Yes, but I don't think it's the same kind of all-consuming, self-loathing, obsessive feeling for Shiori of earlier in the series.  The locket represented that.  I always interpreted that exchange as an acknowledgment of the difference between being hung up on someone and having it be ridiculously unhealthy, which is a distinction that probably had to be made for the sake of representing a lesbian.  Because people are dicks who like to assume things.

The theory is also somewhat plausible because, really, people have weird standards about homosexuality, or at least Saito did.  I don't, however, like Davine's explanation because I don't think a confrontation between Juri and Shiori is really that believable at that stage anyway, especially not a sexual one.  After all, Shiori still hadn't changed, if we believe Anthy.  Juri's noble bitterness and self-victimization of "don't mess with Shiori," but still not really doing anything about it seemed far more likely to me.  Having her come up against a male just furthers the agenda of the show.  Is it unnecessary?  Maybe a little, but we don't really see Juri ever backing down from Touga or Miki or Saionji or even Akio.  It just shows that she does have a weakness where Shiori is concerned.  It also shows that, even well-intentioned, manipulation is still manipulation.  If he'd have stuck around any longer, we'd have gotten to know him too well.  Having him drift in and out makes him appear more noble, but if the audience knew him better, he'd likely appear just as selfish and screwed up as any other character is the series.  Or he'd be boring.

From what I can tell, she wasn't so much against homosexuality; she just really didn't want it in Utena.  I heard it was for sales purposes, but I don't have any of her actual words to back that up.  The most recent account that I remember comes from a thread here.

I got into a discussion with Aelanie on this thread (thought it really has nothing to do with Saito and homosexuality), and I think she was posting her Saito information from the DVD commentaries on the Ohtori.nu website, but here's the relevant excerpt she posted there.

Q: "Was that [making Anthy and Utena a couple] your intention from the beginning?"

I: "Yes. I didn't tell Ms. Saito but I was planning on it."

S: "Initially I wasn't told anything about that. He asked me to draw something where the two were close, so I drew a piece where the two were next to each other looking rather friendly. He was extremely happy. I had no idea in the beginning what he was thinking but...I figured it out at the end that his goal was to make me draw the two girls looking friendly."

I: "In the beginning, I brought it up lightheartedly during a meeting...she got really angry and said, 'If that's the case, I'm out!' I realized it was something I wasn't supposed to say and I decided to keep it to myself."

S: "No, that wasn't it. If I recall correctly... We started a debate about how we should make it more entertaining for girls. We were on a workshop trip and the debate turned into a fight. Mr. Ikuhara wouldn't give any consideration about enjoyment for girls. As a professional manga artist, I couldn't offer such a joyless story to the target audience. We had this huge clash of opinions, which created a lot of friction between us."

I: "When that happened, the entire Utena project was almost scrapped. It was such a big fight, the entire project was in jeopardy. It was such a painful fight I got carried into the hospital the day after."

Last edited by KaleMarsh (09-19-2011 07:29:11 AM)

Davine Lu Linvega wrote:

Saito's quote about how an Utena/Anthy relationship would make for a "joyless story" with no appeal to girls suggests that she has some weird hangup with homosexuality to think that it would completely kill the appeal of the story. She's fine with telling stories that include much more controversial sexual themes, particularly incest, and if she paid any attention to Sailor Moon she would know that you can create the most popular girls' manga/anime in the world with prominent gay characters.

I'm not a big fan of Saito, but I think that the main relationship in a shoujo being homosexual would probably take away some of the fantasy that the (mostly) young and straight audience looks for. That's probably what she meant by "joyless." The only time I've seen a lesbian romance between lead characters in a manga has been in josei series and those are usually geared towards 20 year olds while shoujo is directed at teen girls. Even in Sailor Moon the straight couples take center stage and are a lot more sensational than Haruka and Michiru's more straightforward, cool and mature relationship.

Last edited by chrisb (09-20-2011 02:48:48 AM)

Right, and the idea that all the men Utena meets can't be made to see the errors of their ways and reformed into good life partners, but the girl can, is a little offensive and could corrupt young, impressionable female minds.

