Yasha wrote:

Ger wrote:

I run
Saionji fansite Something Eternal
Ruka fansite Seraphitus

Holy shit, you're the reason Gio and I haven't built a Saionji shrine!

Hey yeah, I dunno whether to worship you or kick your ass!

Make the rest of us Saionji fans look bad.

Hi, I just noticed this thread. ;

Anyways, Hi I'm Jaime.

I first saw Utena at the tender age of thirteen, and have lost count of how many times I have re-watched it since then.

As for my opinion on characters...amazingly that changes with every fifth rewatch of the show, as every time I notice something new about them, and/or the people I'm watching Utena with heavily influence what parts I'm paying attention to. For example, When  watched Utena with a friend who happened to be angsty, a fencer, and a lesbian I had a rather different experience watching it than I did when I saw it with my heterosexual male best friend. For some reason they kept focusing on very different aspects of the show.

....As things stand now however, the past few viewing have managed to completely redeem Anthy in my eyes, and even turn her into my favorite character. Her story is just so rich and tragic, and one can tell that she knew what was coming the whole way through.

I've hardly contributed to the Utena fandom, however I do have two Utena fics. One of which I wrote last year when bored in my History of Renaissance Music class, and the other a series of short drabbles that I desperately wish could get longer, and be finished. Both fics can be found at Fanfiction.net.

As for other anime, I can avoid listing all my other favorites (although Utena is indeed my all time favorite) by simply stating that I am obsessive enough to be the president of my college's anime club.

::waves:: Hi, everyone! My name's Cid, and I'm not actually much of an anime fan -- SKU is the most notable of several exceptions, and I got quite disappointed when I found out about other shoujo anime. I'm originally from Central Florida and have thus far managed to escape to go to college in Massachusetts. My main obsessions are pen-and-paper RPing (or attempts at online imitations), ethics, vegan cooking, programming, and game design.

Any time I try to decide on a favorite character I wind up taking it back, so I won't even bother. I like everyone. Nanami irritated me the first time I watched the series, but she grew on me. A lot. Rather suspisciously. I've also been attempting to make a Kozue fansite for some time, but I'm horribly lazy when it comes to that kind of thing. I tend to empathize/relate to just about everyone in this show, which can be frightening. And have strong opinions on everyone, which hopefully I'll finally be able to discuss with someone who isn't totally disinterested or bored!

Hi, I'm Hannah K. I'm a three-or-is-it-four-year anime fan, with SKU coming out on top in most aspects (absent of mind-numbingly hot alchemists and demons.) I role-play a lot and my characters hate me. Especially mny SKU charrie since I always put her in the line of danger.

Kasai: Die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uh, yeah. That's her. ; Ignore her ramblings, it doesn't matter.

Kasai: *glare*


Yes, I'm crazy. That's probably why I (think I) understand the series.

Ger wrote:

.deep.blue. wrote:

Ger wrote:

Ruka fansite Seraphitus

Can you be my new best friend?

Sure! XD The world needs more Ruka fans. Poor guy.

I saw your website about Ruka some time ago, finally I can tell you that it is beautiful. You're a cool guy!

As you I support Ruka <--- respect.

Last edited by Sey (10-22-2006 04:14:16 PM)

Sey wrote:

I saw your website about Ruka some time ago, finally I can tell you that it is beautiful. You're a cool guy!

As you I support Ruka <--- respect.

*salutes* Thank you very much!

Xu Yuan wrote:

You made the Ruka shrine! I always thought some guy did that... Whatever the case an excellent site and really the only place, (besides two essays on Empty Movement) for an analysis of the misunderstood Ruka!

Yes, I did.....I always meant it to be just some place on the net for some Ruka analysis. I know it's not much, but for a character who has 2 episodes out of 38, I think it's pretty decent.....I always felt bad that I couldn't expand it like I did for my Saionji site or other really great fansites out there like Arisugawa's Locket or the Blonde Bombshell site for Nanami. But again, Ruka=2 episodes - not a lot to say, really.

