But then, who was Tokiko? she remembered Nemuro and Nemuro Memorial hall exist, too.

Epi_lepsia wrote:

If Miki says so, it must be true.

I want to quote you out of context on that one.

Do you want to know a literary device reason for his lack of aging, or a somewhat 'realistic' explanation about how the non-aging works?

To me, that's a little like asking: 'So, how did Anthy and Utena switch bodies?'

Epi_lepsia wrote:

4.- Did Tokiko and Nemuro had sex?

Yes. Utena is actually their daughter.

Ivy-chan wrote:

Do you want to know a literary device reason for his lack of aging, or a somewhat 'realistic' explanation about how the non-aging works?

To me, that's a little like asking: 'So, how did Anthy and Utena switch bodies?'

Well but that wasn't a serious episode 8D at the end, almost everything gets a little of realistic sense, like the dueling field etc etc...

Ragnarok wrote:

Epi_lepsia wrote:

4.- Did Tokiko and Nemuro had sex?

Yes. Utena is actually their daughter.

That would make a lot of sense!!

Heh, seeing as I can never resist a conversation about Mikage, I might as well try and say something coherent. (First time for everything, isn't there...?)

Epi_lepsia wrote:

1.- What does exactly anthropoperipherism mean?
In my dictionary, the only near word is "antropocentrismo", which is the theory about the men as center of the universe, related with philosophy. This could be related with him like he created his complete imaginary world in which he was living, his lie was transformed in his meaning of life and his mind was the center of all his world and everything that he knew.

I like the definition given from the shrine, "anthropopathism is the attribution of human feelings to things not human, such as inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena," although what you came up with sits well with it. Nemuro -- who is the subject of the song as much as Mikage is -- was always referred to as a "computer-like" man. The whole story there was that although he displayed all of the basic concepts of "consciousness," he lacked empathy -- which is really the whole basis of sci-fi movies that talk about how robots are inherently dangerous to humans when they gain any degree of self-realisation and consciousness of their surroundings. Why is this? Because they function solely on logic and not on intuition (hmm, I think I shouldn't have been watching that Doctor Who earlier...stupid Robots of Death...). Still. [coughs] This is ironic in that Nemuro, who was very robotic in the beginning (as illustrated by that cute monkey-catching bit in the shadow play which Tokiko watched with far more perception than her "younger self" Utena ever got from many more of them), only became dangerous after gaining emotion. Okay, a lot of his emotion turned out to be misguided malice, but there was love there. Just a twisted and warped version of what he was beginning to realise as Nemuro.

So...erm. Yeah. I always took that first bit as being some sort of explanation of what became of Nemuro when he slipped into the thought patterns of Mikage.

Incandescent darkness and birthed puppets
Are named, anthropoperipherism

Pulling the strings of the world is a single existence
For the others, an imaginary puppet-craft

Subzero darkness and birthed creatures
Correlated, anthropoperipherism

The first two lines? Nemuro slipped into depression, became a puppet through the realisation that feelings could be attributed to his otherwise pristine and computer-like mind. The third line? Likely refers to Akio, who centers his existence on manipulating others...and the fourth line is the implication that while Mikage can also indulge in the puppet-craft it is all imaginary because Akio is pulling his strings as much as anyone else. That final duel, although catastrophic to Mikage, was just as rehearsed as anything else that happened beforehand. The last two lines of that extract are just a round-up of these ideas; the sub-zero darkness is Nemuro's slip down the elevator shaft to become the "birthed creature" of Mikage (yes, I think this goes back to the idea of the Black Rose Seminar's elevator), and this correlation = the computer-like man with the actual feelings of a man. Et...voilà!

Epi_lepsia wrote:

2.- What does I'm an imaginary living body come to its end mean?
This is my mayor doubt, was really Mikage / Nemuro alive? Tokiko said that Nemuro had not aged from the last time that she saw him. Perhaps, Mikage died in the fire and that's why he doesn't advance. This remembers me more to the theory of the spirits in transit that they cannot rest and remain suspended in the Earth. I don't like this theory at all, but i don't get when he says " had past decades from the last time that he saw Mamiya ". In the manga (which is the root of everything), Mikage disappeared after dueling with Utena and realized that Mamiya was dead. He disappears when the building comes down, nobody could find him.