I have no idea.

In general, I don't think any moment in SKU is ever really about romance; it's more about how those feelings influence who an individual becomes.  Even the straight relationship between Akio and Utena is more about how self-involved Utena is, with the sex coming as a big shock, but even the sex scene isn't given more screen time than Akio's and Touga's, and there's only more of a focus because Utena is the main character.

Sure, Saito didn't want to see Anthy and Utena ending up together (it seems she would have been happier with an Utena and Touga ending), but the Juri and Shiori story is more about Juri's inability to let go, even from afar, even though she has cut contact off from Shiori.  I don't see how you can fix that without an intervening party or Shiori magically appearing in Juri's lap one day in a room that won't open until the latter acknowledges the former.

...But Ruka IS gay.

Before we hop on the 'Saito hates gays' train, it's best to keep thr things in mind.

Firstly, by the time the movie came around Saito had obviously gotten over whatever issues she happened to have, because she wrote and drew the move manga. I know that the mangas tend to have a bad rep as a whole, but the movie manga is, IMHO, a very lovely piece. It's beautifully drawn and while the cult of Touga has never appealed, at the end of it it shows Utena and Anthy together, and makes it clear that they love each other and not in a platonic BFF type either.

And secondly, I think we should be very, very careful of taking Ikuhara's word as being the last and final say in this matter.

In real life EVERYONE is an unreliable narrator, to a certain degree. And while I'd be the first in line for worship at the Ikuhara altar, it's pretty clear that the man is off the bloody planet. Let's face it; that's exactly why we all love him. Saito is a writer/artist, member of a species that makes a marginal living regardless of what country they come from. Regardless of her personal attitudes to homosexuality, her first question at the time the pitch was made would have been, "Will this enable me to buy groceries this week?" And given that Utena was a beast that was in constant evolution up until the very last episode it's entirely possible that the pitch Saito heard was very different to the outcome that we all enjoy so much. Utena was a trailblazer; this series created the market, it didn't take advantage of it. And while ambition can create some marvellous things, there are often times where it doesn't work. And like any other person, Saito had to eat.

Also, I think we should not dismiss Saito's contribution to the series as a whole. She might have been the last to join Be-papas but. She. Joined. It. And she stayed with it until the end, through the television series, the movie, the novels, the video game, the t-shirt and the mobile phone decals. She didn't just do the mangas either. She was in on every meeting, she argued or supported or volunteered all steps of the way. Again, take into consideration the fact that Ikuhara is, shall we say, somewhat erratic; the man's a genius, but geniuses tend not to be all that attached to reality as a general rule. Believe me, I work with chemical engineers for a living and I know damn well that IQ and common-sense tend to have a very tenuous relationship. In order to be a great series, Utena needed ALL of Be-PAPAS fighting, squabbling, disagreeing and compromising and threatening Ikuhara with a big stick if he didn't behave. Certainly people might not think much of the manga versions, and that's entirely up to them. Personally, I think the mangas are very useful. They are rather simplistic, I'll agree there. However, what they do have going for them are much clearer themes and meanings; I see them as sort of a 'Utena for beginners'. I think that's useful.

Basically, to summarise: it took a team to make Utena. And Saito was part of that team. If she hadn't have been there, Utena would have been different in many different ways. So please remember this before jumping on that old anti-Saito bandwagon.

Back to the topic in hand: Ruka has always seemed like a last minute inclusion to me as well, but I honestly can't figure out how'd they have done the arc in question without him. I don't think they could have shoe-horned an existing character into the role at all. It's very possible that this episode was one of those things that sat prettily in everyone's heads until the actual production started and everyone realised that the two person Juri/Shori dynamic really needed a third to force it to evolve. In order to evolve Juri's character as an actual lesbian as opposed to one of those intense romantic relationships that sometimes happen in high school, Juri had to be offered the chance to have a heterosexual relationship so she could reject it. Yes, I know that this could denote a certain attitude of 'how can you be sure if you haven't tried it?' but frankly, given my personal experiences with my sexuality and the stories I've heard from many of my friends, many people DO try it to be certain.