I'm just glad other people like him XD I couldn't believe that there wasn't a Ruka fansite on the net before I made mine.

Hi, I'm Emily.  I'm from the Detroit area, attending Wayne State University (go go commuter campuses!), majoring in journalism and minoring in Asian Studies--Japanese concentration.  My Japanese is so-so; I have good days and bad days.  Just for fun, I'm also studying aikido.  I like to cook and bake when I can.  I'm a big Nine Inch Nails fan, which is where the "nin" part of my screen name comes from.  The "mercury" refers to one of my favorite Sailor Senshi (yes, I've been using this name for a while) and the ruling planet of my astrological sign.  (Hint: I'm not a Virgo.)

I'm pretty obsessed with Utena.  So obsessed that I imported the Utena Sega Saturn game and THEN bought a Saturn so I could play it.  So obsessed that I fought tooth and nail to get a copy of OST 5 off eBay from a seller in the US, because it didn't seem like Geneon was going to license it and I really wanted to hear the musical.  (I just watched clips of the musical on YouTube--holy crap, does "Touga" do a good jorb.  She actually makes an effort to sound like Koyasu.  "Utena" is iffy and "Anthy" is great.)  So obsessed that I made my now ex-boyfriend watch it, though he insisted on listening to the dub track; eeesh.

It's one of the few series that I can keep coming back to and still get something new out of it.  I don't exactly have a favorite character, but Akio has got to be the best villain in the history of ever.  And sexiest.

I'm kinda lurky and I only contribute when I have something to say.  (I like parentheses.)

Can I just say that I love the and smilies.

I think we should start a music thread.  All music, not just Utena music.

Hi, there. I'm Danielle. I've been pretty much obsessed with SKU since this past summer when I started getting the DVD's from Netflix but I had to go buy them because waiting two days for the next disc was just too long! Utena is my favorite show, along with anything Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) I was an English major and love dissecting so I guess that's why I love Utena because there's just no end to the layers. This series is stunning in its parallels between characters (in some ways every subordinate character serves the two main characters, their traits and issues can be related to either Utena or Anthy) and it's deep symbolism.

As for opinions, for me, the series is brilliant, the manga has its moments and the movie is only good for folks who need beautiful images for AMV's. Utena and Anthy are my favorite characters because I think they have the relationship that every other character is searching for (except maybe Akio, he is looking for either a part of himself he has lost but doesn't he seem to need his connection to Anthy pretty bad?). Utena demonstrates over and over unfailing loyalty towards Anthy and, after way too many viewings, I see a lot of quiet devotion towards Utena on Anthy's part again and again. I like all the characters though especially Nanami who does a lot of growing up during the series. She also gets my favorite line when she speaks for all of us when she says to Utena "God you are dense. No wonder you're able to live with that pervert brother and his messed up sister." Oh yeah, I'm probably the only person who actually likes the English dub of SKU. I've watched it in Japanese a few times but I'm used to the English now because my friends mostly like to watch it in English. I'm fascinated by the differences in meaning in some scenes between the Japanese translation and the English.

Oh yeah and I'm a teacher so I'm the sponsor for the anime club at my school. It's too bad Utena is definitely on the "not appropriate to show at school" list!

I felt like I'd gotten on the SKU train a little late but thank goodness for EM, I'm saved! Thanks for all the hard work...

brian wrote:

One question,  I like the manga as much as anything. Is is OK to talk about Saito's original manga here and do I need to post dire spoiler warnings?

If you're going to spoil right off the bat... well, everyone here should be pretty familiar with EM's policy on spoilers, which is 'all over the fucking place', but if you were going to be a really nice person, you'd put a little tag in the thread title, such as '[Spoilers] Sup all fans of Chiho Saito's Utena Manga! Discussion within!'

