This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
Okay -- So your characters are now out of ohtori somehow (or not!) and its time to get a job! Who is doing what?
My thoughts?
Utena is hard to peg down for me -- she either goes the route of a coach for a school or a crazy business woman trying to fight the man. Either way.
Anthy: I don't have much imagination but i just see her working a flower shop or some kind of animal care facility? Perhaps a shelter for pets.
Akio: He's never gonna stop being chairman.
Saionji: Opens up a kendo shop to teach, but can't keep students and eventually closes the shop. Perhaps becomes a sushi chef somewhere, but is always disgruntled.
Touga: Chases after Akio's right hand man position?
Nanami: This girl becomes a clothing designer and rules the industry
Juri: Continues fencing and lessons, but has a normal job.... She did modeling so maybe that for a bit? But in the end i see her as a manager type at a desk job, but totally owning it.
Miki: Just endlessly chases music and piano. Perhaps switches things up and becomes a mathematician when he gets to college and then moves on to staying scholarly the rest of his life.
Feel free to throw in other characters! What are your thoughts? Am i totally off base?
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First, allow me to express my amazement at the fact that this thread doesn't already exist.
Anyway, here goes:
Utena: She's a travel writer.
Anthy: Either a veterinarian or a cultural anthropologist.
Touga: Works at the family business, but "work" mostly consists of meals with clients and dating their eligible daughters.
Nanami: Taking up Touga's slack at work.
Miki: Theoretical physicist. Still fences because Juri would have his head if he ever stopped. Spent a year studying piano under some of the greatest pianists in the world, and now he plays for the local symphony.
Saionji: Whatever makes his family proud of him, but he really wants to study Japanese history.
Juri: Tried out for the Olympics in fencing but never made the team. However, it got her enough notoriety to boost her modeling career, and she landed a contract with an athletic wear company as their brand ambassador.
Wakaba: She spent a year or two as an Office Lady before getting married and starting a family.
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Raven Nightshade wrote:
First, allow me to express my amazement at the fact that this thread doesn't already exist.
It does. But don't let that stop you from jamming here! Sometimes we understand the characters differently seven years later.
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I will not look at the old thread. I will not look at the old thread. I will not...
Utena: High school teacher.
Anthy: Housewife, in the Peg Bundy mode.
Juri: High school gym teacher with an office full of awards and citations that should imply she has a better job.
Touga: Black sheep of family. Paid to stay out of sight.
Nanami: Professional diarist.
Wakaba: Video rental store clerk. Wait, they don't have those any more. Hobby shop manager.
Miki: Office worker with a weekend band he plays keyboard in.
Shiori: Television morning show presenter.
Saionji: Political speaker. Some sort of nostalgia-based MRA arts and crafts and self-respect Iron John stuff.
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Well now i'm sad i didn't get to thread necromancy the old one. .__. Sorry about that guys!
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Utena: Probably an author of life experience books. Or a feminist darling, of course.
Anthy: I don't see this one doing much, maybe an assistant or something. Or something interesting like a garden designer.
Touga: Surely the CEO of a company.
Juri: Something authoritative like an ambassador or a director.
Miki: Composer. Or a mathematician and mathematics professor.
Nanami: Probably a designer of some kind and own a charming shop.
Saionji: Something simple and dull, of course. Maybe a kendo teacher.
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Lilac, interesting we more or less switches Utena and Saionji. Now, I feel all cynical. Sort of.
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Decrescent Daytripper wrote:
Saionji: MRA
Hey. HEY.
That's going too far.
....If it must be so, let him at least never have a fedora and neckbeard.
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Giovanna wrote:
....If it must be so, let him at least never have a fedora and neckbeard.
M'Anthy
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Decrescent Daytripper wrote:
Lilac, interesting we more or less switches Utena and Saionji. Now, I feel all cynical. Sort of.
A cynical one is apparently 'somebody who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing', thus you're making me look better in this situation by saying that about yourself. So don't feel bad, our duty is to help one another, is it not?
Though curious, why exactly did you think those careers would suit Saionji?
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Lilac wrote:
Though curious, why exactly did you think those careers would suit Saionji?
