Back in the days when Sailor Orion's Refuge was still alive, I used to be totally in love with the author. This was when I was still in the fifth grade, mind you. And on her personal website, she used to have a section for her favorite anime songs. One of them was Earth as a Character Gallery. I promptly fell in love and knew I had to look up this anime. So I wandered upon the then-still active Utena Encyclopedia and proceeded to (attempt to) read the scripts. Didn't get far with that, since they're dialogue only. I found the fansite Arisugawa's Locket, however, and became thoroughly educated in the Juri/Shiori/Ruka triangle. (Which ended up being disappointing, later on, because I never had the chance to be "fooled" by episode 7.)

So a year later my best best friend bought the first comic volume. And I was estastic--finally a chance to  fullycheck this out! I liked it more than she did (I promptly fell in love with Utena and drew her all over my notebooks, haha) so she gave it (and the next couple of volumes, over the subsequent months) to me for my birthday.

I didn't actually end up seeing the anime until I'd already read all of the comics, though. Same friend had a copy of a couple of the black rose episodes (including the Nanami cow one--how's that for an intro to a series?) and I loved it. Later another friend forced me to watch the movie, which I found most beautiful...and I finally took it upon myself to find the rest of the episodes. Which I did.

And now, many years and rewatches later...

Someone sent me a video of the classic AMV set to Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa's cover of "Hit me Baby One More time" which reminded me of the manga that I'd thumbed through briefly at the comic shop but hadn't had the money to buy. So I promptly went on YouTube and watched the episodes that were there (up to episode 7). The rest, as they say, is history.

A long time ago, I heard about Utena... or... something, it was always very familiar to me, when I first started watching it on On Demand I was always like "I had heard about this show somewhere, but I never really got to watch it." Or... somehting like that. My friend has a poster of Utena from the Black Rose Saga in his room, but unfortunately he never really watched the show... I'd say if he could get over, the incest, and the gay sex, I think he'd throroughly enjoy it... but, yeah, that's how I found out baout Utena.

Last edited by Xu Yuan (12-03-2006 11:55:57 PM)

A long time ago (I'm not even sure when) my friend and I used to rent whatever anime we could find at the video shop and it was either really good or MST fodder. She rented the first tape of Utena when I wasn't there and watched the first episode and she told me it was like being on a bad acid trip, and there was a lesbian with a pink mullet.

It promptly became my favourite show.

I'm fairly new to the Utena fandom. I watched the it for the first time exactly one year and eight days ago. (Why I know that is beyond me...) However, I've been aware that this anime existed for quite some time.

Five years ago, my friend asked me if I wanted to watch an anime with her. "Don't worry, it's not a bad anime. They duel with swords and roses, so there isn't blood or anything." Apparently that makes all of the other inappropriate things. Who in their right mind would show Utena to a ten-year-old? I can still vaguely recall how I first pictured Utena to be... I pictured it to be really formal, which it is, I suppose, but not quite in the way I was thinking.

I didn't watch it, but my friend showed it to my twin sister. (She was Mitsuru's age, for goodness sakes!) I remember my sister telling me about it, saying that elephants chased them through an entire episode, and I think she mentioned that they turned into cars.

Several years later, I came across two Utena references in fanfictions, which got me wondering what it was about. When I asked my sister what it was, she told me that it was a really weird anime. She had loved it when she first saw it, but several years past, and at some point she remembered it again at some and thought it seemed really strange anime that she wouldn't like. The fanfictions had got me thinking about it, so I tried asking my friend if we could watch it, but we ended up doing something else instead.

Then, one Sunday night, I couldn't sleep and so I checked On-Demand for something to watch, and came across Utena. I watched the first episode, and fell in love with it instantly, even with the horrible voices in English. "They are meant for Kiiyoichi Seiyanji!" I was surprised when I heard the endsong, because I already had it memorized from my sister's earlier Utena fandom. The next day, I told my sister that she was going to watch it, whether she liked it or not, and she fell in love with it all over again.

The poor thing... For five years, she thought that the movie ended with the two of them dying in a car crash.

I do believe I have a very unique Duelist-creation story here.

One day, my senior year of high school, my best friend and I were talking in the middle of an English class. She brought up she wanted to start a role-playing game, and I immediately jumped on the bandwagon. You plan it and run it, I said, and I'll make the pretty graphic-pictures for you. She told me it was based on this series called Utena, and I shrugged and said I didn't need to know the series to make pictures, did I? Ah, hindsight is always 20/20.

With that, the Ohtori Academy game on GJ started up. Unfortunately, my friend is quite flighty on occasion, and she dropped the game... after several people had decided to join up. So, I, being the entirely silly person that I am, decided to forge onward with the game....

with no knowledge of Utena at all.

Good thing the game was AU.

