"black is the absence of color"

Is it really? I've heard people say that white is the absence of color.

CarolineWellwater wrote:

o    Follow-up Question: Is the red sweater from that scene, the same one she's given from Anthy during the Nanami Cow Bell episode?

my brain just exploded. that would tooooottalllllyyyyyy make her wearing that sweater even worse. woooow. i never thought of that. Anthy made her that sweater and now this! ooo juicy.

CarolineWellwater wrote:

Her uniform also does not match the color of her hair.  Question: While it could be because Utena's pink hair is supposed to contrast with her uniform, what other reasons are there?

Neither does Mikage's which is deliberate as his outfit does much to mirror Utena's. It's interesting that Mikage's whole color scheme is more subdued than Utena's. The jacket is closer to dark blue as opposed to Utena's black and the hair, while pink, is a softer shade of pink. Mikage also has no epaulettes.

It probably had something to do with the fact that originally Utena's hair was yellow but even without that, a pink jacket would do something to diminish the crossdressing factor. Somehow I can't imagine that early scene with the prissy teacher annoying Utena over her wearing a boy's uniform if Utena's jacket had been pink. Technically the color is not relevant but she would not stand out as much as a girl wearing boy's clothes if her clothes were pink.

Of course, this being SKU, the color connotation can be subverted or at least re-interpreted. Nemuro wears pink fairly frequently, not to contest convention but probably because he has no conception of such things.

CarolineWellwater wrote:

Nocturnalux,

I didn't really include Mikage, as he wasn't really on the Student Council, while he was a Duelist.  Paralleling that idea, it was why I also didn't include Anthy's dueling dress, or the school uniforms themselves.  I also only partially counted Ruka's uniform, as it wasn't fully clear to me if he was on the Student Council or not.

Utena is not part of the Student Council either. But yes, Mikage is very much a counterpart to Utena and drawing parallels between the two is a world of fun. And when it comes a discussion of color schemes and clothes, it becomes almost mandatory as they have the same basic palette and even the outfits are very alike.
I wonder if the lack of epaulettes has something to do with the fact that Mikage did not view himself as a duelist. The black rose duelists all have them, as a sign of military rank it may be connected to acting as a duelist and actually fighting as opposed to what Mikage does which consists of making others do the dueling proper. But then again, Anthy does have epaulettes as does in her Mamiya-self so I could be mistaken.

The whole point of Mikage is to deliberately mirror Utena, from hair color to his own little Rose 'Bride' and more similarities the more you look into it. He even brings attention to it himself. I think there's a creator commentary mentioning the similarities as well.

I only just now noticed the fact that Kozue holds her sword in her left hand, mirroring Miki's style from the opposite direction. It's obviously a result of them simply mirroring the shot of Miki's stance, but also a subtle way of showing Kozue's perspective of her relationship with her twin. She knows they're pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum in a lot of ways... then again, she could just be left-handed while Miki is right-handed. However, my headcanon is that they're both ambidextrous, and that Kozue deliberately wields Miki's heartsword with her hand opposite of Miki's because reasons...

Well, anyway. Another facet of the Council uniforms for the OP: With the exception of Touga, each has a sectioned color portion of their sleeve that matches their pants. Touga is also the only council member who doesn't wear colored pants to match his hair. The Black Rose uniforms all share a single-colored Jacket (with varying trim/epaulettes for each duelist) and white pants with the exception of Mitsuru, who gets black leggings with white shorts over them. I suspect the leggings/shorts combo is less about his gender and more of a subtle nod to his age.

Raven Nightshade wrote:

I think it's that PLUS his uniform mirroring Nanami's to an extent, as she doesn't wear the typical slacks/pants the other duelists wear. She and Tsuwabuki are wearing the same thing, a pair of shorts (hers much more fitted) with black tights.

I was under the impression that Mitsuru's duelist uniform had shorts because he was still a kid. Remember that the regular children's uniforms also have shorts. It's only when the students get older that they graduate to long pants.

Traditionally, young children would wear shorts so that they run less of a risk dirtying their clothes when they inevitably fall down or play in whatever filthy things kids gravitate to. Even the tights are standard fare. One of my few childhood memories in Poland was that I and all of the other boys wore tights to school. Damned if I know the reasoning but it's why I didn't question his getup when I first saw it.

Reviving this thread because I like the idea of analyzing the uniforms!

I can't speak much about design elements, but with regard to colour: I'm influenced by the study of Yoga and Ayurveda, as well as an acting coach who included these elements in his teaching, and I've long viewed the students' colour schemes as corresponding to the chakras, with their primary colour hinting at their aims and the obstacle(s) that obstruct them.  The predominant colour tells us how they're "stuck," particularly if read as being trapped between the chakra below and the chakra above.  (The below isn't intended to be an exhaustive analysis of the chakras! but rather a westernized, general sort of idea - stuff that a viewer might already know without studying the system.)

