Maybe she felt bad for the way she carried on when they had duelled last time, I cannot think of any other good reasons for her to do so.

She's not the kind of person to play a trick on Utena.

Maybe she just didn't like Touga. She always seems the grumpiest at the student council meetings.

Cause she wanted her badly, yep...

P.S. Dr. Freud - rocks!

i thought it was, because she didnt care for the way touga played with utena's emotions, and juri wanted to help utena more so against touga, than just helping utena.

Last edited by yuzukelly (03-26-2011 11:07:00 AM)

Dallbun wrote:

While being sick of Touga's gloating would be a fine enough reason by itself, I figured that Juri suspected that Utena lost because of her. Juri is, after all, the one who spilled Utena's "prince" story to Touga, thus giving him the psychological ammunition he needed to bluff his way to victory.

Quoted for insight.  I'd figured Juri disliked Touga's gloating, and that she liked Utena rather better than Touga, but I hadn't gotten as far as her probable feelings of annoyance with herself for having enabled one of Touga's more egregious displays of misogyny.  Great catch!  I wonder why she spilled those beans in the first place.  Was it because she didn't think it was important, or because she was feeling vindictive from her encounter with Utena in the statue garden?

There could be said to be several elements...

First, to me it was a gesture of female comradeship. Juri has her faults, but she's ultimately a good person who believes in justice and fair play. She knew Utena was at a disadvantage against Touga, and wanted to level the field.

Also, as has been said, Juri likes Utena. To what degree is an interesting question of course, but there's no doubt Juri finds Utena intriguing, especially after her "defeat" in their first duel. I think that, perhaps more than any other member of the student council, Juri sees in Utena what she wishes she saw in herself. It's natural that that would lead to a feeling of admiration, if not more.

Finally, I believe Ikuhara said in the movie commentary that Juri was a character designed specifically to counterbalance Utena, a character to be played against Utena as something like an equal. In other words, Juri is The Rival, and as every one knows, The Rival always helps their respective main character out against the real threat...

Last edited by Aelanie (04-07-2011 12:17:23 AM)

y'know, it came to mind that while it may have some deep meaning to it, they might have just wanted to tie up any loose ends. To the question: What does she fight with? Nothing's simpler than a 15 second scene from good old Juri. And when you think about it, where else would Utena have gotten a sword from? Considering Utena, she might have started walking right over to the dueling forest when Juri had to pull her back and say "Hey now, you need a sword."


But I  still love you guys for talking about it. Gotta love a show when you can talk about things like this in almost excessive detail.

Last edited by Randamonian (03-30-2011 12:53:49 AM)

"Master using it and you can have this."

In order to increase the Utena/Juri subtext in the show! But the serious answer is that she was probably tired of Touga being obnoxious about winning the duel. And also, it is possible that Juri figured out that Touga was able to manipulate Utena since she told him about how Utena wanted to be a prince and how she had met one as a child. Giving the sword to Utena was a way of making amends.

Another possibility is that Juri wanted Utena to stay in the duels so that she could duel her again. In episode 7, Juri tells Touga that if Utena has the power to revolutionize the world that she, "wants to take it from her with her own hands."  Juri wouldn't be able to do that if Utena dropped out of the duels. Not to mention, even though Touga can turn the Sword of Dios into a super-sword by having Anthy perform mild oral sex on it, he still can't win with a miracle like Utena did. It is possible that Juri wants to disprove the existence of miracles by having Utena win against Touga and then beating Utena afterward. Since Juri doesn't use any tricks to win, in her mind, if she is able to beat Utena while Utena is engaged to Anthy, that might disprove the existence of miracles.