Utena, to me, is an amazingly piece of art.. I will forever be a fan to this anime..

I remember I had this talk somewhere, what makes one a fan to an anime? Not just an ordinary fan but kinda like an Otaku fan. Sure, one or anyone might like a good anime story, but a good story alone doesn't make one a life-long fan of an anime.. Example, why are you all here?

I believe, a person only becomes an otaku of an anime if one feels connection to the anime, not just any connection, but of personal connection, be it deep or normal.

And I believe everyone in this board is an otaku of this anime..

Anyway, for me, what makes Utena dear to me?
I believe it's a lot of factors, subconsciously in my head that I could not explain..
Like example, at first, how I long to be Utena.. A Prince!

I always loved to appear princely, but of course, what was running in my head
Is to save people in distress and be a prince to someone, I never would have realized that.

Then, for some reason, I can sense this anime play a role in my life.. I wondered where,
Besides being prince.. And tada! It's my realization here.

I have infact became someone or idealize something that I don't really want,
But the fact that it looks so noble and pure and heroic blinds me..

"Darkness of Light" ~ As said by Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku (Absolute Destiny Apocalypse)

So there..

Emiemipoemi wrote:

I'm also amazed that it's the kind of show that can transcend its category. Anime, I'm talking about. I'm not a big fan of anime or manga, but certain series kinda jump out. Utena is definitely one. Even if someone doesn't like anime at all, they can find something to appreciate in Utena. It's that awesome.

That's the same for me too. I can only name five in which I had an actual "obsession". Utena ranks at number one. I completely agree and I hear that some people on the forum use Utena as a milestone to write a college paper on. That's amazing.

I'm also amazed that it's the kind of show that can transcend its category. Anime, I'm talking about. I'm not a big fan of anime or manga, but certain series kinda jump out. Utena is definitely one. Even if someone doesn't like anime at all, they can find something to appreciate in Utena. It's that awesome.

Fully agreed. Most Anime doesn't hold a lot of appeal for me - I often find the plots and characters too generic. Utena is an amazing series that can be enjoyed both on a superficial and intellectual level. Additionally, it's highly underappreciated, which is a rather good thing for one reason.

The fanbase.

Some movies I've liked have been utterly decimated by the fanbase. Harry Potter is a prime example. Now, in almost all realms, there are a crop of intelligent and reasonable fans. But they're buried beneath the layers of the LULZ SNAYP IZ MAH BeTCH CUZ HEZ SOOOOOOOOO HAWT N HE HAZ SMEX W/ MUH OC ALLZ OVAH!!!!!!!!11111111111eleventy

Stephanie wrote:

I believe, a person only becomes an otaku of an anime if one feels connection to the anime, not just any connection, but of personal connection, be it deep or normal.

And I believe everyone in this board is an otaku of this anime..

SKU has definitely intertwined itself in my daily life since I am able to appreciate many of the themes on a personal level, but there's no way I'd ever call myself an "otaku".  Of late, in the US anyway, many self-respecting anime fans see that term as a derogatory one, usually reserved for the type of fan who believes they have a realistic shot at dating some character from Naruto, or worse yet, thinks they are an earthly incarnation of some character.  I know there's a specific term for those kinds of 'fans' too, but I forget what it is at the moment.

So, lifelong fan, absolutely. Otaku? No way.

As for what SKU is to me... as I mentioned above, the themes are just a part of my daily life, and I don't even consciously have to think about it or anything. I don't go around thinking 'okay I'm having a Miki moment', or 'if I was Juri what would I do?', but just the general philosophy of the show is something that I find relevant.  The same could be said of Haibane Renmei for me, and a few other profound series as well.

It's those series and movies, anime or otherwise, that when I can identify with them, I am drawn into their world.

I've found that to me, Utena is almost less important as itself and more important as a vehicle for change in my life. I really got into it less than two years ago, found EM, and then a few months later this forum popped up. And now I'm planning to to to NYC to meet people that I met here.

It's a great vehicle for considering human nature, society, religion, history, et al, but in all honesty, it's the surface elements that do it for me.  There's so much heady intensity and it shifts directions sometimes even in mid-shift.  That's just damned pleasurable!

