Stephanie wrote:

Question! *Again, sorry.. *

1.) What do the cars mean in the duel anyway?

No idea. 

But I don't think they symbolize adulthood in the "real" sense -- the responsible, free-of-one's-coffin sense.  They may symbolize adulthood in Akio's manchild sense.  Certainly that's part of what they symbolize when he drives them.

2.) Why is the castle upside down?

Because a right-side-up castle in the sky would be pretty boring to look at from underneath? 

Seriously, I think that's part of it.  The other part is that the upside-downness further emphasizes the architectural impossibility of a castle in the sky.  There's no such thing.  The castle is obviously a mirage, yet the duelists sink heart and soul into reaching it.  The more impossible the castle is, the more ironic the premise is.

Ah yes, I've been reading your posts in Interpreting Symbolism in SKU and I find it quite lovely.. n_n

I've only reached half of page 3 though, after an hour of reading..

16 pages!! And I will read them all!

*Looks forward to reading interpretation of OP/ED and Absolute Destiny Apocalypse*

Though, I do have some questions in my mind, don't know if they were asked or talked about already there..

Like this one:



Miki and Jury were talking about how Utena seemed like "A Girl" and it wasn't really like her, which gives Jury a bad feeling.. What do they mean she seems like a girl? Miki agreed she never seemed like one to him either, even if she is one..

Does that mean simply that she was acting all prince, and now she became like a princess (and abandoning searching for the prince cause of Akio)



Sorry for the impatience..


Also:





Utena asked if what ever was holding back Jury was Shiori.. (I got dumbfounded Utena guessed it so suddenly, after acting like not knowing anything) Then Jury said that Utena and Himemiya are probably the same.. Utena denies, but is unable to answer as said in this pic..

Umm.. Translations..? Meaning she already does, right?




EDIT:

Sorry, but I know Utena just had a glimpse back of something in her that Anthy is the child that has been struck with thousands of swords here..



Though, I can't help but feel all 'Yuri' in this scene..

And, when Akio presented himself in the 38th episode, he said dense Utena already knew about him being End-Of-The-World.. Since when did Utena knew about this?

And why is the castle upside down?
I'm quite sure there's a meaning to it, besides it's better facing downward than the castle floating upward in the right direction..

Last edited by Stephanie (10-08-2007 11:38:26 PM)

We are lead to believe that Anthy is indeed Indian. That thing on her head is a bindi, and I swear I read a BEAUTIFUL analysis on what it means symbolically, but I can't find it for the life of me! It's like a third eye and a sign of magic and marriage.

I think Anthy was trying to tell her what she told her later on the rooftop, that she'd been using her and whatnot. Or it could also be what she showed her soon after, that she was sleeping with Akio.

I believe Utena knew Akio was End of the World subconsciously ever since the Barefoot Girl episode and pretty much knew for sure after she caught him and Anthy in their birthday suits.

The lack of Utena's answer when compared to Juri and Shiori I think can mean whatever you want it to mean. For those yuri-fanatics who want Utena and Anthy to be together, it can mean "YES! OH GOD, YES! THEY'RE TOTALLY SNOGGING!" For those viewers that don't quite buy the couple, it can mean "Eh, sorta looks like it, but they're really just friends who sort of transcend the normal boundaries of companionship." Ambiguity is key to having a generally accepted anime involving homosexuality.

Utena seemed more like a girl when she cast aside her ring (sign of princeliness) and decided to try out being Akio's princess.

Yay! Answers!

(/^___^)/

*Smile reaches up till the ears*

Behh.. Maybe I wanted a 'yuri' of them in the series.. Since that's what I originally intended when I started watching it.. Though, even if not evident, thoroughly enjoyed it and continued watching it!

But, even Utena has a broken line like that.. "Himemiya.. the truth is.. I.."

Blah! I'll just stick my Yuri desire to the movie then..



And, the castle explanation was good, just that I thought it has a meaning or symbol to why it's like that, rather than it looking better than the right side up *which you do have a point*
They'd be looking at the foot of the castle

Last edited by Stephanie (10-13-2007 12:59:33 PM)

I agree with dollface on this. Anthy could very well be playing on Utena's need to play the prince by providing enough emotional fodder to feed the fantasty. I do not completely rule out the chance that Anthy truly *was* about to make some sort of confession, though.

Regarding the upside down castle, it is interesting that Saionji in his very first duel remarks that it is nothing but an illusion.

dollface wrote:

I don't think that Anthy was honestly trying to profess anything. I always thought it was a part of her plan to lure Utena in and drive her to 'revolutionize the world'. Just as she expressed to Utena in the first season that she wanted more friends, even though she truly didn't care. It was something Utena needed to hear in order to keep her dueling. Utena still believes Anthy to be a princess she must save, and Anthy is willing to milk that fantasy for all it's worth.

It's plausible, but I don't feel like Utena paid too much mind to it.  Why continuously use a tactic that doesn't do any good? Er, bad in this case. I'm also just not one of those "Anthy was pulling all the strings all the time" people. I feel like (or hope, at least) that little bits of the real Anthy peaked through every now and then and that those were the little bits that Utena so dunderheadedly ignored.

I always looked at the fact that they were holding hands as Anthy refused to to confirm Utena's request of friendship as a less-blatantly stated version of the Canteralla scene.

And with that, we're getting off topic.

Would anyone else be interested in using a little necromancy on this thread to further discuss the relationship of Utena and Anthy?

Razara wrote:

In this duel, Saionji does not have a Rose Bride, but in Miki, Ruka, and Touga’s duel, we see the Rose Brides riding in the passenger’s seat of the car. The duelist powers the car, but the Rose Bride is in the passenger’s seat, because they get to share the Power of Dios with the victor. Miki, Ruka, and Touga all planned to share power with Kozue, Shiori, and Saionji in some way, so they ride in the car. Saionji, Juri, and Nanami, however, did not, and so they didn’t have a Rose Bride. Ruka and Touga were two rather unusual cases, because they just stood and watched, rather than riding in the car. It’s because Juri and Nanami did not plan to share the power with them.