He's trying so hard to be a classical Japanese manly man. It's more than just posturing, from dress to hobbies to decision-making, it's a lifestyle for him. And, he's creepy dismissive/obsessive with girls like he should be hosting a PUA show on VH1.
Once Touga's gone out of his life, what's he going to have? Pretty much, he'll have venting. And, that kind of venting, it seems to me, would take him straight on the men-helping-men-by-spiting-everything circuit.
Plus, he's self-aggrandizing enough to go for it. Whereas, Utena seems, to me, to have enough self-doubt and sense of perspective to stick to something smaller but hopefully useful.
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KissFromARose wrote:
Saionji: is always disgruntled.
This.
Consider this: Saionji and Nanami as business partners.
In what sort of business I know not.
But shenanigans.
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Decrescent Daytripper wrote:
He's trying so hard to be a classical Japanese manly man. It's more than just posturing, from dress to hobbies to decision-making, it's a lifestyle for him. And, he's creepy dismissive/obsessive with girls like he should be hosting a PUA show on VH1.
Once Touga's gone out of his life, what's he going to have? Pretty much, he'll have venting. And, that kind of venting, it seems to me, would take him straight on the men-helping-men-by-spiting-everything circuit.
Plus, he's self-aggrandizing enough to go for it.
Yes, you are right about those reasons, he is conservative and would want to live in a traditional way. Though even his angst and bitterness can help him like you said, it may also be the opposite, as he might be visceral and egotistical and he is not a very incredible leader. So, I'd say this would be more of one of his desires, that tragically won't come true, of course.
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I always imagined Saionji becoming a chef, probably a highly traditional sushi chef. But I actually think he would be remarkably skilled at it and even become famous. Chefs are known for their temper and given the borderline militaristic organization of a sushi kitchen, he would be right at home. I would expect much foaming at the mouth at any culinary innovation (trigger warning whenever someone as much as mentions 'California roll' in his presence).
He would end up getting a lot of media attention and be flooded with female fans only to find it all hopelessly disgusting and go on some soul searching journey to perfect his sushi skills.
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Mikage as a therapist.
Just think.
Nocturnalux wrote:
I always imagined Saionji becoming a chef, probably a highly traditional sushi chef. But I actually think he would be remarkably skilled at it and even become famous. Chefs are known for their temper and given the borderline militaristic organization of a sushi kitchen, he would be right at home. I would expect much foaming at the mouth at any culinary innovation (trigger warning whenever someone as much as mentions 'California roll' in his presence).
He would end up getting a lot of media attention and be flooded with female fans only to find it all hopelessly disgusting and go on some soul searching journey to perfect his sushi skills.
Headcanon accepted.
I honestly think that Saionji, outside of Ohtori, would be one of the most successful characters. I think the Saionji that hangs out with Wakaba and the Saionji that offers to make Nanami some eggs when she is upset is the Saionji he would be outside of the school. He's hard-working, really dedicated and takes pride in what he does.
Now if he can just stop knocking girls around he'd be a real winner.
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I agree that Saionji would probably be a very successful individual once he weathered his school years. He was already starting to show a lot of progress at the end of the series and it is very true that his dedication, discipline and diligence (aliteration!) would pay off if only channeled properly.
YamPuff wrote:
Mikage as a therapist.
Just think.
I can see this happening and it might actually end up doing wonders. I can imagine Mikage running a very tight ship with only a handful of select patients at any given time so that he can handle their cases himself. He would delegate less interesting cases to highly trained but not quite as amazing as himself underlings, all of which would be trained by him.
And I can't help but picture Mikage making rare but highly anticipated television appearances where he would explain, in very vague terms, his overall approach to therapy.
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A shot near the end of the last episode always made me imagine Saionji and Nanami owning a conservative tea shop together. Maybe married. It's a natural partnership: they share a common interest, after all. They would challenge each other just enough, I think. And Touga would think it was just the cutest thing. Nanami teaches the traditional tea ceremony on the side, but her classes are usually a thinly veiled opportunity to exchange gossip.