I mean, can Utena be read as a treatise on gnostiscism full of archons, divine invasions, and the quest for imaginary redemption and purity?  Sure, and that's fun and beneficial, too.  Can it be a metaphor for maturation, for life, for fear of the future and terror of the past comingling with love of those certainties and hopes one might call, respectively, past and future? Yes.  But, before those, it's a visceral impact of visuals, sounds and movements, and primarily, emotions.  It's a great volley of emotional aggregates.  Who're pretty much all sexy and/or cute, and incur (at least, from me) a desire to see them heal, improve, and move on.  Even the blindest of the blind - even movie-Akio, gelded and neurotic incestual carhopper that he is - have the chance to get out and get better.

On a slightly less-surface level (though, still, close enough to the surface it pretty much shows through the skin) it's not a story, in film, television, or even the Saito comics, that's about redemption.  It, in fact, turns its back on redemption in many ways.  It's about being better, about being.  This becomes absolutely surface in the movie, where many characters vocalize their effort to let go of the past-entanglements they were obsessed with in the TV series.

Flowers!  Swords!  Sexysex on sex people!  An ace score, excellent architecture, and Touga's bed!  Wakaba!  One day, I'll put in a DVD and cue up an ep, and oh, is that a new scene?  Don't think I've seen this... one... be... is the camera panning past Utena and Anthy picnicking... past Shiori and Wakaba skipping hand in hand to... Touga and Akio... are they... They are!  In color and everything!  With nothing in the way of the camera but the wind!  Scandalous videotape!  One day, and I'm sticking with it until that day.

Oops.. I thought Otaku meant life-long fan.. >_<

After googling it up.. Ohnoes! lol XD
I even changed my forum's name from MariMite_Otaku_Board to MariMite_Forums XD

I figured I'd be the one to post this thread, but it looks like I've been beaten to the punch.

It's kind of complicated to say what SKU is to me. I mean, there are all sorts of answers that could and should apply. I guess the simplest answer is also the most cliche answer. This show changed my life.

I mean that in the most literal and concrete fashion imaginable. If it hadn't been for this show, I would not be where or who I am today. My entire world changed from one course to another because of this show, almost like it rearranged the constellations of fate.

My brother first showed me the movie, and the first time I watched it, I knew it was an obsession. I was an anime fan back then; I lived with my boyfriend in an apartment in Edmonton. I was depressed, but I didn't realize it. I didn't have a job. I couldn't drive a car. My house was a filthy disaster, because I was left alone so much that I couldn't think why to keep it clean. After all, it seemed like no one ever came to see me, and my boyfriend was gone most of the time. My social skills were slowly atrophying. And I was obsessive, and it was easy to obsess about SKU. I hadn't yet watched it all before I was on Empty Movement, reading Gio's essays. I spoilered myself for the end because I couldn't stand to wait.

It was a long time before anything happened. I spent a year writing terrible fanfic and being lost in this obsession. I even moved to a little town outside the city.

I couldn't get a job there either. I had a few friends there, but they moved away. I still couldn't drive. I was still obsessed, obsessed enough that the show began to taint my way of thinking. I used to spend days dreaming about Princes and swords and impossible wishes, and my entire life fell apart around me. My boyfriend didn't like me anymore. I didn't like him. We hardly ever did anything when he was home, and I couldn't be bothered to have sex with him anymore. I felt like I was swapping my body and my cooking for a place to stay. I wanted something else, but by that point, I was so lost in my depression and fear that I could barely answer the phone. I talked to my cats, because they were sometimes the only other living creatures I saw for days. I wanted to disappear entirely, as if I'd never been born.

I searched EM for updates every day. The days that there were updates, I was ecstatic. I started to think about the analysis of the show, and even submitted a dream. It's still there, by the way. I started to read Gio's blog, but I never commented on it. I even read all the 'back issues'. It wasn't until she said she was giving up the site to Filia that I emailed her. I congratulated her, and told her if it wasn't fun anymore, she shouldn't do it. We got to talking. She liked the Lord of the Rings movies. We emailed back and forth for months before we ever chatted. I was frightened that if I talked to her in chat, she would see that I wasn't as smart as she is, and she wouldn't like me. (She told me later that she felt the same kind of thing about me, and that she was afraid she would fuck it up by talking to me. I couldn't believe it.)

