Shelleh wrote:

Look Razara! I'm posting in the forums all by myself! You must be so proud of me!! X3

For those wondering who the other "jerks" that made the list were,

10: Mugen - Samurai Champloo
9: Ilpalazzo - Excel Saga
8: Genjo Sanzo - Saiyuki
7: Katsuhiko Jinnai - El Hazard
6: Sae Kashiwagi - Peach Girl
5: Byakuya Kuchiki - Bleach
4: Char Aznable - Moble Suit Gundam
3: Gendo Ikari - Evangelion
2: Vegeta - DBZ

Personally this is what I would call each of these people:
9: Ilpalazzo - Excel Saga (Self asorbed prick)
6: Sae Kashiwagi - Peach Girl (False friend and back-stabbing bitch)
3: Gendo Ikari - Evangelion (Inhuman Bastard)
2: Vegeta - DBZ (Pompus ass)

No, it's not just you, Rae. Apparently, Sae was popular enough to merit a sequel to Peach Girl.

Also, if you look at the list, some of the characters are kind of similar to some of the SKU characters anyway.

Hell, the Gendo/Akio parallel alone is obvious. And with a little fuzzy math, Ilpalazzo is basically Akio with Touga's voice.

As for Jinnai....he's just 12 shades of crazy.

When I hear the word jerk, it implies a certain amount of brainlessness behind someone's malicious acts.  Jerks are two-dimensional characters, cardboard cutouts to give real characters something to play off of.  I agree, Gendo from Eva is a jerk.  His motivations are somewhat explored giving him a little depth, but really, most of what he does holds little purpose except to show the audience what a rotten person he is.  When I think 'jerk', I see the random foe for some Mary Sue character, out kicking puppies or bullying underclassmen until our hero/ine steps on the scene and beats him down for his petty cruelty (almost invariably it's a him, but I digress).

Utena characters are not jerks.  Not that Nanami isn't shallow.  Her universe consists of herself, her brother, and anyone stupid enough to come between them, but she isn't really mindless, and shows remarkable growth by the end of the series.  Not that Saionji isn't violent, bearing a remarkable resemblance to our stereotypical jerk, but by the end of the series, you can see underneath it all to understand what's really going on.  Not that all sorts of characters don't behave badly.  Their actions are cruel and heartless at times, but you get an explanation of what's pushed them to it, and by the end, you see that many of them are capable of being something better.  That's not a bunch of jerks, it's a cast of carefully crafted, beautiful but very realistically flawed characters.

I think that our dear hack... errr, I mean "esteemed reviewer of anime", watched the series once, very quickly, saw roses, swords and Saionji smacking Anthy around, understood little or none of it, and quickly moved on to something with bigger explosions, better fanservice, or both.

His loss, but hey, at least Utena gets some free publicity.


As an aside, personally, I have trouble putting Ilpalazzo on the list, mostly because I had trouble forming enough empathy with anyone in that incoherent mess to care who was mistreating who.

Paradox wrote:

Jerks are two-dimensional characters, cardboard cutouts to give real characters something to play off of.

...The fandub made me do it! I swear!

hm... maybe i like SKU, because i'm a big jerk, too ?
i think that the person who made up this list is the only jerk here. <<"

Oh, I think it's quite an honor that Utena topped a list - even if a rather shallow one. It just means more publicity for a <gay voice> FABULOUS </gay voice> yet underrated series. Essentially, though, I do believe the general population are Utena are indeed jerks. And by that - they are typically crueler and more manipulative than your average everyday person. This is not due to their personalities so far as it is due to the circumstance they have been placed in. After all, they are all in a competition, a game within in a game controlled by a master manipulator. You have to remember that the majority of these characters are children. Even Touga still constitutes as a youth. All of them are driven by self-centered desires, which is completely natural at their age. They are looking for self-affirmation, prestige, and meaning. Akio manipulates this to his purpose and antagonizes what is already there.

On a more superficial level, though, here is my appraisal.

Akio. Ironic that the supposedly 'mature' chairman is, quite frankly, the least mature of them all. For all of his brilliant schemes and Machiavellian plots, he tries again and again to obtain an impossible end, like a hamster smashing itself against a glass cage. He berates the others for their belief in a false romantic ideal, yet his reward for all of his careful plotting is only a philosophical tangent - nothing material or reliable. I am of the firm opinion that he believes that accessing the Rose Gate will somehow allow him to restore that lost part of himself; the prince. Hence his desire to possess pure good (Utena) and ultimately corrupt it. And for this end, he basically drags everybody along into a big circular game.

The big indicant for me, though, was his blindness (or perhaps satisfaction) towards Anthy's suffering. He sees her sacrifice as a natural result of his superiority and domination, and goes out of his way to magnify her torture through the duelist games, mocking her thoroughly by parading her around as a sort of trophy princess. Anthy by no means is an innocent character, but then again, few would be innocent under the kind of torture she endures. Hers is natural response to a harsh environment. Akio's, on the other hand, is more an utterly selfish toddler who expects the world to fall into line for him. Sexiness aside, he is the series' biggest jerk.