Try this point, it's my friend's theory: "When Mikage realized that Mamiya was dead, he said that he could finally be along with Mamiya and advanced, disappeared. Maybe he was already dead"

Maybe, but manga and anime are not identical, in the manga, Mikage IS Mikage, is not Professor Nemuro and there is no Tokiko (yeey).

Yeah, the manga and the anime are quite different, I think. The line itself that you quoted is about the fact Mikage's use has come to its end for Akio, and he's just using the invitable fall-out of this to further test Utena (which we are led to believe was his full intention all along). Where did he go after this? (An episode of Unsolved Mysteries, perhaps? ) The truth is, we have no idea. You can go with the theory that Nemuro died in the fire and was a restless poltergeist-type spirit locked to the destroyed building through the massive amounts of malicious and negative energies generated by the deaths of the hundred boys, himself, and possibly Mamiya...and that his realisation of this set him free. I tend to think myself that Nemuro was "contained" within Mikage, like a butterfly forced back into its cocoon (yes, purposeful mirroring of what Miakge did to everyone else in the elevator here), and when he realised the truth he was out again. And then Akio threw him out of the school because he'd essentially grown up and Akio, as we can see, has very little use for grown-ups unless they are somehow adolescent in their behaviours (I'm looking at the teachers and Mrs. Ohtori here, but going into that now isn't a good idea because it's a) off-topic and b) I have to go to Scotland in half an hour and I haven't even started packing yet). I'll continue this thought below because the two ideas converge very sharply.

Epi_lepsia wrote:

3.- How old is really Professor Nemuro / Mikage ?
Mikage is (supposed) to be 17 in the anime, 15 in the manga. But how old is him, really? He says that it has passed decades from the last time he saw Mamiya, and Tokiko made her life already. How many time has passed, really? Can we found a reference? It can be 5, 10, 20, or even 30 years. Is more than 10 years, since they use "decades", how many decades, exactly?

We can't take Mikage's dialogs of reference, since he's more lost than us.

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7508/mikiwm2.jpg
Miki: Some decades ago, there was a big fire. A hundred of boys implicated in a secret investigation were buried alive

If Miki says so, it must be true.

Mwahaha, but he didn't even remember the name of the building! ...in the anime, of course. My point is that Akio allows the duellists and the students to remember what is convenient to them, but mostly what is convenient to him. We don't know that anyone actually died in that fire/building collapse. I would think the potential fall-out in the real world would stop Akio from going that far, but allowing Mikage/Nemuro to believe it happened suited him fine. And if that involved allowing the students to think so too, thus reinforcing the erroneous belief Mikage held? So much the better. If Miki's dodgy memory proves anything, perhaps it is the fact that while Akio can manipulate facts in his own domain, as soon as the event becomes moot or the person leaves the school, a kind of...veil...drops down over the memory, leaving the details indistinct. I can fully imagine a student being fascinated by the story on-campus, and then going home for the holidays intent on telling their younger sibling how they'd gone and knocked on the door of the burnt out building where a hundred students died, but then...not being able to remember how many students it was. Or when it was. Or if they died. Or even the name of the building. And then as soon as they get back to the school, it's all: "How in the hell could I forget the hundred dead kids at Nemuro Kinenkan?!"

...yeah, this reminds me of one of the key ideas behind the seven grown-ups and their memories of their childhood in the Stephen King novel IT. I recommend the book, really; it deals with a similar set of themes to SKU, although it's obviously a very different story. It's the cusp of childhood thing that is really beautiful in that novel, and that's what SKU is all about too.

But er, as for how old Nemuro is? Same age as Tokiko, I would figure, although if he reverts to that age I have no idea. I once wrote a fanfic where Utena went and found Nemuro after leaving Ohtori, and discovered that he'd been in a coma the entire time and was now an old man in a worn-out body he hadn't even had the chance to use, and...I always liked that idea, although canon really gives us nothing to go on. Curse you, Ikuhara! CURSE YOU!!!

