This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
I read this and I thought the concept was interesting!
http://targetlost.tumblr.com/image/29406898612
Who do you think the main male character would have been? The president is obviously Touga. The male might have been someone who didn't make it into Utena at all, but if I were to guess I think Saionji would have been the best fit, though it's hard to imagine him in love with Utena.
No Anthy in this version, it seems.
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Wow . . . Ikuhara and the Be Papas need to regroup and animate this thing out, seriously!
Absolute Nursery Apocalypse - best anime post 2012!!
I actually think the male lead is obviously MIKAGE - remember the shadow play in his "graduation" ep? He was, in SKU, a man who regressed from an adult Professor into a school boy, so having Touga mindfuck him into regressing further into a nursery kid will fit just RIGHT with the canon.
This is actually a VERY good sequel idea - post revolution Utena finding out she has Akio's love child from their sexing, and her trauma, coupled with the Power of Dios she has gained, again changing reality such that the Nursery came into being. God, I would so write out this thing . . . if not for the fact that I want Ikuhara to animate it even more!
Anthy still can fit into this, as an inspector from the government's eduation ministry (coming in from the "outside world"), perhaps? Tokiko could be her colleague, even . . .
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I remember reading that when I first got my boxsets XD All I could remember thinking is, Holy shit, how in the hell would a 14 year old girl be able to give birth to an entire nursery school of children O.O On the no Anthy character bit, it said elsewhere in one of the booklets that U/A were originally concieved as ONE character. At some point Ikuni decided to spit their personality into two contrasting characters. And you think Anthy is complex now
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BlackBeforeRed wrote:
U/A were originally concieved as ONE character.
Could Anthy have gone after Utena post series just so they can again be one in the most literal sense?
Last edited by gorgeousshutin (08-14-2012 12:01:15 PM)
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Somebody needs to draw that They really do complete each other I guess (that was a bad pun and I should feel bad )
There were a lot of weird original ideas in those nifty little booklets. Maybe somebody should post them up so we can all discuss/rofl
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BlackBeforeRed wrote:
There were a lot of weird original ideas in those nifty little booklets. Maybe somebody should post them up so we can all discuss/rofl
Oh, I hope so . . . since I never got the box set, all the info in these booklets are so new to me . . .
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That was one of the original ideas for Utena?
All I can say:
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EDIT: BlackBeforeRed got to it before me.
I think the best concept was the ORIGINAL original, where Utena has a dragon's head on her chest that extends when she fights.
Last edited by Atropos (08-14-2012 01:32:41 PM)
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Well I have a scanner and I have the booklets (which I obviously need to read!) I'll scan them sometime if no one else does.
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Atropos:
where Utena has a dragon's head on her chest that extends when she fights.
Is that supposed to be a phallic symbolism thingie that shows her masculine side?
To all you out there in possession of the eng-translated booklets: PLEASE POST!!!
Edited to add:
Having read what Honorable Shadow said . . .
YAY!!!!!!
Last edited by gorgeousshutin (08-14-2012 01:44:44 PM)
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The dragon thing was awesome I need to dig out those booklets and look through the craziness again. The way it sounded like, everyone just threw their crackfic-esque ideas on the table and rolled with it. As I can recall Ikuni found everyone and made them a team with only 2 ideas about the anime he wanted to make. A character named Utena and a character named End of the World. Pretty ballsy
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. . . still eagerly awaiting the first of the eng-translated booklet scans to feed plot bunnies . . .
p.s. Is there ANYWHERE in the booklets hinting that SKU and MP are of the same universe? In the Nemuro graduation ep, he recalled the black rose boys having a feast of wine and APPLES while being INVISIBLE, and decades later, Kanae is shown being fed APPLES by "Double A" . . .
Last edited by gorgeousshutin (08-16-2012 10:04:22 AM)
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Sadly, there is no mention of penguindrum in the booklets I would post up a scan of the booklets, but my scanner's kind of broken right now (it's a long funny/sad story)
Last edited by BlackBeforeRed (08-16-2012 11:11:52 AM)
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BlackBeforeRed wrote:
Sadly, there is no mention of penguindrum in the booklets emot-frown
Oh well . . .
Anyway, thanks for clearing this up for me, and sorry about your scanner!
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BlackBeforeRed wrote:
Sadly, there is no mention of penguindrum in the booklets (it's a long funny/sad story)
Actually, the commentary for episode 14 features a few lines that will probably be familiar to Penguindrum viewers...
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Atropos wrote:
Actually, the commentary for episode 14 features a few lines that will probably be familiar to Penguindrum viewers...
YESSS!!!!!!!!!
Can someone please scan/type it please?! SKU cross MP head canon all the way!!!!
