My first impressions:
-Yay Utena Tenjou!  To me she always seemed like she had a few different meanings or thought processes to her actions.  Her believing in friendship seemed so tragic.
Wooww Anthy is a bitch
-DEATH TO SAIONJI!!  I hated him.  I still dislike him.
-That Shori is a very typical and boring girl, and I couldn't understand at all why Juri was so obsessed with her.
-Most of the clothing in this is much better then the normal anime garb, I actually rather liked Nanami's odd outfit.
-Wooow Mikki's girly.
-What the hell is up with Utena's hat?

"I loved Touga's charm and calculating callousness, his hair is to die for. I wanted luxurious hair like that so I too could be a cool, detached, handsome bastard."

And thus grows my sneaking suspicion that I alone in the sea of female fans did not find Touga impressive at all. In fact, I wanted to slap him around a bit. No, I wasn't really into ANY of the Utena men (or boys). A bit Akio and a hint Mikage, but nothing even remotely intense. Am I alone in this?

Echo...echo...echo...

I recognized too much of myself in Touga to be unimpressed by him. However, I have to say, Miki really hasn't ever had all that much appeal for me and most people seem to think he's all kinds of adorable.

My thoughts on watching the movie (I saw it first):

.........I'm installing cathedral bells in my house. Also, I'm installing that school in my house. PRETTY

There's a lot of roses in this.

That green haired dude is hot. Also, violent. I wonder how he likes it if a girl fights back?

HOLY SHIT A SWORD CAME OUT OF HER CHEST that reminds me disturbingly of some sort of rape. This is very enjoyable. I might want to rethink not watching the series.

Heheheh, zipper.

.............................fapfapfap butterflies and child rape and emotional anguish and pretty colors and winding sheets fuck this is hot shit, I should probably rent the series. OH GOD PRETTY PICTURE OF LITTLE BOY ABOUT TO BE RAPED WITH BUTTERFLIES ON HIS FACE I'm so glad this is a cartoon and I don't have to lend any moral weight to it.

Oh hey yeah, I get it, the elevator going down is a metaphor for going deeper into the root of consciousness to find your inner self and Utena's been denying that inner recognition of her own strength and weakness which is why she's stuck at Ohtori and OH SHIT THEY KILLED TOUGA. I wonder if he's dead in the series?

.....you know, that's a pretty awesome car.

NAKED GIRLS???? Wow, onscreen naked girls kissing, what the fuck?? Is this about lesbians?

When I first saw the movie, I'd seen a few episodes of the show. Rather than preparing me, it made me expect pretty, but comprehensible.

I was kind of OK until the car wash. Then I broke.

Why haven't I got around to posting in here yet...?

I may have mentioned this somewhere before, but before SKU, I had mostly been exposed to Yaoi. Now, Yaoi in my opinion was, and still is, generally based around, "RAPE, ANGST, RAPE, INCEST, PEDOPHILIA, DID I MENTION RAPE?" So, by that logic, an anime with two girls must be a happy anime, where no one is ever sad, and the main pairing is always cannon. (I was also pissed off at the time because my favorite pairings were never cannon.) I don't know how I arrived at that logic, but I did.

First Impressions:

Utena: She's great! *Later on* Put two and two together, damnit!
Anthy: My most favorite character in all of anime... Wait, did it just imply that she's sleeping with her brother? No, Anthy wouldn't cheat on Utena... And why was she so mean to that Kanae girl...? This isn't the Anthy I love!
Touga: Stop messing with my favorite pairings, damnit!
Akio: That goes for you, too.
Nanami: I hate her, but despite that, I stubbornly defend her in the future while my friends are on their first time through the series.
Miki: He seems like he's going to be my favorite character, but apparently not.
Kozue: If somebody told me that she would be my favorite character in a few months, I would have called them a liar.
Juri: Awwww, it's so sad what that mean girl did to her.
Shiori: I hate that bitch. The part where she died in the movie was my favorite part!
Ruka: What a bastard... Aww, he was only trying to help. (*Can't get what he Shadow Girls said out of her head for the rest of the day*)
Saionji: That was really mean of him to slap Anthy...! But I'm sad that he's gone... Yay, he's back!
Mikage: Craaaaaaaazy.
Mamiya: Despite being close to the name, "Himemiya," it will be quite a while before I actually care enough to remember his name.
Dios: *First five minutes of the first episode* Is that girl the guy from the opening...?
Shadow Girls: ... Huh?

