As an answer to your last question, Utena does everything possible to get herself raped and Anthy does everything possible to help her.

As an answer to your tenth, it would be Juri's hopes and dreams.

As I love Shiori-lovers more than Shiori herself, I don't feel I can speculate on much more than that.

Razara wrote:

How many marshmallows can she fit in her mouth?

Three less than Juri, poor girl.

Razara wrote:

I think that it's time for yet another thread about everyone's favorite (or least favorite) low self-esteemed school girl!

But since when does Daria go to Ohtori Academy?

ShatteredMirror wrote:

I think in one of the analysis essays on EM, the writer calls her "the most evil character in the series" or something to that extent. I think that's bullshit. She's a relatively ordinary sixteen-year-old girl, one of the most realistic I've ever seen in anime. Now, I don't like her much, but I wouldn't like an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl I met in real life much either (an extraordinary one is another story entirely).

I was about to say some of the sixteen year old girls I've known throughout my life are quite possibly the evilest people I've ever met, and I say that with complete sincerity. Now, obviously, they aren't the most evil people in the world, simply the ones I've come across. Even if this paints Shiori as being more "normal" then some of the idealized characters, if we are weighing her actions against the rest of the casts', it paints her in a very unflattering light.

While waiting for this thread (I didn't want to further derail the other one), I wrote the following about Shiori in my blog so I wouldn't risk forgetting anything I had on my mind.  Might as well c&p it here.

Cerise's Blog wrote:

I find it interesting that my very first post regarding Revolutionary Girl Utena (my favorite anime) is regarding a character that I feel a sense of ambivalence towards. However, there was recently a thread derailed on IRG that led to some discussion, and not wanting to further derail the thread nor start up a new one on my own, I reminded myself that I have a blog, I should probably make use of it from time to time.

In the derailed thread, someone referred to Shiori as a cruel bitch. This led me to start contemplating what I felt was both the truth and the falsehood in such a statement. Bear with me here, I haven’t rewatched Utena in a year or two, I’ve only seen it twice (I tend to talk about it more than actually watch it–I plan to change that once I move), and the DVDs are in a box at the new house, so I don’t have any access to it at this time.

Is Shiori a cruel bitch? Yes, no and maybe. Shiori is cruel. Shiori can be perceived as a bitch. When you manipulate the mind of your dearest friend, the person that you admire and yet at the same time hate, you are being cruel. There are people who get angry that Shiori often gets off worse than equally manipulative male characters in the series. I believe there is a reason for this, and it’s not necessarily the sexist discrimination that people might think.

Akio and the other male characters seem to form their manipulative relationships simply to have people to manipulate. There does not seem to be any true affection for their targets. Sure, these people may very well be in love with or seduced by them (Kanae, Utena, and even Anthy), but that does not mean that the male in this figure sees them as anything more than a pawn. Yes, this is cruel. This the sign of a manipulative jerk, but there is something very different with Shiori.

Shiori does in fact care for Juri. She cares for her so much that it hurts. I do believe that she thought Juri had feelings for Ruka–I think that’s the only logical reason she would “steal” him away. However, it could be that she did know Juri was in love with her and “stole” Ruka in order to hurt her. I honestly can’t remember which way it was, but it was definitely one of the two. In today’s society, that would make her a “bitch.” But if one looks at the reasons behind it, an inability to come to grips with her feelings of love, admiration, and jealousy of Juri, it makes sense that she would react in such a bizarre, and yes, cruel manner. She’s being torn between such contradictory emotions, that it’s likely she can only find one way to get rid of that dichotomy; she chooses to do so by lashing out and trying to hurt the one she loves. Was that the correct choice? It’s difficult to say. After all, the complete opposite would have to become completely devoted, almost as if she were Tsuwabuki, or in a better comparison in my opinion, perhaps Tomoyo of Cardcaptor Sakura.

This was an incredibly cruel way to be, and yet, I can’t begrudge her for it. She acted in the way that felt “good.” Jealousy is a very painful emotion to bear, and to expunge it by in a sense expunging one’s love probably helped to at the very least hide the agony of her contradictory feelings for Juri. It is so easy to ‘detest’ someone that always overshadows your own achievements. I can relate to Shiori in that way. I find myself bubbling up with loathing when someone, even a close friend, surpasses me. As I get older, it’s much easier to cope with, and I understand the feeling; however, when I was younger, I did not understand the feeling and likely just thought I ‘hated’ those people, burying deep the feelings of admiration.