Ruka is a manipulative bastard and rather a one dimensional character in many ways, but it's worth noting that of just about all of the characters in Utena, he is perhaps the only one who plays his games purely for the sake of making the one he cares for get out of her coffin. Just because he loved Juri it doesn't mean that she became any less of a lesbian; in fact, it only served to make her come to terms with many different aspects of her life; including her sexual orientation. Ruka would very likely been overjoyed if Juri had loved him back, but he loves her enough to want her to be happy and free of Shori; and let's face it, being free of Shori isn't all that bad of an idea.

Davine Lu Linvega wrote:

Crystalwren, you make some good points about Saito - there's no real evidence that she opposed lesbian relationships in the show aside from Utena/Anthy, and she certainly didn't stop gay male content from appearing. So if Ruka did appear to make the show less gay, it may not have been due to objections she raised. I still suspect he came along for that purpose, though. Without him, the show was bound to take a head-on look at Juri and her attraction to Shiori, and Ruka prevented that from happening. As a result, the series never deals with same-sex attraction in a direct way, only taking an oblique view of it.

I strongly disagree with this. It's been noted, but not nearly often enough, that (most of) the characters in Utena are teenagers. Touga is what? seventeen? eighteen? and Juri and Shori would neither of them be older than sixteen or seventeen. Utena herself is fourteen or fifteen. Miki is thirteen. THESE ARE CHILDREN. And while they are in a very intense world of complicated relationships, they aren't by any sense of the word, adults. Touga sure as hell isn't an adult by any possible definition, and I don't care what he's stuck his dick in or how many times he's done it.

Juri and Shori are NOT going to sit down over coffee and have a nice heart to heart chat. As much as they pretend to be adults they are NOT adults, and cannot relate to each other as such. Juri is NOT comfortably expressing her sexuality, not even in the privacy of her own head. She's sure as hell not going to wander up and say, "Hey Shiori, fancy a taco?" More to the point, even if Shiori is prepared to communicate directly with Juri, Juri is utterly incapable of doing so. It's transparently obvious that Juri CAN'T deal with her own emotions, let alone express them to other people. Of all the characters in Utena, Juri is probably the most isolated. And that's saying something. If Ruka hadn't appeared then NOTHING would have happened. Juri would have stayed static, trapped in that coffin motif that is persistently thrown around, while Shori would have continued to use her relationships with boys as an attempt to fulfil that depressing lack of self-worth she persistently suffers from. (And continuing to fail miserably doing this.)

In short, if Ruka hadn't of been there nothing would have happened. Because neither Juri or Shiori are willing or capable of acknowledging their own emotions, let alone confronting them. If it hadn't have been Ruka it would have been another character that acted as a catalyst. Without this catalyst there would have been nothing in Heaven, Hell, Earth or Ohtori that could have forced Juri and Shiori to confront their issues.

Davine Lu Linvega wrote:

However, I don't consider Saito's contribution to be on par with that of other Be-Papas members, because her manga, from what I remember of them, don't share thematic elements that are common to the show, movie and game. They don't deconstruct much and the characters are shallower. As "Utena for beginners", they can be useful, but as literature they're pale shadows of the series and movie. Because of the manga's lack of depth compared to the other works, I suspect that after the basic ideas for the series were laid down, Saito didn't take a significant part in the creative process that Ikuhara, Enokido and the others were involved in.

Hmm. Rrrrrrreally? Never occurred to you that the development of the manga was a two way street? That Ikuhara, that man with ever so many fingers in ever so many pies, just chucked a character sheet at Saito and said, 'Do what thou wilt' and wandered off?

Not going to argue. Couldn't be bothered. I will suggest, however, that you turn your attention to a little manga called 'The World of S&M' or as the English- language version was retitled, 'The World Exists for Me'. You'll find that they are EXTREMELY similar to the Utena mangas, both in the styling, the pace, the story telling, the way the characterisation is dealt with, etc. And, rather importantly, the by line says 'Be-PAPAS'. And perhaps even more importantly, scattered throughout both volumes are those notes from the mangaka that tend to crop up from time to time. And just about all of them are about Saito and Ikuhara discussing, agreeing, arguing and bitching about who is doing the most work. (It's rather a bummer that it was cancelled after two volumes, but, well, that's the way it goes.)

