Xu Yuan wrote:

A friend of mine asked why it is that touga has a Katana pulled out from his body by Keiko but a Longsword is pulled out from him by Saionji, if naything these roles should have been reversed... though it's strange to mention he's the only character with a differect looking soul sword then his first (save Nanami but I'll give my reasons for that soon enough).

I'm not sure why you think the longsword and katana should have been in the opposite order. It makes perfect sense to me that Touga's sword should move towards a more European, fairy-tale "Prince"ly ideal as his motives become more altruistic.

As well as the event's of his third duel. I dislike how people discredit... yes it has Utena chopping cars in half and Touga and Saionji suiting up to runover Utena but... think of what this represents. The cars show that Touga has an expression of power in the dueling arena, that like Akio he has the ability to control what goes in and around the dueling arena.  Touga knew that the cars would be destroyed, he knew that Utena would destroy them, that is why they are such flimsy illusions.

Yeah, in both his second and third duels, Touga shows that he really knows how to make with the magic, so to speak. He's definitely the duelist with the deepest understanding of what can be done in the dueling arena. I'm not sure there's any evidence that Touga would have been able to direct the cars himself, though, if Akio hadn't been backing him. And is there any evidence that he was holding back on the power of the cars so as not to hurt Utena? If Touga's the one directly initiating the car attacks, why would he do it at all if he knew it wasn't going to do any good?

It's hard to say if he had actually planned to win the duel on the.. uh... motorcycle. Though the details of that are... sketchy...

The motorcycle attack is a little bit silly, yes, but are you suggesting that Touga wasn't actually trying to win that duel?

Oh right the thing about Nanami, I believe Touga did not want to believe that her brother would do such a backstabbing thing as using two weapons. Therefore only one blade was pulled from her. What Mitsuru weilded was her true soul sword. Two blades... though once again it could be a symbol of changing souls.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning on Florentine-style fighting being somehow equated with dishonesty or backstabbing... and I don't see why Touga would be concerned with what Nanami thought of him at that point, anyway. I've wondered about the loss of the second weapon myself, but maybe you're right, and it is an expression of Nanami's focus and growing self-awareness, relative to earlier in the series - her soul is no longer as "fractured"?

I don't think the soul swords respond to the thoughts and ideas of the people who pull the swords, since the symbolism there would be the wielder actively changing a person's identity through their own misconceptions. I saw Nanami's weapons as her curved sabre and a matching gauche sword: a sword usually paired with a rapier to parry blows from daggers and other weapons. It also had its more underhanded uses, luring the enemy nearer for a blow from the concealed blade.  It also shows that she was much more insecure about her skills than any other Duelist, using a sword made primarily for defense. When she changed, she grew much more secure and confident in herself, and wanted to prove that she didn't need that protection and support any more. (I like the fractured soul theory as well, though.)

I saw Touga's sword changing from katana to longsword/rapier as a slowly-evolving maturity of his more princely qualities: the sword appearance that they are apparently striving for is Dios', after all.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

They're a strictly slicing-things-off type of weapon, a properly made katana would be seriously damaged by striking another blade.

Now, that's not true. As I've pointed out elsewhere, you can't avoid blade-contact in fight, where both participants have swords. Katana is just as sturdy as a longsword, though it required quite a bit more work to make that way, back in the days of feudal Japan, when the swordsmiths still had to use Japanese iron, which is among the most low-quality weapon-metals in the world - the Europeans had it easier with their higher quality ore. In any case, either with katana or longsword, you never let the blades lock, in real life. That chips both blades and hurts both fighers equally. But if you have a sword you can't parry with, you can just as well be dead. Dodging without parry is a difficult thing, indeed.

Also, incidentally, the samurai of feudal Japan duelled constantly. The older Japanese mass-battles were essentially a huge number of duels taking place at the same time, with everybody introducing themselves to their enemies before killing them and having an untouchable servant follow them with a basket, to collect the heads of the fallen foes. Only when the Mongolians came and shot the first guy, trying to name all his ancestors before striking, full of arrows, the samurai limited their duels to controlled settings.

And yes, I think that the change of Touga's blade does means that his attitude has changed.

It bothered me the longest time that Touga used a different sword in the show than in the opening credits. I was all YAY when I saw them pull it out of him in the end. I also assume it makes him more "princely" Maybe it really was the most noble sword in the world in the end like she said?


...And I'm also fairly certain that Japanese swords are made for slicing. When I was younger they'd teach how to block and defend in all, but we didn't use it much unless we were only practicing and messing around. I'm also very sure they're several times better at it than other swords. Supposedly most battles last seconds. They always told us seven seconds most.


..Yeah, if none of those sentences made sense, I'm half asleep. zzzzz... I don't even remember clicking reply now that I think on it. O__o

Maybe it was a mistake.

*Shot*