Also, I was laughing with Kealdrea through pretty much the entire movie the first time I saw it. Overall, I loved Utena from the start, even though it did end up being a lot like Yaoi. I'd still like to write a fanfiction about my first impression of Utena someday. (This would of course count all the stuff I originally heard about it, meaning that all the people would be very formal, but elephants would be trying to kill them for no reason throughout the entire movie. And we can't forget their ability to turn into cars at will. Oh, and they were turning into cars so they could save the world. Yay for first impressions.)

i joined the utena fan-community quite late as i never happened to watch it earlier °

my first thoughts:
- WTF
- respect to utena's knees...  i would die of pain walking up those stairs!
- "zettai unmei mokushiroku" sounds ...psycho?
- doesn't that hurt? pulling out the sword?
- what's up with the twisting roses in some scenes?
- the cactus XDDD

i admit, i didn't like it at the beginning, but then i became sort of addicted

Utena is porn. It's just mindfucking instead of regular fucking!

I came into SKU expecting and wanting lesbians. It was pretty much the only thing I cared about the first time around. As I watched the opening, I was thrilled to see that there would be some ACTUAL romance between two people of the same gender! I mean, they were naked and almost making out on spinning roses. They had to hook up!

Later...
Engaged, eh? It's only a matter of time now...

The Night of the Ball...
Tee-hee. I'll bet Utena totally saw Anthy's boobies there.

For Friendship, Perhaps...
Phew! That stupid Touga is FINALLY out of the picture. Now admit your feelings to Anthy! DO IT. DO IT, I SAY.

Black Rose Ark...
You can start making out now, you know. No need to let that Akio guy stop you. Oooh, I hate him! What fugly hair!

It was around this point where I saw the movie, which proved that Utena and Anthy would get together. All I had to do was wait patiently, even if they do mess around with Akio first.

Canterella Cookie scene...
I'm so confused!

brian wrote:

But don't all relationships have a cantarella moment?

They do indeed. But as a preteen who'd never been in any relationships, I was under the impression that they didn't involve poison or attempted suicide.

Giovanna wrote:

brian wrote:

NajiMinkin wrote:

Canterella Cookie scene...
I'm so confused!

But don't all relationships have a cantarella moment?

Only the ones that really count.

I baked cookies today. 

Being my SKU-first time just recently, I remember clearly that I kept saying WTF most of the time! I spent a whole afternoon with the first 10 episodes and I got addicted to them. All of the characters seemed to me rather troublesome than I expected. In fact, that ended up being my main motive to keep watching the show, to understand the roles each of them played in the series. But what I specifically said was sort of:

Anthy. "So, she is the one the hero has to save? Please, whoever it may be, do it faster they are slapping her, again!"

Utena. "She is kinda cool. No wonder that she gets all the girls at the end of the day."

Saionji. "The green haired one is cute, sort of sweet but has a hell of a temper! Is he in love with the boy in red?"

Wakaba. "Boys of that school must be stupid or something... every girl in school wants the pinky one for her own".

Touga. "Why don't you ask your friend for a drink? You may be surprised what he has to tell you... Anyway, why does everybody think he is special?"

Juri. "Pity she is heart-broken. She could have whoever she wanted. Hell, that is her issue... that she doesn't. The Shiori one is not even that cute".

Miki. "He is the clever, sensitive guy... His sister is... weird. Why are they so obssesive with each other?

Nanami. "She is mean. Where is she taking the kitty? Hell, she did it."


What about Akio? Well, after chap 13 I kept on calling him DEVIL PRINCE... and devil prince he was until the very end...

Alright, I'm feeling brave and popping up in the SKU forum for a bit.

I cried during the ending, and that's when I knew I loved the series.  I decided I wouldn't judge until I'd seen it all.  I thought it was beautiful, funny, and had a real message behind it.  I became obsessed and downloaded all the music and rewatched the parts I loved on YouTube.

I was immediately drawn to Anthy, as obvious as that may be.  I'm the type of person who does not have very many "favorites" because I can appreciate all the different aspects of things.  I loved all the SKU characters.  I wanted to know more about them and their lives fascinated me.  But I always watched out for Anthy, and I wracked my brain trying to figure her out as well as seeing the relation between her as a character to myself.

When something touches me, it's integrated into my life.  I don't know if that's healthy or good for an anime to do that to someone, but it did me.  It really got me thinking about the relationships between people and I thought a lot about myself as well.  I'm sure things would not be the way they are in my life if I never watched Utena, in fact I know this to be true because, well... that's a whole other topic.

Last edited by Alexandra (09-08-2007 11:25:43 PM)

Alexandra wrote:

I cried during the ending, and that's when I knew I loved the series.  I decided I wouldn't judge until I'd seen it all.  I thought it was beautiful, funny, and had a real message behind it.

I didn't really get the ending at first so it made me feel a bit empty. But after I had watched it over and over several I times, I began to understand it. And it is beautiful. Till this day it's the best ending I've seen. Only Haibane Renmei could come close to the ending of Utena, although it couldn't surpass it.

And welcome to IRG, Erebus. I hope you'll enjoy your stay!

And welcome to IRG, Erebus. I hope you'll enjoy your stay!


Thank you for your your words Maarika. Sure I will^_^