rhyaniwyn wrote:

I always figured Ohtori itself was pretty isolated.

From the pans from distance, we can see quite well that a city surrounds the school.

Like there might be a city there that some of the school property merges with (Wakaba goes grocery shopping), but that town is isolated from other towns and thus more under the influence of Ohtori.  Remember the town in Haibane Renmei?

I somewhat disagree, here. I don't think that the town is under any specific Ohtori influence. That influence isn't geographical - it affects people, not structures. To me the teachers in Ohtori seem quite unaware of the fantastic qualities of their school. I believe that to them those things simply don't exist. In their minds the school is just one of many, although unusually prestiged. They don't live under Ohtori's influence, even though they spend all their working hours in its buildings. This is because adults are largely below Akio's notice, unless they serve a specific purpose or inadvertedly disrupt his plans. I don't believe that the people in the city their home town as any way special place or live under the school's strange influence - that dubious honour is only reserved for the students of the Academy. Much like a fairy palace can only be a ruin or forest meadow to eyes untouched by glamour, Ohtori is only an expensive private school for those who have no function to its master.

If the rest of the wide, normal world is there, immediately accessible at all times to the students, why isn't it more of a presence?  Why does nearly all of the action take place on campus?  I don't recall Utena ever leaving except with Akio.

The influence IS mental.  The city is there--Wakaba visits it; so if Ohtori dominates the landscape for the students, that's in their minds.  But there IS a geographical landscape that is relevant to the themes explored in the series.



There's one of the distance shots, which I got from a post in another thread.  ("Secret designer of Ohtori")

Personally, up until later in the series, I never really noticed anything but trees around Ohtori.  I think that's deliberate.  The viewer is meant to feel that Ohtori is the world, because that's the way people there feel.  And, yes, I do believe that Ohtori exerts an influence on the town and the teachers.  Due to the very prestige you mention.  I never said or meant to imply that it was a "magical" influence.

When Akio says that the Chairman's residence is the highest point of the world, I doubt he's lying.  To him, Ohtori is the center of the world.  The chairman's power in Ohtori is one of his goals and is something he values.  That is a secular power, not a magical power.   And I sincerely doubt he would value it if it didn't come with various benefits.  I think it's likely he is telling the exact truth--it may well be the "center" and/or highest point of the city and a place of real influence.

I never said there wasn't a city.  I said I imagined it as being isolated.  Then I said the city itself was probably isolated.  Sort of like the city in Haibane Renmei.  Awareness of strangeness isn't necessary.  The townspeople in that show were aware, yes, and they deliberately isolated themselves.

I do not think this is the case with Ohtori.  I think it is the case that the town, which seems to be located (as was mentioned) on a peninsula, is somewhat isolated geographically.  I get the impression that Ohtori is a boarding school.  I have a preconceived notion that these were usually founded to be intentionally isolated from the families and from large cities, though I have no factual information to base this on.  I feel that the town probably grew up around Ohtori, and Ohtori students are a major source of revenue for the business owners in town.

As I mentioned above, I live in a college town.  It's a city, but it's not actually a "big" city.  The schools are roughly located in the center of town, and the areas around the schools, where there are many ameneties meant to cater specifically to students, are the most lively.  Students are big business.  And most residents are absolutely fanatical about college football.  There are large sections of town that get fairly deserted over the summer when many students leave.

I think this is likely analagous to the (apparently unnamed) town around Ohtori.  We aren't *really* that isolated, particularly because we're landlocked, except that the closest other cities are very small and (until recently) there has not been a lot of travel between here and those small towns.  This is very different from other areas I've visited--Orlando, Boston, Akron.  In Orlando and Boston, the towns around the city have become assimilated as suburbs and around all of them there are other cities of not-inconsiderable size close by.  There is a lot of travel and commuting between these surrounding areas.  I doubt this is the case with Ohtori and Ohtori's city.

Anyway, I was also thinking that I pretty much always assumed that all the Ohtori dorms were on-campus.  At least for the younger students--they are kids, after all, and the school is responsible for them.  But god knows that kids living like autonomous adults isn't unknown to anime (Sailor Jupiter, just for one).

Last edited by rhyaniwyn (02-08-2007 07:05:49 PM)