Red ties to physical reality, passions, impulses, the physical self, as well as all of the human responses considered instinctual or primal, everything that drives us to survive; also relevant to both Touga and Anthy is that it's the colour of innate safety and security and so is unbalanced by assault, particularly childhood trauma.  Disturbed, this chakra can result in excessive lust and a drive to power and control; however, there's an idea of transcendence and higher aspiration in Touga's white, which is wholly absent from Akio's unbroken scarlet.

Orange relates to the sacral chakra, to joy and emotional needs; blocked, it's where both frustrated desire and despair arise, and this is where we find Juri trapped, unable to reconcile her physical self and passions (the chakra below) with her identity and ego (the chakra above).  Likewise, yellow - with its emphasis upon personal power, as it relates to both the will and the mind - hints that Nanami misuses her power because she can't yet control her impulses and transform her own need for security (the lower two chakras) into true selfless love (the chakra above); as a result, her heart is blocked, and she sometimes acts without consideration or empathy.

Blue relates to truth, expression, and purity, and Miki, while possessing a genius-level intellect and a great degree of talent, has something of a roadblock in these areas.  His intellect doesn't suffice to describe or explain everything happening around him, and he's unable to clarify the changed relationship with his sister or even talk openly to her.  In fact, he doesn't speak often at all, and seems to convey longings and confusion through media other than his voice: the piano, the stopwatch.  And his quest for a shining thing is limited by an incorrect understanding of purity, which he can't reach past to connect with others as they truly are.

Purple represents one's higher purpose and connection with other beings (at the level of the soul), as well as with divine energy (if one believes in such); with this in mind, it could be that Ruka's blue is darker than Miki's because he's closer to this aim, fighting for a more selfless (though still imperfect) reason, or at least with a clearer sense of purpose.  And Nemuro is steeped in purple for this reason of connection; his purple-tinted lenses show someone literally looking for a higher calling, and his whole character arc involves the need to awaken his own soul, to pursue some greater goal (through the project), and to find a unity with others that has hitherto eluded him.  Those three aims all converge in the persons of Tokiko and Mamiya, and at their loss, he sinks into a cold clarity - a computer's idea of truth and expediency - culminating in a silent, warped means of "expression".  (There's also the peep of a blue cuff from beneath his purple jacket, which looks like the same uniform that his students wear; it could indicate a certain insecurity - like someone playing professor-dress-up without really believing it - and/or a sign of covering up truth.)  Mikage's clothing then continues this character development, as Nemuro's purple splits into the two colours of his jacket - the blue of truth (which Mikage can neither accept nor express without undoing his entire raison d'etre), and the red of physical reality (which is only trim on his uniform, hinting at a tenuous connection to existence).

Nemuro's clothing also provides a clue to understanding Utena's, as his black gloves nicely invert the impeccable image of a white-gloved worker: honest, above-board, engaging in clean work.  The gloves hint that the project is not what it seems to be; they also suggest that Nemuro is lying to himself.  Likewise, I think that Utena wears black because, on some level, her desire to be a prince is unillumined, unexamined, untruthful in some way; while she isn't lying to herself out of malice or bad intentions, she nonetheless hasn't examined this fundamental goal of her life, hasn't done the self-scrutiny that could "shed light" on her purpose.  It hints at what she will have to do before she can "graduate."

And so the theme song says to "strip down to nothing," since the shedding of this coloured clothing, for each duellist, represents transcendence of whatever issue prevents them from becoming "like a rose petal, blowing free".

(Also, I just realised that I skipped green.  But you get the idea, and I fear that I've already made this post too long!)

-Astrinde

Last edited by Astrinde (01-27-2016 11:25:28 AM)

Hi CarolineWellwater, and I'm sorry I didn't explain it in my original post!  Do you ever get so involved in studying something that you forget a world exists outside of what you're learning?  So...yeah....oops!

Anyway, you're right in that it's one of those spiritual/psyche sort of things.  The idea of "chakras" begins with the teaching that each person has a "subtle body" as well as a physical body, and that a vital energy, called Prana, moves through this subtle body in channels called nadis.  There are thousands of these nadis, and therefore many places where they converge, but there are several major energy centers or nodes that have particular importance, and these centers are what people commonly call "chakras".  In Yoga, one way to realize and awaken God/the Self/the Truth is through Yogic practices that purify and control that vital Prana.  And some believe that, as this awakening occurs, those chakras begin to blossom and open.

Such teachings originate with the ancient Hindu texts called Upanishads, and play a role in Buddhist tradition as well, so they're much more meaningful and complex than the awkward summary I've written above.  But an idea of "the seven chakras" has been adopted into Western New Age philosophy and is sometimes used in spiritual practices and in "alternative" healing methods such as Reiki.  And if you've ever seen a diagram like this--



--then you've seen a simple visual representation of those major chakras.

So I figured that, since Utena incorporated material from several different philosophies and religions, then it might not be so farfetched to associate the duellists' colours with ideas stemming from the above.  Then again, I could just be reading way too much into something that's little more than OOOO PRETTY COLOURS.