I'm surprised that Hiro Yuy didn't make it on to the list. He's one of the reasons that I can't stand the original Gundam.

And yeah, Anthy deserves a mention. So do Juri, Kozue, Ruka and even Mrs. Ohtori (cheating on her husband with her daughter's fiance and possibly poisoning her husband? Hell yes). But I guess there just wasn't enough room in the space for the article.

Nearly every single character is cruel to someone else although it is often just thoughtlessness. There is little or no deliberate sadism; not even from Akio.

According to dictionary.com a jerk is....

4. Slang. a contemptibly naive, fatuous, foolish, or inconsequential person.

...Nanami?














jk

Nothin' like freezin' a discussion cold. Ooooooh yeah. *thrusts hips*

brian wrote:

Nearly every single character is cruel to someone else although it is often just thoughtlessness. There is little or no deliberate sadism; not even from Akio.

I would agree with this, but the series, like life, tends to blur ruthlessness and deliberate sadism. They can resemble one another, and sometimes the only difference is a hidden smile.

We do see Akio's.

Jellineck wrote:

There is, Giovanna, the overlying thing that we have to remember; jerk is a fun superficial way to write off someone as a simple label, so we don't have to peer underneath the surface. We become disturbed if we do find ourselves identifying, and often such labels are used as wholly protective measures.

You're certainly right on that. I can't say how many times Yasha and I have discussed a character in depth, only to end the conversation with a silly grin and a comment that they're just a jerk. Like we think they're jerks simply because they're so hard to understand, even when they are frighteningly like us.

For the more casual viewer, it's not so much that they're jerks because they put us to the great trouble of figuring them out, but that they're jerks because they demand that, and a lot of people can't/won't put in the effort, and probably not as often out of laziness as you would think.

Jellineck wrote:

I think there are identifiable characteristics to anyone who watches Utena, due to the fact the characters are exceedingly human. The casual viewer, however, decides not to relate and instead focuses on the lack of a cohesive plotline and the intense surrealism.

That, at least, seems somewhat deliberate. It's a really colorful show, and it's also a bish-fest. One can easily make their way through most of the series by looking at the pretty boys/girls and being wowed by seizure-inducing brightness of the series. Granted at that point you've gotten no more out of SKU than you'd have gotten out og Weizz Kreuz, but if that's as far as you dug into SKU, WK was probably more your speed anyway.

Jellineck wrote:

A sort of denial complex, as you will. I, for one, just enjoy the irony that so many people get intensely unnerved by a show with no blood, nudity, or drugs.

A lot of the aforementioned people that got 'nothing' out of SKU do seem to be militantly so about it. I've met people like that in other arenas. Where I live, once in a while, I encounter the deliberate political ignoramus. They know just enough about current events to decide they don't want to know any more. Some SKU fans are like that, and that that happens as often as it does in either case is kinda disquieting. For most of history, ignorance has been forced on the majority of people living at any given moment. Now a lot of us choose it voluntarily.

Jellineck wrote:

I don't mean to be intensely personal here, but from what I've read of your essays (which I've thoroughly enjoyed, btw), you probably relate to/admire Akio's capabilities more than his deeds. Akio is excellent with reading body gestures, analyzing people down to their core motivations, and is skilled in the greatest trick of manipulation - letting others believe they have the power it is he who has the keys. He makes things fall into line with little to no direct interference. Unlike other villains who use power, force, or supernatural ability - Akio relies only upon his intelligence and his manipulation. And yet, that controls the entire series.

Not denying there's a good amount of fun in gleefully watching his evil antics, but despite notions of good or evil, he is an artist and that's something to be respected.

Oh poppycock! This is an intensely personal forum already, why should I wuss out now?

You're right though, mostly. It's the skill set I admire, not necessarily what he does with it. The problem arises when I realize, given the same abilities...I'd probably do much the same thing with them. Power corrupts, and all. Obviously I wouldn't do exactly the same things he does since my circumstances would be different, but I don't really think I can say I'd be above some of the uglier tricks he pulls. I'd only need to take the step Akio doesn't bother with: justification of my actions. And since most of the people I'd run into in my pursuits are Touga rather than Utena, justification would not be hard.

As for the gleefully watching Akio's antics....the nicer I've been to people on a certain day, and the more I've wanted to make others happy...the more I admire his vicious lack of concern for everyone around him. He may be trapped in his coffin, but there's a certain freedom in not having to give a shit about others that makes me envy him.

I'm such a prince, huh?

MissMocha wrote:

I never realized how weird the word "jerk" was until this thread.

It's a strange word.

I've just discovered word 'poppycock' in that thread, and it's just wonderful.
Poppycock. At first I thought it's cock with tatoos of poppies on it.

[...Tummy is second on my list.]