So why is Shiori seen as the ultimate evil in Utena? Is it due to a proposed “discrimination” against female characters acting in manipulative ways? It’s only ‘good’ when it’s done by a hot bishounen? I don’t think so. I do believe she’s being perceived very differently than say, Akio, but I don’t feel it’s necessarily because she’s a girl. I think it’s because she was a friend of the person betrayed. Juri wasn’t her pawn as Utena was for Akio. Juri was her dear friend, and she hurt her. That’s something anyone can relate to, and therefore the cruelty (though technically lesser of the two) resounds the most and feels the worse. Most people have been the one at both the giving and receiving ends of such treatment to some degree. And given just how much it hurts to receive such treatment, it’s no wonder that only a select few will admit to themselves that they’ve been the giver and truly realize the ways in which they relate to Shiori. Cruelty to the ones we love is not something we want to admit to, ever, and some avoid doing so to such a strong degree that they lash out at characters who embody such behavior. Shiori is such a character, and therefore she is detested.

I don’t necessarily like Shiori, but I do not dislike her. She is crucial in the growth of Juri, and she’s a character that embodies a lot of the spirit of the teenage girl. They are cruel creatures, even if unintentionally. Shiori provides the proper balance in Utena by being that girl, the one who lets her emotions rather than her ideals (Utena) lead her. The girl that so many are at that age–and older.

Take with a grain of salt any "details" I put in there, because frankly I don't remember them all that well.  If I've totally misjudged her feelings for Juri, just ignore the post entirely.  I'll be rewatching the series sometime this fall or winter, so I'll get the details straightened out then if I'm way off base.

But anyway, that's sort of the way I see her.  Really, I think I might even somewhat like her, but I won't know until viewing 3 for sure.  I need a refresher before I start saying "I like [insert character] that I didn't used to know what I felt about."

Razara wrote:

Why is she the way she is?

THE DRUGS.

Why does everyone hate her so much?

I'm not trying to say that people are like Shiori, and I'm not trying to claim that I understand how people work. But I personally believe that everyone can see a little bit of themselves in Shiori, and a little bit of themselves in Juri. The difference is that Juri, while tragic, is still a 'heroic' character, and her flaw is hardly one to stand out. People want to relate to Juri. But Shiori represents the negative emotions in all of us. We see in her the person we try so hard to suppress, the person that we'd hate to let show. So we lash out.

Does she really love Juri?

For me, that's the hardest question in all of SKU. I still can't decide. I think she loves who Juri is, but because of the same reasons, she hates her. True, all love can be laced with hate sometimes... but I don't think Shiori loves Juri for Juri. She loves the idea of Juri more than anything else.

Is she a lesbian?

I want to scream "YES! YES! YES!"*, but probably not. She never really shows interest in women outside of Juri, and even with Juri it isn't really about physical attraction.

*All the more reason for Shiori to become lesbian.

If she shouldn't be with Juri, then who should she be with?

Her Shiori Squad of course!

What's her favorite color?

I'm going to say purple. It's funny, because my favorite colors are purple and orange.

What kind of music does she listen to?

I think she alternates between bluegrass, synth-pop, and German death metal.

What are her three sizes?

"36-24-36... only if she's 5'3~" (ashamed to know all the lyrics.)

Does she believe in miracles, and that zombies will take over the Earth one day?

I've wondered before if Shiori truly believes in miracles, or if it was just another tactic to hurt Juri. But in the end, I think she does. It's one, if only one, ounce of faith. In regards to zombies, I believe that they will, so I hope she does, too.

If she was stuck on an island with one source of food, what would it be?

The flesh of the living. Or rose hips stewed in brandy.

Could she win a fight to the death against Keiko?

Wow, actually, that's a great question. I'm not sure! Shiori can definitely pull better mind tricks ("Haha, your boyfriend died, and I was still screwing his lights out!") and could probably handle the sword a bit better, but Keiko would be more brutal, and I don't doubt that she's more physically capable.

