Yeah, but some people would argue he didn't 'cause the SPG's don't give the truth in straight terms.

A Day Without Me wrote:

Yeah, but some people would argue he didn't 'cause the SPG's don't give the truth in straight terms.

Of course they don't. Everything they say in the series is heavily slanted. But the fact he vanished, we know he was sick in the hospital, and he isn't treated like anyone else who "left Ohtori" indicates pretty heavily he died.

If he'd just realised "Wow, I not only blew any chance I ever could have had with Juri, I made it manifestly clear I didn't deserve to have any chance with her" and taken off, one assumes he would have gotten a Mikage sendoff instead.

Also, Juri's last words to him seem much more fitting if he's dead, rather than if he'd slunk off.

I think he died. From what we know, I'd guess that he had cancer. And I think he'd needed to die. If he wasn't dying he wouldn't have been able to do what he did.

No doubt.

I'm in the "The death is symbolic" category. Why? Because first of all it was delivered far too bluntly to fit in with the rest of the shows motifs and by the Shadow Girls too! Like thsoe two have ever said anything that isn't wrapped in layers of symbolism and wordplay. Death in Ohtori seems to carry the metaphor for moving on. Mikage could leave after he realized what had truly happened in the past, and Utena could when she finally achieved her purpose in that world. Ruka seems to have achieved his aim and it is likely like the other deaths it merely means he could go beyond the closed world of Ohtori. Utena isn't a show about absolutes, its about possibilities that lay in our range but often out of reach.

Razara wrote:

He returned to the academy despite his "illness" in order to save Juri, right?

For a certain definition of "save" Juri that includes hurting her, hurting the person she loves, sexually molesting her, and bitterly complaining about how she doesn't love him.

I joke, but not much. I don't think Ruka wanted to "save" Juri. I think he wanted Juri to be what he wanted her to be. That's why he tried to get her to win the duels, because he honestly thought she could, and that that is what would save her (he also thought this would prove how his love for her was purer and better than anyone else's, especially Shiori's). He was wrong on both counts (and even more wrong on the last), something he only finally realises in the interval between the car ride and the end of the duel (which is why he seems very sad during the last half of the episode, rather than in any way happy that he got what he 'wanted').

Take episode 26 for example. We see Miki talking to his father, and see shortly after that Anthy is his new mother. Though we see them together, and they say that she is his new mother, it's actually just symbolic.

I disagree with this, too. I see no reason to think that didn't happen. If it's supposed to be symbolic of Anthy's relationship with Miki, it doesn't make a lot of sense, since Miki actually resents or at least is completely indifferent to "the new mother" and unconsciously becomes closer to Kozue as a result. The latter is directly in line with Akio's plans, and thus I figure is why it happened, and why it actually did happen.

This could relate to Ruka, and how he doesn't plan to use the power of miracles to make his feelings known, but to release Juri from her.

I feel the tone of this is giving Ruka rather more credit than he deserves. No doubt he was planning to "release" Juri from Shiori, but he wasn't really interested in Juri's feelings in the matter, and most certainly wanted to be the beneficiary of that act. He wanted to be the one that unlocked Juri's potential to revolutionise the world, but time and time again we're shown that Ruka's motivations are twisted up, self-serving and self-deluding. Like Touga, he equates what he wants to happen with what's best for someone. Like Touga, this blows up in his face. Ruka convinces himself he's doing the "right thing" even more than Touga, but goes about it in a way that's even nastier than almost anything Touga does, and makes Juri hate him significantly more than Utena hated Touga.

Ruka could have left rather than died, but I don't think he did, because again, there's a lot of evidence to suggest he died even if the Shadow Girls had never said a thing; moreover, again, he isn't treated like any of the people who left. I'll concede it's possible, but I think it weakens the ending of the episode, and I think it (slightly!) mitigates some of Ruka's actions if you think he was racing against time to do what he thought he had to do.

Blade wrote:

For a certain definition of "save" Juri that includes hurting her, hurting the person she loves, sexually molesting her, and bitterly complaining about how she doesn't love him.

I'm a Shiori fan... Do you really think that I need to be told any of this? I was merely using the more common views on Ruka to explain what the symbolism could have meant. I don't trust my own views on Ruka, because I wouldn't doubt that my feelings for Shiori could be leaving me as blind to his true intentions as the people who think Shiori is the spawn of Satan for hurting Juri.

Blade wrote:

I disagree with this, too. I see no reason to think that didn't happen. If it's supposed to be symbolic of Anthy's relationship with Miki, it doesn't make a lot of sense, since Miki actually resents or at least is completely indifferent to "the new mother" and unconsciously becomes closer to Kozue as a result. The latter is directly in line with Akio's plans, and thus I figure is why it happened, and why it actually did happen.

Actually, I think it relates to how Miki replaced Kozue with Anthy. For one thing, the treetop-patterned veil that covers Anthy strongly suggests a relation between the two, given the symbolism that we see throughout the episode that relates Kozue to the treetops. The phone that their father was using resembles a trunk, which relates to Miki. After all, Kozue’s name means “treetops” and Miki’s name means “trunk.”

Think of the flashback of their parents earlier in the episode just as Kozue was about to leave Miki and Anthy alone. We only see the mother leaving, just as it could be argued that Kozue abandoned Miki by refusing to play the piano. Just as the father replaced their mother with a new wife, Miki has replaced his sister with a new "sister," namely, Anthy. If he shows indifference towards this new mother, than perhaps he subconciously would prefer to have Kozue rather than a replacement.

This is why I hate trying to explain symbolism.

Blade wrote:

I buy your reasoning totally, but don't think that means it didn't happen.

It's not that I don't think that it didn't happen, I just don't think that Anthy is somewhere off campus getting married to Miki's father. Then again, I suppose anything's possible...