I'm not going to go into too much detail about what went on, and is in some part still going on between Gio and I, because some of these things are personal for her, and it wouldn't be right to share. But on my side of things... I was already only a shell of a person, and I had to decide who and what I was when I talked to her, because I no longer knew. I was completely empty of everything but fear and self-loathing and depression. I was afraid, really actually afraid, that I didn't exist. She forced me to decide who and what I would be by questioning what I was. We talked about things, painful and otherwise, in terms of SKU. That's still quite a habit with us. It became more of a shared method of communication than anything else, a running injoke, with just enough depth that we could express ourselves in comparisons and ideas from the show, and just enough humor that we could keep painful things at a distance. It was like being flayed in the gentlest, most humane way possible, stretched out over months.

And she had her own problems. I bought her artbook collection because she needed money. I talked to her about her problems-- which, again, I will not relate here-- and tried my best to help her through them. Sometimes, I guess, I felt like Utena reaching down for Anthy's hand in the last episode. And even then, I thought of it in terms of Princes. She needed a Prince for a while, and that shaped me further because I tried to be that for her, even though I knew I couldn't rescue her from her problems.

It all blurs together in my head. I can't remember exactly when my boyfriend and I broke up. I moved back in with my mother and struggled to be a real person in the real world again, and struggled to keep myself and Gio afloat in one of the toughest times of her life. We were both thrust out into the world to get jobs and make money out of necessity, in her case dire, and we really only had each other to confide in. I didn't really have any friends anymore, but I made new ones. Gio was jealous for a while because she thought it meant that I would grow away from her. I struggled to give her the time she needed, even if I wanted to be elsewhere, because I would never let her be insecure about whether I cared about her. I never resented her for it either; I understood. Eventually I made a promise to myself that whatever happened, I would never leave her until such time as she didn't want me around anymore. I was still a Prince, although one that knew that trying to save people is useless, and that it would be up to her to save herself.

Somewhere in this narrative, we took up EM again and cleaned it out and redesigned it, and worked on it. I know it happened long before this point, but I'm not sure when.

Slowly, slowly, I learned how to be a person again. And the character I felt the most affinity with was my model of the skills I felt I needed to learn. I learned to manipulate. I learned to be social again. I can make people feel as if they're treasured without actually caring about them. But I grew a heart long before Touga did, and I learned to value truth and fairness more than anything else. I had to, to survive all of the lies and evasions and unfairnesses Gio and I put ourselves through.

I'm growing still. I still don't quite have the knack of making small talk, but I can put a stranger at ease by telling them I'm going to skip it and get right to the important things instead. I have an apartment that I share with _J_ (and Gio, for a while), and I'm a few jobs down the line from that first one and learning new skills all the time. I'm plugging my slow way through a university degree, and paying for it myself, without a loan so far. I'm not at odds with my mother anymore, and as for myself... I haven't wondered whether I actually existed in years. I love who I am. I love being alive. I love being able to look at my own bed, that I paid for with my money, and know that if I feel even in the slightest that the person in it with me is using me, I have the balls to kick them right out of my house and throw their pants off the balcony. I love that I have an effect on guys similar to a sexy car they know they can't afford-- that wary look and that warmth they can't help showing. I love that people adore me, and I adore them back. I love that I'm a good friend, a fair person, and that my integrity may have its spots but I do my absolute best in spite of them. I love who I am.

But... if I had never seen SKU, I wouldn't be this person. If I had stayed depressed and alone and dependent... at best, I would have children, and I would probably resent them. At worst, I might be dead. Either way, I would never have met my best friend, and no matter how the rest turned out, that alone is worth more than any other life I ever could have had.

So I suppose what the show is to me... is all of that. Principles, morals, ways of dealing with things, and all the rest. I'm not sure, really, what else to call it.

No charge, baby.









(No thanks needed. I'm just living the way I want to and doing what I do.)

Utena is one of the better animes ever made!