All of Utena was done by committee, people! Series, manga, movie, novel, tea towel and toilet paper! Ikuhara was at the helm, but there were a lot of people flinging at lot of ideas about and all of them were paddling like mad in the deep end. Saito's name was on the manga, yes, this is true, but she sure as hell wasn't limited to it, any more than any other member of Be-PAPAS was limited to what their particular field of specification was.

In order to deconstruct something, one must have something to deconstruct. Evangelion had decades of mecha to work on. Utena didn't have any such thing, so it was forced to deconstruct itself.

Davine Lu Linvega wrote:

Crystalwren, you make some good points about Saito - there's no real evidence that she opposed lesbian relationships in the show aside from Utena/Anthy, and she certainly didn't stop gay male content from appearing. So if Ruka did appear to make the show less gay, it may not have been due to objections she raised. I still suspect he came along for that purpose, though. Without him, the show was bound to take a head-on look at Juri and her attraction to Shiori, and Ruka prevented that from happening. As a result, the series never deals with same-sex attraction in a direct way, only taking an oblique view of it.

Saito is beside the point, because RGU is meant to explore same-sex love innocently. Ikuhara pointed this out in interviews when he said no other anime did it like RGU.

Getting back to what I said a month ago, Ruka is gay, so he couldn't have been trying to pray the gay away. Yes, he's gay. I'm gay, and I know gay men when I see them. The only reason he wanted Juri is because he wasn't comfortable dating men yet. If he was, we would have seen a RukaxSaionji pairing.

I think Utena's roots go a lot deeper than Evangelion's. It's a deconstruction of fairy tale tropes, so it has a much longer literary tradition to reference than shoujo manga or super robot shows. Evangelion was inspired by contemporary teenage angst and alienation, while Utena looks at the human condition - in particular, the female human condition - as it has existed for all of recorded history.

Anyway, my last word on the Juri/Ruka issue is that I think Juri's character could have developed without Ruka - any number of events could have occurred that would lead to her getting into the Akio car. Shiori was visiting the fencing club to watch Juri during the Akio arc, and this could cause her enough stress that she would start faltering in her fencing matches and approach a total psychological breakdown. Cue Touga showing up to ask if she can hear the sound that echoes through the End of the World.

A really interesting thing to do would be to have Juri beat Utena - her perfect winning streak after Touga was kind of boring, after all, and Juri came so close to winning the first time. Juri winning Anthy would bring an opportunity for a lot of uncomfortable character development. Anthy would probably make constant, subtle passes at Juri, ripping the scabs off her psychological wounds and using her denial to torment her. I imagine she might appear for brief moments with her skin a few shades lighter and her hair a more burgundy color. She would probably also treat Juri's apartment as a very clothing-optional environment. It could be wrapped up with a scene where Juri, maddened by Anthy's Shiori-related illusions, rips off her locket and smashes it. Utena would challenge Juri to a rematch and Juri would immediately forfeit, stating that she has better things to do than continue with the dueling game. Some signs of her obsession with Shiori would still show through, but she would have her outward confidence back.

A storyline like this could provide some good exposition of Anthy's witch persona, which we don't see much of in the series, and also open the question of whether Anthy felt some mercy toward Juri and intentionally helped her clear some psychological hurdles. Anyway, that's just how I would have handled the climax of Juri's character arc. I think it would be a better approach than introducing a new character for two episodes, although Ruka did bring some interesting ideas into the plot - the question of whether the ends justify the means, a test of the audience's ability to rationalize sexual assault, etc.

Ruka/Saionji, huh? I have to admit, in both food and fanfiction, I'm willing to try just about anything once.

The question this pairing brings to my mind is how would they hook up? My brain hits a wall trying to picture both Ruka approaching Saionji and Saionji approaching Ruka. Would it take a third party influence?