For some reason, I've always liked Kanae. It's probably the scarf, or the way she talks. (Not in English, of course. Goodness, no. But in Japanese she uses formal language.) Not to mention that she's really, really good at screaming. She got one line in the movie, and did an amazing job at making it as dramatic as possible. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see her much of her in the series. Since she's the daughter of the chairman, and Akio's fiancée, she must have a very interesting history.

The question that weighs the back of my mind is, "Did she pull the sword out of Akio, and we just didn't see it?" If she did, Akio probably would have been expecting it, so there would be no need for a scene to show his reaction. The light-purple dueling outfit that she wears is Akio's color, so that seems to be related to him. The sword, however, is rather unique, and does not seem to be Akio's. Her fighting style is also different from Akio's.

Last edited by Razara (10-18-2006 06:31:41 PM)

Tamago wrote:

I might be mistaken, but I was always under the impression that Dios became Akio when Anthy extracted his soul sword (Which contained amongst other things, contained his selflessness), and placed it inside herself resulting in her Rose Bride persona.  I might have missed some important detail somewhere but thats more or less how I viewed it.

I thought the same thing. And during Saionji's last duel the sword disappeared and they started using Utena's sword.. Hm, I may need to make a topic about that.

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

I always thought it was because Kanae was Mikage's first try at using a black rose duelist, and he hadn't thought of the idea of pulling swords from the student council before. After Kanae's failure, I think it was Mamiya that brought up the idea. :3

For Kane.. Akio, since Anthy is Utena's Rose bride, but the idea of anyone pulling a sword out of Akio seems strange. And impossible..

I would say Mikage having not thought of it yet is the show's reason, and her having no one logical to pull it from is the creators' reason. It would have had to be Akio or Anthy (probably Akio), and well...yeah. That would be a wee bit hard to explain.

It's similar to why Saionji doesn't have anyone pulling his sword out in his last duel. The only logical person would have been Touga, but Touga's doing it would have taken some of the oomph out of his last duel, when Saionji takes that role.

Perhaps more than that it's a device to show us how unimportant she is. She's engaged to Akio and yet the show treats her like she doesn't matter at all beyond a quick and dirty device to advance the plot.

One gets the impression that's what Akio thinks of her, too.

azuresquirrel wrote:

(poisoned apple anyone?)

Or we could go with the forbidden fruit of knowledge deal, in which case she probably found out about him and Anthy. I suspect the reaction would have looked quite the same. The poisoned apple one is more direct, but Akio's the one stomping around comparing himself to the , so...

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

Although, it is strange how Ohtori is apparently Akio's world yet he needs to marry to be the chairman of the school. Hmm. A cover-up, maybe?

Or he's married a different Ohtori woman FOR GENERATIONS.

Maybe Akio and Anthy were parasitic, no one place is theirs so much as wherever they go their coffin follows?

Wait a minute.. if Mamiya is Anthy, and Utena pulled a sword from Anthy for her duel with Mikage,  how could Mikage have Mamiya there and use his sword? Since Mamiya is Anthy his sword would be the sword of Dios too..

Last edited by SleepDebtFairy (10-19-2006 07:16:53 PM)

I assumed that the Black Rose Duelists had to pull a sword from the heart of another. Mikage was a regular Duelist, not a black rose Duelist, and so he didn't need a soul-sword. His rose color was black, true, but that was a silver seal he was wearing. I assumed he had a mundane, physical sword stashed away somewhere.

If I recall correctly, when she's defeated, Kanae's sword evaporates in the standard Black Rose Duelist soul-sword way. Presumably, it must have come from somewhere, because normal swords... er... don't evaporate when you're beaten in a duel. However, from Mikage and Mamiya's dialogue in episode 14, it would seem they hadn't yet thought of the idea of their Duelists using swords from stronger people.

It's doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that Anthy-Mamiya could have created Kanae a "generic" supernatural sword, similarly to how Akio produces a sword (of humanity's hatred?) during the final duel (though probably far less awesome). If it was intended to be the sword of anyone in particular, they would have mentioned it.