It's got music, deep symbolical meanings, crazy episodes, starts as simple then to complicated adult themed, etc.
The show's a classic. Anyone who doesn't like it definitely has no taste.

Utena to me... that's a very good question.  You know, I got into SKU right after I got arrested, and to ensure that I would stay home and not venture out into illegal territory again, I decided to look up a series I had known about for years but never bothered to watch.  How fortunate!  It was on youtube.  Every single episode.  I'm very picky about the anime I watch, and I hardly watch any at all.  Yet, I began to watch SKU religiously.

I fell in love with this anime.  I had never seen anything like it.  And when I got to the end, and watched Anthy leaving Ohtori, I sat there in a minute to comprehend.  When I did, I cried.  Because I finally understood why I loved Utena so.  It made me re-evaluate myself and my life.  It led me to question things.  It taught me that not everything is what it seems.  And it gave me hope.  That maybe, someday, I can stop waiting for something to happen that will cause me to go for what I really want, and instead grow to leave all my fears behind and finally be free, on my own.

The roles of the prince, princess, witch, etc. in SKU challenged my preconceived ideas of what they really represented.  Utena wanted to become a prince.  I was very enamored with the idea of princes and princesses and how sex plays a part in determining who becomes what.  Probably because I have always been so androgynous and could never pick and choose what I wanted to be, it was always what boys should be.  I want to be a princess, and I want a prince to find me.  I wonder now, having been months since I last watched the series, if that is something I should really pursue, or disregard as childish fancy.  I'm leaning towards the latter, but as SKU shows us, fantasy is difficult to let go of.

I was immediately drawn to Anthy as a character, as I'm sure it's obvious given my avatar.   I identify with her.  I understand why she did the things she did.  She's still confusing, mysterious, beautiful, and I love that about her.  I felt her pain when she was picked on, whether it was sincere or just a manipulative ruse, I could see myself in those situations.  I was always picked on in school.  It really damages you.  And when I began to wonder if she was really manipulative, my mind began to swirl with questions.  I empathize with her reluctance to truly trust and believe in someone caring about her and saving her.  There's so many aspects of her that I can see in myself.  I believe Anthy is who really got me into SKU.  And that's why I have yet to find an anime character that I can adore as much as her!

Last edited by Alexandra (11-24-2007 12:30:55 AM)

What is Utena to me?

I guess that I'll start with how I got into it. Does anyone remember that jazzy song played in the 27th episode, the one about Nanami's Egg? The song was Yoake no Scat. It's sort of funny because I first found about the song by looking up information about Pink Martini's song Taya Tan, which was said to be based off a Tenshi no Scat by the same original singer, Yuki Saori. So while searching for an .mp3 of this song I came upon a website stuffed with Utena music (at the time I only downloaded Yoake no Scat). I had always been mildly interested in Utena as an anime fan, but it wasn't until I saw that the show played this song that I realized, "Crap, this show must be so cool!" So at the next anime convention I went to I bought the first three discs (for 30 bucks, what a bargain!)

...so that's how it all started. From the beginning the show definitely caught my interest; music means a lot to me in cinema and so the fact that Utena has such an unconvential and downright amazing soundtrack made me yearn to watch more after each episode. I started to download some of the duel tracks, but they meant so much to me that I couldn't even bring myself to download the tracks for following episodes because I thought it would ruin the experience. By the 5th or so episode I was addicted, but it was around the Black Rose arc that I actually fell in love with the series. I loved the way that the characters were so complicated, yet so relateable at the same time. Some of them, especially the Black Rose duelists, are actually pretty sick people, but they come across to me as being people I might meet everyday, except with more extreme emotions. I love complicated, slightly sick characters in anime, so I think that it was in the characters that I fell in love with this show for reasons outside of its aesthetic qualities.

And, perhaps what made me appreciate the show even after having finished it, was the great deal of symbolism involved, and the analysis of symbolism on websites such as these. Utena is a show that I will always be able to revisit because there is so much more to it than established on first viewing, and so much strong reaction from its dedicated fanbase. I'm so thankful to many of you guys for helping me to have a better grasp of the show through your essays and posts!