Mishi wrote:

I've been rewatching the Utena series, and I just finished the Black Rose arc. And there's a question that's been bugging me for a long time now. Well, actually, it's many questions.

How much of that arc actually affects the rest of the series? How much do the various characters remember about anything? For instance, when Mikage disappeared, Nemuro Hall had never been rebuilt, and does Utena remember nothing to do with those duels? Does she remember the duels, but not Mikage?

Then there are the Black Rose duelists. After they lose, they apparently forget all about the duel. But how much of the circumstances leading to the duel do they remember? If the duels didn't really solve anything, then are all these characters walking around with so much unresolved anger in them?

...oh, dear, this is my favourite part of the series and yet I am too tired to do a discussion justice tonight. But I have to throw my hat into the ring before anyone else does, because I the Black Rose Arc. I really do. And my opinion is that everything of it is forgotten. Why is that, and why would Akio waste time and energy on putting Utena through this gauntlet it he allows her (and everyone else) to forget it?

It's simply because it is a gauntlet. He was fucking with her, to put it bluntly. He wanted to see how her heart and sword would stand up to other battles, and he was also testing the mettle of the student council while he was at it. Save for Kanae, each duellist pulled a sword that was not their own to use and challenged Utena with it. And what was Utena doing, if not the same thing? Admittedly, the sword she used was given to her with apparent consent, but then Anthy does what she is told. And we gather that from her actions as the false!Mamiya throughout the same arc. Yet, Utena, using a borrowed sword, still remains pure of heart enough to defeat the swords of the seitokai as wielded by those close to them. She proves she can use the sword of Dios righteously, and this says something about the state of her own soul-sword (if that's the term one wants to use). It is immediately after this arc that she is forced to use her own sword, which despite Akio's "" face at the disappearance of the sword, is what I think he wanted. Anthy took the sword back, and it's probably because Akio told her too. He now needed to see what Utena would do with her own sword, because THAT was the sword he needed to break the Rose Gate.

...and that's gone off topic a bit, but basically? Akio needed the duels to happen to test Utena's worth, but the fallout from them was awkward enough it was easier to suppress the memory and let it go. GOD FORBID PEOPLE SHOULD LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES. Which is one of the over-arching themes of the series, particularly in regards to Akio himself. It's also a sad commentary on what may have happened to Utena had she failed, as Nemuro was obviously kept around as part of a gauntlet, and disposed of when his use was over.

Mishi wrote:

I haven't gotten to the next Shiori episode yet, and that's what's really bugging me.

I forget if she still knows about Juri's true feelings or not, and it's driving me insane. And I forget exactly what happened in those episodes, except for Ruka being a manipulative asshole. I thought I 'got' Shiori until I rewatched her Black Rose Duel, and especially her elevator scene. Now I'm just more confused than ever.

She doesn't consciously acknowledge any memories of such and I'm tempted to say that she doesn't have any. I think her actions reflect that she believes it's the situation with the brown haired boy all over again, maybe. Very big maybe, though.

No, if Shiori knew of Juri's feelings, she wouldn't think that Juri was going to laugh at her after she got dumped by Ruka. She'd think Juri was going to try and pick her up or something like that. That Juri was some sick freak that thought Shiori would come crawling back to her after all that. But guess what, Juri? She's not that pathetic. She's got at least some dignity left. Get lost!

It's all very ambiguous though. Ikuhara likes to watch us squirm like this.

Clarice wrote:

...oh, dear, this is my favourite part of the series and yet I am too tired to do a discussion justice tonight. But I have to throw my hat into the ring before anyone else does, because I the Black Rose Arc. I really do. And my opinion is that everything of it is forgotten.

Yes, but what is everything?

Obviously, Utena remembers meeting Akio and Kanae, so she can't have forgotten absolutely everything that went on during that time, and Wakaba, for instance, got over Saionji and started crushing over Akio. If she'd been hoping all the time from when she first wrote that love-letter to the time Saionji showed up on her doorstep, she'd go on hoping, wouldn't she, if she had forgotten everything that happened during the Black Rose arc...