I've been really thinking about this one, in particular, Ruka. I really don't think he planned to share anything with Shiori should he have won - his entire point in returning seems alternately at saving himself and/or saving Juri. He knew she was dishonest before the duel, which means if the strength of one's bride will aid in determining the Victor, he knew going into the duel that he was going to lose it aside from his suspicions of Dios' favoring of Utena simply on Shiori being there. That he dropped her immediately upon losing seems to indicate his selection of her was to break Shiori (promising her this miracle power, blaming his loss upon her, telling her she lost the possibility of ever obtaining it and with it him) as much as possible so his true target, Juri, would be vulnerable. There is always the possibility that if he won the duel, he'd have looked upon Shiori differently from that moment on, of course. I just can't see sharing the miracle power with her being in line with his plans.

On Juri's duel - there are no racing cars anywhere throughout it, as best as I recall, where as Nanami's duel is filled with shots of them, including a crash at the end even if there is no Bride passenger. Also in Juri's duel, the headlights never form a single beam as they do in the others. I'm not certain of the significance of this, but it is absent from it.

An alternative interpretation might be that the car doesn't represent the duelist as much as it does the hope of the respective Bride: Juri's is absent as Ruka has no ambitions for the power himself, and Nanami's car is present because Touga himself wants the power but knows or doesn't believe that Nanami is capable of winning it, hence he is absent from the car itself. (Or it could just be that someone in the studio loved the handsome devil and didn't want him going through the windshield. ) This would make sense with the presence of Kozue, Shiori, and Saionji in their respective duelist's duels. Unfortunately, it doesn't explain the car in Saionji's duel as he had no bride, unless you argue that Touga is essentially Saionji's bride by proxy as his involvement spurned Saionji into dueling again (as Kozue did for Miki, Shiori for Ruka via her connection to Juri, Ruka for Juri, Touga for Nanami, and Saionji for Touga via his help in getting Touga to admit he actually cared for Utena). If so, then this explanation holds true as Touga would not have any reason to believe Saionji would win the duel, and was merely following Akio's directions in pushing the duels forward.

As an avid and admittedly-biased Juri fan, I can offer yet another interpretation. The absence of a car in her duel is because she's Utena's mirror in this one - she's not dueling for herself but rather to "protect" Shiori from Ruka in the same misguided sense that Utena is trying to "protect" Anthy from the other duelists. Which is why I believe the Dios strike targeted the locket rather than the rose - because the only way to defeat someone operating on the same plane as Utena would be to make him or her lose heart. She has no car because Utena has no car, neither of them are dueling for the miracle power. Which would also explain why there are no shots of the engine throttling or wheels spinning during her duel as well.

Last edited by Ashnod (10-14-2007 12:27:57 AM)

Imaginary Bad Bug wrote:

Anthy pulling Akio's strings for the entire series

I definitely agree an argument could be made for placing her in the position of power thoroughout. Akio only ever cared for the illusion of being in control, that's why he's happy in the coffin everyone else struggles miserably in. I think though that the situation was more that they both pulled the strings of the other, and that's why they got so tangled up they snapped. Akio and Anthy are both, in their ways, very dominating personalities. They both demand control, a lot of it, and neither likes being without it. A little more submission from either party and they'd have been much happier, I think.

I can see Akio and Anthy having an unspoken tug of war over power at Ohtori, but I still give the advantage to Anthy, myself.   She is the Witch, after all, and it is her who decided who would eventually "save" her in the end.  From the Black Rose Arc, I got the impression that it was Anthy's wish to never be saved, and keep Akio in his coffin, as it were. Anthy may have been acting in retribution for Akio trying to keep Anthy in her coffin, and the whole thing ends up as a snake-eating-its-own-tail kind of thing.

This is in part based on the fact that Akio and Anthy were together in deceiving Mikage during that experment in perception altering at Ohtori. (ie the Black Rose Arc.)  It's also based on what Anthy says at the very end of the series:

Anthy & Akio wrote:

Akio:  It hasn't been that long since then, but everybody's forgotten about her completely.
Akio:  She didn't cause a Revolution after all.
Akio:  Now that she's gone, she was just a dropout to this world.
Akio:  I've got to rebuild the Code of the Rose Signet from scratch.
Akio:  I'm counting on you, Anthy.
Anthy:  You don't know what happened, do you?
Akio:  What?
Anthy:  It's alright now. Please go on playing make-believe "Prince" in this comfortable little coffin forever.
Anthy:  But I must go.
Akio:  Go? To where?
Anthy:  That person hasn't vanished. She's merely left your world.
Akio:  What're you talking about?
Akio:  W-wait a minute! Anthy!
Akio:  Anthy!!
Anthy:  Farewell.

Anthy is the one who decided to leave Ohtori, hence bringing "Revolution" to herself if nobody else.  Utena ends up winning the final duel, just not when she (or we) thought she did.  She may have failed to save Anthy after finding her in her coffin during the "Revolution" duel, but after a while, Anthy decided that Utena was right, and decides to end the game.  Anthy and Akio were the only two to actually remember Utena after the final duel, while the rest of the campus had already chalked Utena up to being something of legend very much like Mikage and Nemuro Hall were.

So yeah, it's still a tricky dynamic to figure out between Akio and Anthy, but I believe that Akio wasn't as all-powerful as he thought himself to be, especially towards the end.  He was absolutely a Machiavellian figure, but his sister had him all figured out long ago.

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (10-16-2007 09:55:19 AM)