How many marshmallows can she fit in her mouth?

I'm eager to find out.

If she were to kill Juri, where would she hide the body?

A few years ago, when everything I wrote was painfully morbid and depressing and horrible, I wrote a fic in which Shiori beat Juri within an inch of her life with a baseball bat, then killed herself in the bathtub. I don't know if Juri finally died afterwards, I didn't really give the story a solid ending. So long as people fucked and died, I was happy.

And the most important question of all, how did she manage to get Utena and Anthy to her dorm without telling either of them her name or who she was?

Obviously she promised that Akio was baking them a cake.

Last edited by dollface (12-07-2009 05:40:21 PM)

Very good description, Jellineck!
I'm working on that MySpace page as we speak, by the way, though as you can see by my post here, I won't be portraying Utena in the most complimentary light.

I'd also like to say that I just found a dead bird and am feeling angry at and inferior to my new "best friend," who in turn stole the guy she thought I liked and talks about how scary I am with the faceless masses.
There really is a little Shiori in all of us. But I love it.

Now, I have another question for the list:
What do you think of Movie!Shiori?

Great opinions all around. I will just add something regarding Ruka and why he is loved while Shiori tends to be the object of many fans' fury despite their similar tactics. It is often said that heroes are best served dead. The archetype of the hero who dies trying to protect or save someone is deeply engraved in the fabric of the series itself, Dios could be seen as a mythological paradigm of this image of epic sacrfice. Ruka dies (or we hear of his death, at any rate) shortly after the convoluted affair with Shiori and Juri. Since he had been sick for quite a while and appears to have left the hospital with the sole purpose of acting as a sacrifice for the sake of Juri (this being disputable) makes his actions appear, in retrospect, as a truly selfless deed. Shiori, on the other hand, avoids becoming truly tragic because she survives. The very fact that she comes out of the whole ordeal very much alive is enough to trigger something like survival guilt by proxy, for lack of a better term. Just like the idea of Dios achieves the status of "prince-ness" partially because of his demise (or disappearance, at any rate), so does Ruka gain an heroic aura by dying.
What I find interesting is the parallel between Ruka and Anthy. Ruka's sacrifice tends to hit a chord with the audience, Anthy's sacrifice that is arguably much greater does not meet with much sympathy. It has been said that the hatred Shiori causes has something to with gender perception and the onus of guilt that females tend to carry instead of their male counterparts, perhaps another illustration of this is the fact that a male sacrifice is heroic in nature and praised to no end while a female sacrifice is seen as an act of selfishness that results in pain for everyone. The male sacrifice fades into a pretty sunset and carried a necessarily sweetened memory of what it truly was in factuality, the female sacrifice remains in perpetual repetition and is denied closure.

I agree that one of the reasons why Shiori is so hated has something to with how she illustrates a part of ourselves that we would better deny, keep hidden or simply smother to death. In this she reminds me a bit of Shinji from Eva.

I have so much to say, but now enough time to say it.

dollface wrote:

Razara wrote:

If she were to kill Juri, where would she hide the body?

A few years ago, when everything I wrote was painfully morbid, I wrote a fanfic in which Shiori beat Juri within an inch of her life with a baseball bat, then killed herself in the bathtub. I don't know if Juri finally died afterwards, I didn't really give the story a solid ending. So long as people fucked and died, I was happy.

I read that fanfiction a while ago, and I really enjoyed it. (Yeah, I'm kind of sadistic when it comes to Juri...) I went on a fanfiction re-reading spree about a month ago, but for some reason, all your fanfictions have vanished from the face of the Earth. It might just be fanfiction.net being glitchy, or something, though.

Jellineck wrote:

Thank you and thank you! I have the feeling if we progress far enough, we may generate enough interest to gain some other players. Seriously, a functioning Utena RP would be the best thing ever. Come on, Razara and dollface. Shiori is open for playing.

I'm tempted, since I've always wanted to do an SKU roleplay. My only concern is that I've already had my hopes and dreams of being apart of an SKU roleplay get crushed once due to a lack of people willing to join. That and I've heard horror stories about roleplays on MySpace. (I really do need to make an account one of these days, but the fact that the name "Razara" is taken killed what little interest I had.)