It's reasonable to assume there's another of Mikage's sort lined up. Or perhaps the 100 duelists are all Mikages.

Now, that's a spooky thought. Are they the dead students, or is each one some sort of fractured piece of the memory that used to be Nemuro? Chilling. I don't think Akio would ever just throw away such a perfectly useable program as Mikage. It's really effective, especially how easy it is to manipulate him with Anthy's aid.

I'm of the opinion that the duellists don't remember the duels, per se. I think they remember them in an abstract form, as a sort of emotional relief -it's not always easy to remember things that you did or said, even from an hour ago. I always think it's sort of an ending-to-Good-Omens sort of thing, wherein the characters remember that something huge, and life shattering and totally world altering happened the other day, but...well...they're a bit fuzzy on the details.

Ragnarok wrote:

Ah, but anyway. I'm of the mind that the Black Rose Duellists don't remember any event that Mikage had a hand in. But that doesn't mean those events didn't happen, obviously they did. Saionji returns to Ohtori; but once Mikage ceases to exist, the circumstances of his return become even blurrier. Shiori doesn't remember finding Juri's locket. Kozue doesn't remember Anthy coming across her bending over Miki. Wakaba does remember Saionji staying with her, she doesn't quite recall the circumstances of his departure.

There's nothing concrete enough within the series to prove who remembers what, especially given that memories in Ohtori tend to be vague at the best of times.

Ah, yes, I like this thought. It makes it easier to come up with an answer for Mishi's question of how they could forget EVERYTHING, due to the fact Utena needs to remember Akio and Kanae, and the influences on relationships between Nanami and Keiko, then Juri and Shiori. Tokiko makes the comment that no-one grows up in this garden...oh, wait, that was Akio. She just said it was sad that Nemuro was the same as he had been years before. Which leads to the obvious question of how long has anyone been at Ohtori? For all we know, Juri and the rest have been there for almost as long as Mikage himself. Note the fact Saionji does not leave when he is expelled -- is this JUST because Akio is using him for a pawn, or because he literally has nowhere else to go? His time has moved on without him, so to speak? And is that why Nemuro is graduated -- because Akio doesn't have the strength to keep him static any longer, now that he has seen the truth of what happened to Mamiya?

Akio is fucking with people's minds. Obviously this is easy for him within the limitations of the school grounds, but I think even there his powers have limits. Once the duellist breaks the shell, so to speak, reinstating that suppression of inconvenient memory and motivation may be not worth the energy expenditure. I think Akio has limits to his powers of persuasion, and this may be an example of that. He has the ability to wave the magical "selective memory" wand over people's minds, but only in ways beneficial to his plans and possibly his own survival. If that makes any sense. I'm pulling this out of my ass, in case you couldn't tell.

Raven Nightshade wrote:

Well, I agree with what everyone's said so far. I just wanted to spam yet another Black Rose thread with my theory that the whole Arc was also intended as an audition/training ground for a new batch of Duelists. The only real evidence I can back this with is the fact that Miki is passing his stopwatch on to Tsuwabuki in episode 39, and even then it's circumstantial at best.

I like your theory and wish to subscribe to its newsletter. In all seriousness, and this harks back to what I was saying above you, in that Akio's an opportunist at heart. Though he's doing one thing -- tempering Utena's steel, so to speak -- I would guess he'd use the opportunity to do other things simultaneously. (Great, now I have the urge to listen to the Pet Shop Boys with Opportunities. Stupid brain tangents...)

It does make sense. For the sake of exploring differences involving Wakaba: She's the only one who has her rose cut by the soul sword she wields.

