Whoo, 1000th post. Satyreyes told me to make it a good one, but all I could think of posting was analysis babbling about an episode of SKU I was rewatching.

Curried High Trip: For some reason, this is my favourite filler episode. I blame it on the hilarious role reversals and Anthy!Utena making Anthy look like such a toughie in front of Nanami's henchwomen.. but especially Saionji getting Anthy!Utena alone, and his exchange diary. But besides that, during the role reversal, Utena!Anthy says a few things that strike me as interesting and creepy.

First of all, it's obvious Anthy staged the whole body-switching curry fiasco to teach Nanami a lesson. But it seems like she also might enjoy the temporary body-switch.. and perhaps she also wants to give Utena a view of what she goes through every day? Nanami's henchwomen scolding and slapping her, Saionji trying to control her.. Could this have intentionally also been to give Utena more motivation to save Anthy, and for the duels, or was Anthy simply trying to get back at Nanami?

The "divine justice" elephant symbolism is pretty obvious, so I won't delve into that. Still, it was pretty hilarious.

Here's the scene I found the most interesting.

To avoid confusion, I'm going by Utena and Anthy's personalities, not their bodies, since they're switched.. ;; So when I type Utena, I mean the real Utena in Anthy's body, and vice versa.

We see Utena and Anthy walking, with Utena walking in front of Anthy, looking impatient.

Utena: Look, we have to turn back to normal as soon as we can.
Utena: I don't want to end up as some sacrifice to the rose seal!

Utena can't see Anthy's face because she is walking ahead of Anthy, but as Utena says this, Anthy (with Utena's face, of course) seems to look a little sad, perhaps. Then she looks down and smiles a little.

Anthy: It doesn't matter to me if we stay this way.
Anthy: I don't care about what I look like.

Despite Utena's noble intentions to save Anthy, the way she says this seems selfish. Maybe not selfish, but insensitive. Of course she doesn't want to be a sacrifice to the rose seal. That's understandable. It's not her life, and she wants her own life back. But for someone who is trying to save Anthy, it seems a bit cruel, as if at the moment she doesn't care about Anthy's fate when they switch back, and cares about herself first. A "true prince" is supposed to be someone willing to sacrifice their own life to save the "princesses", so right here, Utena isn't fitting her ideal that well. She's naive and often ignorant, and here it is obvious that she doesn't remember her past memories that well.

Of course, I'm probably reading too much into it.. We know Utena is devoted to her cause of saving Anthy. However, something about that line just seemed interesting.. Utena obviously didn't notice how cruel that might have sounded.

Anthy's line is telling too. She doesn't care if they stay that way. Is it because she suffers less in Utena's form? Do the swords still come to her in that body? I kind of doubt that, since Utena surely would have noticed.. something. The swords probably effect a spiritual/emotional level. However, maybe being in Utena's body is a little more peaceful for her, because it's like a temporary escape from her fate.. with Utena's body, she can pretend to be someone else, so to speak.

I'm interested in knowing what others think about those few lines.

Now for my pervy, silly thoughts about the body-switching.. I wonder if Anthy ever had any "fun" in Utena's body. Did she ever get a chance to go see Akio on one of those saturday nights? Akio would have obviously known it was really Anthy in Utena's body, but I wonder if he wouldn't have minded having some fun with his little sister in the body of Utena.

..ahh, Saionji and his banana that doesn't look like a banana at all.

Edit: ... you know what's funny?

In the flashback with Saionji, Touga, and Utena, Touga's hair is long.

But in the flashback with Nanami and Touga, Touga's hair is short. Rather odd..both versions of Touga don't look too apart, age-wise... Hmmm.

Last edited by SleepDebtFairy (06-14-2007 03:45:02 AM)

I finally started rewatching Utena again. I laughed through most of the first 3 episodes, mainly because I couldn't get NajiMinkin's fandubs out of my mind.

Also, something I hadn't noticed before: the book Wakaba's reading in episode 2 is Chiho Saito's manga "Magnolia Waltz".

I'm rewatching too, it takes no time at all if you skip the opening, the ZUM sequence and the egg speech!

I'm on episode 20. That's my favourite. It's SO sad.

Arki wrote:

I've started rewatching SKU too. If you can call it that. I basically pause an episode every 5 seconds because a new theory in my head forms and I don't want to let it slip.

The pause button is my friend...

So I've just finished watching the Black Rose arc. It makes a lot more sense to me now than it did the first time around. First time, I just thought it was some boring filler but this time I really enjoyed it. Understanding the symbolism and whatnot really helped

As awful as Touga is for doing that, I doubt it would have helped Nanami to realize it on any level. Some years down the line, yes, definitely. And I have faith that she would eventually catch on to the type of person that Touga is, assuming he stays that way. However, though it's partly staged for Utena's sake, Touga does comfort Nanami after her duel. If she knew the truth, that her most precious thing in the whole world was using her; she might stick herself in a box heading down that river.

I started rewatching Utena after so long. I love the silliness of the first episodes and what I said about Naji's fandubs ruining the serious moments still applies this time around as well. I think I know some of the fandub lines by heart now.

Also, I thought it was silly how Utena fought and won the rematch with Saionji for Chu-Chu's sake. I wrote an existentialistic analysis (I ought to post this) about duelling and Utena's selfless reasons behind fighting but I never thought about this duel.

Tamago wrote:

I must agree with you on this point, the S K Utena anime deserves to have the animation redrawn, preferably the same quality as they used in the Utena movie but in keeping with the anime style… after all the last thing anyone wants to see is a foppish Akio prancing around the place.

You and me, Tamago. I'd love to see that.

ULTIMATE FANDUBS: http://www.youtube.com/user/NajiMinkin the first episode is here: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/se … e-rose_fun

P.D.M. wrote:

Nothing against this thread or anything, but I think it came a bit too early. If we are going to make (yet)another grand rewatch of Utena, we should wait until the remakes arive(in whatever manner), and then we could have the whole forum to rewatch it as if we never saw it before, like, one episode a week.

Yeah, does anyone else think that would be awsome?

Oh yes, that's a good idea and I'm in as soon as the remastered version becomes available. Although one episode per week would be very slow.

I'm still going to continue my rewatch though.

So, I started rewatching Utena today from the beginning. It's the first time in years.

The most important thing I realized from episode 1 was that it is soooo much easier to see the puppet mastery of Akio, Anthy, and Touga(to an extent) after watching the entire series.

We all know that Saionji didn't put that letter on the wall. He doesn't give enough of a damn to bother humiliating Wakaba like that, so Anthy did it. Everything that happened in episode 1 was contrived by Anthy to get Utena to duel. The scene with Saionji outside the greenhouse, the haunting scent of roses, and so on. The only thing that might be questionable was the appearance of Dios to help Utena win her duel, judging by the shock on her face. However, Anthy has been shown to be one hell of an actress.