That's interesting. I've certainly noticed a few going on -- and participating to my mind-blowing -- but I'd have to rewatch to think of the particular ones.

However, the thing that really strikes me -- although I don't know if it quite qualifies -- is the whole "you're just a girl" thing. I remember it comes very early, but I don't remember in what episode... I think it's before Episode 11-12, when it's played all the way through. And then it doesn't seem to come up as much: Utena is no longer defeated, and it's almost as if she had truly realised her wish to be Anthy's Prince. The relationship she develops with Akio starts subtly eating at it (more subtly than how Touga did it, which in my view explains why Touga failed), but I feel it's really meant to fire back in our faces in the final episode. Seriously? Anthy's "You're just a girl"? Double backstab, anyone? Even when I had read before (yeah, spoiled myself) that the backstabbing occurred, I didn't expect it to come with that "justification".

Also, Dios' mockery/taunting is so ambiguously ironic when you look at it: yes, he told her once as a child that she was just a girl (as you see with the complete flashback), but he still gave her the ring to come back to him, and when she finally succeeds... tells her again that she's just a girl, repeating what Anthy just said. It feels like some big ironic trap, "I told you....".

So true, minervana. God I love the script...

There's also Mitsuru's line "As long as she eats this, I'll be satisfied"...while he's holding a banana.

oldboy wrote:

Who said that? If you guessed Juri, you're right. But didn't she just describe Ruka's viewpoint to a tee, down to the "her" in the last sentence?

Almost. If you switch around "you" and "her" she's describing Ruka's desire, to a tee as you say.

The Demain speech is another example of dramatic irony. I wonder how it got started. Some letter from Ends of the World, perhaps? It's funny that these characters recite the same speech, over and over again, about how they're going to "smash the world's shell." It's like they're marionettes who are made to mime themselves "breaking free" of their strings. This thought is not fully developed.

brian wrote:

minervana wrote:

I wonder how it got started. Some letter from Ends of the World, perhaps? It's funny that these characters recite the same speech, over and over again, about how they're going to "smash the world's shell." It's like they're marionettes who are made to mime themselves "breaking free" of their strings. This thought is not fully developed.

You have touched on one of the core ironies. Most of the characters are rebelling against the World, especially the Adult World but their path of rebellion has been prepared for them by the character who exemplifies what they are rebelling against.

Exactly. It's like teenagers buying a can of Sprite because the marketing campaign says something like "be yourself." What could possibly be less rebellious than that?

It's also telling that they're doing this in a school. School is often described as "life in miniature," only unlike life there are rules, regulations and a structured path towards a concrete goal. Outside "there are no roads." It kind of reminds me of college, when I met a lot of people who wanted to "revolutionize the world" in some idealistic way, but were absolutely terrified of graduating, when the structure stopped and the "real world" (their phrase, not mine) came calling.

I have a theory that nobody in the series actually cares about changing/revolutionizing the world. Everybody (with a few exceptions) wants to regress and eternalize some earlier, happier time in their lives, because they think it will solve some interpersonal problem that they'll probably outgrow in three years. The exceptions are Touga (maybe), Utena and Akio, who is content to play at God in his little sandbox, under the (probably futile) hope that he can someday reclaim the princely power and become God of the entire world.

It's hard to find much in RGU that is not full of dramatic irony. In fact the real challenge is finding simple sincerity completely untainted by irony. Utena herself perhaps.

Irony is broader than dramatic irony, but you're right. Irony is when you express your meaning by using words that typically mean the opposite of what you want to express, or when the situation is the opposite of what you expect (a fire extinguisher factory burning to the ground). The principal characters are really good at this, especially Anthy. Sarcasm is basically irony + contempt. Miki is pretty straightforward though, and Saionji is too stupid (and too temperamental) to play wordgames.

There's another form of irony, where the meaning is unknown to the audience but clear to the characters in the story (or the speaker). For example, the day before the Columbine school shooting, a friend of Eric Harris (one of the shooters) managed to get him some ammunition. This friend asked Harris if he was going to go hunting that evening. Harris said "Maybe tomorrow."