And yes, I always figured that as a "normal" (stretching the term) Duelist, Mikage just picked up a handy physical sword. At that stage in the game, soul swords are only being used to give one the power of a stronger fighter, anyway - it's almost a sign of weakness that the Black Rose Duelists need them.

Perhaps the fact that Mikage and Kanae use ordinary swords while opening and concluding the arc is a plot device that helps both introduce and dismiss the total crackery of the entire thing. I mean, it's not like the whole series isn't crazy to begin with, but...yeah. I have no idea. I just figure Kanae was the starting point because that's the way Akio wanted to play it. Mikage probably thought he was doing it because manipulating Kanae's emotions towards the person he wanted to eliminate (i.e. Anthy) would be easy because Kanae had a (difficult) personal relationship with Anthy in the first place. Familial connection? All the better to manipulate you with, my dear. However, it was likely Akio doing it for his own ends, and when it (predictably) went pear-shaped, he had Anthy!Mamiya nudge Mikage's thought processes towards the duellists and their soul-swords (which is where he always wanted to go, being that he wanted to strengthen and test Utena's own before going gardening with it at the end of the series).

Why did Mikage have an ordinary sword? Perhaps, as a shadow of Nemuro, he had no soul. Poor thing. Actually, a while back I wrote a ficlet (found here) that was my random thought-tangent on where he got the sword from. It's rather odd -- being that my grasp of quantum mechanics is about as tenuous as Mikage's on reality -- but I rather liked the idea that Mikage got his sword from Nemuro. It just doesn't stand up in context (but since when does that matter with fic? )

Oh, and Kanae's apple? Poison of knowledge. There are some things one just shouldn't know.

King of all necros

According to Wikipedia, Kanae fights with a "Black Rose Sword" (a quote-unquote 'normal' magic sword, probably) while Mikage uses his own soul sword. So it's settled.

Which is interesting, because it makes the Mikage duel a precursor to the Akio arc duels (where the competitors use swords drawn from their own hearts).

Another thing: in the episode where Mamiya proposes the use of soul swords, this exchange occurs:

Souji:  However, they have all been defeated in Duels.
Souji:  They are weak-hearted people.
Mamiya:  There aren't many people who can fully control their hearts.
Mamiya:  I'm sure it's particularly difficult for people of such young age.
Mamiya:  It would be far better to let their spirit swords be received by someone else.
Mamiya:  That way, a stronger Duelist can be born.

Was the SC using soul swords from day one? Was Utena the only duelist who ever used a material weapon in the duels?

Last edited by Atropos (03-06-2013 01:58:58 PM)

Atropos wrote:

Was the SC using soul swords from day one? Was Utena the only duelist who ever used a material weapon in the duels?

If this were true, the SC wouldn't panic over the events of the Black Rose Saga -- at least, not in the same way.  For instance, we wouldn't have the adorable scene where Nanami asks Miki whether it hurt. 

On the contrary, I think Mamiya is pointing up something that is undeniably true in SKU: dueling is an expression of your heart, whether or not you're literally holding your heart in your hands.  The sword is a symbol of your soul even when it's just a practice saber you bought for $24.99 on eBay.  Duelists in the first arc lose during moments of distraction, bravado, or moral compromise; as Mamiya says, they fail to control their hearts, and so their swords go astray.  Mamiya hypothesizes that duelists would be stronger if they could somehow duel with someone else's heart instead of their own.  I don't think events bear him out -- no one in the show ever defeats a champion duelist while wielding someone else's soul-sword, and no champion duelist ever loses except while doing so -- but it certainly is an interesting guess.    I started this thread oh-so-very-long-ago because Kanae was an exception within her own arc.  I guess we're meant to assume she gets her sword off of eBay.

Last edited by satyreyes (03-06-2013 08:57:16 PM)

Of course, by episode 37 he's abandoned all pretenses of being engaged at all. In the end, all power the Ohtori family has over Akio is illusionary, since he's been there since day one.