If he continues on his current trajectory, Tsuwabuki will grow up to be Ernest Hemingway. Or else a private investigator, or maybe, deploying his inexplicable hand-to-hand combat prowess, a bounty hunter. Then again, he might mellow and become an office guy. He's hard to read.
I can't guess what Utena will become. I feel like the events of the show are so transformative for her that I don't have a good sense of what kind of person will emerge from them. A good person, I think. But that's adolescence for you, I guess. Gun to my head, I think she'll work with her hands, take a low-prestige job where she can fade to the background. A mechanic, maybe, or a carpenter. I feel sure that she won't be happy unless she is doing the kind of work where she can point to it at the end of the day and say "I did that." Whatever she does, she will take pride in it. That's just intuition, though.
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Nocturnalux wrote:
I always imagined Saionji becoming a chef, probably a highly traditional sushi chef. But I actually think he would be remarkably skilled at it and even become famous. Chefs are known for their temper and given the borderline militaristic organization of a sushi kitchen, he would be right at home. I would expect much foaming at the mouth at any culinary innovation (trigger warning whenever someone as much as mentions 'California roll' in his presence).
He would end up getting a lot of media attention and be flooded with female fans only to find it all hopelessly disgusting and go on some soul searching journey to perfect his sushi skills.
Oh my gosh, somebody please write this fanfic!! Especially the part where someone requests a California roll.
Saionji and Nanami as business partners made me giggle with glee. I could really see it, with Saionji indeed becoming a chef and Nanami having a hostessing or waitressing job, or the two operating a teahouse together, and sometimes going out late-night to drink cocktails and gripe about customers. Touga would indeed think it was the cutest thing. So would I.
Utena-as-mechanic is now headcanon; it's perfect. I can easily envision her being proud of the work of her hands. And the idea of Anthy as a veterinarian makes me smile.
Some of the characters are harder to pin down, for sure. Juri has so many abilities that it's tough to assign her any one job; I like the "ambassador" idea a lot, because her different talents and experiences would all come into play sooner or later. Touga might have a rough time outside of Ohtori at first, in a world where he's not a center of devotion, and it could take some time for him to find his place; just where that would be, though, I can't guess. Miki seems happy enough when recording, analyzing, and researching things that he could be good at any number of jobs; the theoretical physicist idea above is a good one, and I could also see him doing well in archaeology or library science.
-Astrinde
Last edited by Astrinde (02-12-2016 06:56:06 AM)
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I think it's very clear on what they're gonna become lol.
1.) Utena-Hard to say, because we never saw her after she admitted that she can't "become a prince." She's still probably figuring out stuff and planning her future from scratch since she's ironically the one out of everyone she's saved who realized too late that there are no miracles. But I see her in a position in which she helps out others, or someone in athletics.
2.) Anthy-Obviously a gardener, florist, or landscape architect! She's always taking care of flowers in her free time. She may travel frequently as well since she never got to see the world due to Akio tying her down all those times.
3.) Juri-This is an easy one. She's clearly going to be in a powerful position, seeing as she can easily make the school staff suck up to her. She's the one who's most likely to succeed out of everybody. I feel like fencing would be sort of a hobby for her instead of a career. We see that she's really into fashion modeling and good at being a general role model for staff and students.
4.) Touga-He may either fully escape Ootori and find his own path, take over the family business or stay Akio's slave. I doubt that he would stay with Akio after all that though.
5.) Miki-Obviously a composer, pianist, and famous musician overall lol.
6.) Saionji-Probably gonna blunder around his whole life. He's gullible and horrible at managing his conflicts. But if he were able to keep a job, possibly something traditional like painting. I mean the fact that he carved things and stuff showed that he was good at crafts and hand related work in general.
7.) Nanami-Something fancy? Anything that won't require labor haha
8.) Wakaba-She's just a simpleton that I see her having a family with two kids XD But you may never know since she does keep emotions hidden well. She may become someone "special" as she dreamed!
9.) Kozue-Probably joined her brother again in music and could possibly join Miki in the future as a duo.
Last edited by ShiningSanctum1 (04-13-2016 04:38:16 PM)
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