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14: "The Boys of the Black Rose"
I saw a certain horror movie when I was in middle school. There was a secret mortuary in an underground chamber, and the dead were electronically transmitted (!), still in their coffins, to the "other world," where they were forced into slavery
The movie's story was utterly absurd, but the division of the world into opposite poles of "living" and "dead" felt real to me, somehow.
Our world has been spoken of in bipolar fashion for ages.
In my student days, there was a popular book that compared the "affluent" with the "non-affluent," and sorted everything into categories called "loaded" and "broke." It was the bubble era, and the aim of the book was probably to get a laugh by saying "They call us wealthy, but our lifestyle's probably in the trash can!"
But for some reason, I couldn't laugh.
Years later, the phrase "the winning side" was popular in the media. I thought it was horrid. And sure enough, people started using the opposite phrase "the losing side" as a masochistic joke. I still couldn't laugh, though.
One day, a girl I saw on TV said, "There are only two types of people in this world: the ones who are chosen and the ones who aren't chosen."
That gave me a start.
"To not be chosen is to die," said the girl.
I decided to try my hand at that.
The Black Rose arc.
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HonorableShadow my fandom HERO
Years later, the phrase "the winning side" was popular in the media. I thought it was horrid. And sure enough, people started using the opposite phrase "the losing side" as a masochistic joke. I still couldn't laugh, though.
One day, a girl I saw on TV said, "There are only two types of people in this world: the ones who are chosen and the ones who aren't chosen."
That gave me a start.
"To not be chosen is to die," said the girl.
The above is actually a more-clearly (and more emotionally effective) presented version of the same message we see in Penguindrum . . . oh my God . . . MP really is (at least metaphor-wise, if not event-wise) a continuation/expansion of SKU's Black Rose Saga, thus meaning that my personal canon of Nemuro research leading to Kiga magic may actually have legs! No wonder you like MP so much, Shadow - your preference is clear to see in your sig image.
Again, thank you so much!
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My apologies, I completely missed that That is a pretty interesting theme to compare between SKU and MP though. The chosen idea does have a part to play in SKU, mostly in the BRS particularly with Wakaba. So I guess it's an idea he expanded upon into it's own series. Guess this is why Penguindrum reminds me of the Black Rose Saga
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BlackBeforeRed wrote:
My apologies, I completely missed that That is a pretty interesting theme to compare between SKU and MP though. The chosen idea does have a part to play in SKU, mostly in the BRS particularly with Wakaba. So I guess it's an idea he expanded upon into it's own series. Guess this is why Penguindrum reminds me of the Black Rose Saga
I was just thinking that reminded me with the episode with Wakaba, with the idea that there are "special" people in the world, like Utena, and a lot of ordinary people like Wakaba.
Interesting to see the way he chose to take it with Penguindrum though, with the unchosen being crushed and turned to glass... though I've always assumed that isn't a literal death, more like a death of personality or dreams...
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HonorableShadow wrote:
I'm glad they didn't go with that idea, heh.
But Utena becoming pregnant after the show's events IS an interesting idea. Hopefully she wouldn't give birth to a school though.
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But it also says that the father of the children never existed, so...what?
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Virgin-birth?
Or something like that.
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No wonder you like MP so much, Shadow - your preference is clear to see in your sig image.
Haha, yeah, it is definitely my favorite arc!
I was just thinking that reminded me with the episode with Wakaba, with the idea that there are "special" people in the world, like Utena, and a lot of ordinary people like Wakaba.
I was reading through the booklet yesterday, and there was a quote about Wakaba from one of the story-board creators that I really liked. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines that all the "special people" in Utena are lacking something. Since Wakaba wasn't really lacking anything and was well-rounded, she couldn't be a special person. I thought that was an interesting take on why she wasn't special.
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HonorableShadow wrote:
I don't remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines that all the "special people" in Utena are lacking something. Since Wakaba wasn't really lacking anything and was well-rounded, she couldn't be a special person. I thought that was an interesting take on why she wasn't special.
Oh, I think that has to do with how Wakaba - and most people in our real world - associate "special" with "attractive". What attracts people in our world is often not a well-rounded, nice personality, it isn't even conventional physical beauty (or blonde, delicate Kanae would've been the most sought after female in the series) - rather, a lot of people are in fact attracted to character imbalances and/or flaws. Thus why the brooding, edgy, discontent male characters (like James Dean) on screen will almost always get the lead roles, with the happy-go-lucky male characters falling into the supporting roles. Plus people are attracted to other people's material success, which the Student Council and Utena have because of their often insecurity-driven dedication towards self-empowerment; Wakaba, less insecured as the special lot, also lacked their drive towards attaining academy and or athletic perfection, thus why she fall out of the world's definition of special.
Last edited by gorgeousshutin (08-19-2012 09:25:59 AM)
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