The game ran for a good year and a half, mainly because I had a damn good co-mod (BakaElf on these forums) who has since become one of my best non-RL friends. Through the course of the game, I did manage to watch the first two arcs, but I think it was only after the game's end that I managed to see the final saga.

I started a new AU Utena game soon after, And They Lived, but I seem to be potentially needing a new co-mod. The way things run full circle... it is entirely amusing.

So, yes. That is my story.

Ah, I told the story of how a little picture in Animerica inspired me to find out more about Utena online, about 5 years ago. Then I found the Utena Encylcopedia, and devoured all of the fan sites. But I am quite sure I left out WHY I was attracted to the story of a girl prince.

Which was that, I had just started college and met a friend who I had so much respect for. So elegant, so smart, had the perfect life...until that life fell apart. My friend got divorced and developed a HUGE drug problem. And I, quickly found myself severely entertwined in a rescue mission, that lasted 4 years. In doing so, people who knew me would get mad and not really understand why I was putting so much effort into helping this person. The story of Utena, initially attracted me, because Utena was helping Anthy, not really clear what to do, but a strong motivation to help, and no one else seemed to understand or care. It paralleled my situation, and I was very dedicated to saving my friend's life... so the show was like special motivation, or whatever. And in the end, yay, my friend is sober, and I am not chasing anyone down into the abyss... so my little story ended well, AND, I was left with a huge appreciation for Utena series - which I continue with to this day.

Well, well! Interesting stories, all! Such a diverse audience, with their Duelist stories...

I love the way you folks think.

Haha, mine is a sad story. Not sad as in tragic, but as in pathetic.
I have ERASURE to owe my SKU love to. The video for Juri to the song "A Little Respect" was on my friends laptop, and I stumbled across it because it was incorrectly in her Sailor Moon folder [*sings*IIIIRONYYYYYY]. Anyway, when she downloaded it, it was marked as a Sailor Moon AMV, but when she watched it she realized that it obviously wasn't. She told me that it was an interesting AMV though, so she kept it. I absolutely LOVED the way Juri was designed, so I did some looking up. I rushed out to buy all the manga. It was good and all, but the angst-ridden girl I had seen was...not angst-ridden. So naturally, I figured that the anime must have changed some things, which is not rare at all. So I bought the first arc from my local Media Play. After months of , there was my girl! And I could rest easy. I set down SKU for a while, but after two months or so I watched it again and looked it up on the internet, hoping to find some more info. The following seasons seemed far more promising than what I had seen. Not to say I dislike the 1st arc, but...you understand, right? So, obviously, I took it upon myself to buy the movie O.o I have no idea what sort of logic that was, but it worked. The movie was an utter mindfuck, and I HAD to have more. I bought the second arc soon after, and it blew my mind. I couldn't have enough. I was in utter an complete SKU mode. My poor friend who had to live through that...anyway, I did nothing but research on sites such as Empty Movement [shameless promo] for months and months. I knew every intricate detail before I had seen it. I absolutely refused,however, to watch SKU online. It was too beautiful to not own. For me anyway. FINALLY Christmas of...04 or 05, not sure, rolled around, and I got the box set for the final arc. And a tee-shirt! Acctually, I own two of the same DVD just so I could have the shirt The love grew in leaps and bounds from there, and SKU remains #2 on my list of biggest obsessions. For anime though, its #1. Thats kinda sad acctually, of all the things in the world that I'm obsessed with, SKU is #2.

Ironic, isn't it, that Juri is the reason I delved into SKU,and Shiori is my favorite character?

Last edited by dollface (01-01-2007 04:36:46 PM)

A local rental place was trying to clear out their VHS collection...I went straight to the anime (as I usually do) and picked out a whole bunch of stuff, Utena was simply one that looked interesting. (also the mention of Sailor Moon on the cover intrigued me a bit...childhood flashbacks)

And it certainly was, but I have yet to see the entire series (eek, don't hold it against me)...I'll probably have to order the series to see it in it's entirety as no one around here seems to have it.

BioKraze wrote:

Starshine wrote:

And it certainly was, but I have yet to see the entire series (eek, don't hold it against me)...I'll probably have to order the series to see it in it's entirety as no one around here seems to have it.

Don't worry, neither have I. I'll probably do the same thing...when I run out of ideas for my Lego collection!

Well, there's always YouTube...that's what I've been reduced to, as my entire collection is currently at home. Which is...roughly ten thousand miles THAT way.

BioKraze wrote:

Clarice wrote:

Well, there's always YouTube...that's what I've been reduced to, as my entire collection is currently at home. Which is...roughly ten thousand miles THAT way.

I know, I know. I just prefer watching things on my DVD player instead of the Internet. Streaming audio and video is great for many people, but it's just not my cup of tea.

I know what you mean. I wont lie, I've watched a series or two on the internet, but something as beautiful as SKU I had to own. I have quite a bookshelf for anime I took one look at and decided that I couldn't watch it via computer.