.

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (07-20-2007 08:12:45 PM)

I'm not sure about Touga, Yasha would be able to answer that better than I could, but I think Ruka does have a degree of innocence left - if he were truly jaded he wouldn't have bothered to try and push Juri into getting over Shiori because he'd have assumed that he'd have failed and it wouldn't have made a difference. The fact that he tried, even though he probably knew that he had little if any chance of success, meant that he had the innocence to do something essentially futile because he thought that it was the right thing to do. It takes a specific kind of personality to make the person you love most in the world hate you because you did something for her that would end up being for the best.

Imaginary Bad Bug wrote:

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

Of course, I don't know who's making the poll, or when, but I thought making a list might be helpful to whoever does it.

Hmm.. I can have a poll on my webspace that is viewable by anyone and no signups needed to vote or anything.  I haven't used that feature in years, but I'd be willing to host some SKU polls whenever we might feel the need for one.  The interface is kind of primitive, but at least it's a functioning feature! I think I can only run one poll at a time (though each poll can have multiple questions), but results can be archived when a new one goes up. I'd even make a super secret page on my website just for IRG polls. 

If anyone wants to maybe try to coordinate something, feel free to PM me and we can work out details.

That would be awesome. If no one else wants to try to help coordinate that, I can a little later - a friend from NJ is over and we're going on a trip soon. Thank you for the offer. (:

Although, I do think it might be best to have the option to vote more than one character - but probably no more than four. Some people have a few favourites they can't decide from.

Ragnarok wrote:

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

Would Chigusa count? Real!Mamiya? Tokiko? Kanae's mom? Hmmm... anyone else? I didn't want to put extremely minor characters, because most polls have a limit. But if anyone feels there are others that are important, let me know.

Dios?

Not that anyone would probably vote for him.

Dios! Thank you! Hmm. But would Akio count as Dios or not? I suppose putting both would be better..

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

Although, I do think it might be best to have the option to vote more than one character - but probably no more than four. Some people have a few favourites they can't decide from.

This may be the snag with what I have to use... last time I used it, each question is only allowed one response.  I can take another look at the interface, but it may not be possible for me to make one that says "you may pick up to four".  I'd hope that my ISP would have updated their site tool capabilities, so I'll have to see.  Even the guestbook that they have is archaic by today's standards... Then again, I haven't used that in years either...

If I'm not able to, and another free polling option can't be found, one workaround might be to have four questions... "who is your #1 fave?" "who is your #2 fave" etc to #4, each with the same character lists, and everyone just responds according to how many they have.  For example, if someone only has 2 top favorites, then they just answer for 1 and 2 and leave 3 and 4 blank.

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (07-21-2007 07:26:16 PM)