Actually, I don't dislike Ruka, though I make tongue-in-cheek comments. I only dislike boring characters, and I don't think he's boring. I do think he's unrealistically held up in a good light by fans for a guy who does an enormous amount of very nasty things for essentially selfish reasons. But I also think that about Touga.

The Shadow Girls referring to Ruka as a "prince" doesn't, to my mind, really prove anything, because the Shadow Girls have a very cynical opinion on pretty much everything in the show. I think their opinions mean something (namely that it refers to Ruka's self-identification as a prince), but would think an honest admiration of any character like that would be wholly out of character for them.

As for Ruka being vaguely based on Ikuhara, I similarly don't think that means he's any paragon of virtue. I think Ikuhara's more than capable of self-inserting himself as a big jerk, or more seriously, a tragically flawed character. His favourite character is supposedly Shiori, and god knows that does her no favours.

In the strongest possible terms, I disagree that what Ruka did to Shiori was "necessary" or "not cruel". It was both unnecessary and extremely cruel. It was cruel to Juri, and it was crueller to Shiori. Make no mistake, I don't exonerate Shiori. She did lie when given an opportunity; Shiori is very selfish and it's her worst character trait. But Ruka lied with the deliberate intent of hurting Shiori as much as possible to show she wasn't "worthy" of Juri. That was unnecessary, because worthiness has nothing to do with love, and if Juri was going to be convinced that Shiori was "unworthy" of her, Shiori would have unwittingly done it herself when she "stole" that boy. Ruka's plan with Shiori has no aim, no goal beyond "I'm gonna show Juri what that girl is really like." He hates Shiori, and basically says as much, because Juri loves Shiori and not him. That's not exactly a noble motivation.

Here's the irony. Ruka means to show that, because Shiori lied to him for her own benefit, she is unworthy of Juri. He means to show that, because she will go out with him, she does not love Juri. To do this, he lies not only for his own benefit but with the express intent of hurting people, and he knowingly kisses Shiori right in front of Juri and then has sex with her. Ruka, trying to show Shiori's character "flaws" to Juri, succeeds primarily in doing worse things than Shiori did, and thus shows himself to be even more "unworthy" than she is. He does this without any acknowledgement of his hypocrisy, because he thinks Juri's going to agree with him. He gets visibly angry and upset when she doesn't come crawling to him saying "Oh Ruka, you were right! How could I be so blind? Take me now!" Juri expresses nothing but concern for Shiori's welfare and contempt for Ruka and his methods, and Ruka cannot understand why.

"Why? I'm so much BETTER than her! I showed how petty and worthless she was! Why? Why doesn't Juri realise what a filthy, petty, unworthy person Shiori is?"

Ruka is a person who is so caught up with his personal idea of what the situation is (Juri is pure and wholesome and blameless and Shiori is the vicious undeserving bitch that's holding her back and making her unhappy) that he never stops to actually question what Juri really feels and why until he has committed acts he cannot redeem himself for. I think, funnily enough, that in his simplistic black and white Juri Good/Shiori Bad viewpoint he is similar to some Utena fans who hold Shiori to have less redeeming traits than Akio, and Juri basically a flawless victim. The fact is, Shiori isn't who tortures Juri. Juri tortures Juri. Ruka doesn't want to admit that, because then he has noone to blame, and no hope that Juri will ever look at him. Eventually he is forced to realise the truth, once he has taken Juri to the Akio Car, and that's why I believe he seems so sad there and at the end of the duel. He only really succeeded in making Juri hate him; moreover, he DESERVED to be hated, and he knows it. He has dug his own grave, metaphorically speaking.

I think Ruka is more pitiable than hateable. I believe he's dying, and I think that mitigates his actions SLIGHTLY, because he was desperate and anxious. But what he did to Shiori was still cruel and unnecessary. It's not what breaks Juri away from Shiori, and all it really accomplishes is hurting Shiori a lot and making Juri hate Ruka.

There is one exception to any mitigation of his actions. Ruka does not "feint" a kiss on Juri. He pins her to the wall, presses himself against her and kisses her until she bites his lip to make him let go. He forces himself on her sexually and there is no ambiguity about it. I think that's an unforgivable act. So does Juri, and that's why she refuses to take his offer (because she won't take anything willingly from him after that) and challenges him. So does Ruka, which is why after that he tries to give up, only to find Juri now hates him so much she won't accept anything from him.

In the final analysis, Ruka is really not that dissimilar to Touga. His methods are primarily selfish and betray his arrogant estimation of himself as the only person who can be trusted to do the "right thing". Unlike Touga, he really does believe he's doing a noble thing. Also unlike Touga, he is forced to realise that he was wrong and confront the enormity of what he's done. I give him full credit for that, since very few people in the series really come to grips with their sins. But to argue that Ruka intended to save Juri in any way other than his own selfish notion of what "saving" her entailed is, I think, to miss the point of the storyarc. Ruka intended for Juri to reject Shiori, to love or at least admire him for what he had done, to duel and to win and thus to become happy. None of this comes to pass. Juri does not reject Shiori,    does not love or even like Ruka, does not win the duel, and would not have become happy if she had.

I'm inclined to think she doesn't hate him in the unspecified time when she makes those comments, but I tend to think that's because she knows he's dead (and has come to realise he was trying to help her, despite his methods). Regardless of that, though, if she forgave him later it doesn't change that she pretty clearly loathed him through most of his time on-screen.

I'm relatively certain that Ruka died.  Of course, I'm half of the belief that all the Black Rose Duellists are actually dead after failing their duels, and they only keep going because of the peculiar qualities of Ohtori.

Is Ruka dead?

Yes.

But that doesn't matter!  There's plenty of peculiar kinks in SKU, so why leave out being a necrophiliac??