I'll ramble on more about Shiori tomorrow.

After Thorns of Death/Episode 17; does Shiori know that her picture is in Juri's locket? Supposedly, all the Black Rose Duellists forget about their duels, drawing out the soul swords and going to see Mikage. Is there anything later on in the series which indicates Shiori remembers opening the locket? Or anything to say she didn't? While I've always assumed she forgot, there's nothing I can think of to support that.

Another thing. How cruel/manipulative is Shiori really? What has she really done which is so horrible? She "lied" to the brown haired boy in order to "steal" him from Juri. It's not as if he and Juri had been dating, though. It wasn't an affair, Shiori didn't seduce him against his better judgement. She said something she believed was a lie (and which was actually the truth) in order to sway the boy's attention from Juri to herself. It was underhanded and the motivation for it was all wrong (and the most damning part of it, I think) but it's hardly anything compared to what genuine manipulators like Touga are capable of. Further, at the time this happend Shiori was closer to thirteen than sixteen.

What else has she done? She lied to Ruka about the sword polishing, and... oh! She plucks one of Anthy's flowers when Ruka challenges Utena; and looks all smirky self-satisfied up until Ruka dumps her. Is there more than that?

Razara wrote:

As far as the subject of Shiori being put in a worse light because the person she hurt was a friend, I do agree that that does make what she did seem much worse, but she isn't the only one who did something like that, either. Touga loves Nanami, and yet he manipulated her as well.

Big brothers were made to torture little sisters.

Last edited by Cerise (10-04-2007 09:17:43 PM)

1. Why is she the way she is? Why is anyone the way they are? I think you could debate that question until the end of time and still never come up with an answer that is acceptable to everyone. I think a lot of the way Shiori is comes from circumstance and the fact that she’s a boarding school kid, which can’t be easy, especially for someone who is just a shade of hair color away from being a normal girl.

Why does everyone hate her so much? This too can be greatly debated. People hate her because she is cruel and did a very mean thing. People hate her because she hurt their favorite character. People hate too because they can see themselves in her eyes and it scares them to death. People hate her because it’s easier than trying to understand the reasons why Shiori is the way she is. And people hate her because she does make a great villain.

Does she really love Juri? In my opinion I think there was a time when she did really love Juri. Through the way the world works and because she and Juri just have poor communication (derived from fear) that love turned to loathing. Do I think she could find herself in love with Juri again? Most certainly, but I believe in second chances.

Is she a lesbian? I tend to lean toward yes just because all the men she ends up with in the show, she is with to either cause someone else pain or because she convinces herself that that is what she should want. I would also say there is a fairly decent chance that Shiori is bisexual.

If she shouldn't be with Juri, then who should she be with? My favorite choice for a long time was Kozue, but now that I think about, Shiori could probably use someone like Wakaba. She needs that kind of energy I think.

What's her favorite color? I bet it’s orange, and you can take that whoever you like, but I bet it’s orange.

What kind of music does she listen to? In public she listens to whatever everyone else is listening to. In private she has tons of mixed tapes filled with songs from indy and underground rock groups.

What are her three sizes? Oh I’m terrible at that game, and it doesn’t help that in my head she’s shorter than she actually is on the show.

Does she believe in miracles, and that zombies will take over the Earth one day? No, I think she believes in the idea of miracles. If she actually believed then her wish would come true. I do think that she has hope and perhaps even hope that one day she will believe in miracles. I can’t speak to the zombies.

If she was stuck on an island with one source of food, what would it be? I’m gonna go with bacon cheese burgers.

Could she win a fight to the death against Keiko? Yes, I think in her Black Rose form she could defeat Keiko. In fact if it came down to it I think that in a competition death match between the Black Rose Duelists it would probably come down to Shiori and Kozue. Kozue would probably win, but that’s just because I think she was meant to be Akio’s protégé.

How many marshmallows can she fit in her mouth? 15

If she were to kill Juri, where would she hide the body? I think she’d dump the body in one of the school ponds, and yes, it would be weighted down.

And the most important question of all, how did she manage to get Utena and Anthy to her dorm without telling either of them her name or who she was? The magically powers of the Rose Bride.