As for his lack of aging in the continuum of the show, it's the same as it is for everyone else -- Akio refers to his school as a garden where no-one grows old. Do they really remain static and never age? (And is that the irony of the perpetual motion machine? After all, a perpetual motion machine never changes its motion; it never accelerates or deccelerates, it continues ever onward. In that respect, does it actually matter if it is moving or not? And what is its motion relative to, anyway? Ohtori always struck me as being the land of quantum mechanics on acid, rather than classical physics sat down with a nice cup of tea. Heh. My point is, though -- a perpetual motion machine makes the same movement over and over again without losing nor gaining net energy. Is it even moving in the first place?) Or do they grow old and Akio alters their perceptions so they don't realise it until they leave? Which would probably work in the case of Mikage in that he leaves the school and suddenly realises, along with his adult realisation of what the world is, that he's actually been an adult all along...

...and we can look at his song too...

Words are born, the encounter, then a hesitation
Knowledge is born, the encounter, then a void
O where am I, when am I

Spell, incantation, mystery, prayer, myself
Stage destiny magic mirror

Full moon, mysterious and transmutable, I'm an imaginary living body come to its end
Full moon, mysterious and transmutable, I'm an imaginary destined body come to its end
Seeking time, without rest, living on a speleomorph
Seeking land, armless, legless
Still existing I am, transparent, intangible, a faint sigh...

First line? Nemuro realises love in the shape of Tokiko and Mamiya. Second line? Akio macks on Tokiko and Nemuro realises he's lost what he never had, and goes nuts...enters the "void" and becomes Mikage...the shadow who doesn't know who he is, where he is, and frankly doesn't give a damn. The next lines are just thought/incantation, and then the last bit? The moon is traditionally associated with madness ("lunacy") and intemperance, and its invocation here seems to indicate that Nemuro is returning to his senses (the imaginary body fulfills its destinty -- and use to Akio -- and is rejected from the marionette play still running its endless season at Ohtori). He's fighting his way back to his mind, and that last line...? It says "still existing am I." There's the only implication -- aside from the graduation by proxy scene at the end of the episode -- that Nemuro is alive and on-going. We just don't know in what form he now exists.

Epi_lepsia wrote:

4.- Did Tokiko and Nemuro had sex?
This is just a random question.

What do you say?

I would say no. Anthy!Mamiya and Mikage? I'd be leaning towards "sure as shit did!" But Nemuro's feelings for Tokiko were quite complex, as has been noted in other threads about Mikage, and I don't think he quite knew what he wanted from her and thus never acted on it. And then Akio went and showed him and he turned pyro on us. See, we here on IRG always knew that sexual repression was bad for a person...

And er, excuse the wanky rambling post on my part. I just can't keep my mouth shut when it comes to Mikage/Nemuro.

Trench Kamen wrote:

Epi_lepsia wrote:

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7508/mikiwm2.jpg

I am so damn proud of myself; I could decipher most of that without the aid, even after having only taken Spanish in high school.

And for what it is worth, I think there is some commentary there regarding the fact that humans change as they grow, and as Mikage/Nemuro "stopped his own time", he eventually ceased to be human. Do humans by nature change and grow?

Granted, my father kept telling me "People never change," but I think this is a different version of "change" than what he's talking about.

actually, I believe there are cases where Utena demonstrates the idea of "People never change". Mikage can't love, and so when he does, it can be easily twisted into something horrifyingly possessive. And, then, there's Akio talking about how Utena can never be a prince because "then and now, she's always been a girl."

Last edited by Hiraku (04-13-2007 06:47:27 AM)

If periphery is the antonym of center than anthropoperipherism would imply that Man is without importance in the universe.

brian wrote:

If periphery is the antonym of center than anthropoperipherism would imply that Man is without importance in the universe.

You beat me!

Tamago wrote:

Does that mean then that Mamiya is her uncle then?

...so let me get this straight. Mikage and Tokiko had Utena. Mikage then turned out to like Mamiya a whole bunch. This means Mamiya is Utena's uncle... so (with a little fuzzy logic) Anthy is Mamiya which means she's Utena's uncle. And Akio is sexing his sister Anthy (Mamiya) as well as Utena, as well as Utena's mother Tokiko (maybe). And if Akio's Anthy's brother, that means he's Utena's uncle and Tokiko's brother. Dammit Akio, will your penchant for incest never cease???

Goddamn, Ohtori is full of inbred hicks.

Yasha wrote:

...so let me get this straight. Mikage and Tokiko had Utena. Mikage then turned out to like Mamiya a whole bunch. This means Mamiya is Utena's uncle... so (with a little fuzzy logic) Anthy is Mamiya which means she's Utena's uncle. And Akio is sexing his sister Anthy (Mamiya) as well as Utena, as well as Utena's mother Tokiko (maybe). And if Akio's Anthy's brother, that means he's Utena's uncle and Tokiko's brother. Dammit Akio, will your penchant for incest never cease???