(Watch me double post this)

Hi I'm Hinotori and I came here from a link on 4chan (OH NOES)

I used to be pretty active in the Utena community about three years back but yeah my god it's been aaaages. I first got into SKU in 2001/2002 (I think), under the premise that it was "yuri". It never made good on that promise in the way, say, Stopani did, but the plot turned out to be way better and that always makes up for it. My favourite characters were always Juri and Akio even though they're basically opposites. I also suck at writing introductions.

Yeah, I'm a person with interests and stuff. I'm starting grad school in april and I'm 21 years old and like every other female anime fan my age my first experience with anime was the scifi channel but Sailor Moon made me a religious watcher. (Bleh.) Needless to say I'm into guro now. ;9

Giovanna wrote:

Whoa whoa, we're linked on 4chan? Lemme see? I suck at 4chan.

EDIT: Yeah that link probably goes to drawings of naked ladies, but judging by the smiles I don't think that'll be a problem.

http://orz.4chan.org/u/res/100785.html Well, a thread on 4chan. Haha, I got into SKU through the yuri crowd and got linked here through /u/.

I'm sure I've been here before, but I don't go to fansites unless I need something. =.=

Last edited by Hinotori (10-23-2006 05:26:07 PM)

Hello! I'm Amanda, a 19-year old single lesbian (not looking, thx) living in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. I've been a fan of SKU for about 7 years, since I accidentally stumbled upon part of the manga and found one used VHS tape (with 3 dubbed eps) in a thrift store.

SKU-wise, I own the entire series and film on DVD, the whole movie manga, and volume 5 of the regular manga (the manga is my least favorite canon for the story, so I've been lazy about aquiring it.) I listen to the original Japanese voice cast, because it seems that the only English dub artists who really nailed their characters were Shiori, in particular, and Jury somewhat.

It's my favorite series because ALL of the characters are developed: they all have their flaws, but there's reason for it, and they behave in the way real people with those isssues tend to behave. If you don't have irrational, burning hatred for a character just because they seem evil (Shiori and Ruka get this a lot, from what I've seen, as well as Anthy and Saionji), you can really get into their minds and even sympathize.  Even Utena, who's the "righteous hero," admits to playing up things for her own ego and is shown to repress what she knows about Akio because of her puppy-love for him (I think she knew he was End of the World for a while near the end, and just couldn't handle it and pushed it away). And Anthy, who is both a wicked schemer and innocently repressed, is all too often seen as ONLY one or the other. I suppose her conflicting and complicated personality is what makes her my favorite, but I really do like ALL the characters because they are so very human (except Dios, he's not my cup of tea).

The other anime I like are Neon Genesis Evangelion, Haibane Renmei, Serial Experiments Lain, Pet Shop of Horrors, and AIR (also known as AIR TV). Manga-wise, I adore Pet Shop of Horrors, Paper Eleven, and The Demon Ororon. Yes, that's pretty much it. I'm very selective about my anime and manga: if it's not laden with metaphors and debatable plotlines and character actions, it bores me. Needless to say, stuff like Inuyasha and Naruto do nothing for me.

I tend to be a rabid fangirl, but not of the stupid variety. Other (non-anime) fandoms that captivate me in the same way as SKU would be The X-Files, LOST, Kill Bill, IT by Stephen King (the fantastic book, not that horrid miniseries with Tim Curry), The Dark Tower books, the His Dark Materials books, and the A Series of Unfortunate Events books, among others. Oh, and RENT. I can talk about that for ages. But I hate RENT snobs who decide who "the real fans" are by how many shows they've seen, and with which casts, and whether or not they like/dislike the film adaptation...so if you're one of THOSE Rentheads--not up to talking about it, sorry.

The only other things I can think of: I'm hoping to be a professional novelist, and I play the character of Utena on LJ's UTENA_RPG (link in my signature) thanks to the wonderful mods having faith that I could handle the role. Much love to them. And to those wondering who in SKU I fancy, that would be anime!Anthy with her hair down and spread everywhere around her on the couch like purple vines (gorgoeus).

So hello to all!

Last edited by Rosemary Bats (10-23-2006 11:23:26 PM)