Goddamn, Ohtori is full of inbred hicks.

Or Ikuhara decided to take The Graduate a little bit further.

Yasha wrote:

Tamago wrote:

Does that mean then that Mamiya is her uncle then?

...so let me get this straight. Mikage and Tokiko had Utena. Mikage then turned out to like Mamiya a whole bunch. This means Mamiya is Utena's uncle... so (with a little fuzzy logic) Anthy is Mamiya which means she's Utena's uncle. And Akio is sexing his sister Anthy (Mamiya) as well as Utena, as well as Utena's mother Tokiko (maybe). And if Akio's Anthy's brother, that means he's Utena's uncle and Tokiko's brother. Dammit Akio, will your penchant for incest never cease???

Goddamn, Ohtori is full of inbred hicks.

What a lovely family image that is!

God that's too much for an answer, i lost so much while i was out

Okay, in order:

YamPuff wrote:

Epi_lepsia wrote:

YamPuff wrote:

I want to quote you out of context on that one.

i love you

Love me more.

anthropoperipherism COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT.

That makes a lot of sense!!

More love? How much more?











Yampuff, you are talking with Epi i really doubt that somebody enjoys this more than me. I'm a latin lover, androgynous latin lover and i have that Miki/Kozue hairdo play so... you can ask whatever you want

Yasha wrote:

Tamago wrote:

Does that mean then that Mamiya is her uncle then?

...so let me get this straight. Mikage and Tokiko had Utena. Mikage then turned out to like Mamiya a whole bunch. This means Mamiya is Utena's uncle... so (with a little fuzzy logic) Anthy is Mamiya which means she's Utena's uncle. And Akio is sexing his sister Anthy (Mamiya) as well as Utena, as well as Utena's mother Tokiko (maybe). And if Akio's Anthy's brother, that means he's Utena's uncle and Tokiko's brother. Dammit Akio, will your penchant for incest never cease???

My head is about to collapse.


Now, to the thing here...

Clarice wrote:

Epi_lepsia wrote:

3.- How old is really Professor Nemuro / Mikage ?
Mikage is (supposed) to be 17 in the anime, 15 in the manga. But how old is him, really? He says that it has passed decades from the last time he saw Mamiya, and Tokiko made her life already. How many time has passed, really? Can we found a reference? It can be 5, 10, 20, or even 30 years. Is more than 10 years, since they use "decades", how many decades, exactly?

We can't take Mikage's dialogs of reference, since he's more lost than us.

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7508/mikiwm2.jpg
Miki: Some decades ago, there was a big fire. A hundred of boys implicated in a secret investigation were buried alive

If Miki says so, it must be true.

Mwahaha, but he didn't even remember the name of the building! ...in the anime, of course. My point is that Akio allows the duellists and the students to remember what is convenient to them, but mostly what is convenient to him.

I don't think Akio is THAT powerful. He's damn smart but he's not a real Dios. In my opinion, people forgets so easy everything, is just about to being interested one day to the next. When Mikage left Ohtori, they didn't have any reference to Nemuro Memorial Hall, why he needed to know the name of an old building, if nothing is happening there? Is just like people are, just more exaggerated. Akio knows the human behavior, he doesn't control them, he leads them be.  Like when Juri tells that story of her older sister drowning and everything... people forgets so easy.

But er, as for how old Nemuro is? Same age as Tokiko, I would figure, although if he reverts to that age I have no idea.

When i saw for first time Nemuro and Tokiko, i thought Tokiko was much older than Nemuro. I saw Nemuro as a 20 year old solitary guy, and Tokiko was a 30 year old bitch.

I would say no. Anthy!Mamiya and Mikage? I'd be leaning towards "sure as shit did!" But Nemuro's feelings for Tokiko were quite complex, as has been noted in other threads about Mikage, and I don't think he quite knew what he wanted from her and thus never acted on it. And then Akio went and showed him and he turned pyro on us.

Why i am the only person that thinks they did have sex? sex is the only thing -love also, of course, but... ahem- that i think that could give to a robot man a little bit of human feelings.