I'm on the minority I suppose...I actually don't believe they lose their memories to the extent that they even claim. It seems to me that they do remember something, and that the memory is traumatic to them. Clearly, they don't remember EXACTLY what happened, but then, who knows how things looked from their perspectives. Maybe they saw something different from what we saw. I'm drawn to this opinion by my belief that Mikage tells the truth to Utena, and all of the black rose duelists come to him of their own free will and duel of their own free will. We've seen how Anthy can make things appear to be other than how they are, and she WAS helping Mikage...perhaps the black rose duelists saw things as if they were in some kind of dream?

Along the same lines, this leads me to the very satisfying opinion that Kozue's skill at the piano is not at all a trick. That she really was as good as Miki before, but tricked herself into thinking otherwise.

Even in SKU, I tend to prefer to avoid supernatural explanations for things if I can explain them otherwise.

Stormcrow wrote:

Along the same lines, this leads me to the very satisfying opinion that Kozue's skill at the piano is not at all a trick. That she really was as good as Miki before, but tricked herself into thinking otherwise.

Even in SKU, I tend to prefer to avoid supernatural explanations for things if I can explain them otherwise.

It's starting to sound like they all have post traumatic stress disorder -- which is probably quite a legitimate explanation, come to think of it. If you'd prefer not to remember something and nobody forces you to, then why would you? Except maybe through unconscious means, such as dreams. And I don't think we ever see anyone on SKU dreaming. Which may be slightly odd in and of itself, given the dream-like quality of Ohtori itself.

I think it's entirely possible Kozue could play the piano, and simply psyched herself out because Miki was much better at it than she was; it might give some insight into why she wants to control him because to some degree, he has always controlled her. She does everything for him, after all, and it's a kind of passive control that would understandably drive an aggressive personality like Kozue nuts. The effortlessness of it all! (I think Saionji has similar issues, although they're expressed differently because of personality disparities between the two.) However, there is always going to be a supernatural thread running through the series. There just may be less of it than is first apparent. I mean, there's the curry thing, for starters. You could explain a kangaroo, but ELEPHANTS? Ha. Still, back with the Black Roses, I would wonder otherwise how people who apparently never duel or swordfight otherwise manage to mimic the skill and stance of the person who held the sword originally. Is it JUST the sword, or do any of them actually have hidden skill? We all know Shiori joins the fencing club later. Kozue has never been shown to swordfight, but does she know Miki's skill because she watches him so much? Hmm...the possibilities!

I also really like the Wakaba idea -- I didn't realise the rose thing.

I think it's specifically things related to and caused by Mikage that were forgotten. Anything other than that was fine.

That doesn't necessarily explain why Shiori forgot Juri's feelings or how Keiko forgave Nanami, but Mikage definitely triggered Wakaba and Mitsuru's meltdowns. But if you look between the lines and think, "how did that locket find its way to Shiori's room?" The answer is obvious*: it was Mikage. We've seen him sneak into young girl's dorms before (Wakaba's to see Saionji). And I don't think either Keiko or Nanami would need an outside source to have them become BFFs again. Have you paid attention to any 13 year old girls lately? They're crazy.

So, in my humble opinion, for whatever reason, Mikage-ish things were forgotten. Whether it's PTSD or that Akio and Anthy managed to fold the fifth dimension into the sixth or whatever and rewrite time.

SKU is really one huge case of PSTD, especially in the case of the movie. Everyone has somebody who's died on them. It's like it's all a weird insane asylum designed by people who believe giving them a fake universe to live in is more therapeutic than reality. Now I want to watch the King of Hearts.

*Take note that up until about an hour ago, I was convinced a bird had dropped it there -- obvious is an exaggeration on my part.

NajiMinkin wrote:

Ragnarok wrote:

It does make sense. For the sake of exploring differences involving Wakaba: She's the only one who has her rose cut by the soul sword she wields.

I'd never thought about that before. Looking at that metaphorically (kinda), it could also help explain how she severed ties with Saionji so easily. It probably contributes to her being the only one who cried and really had a wake up call before she passed out too.

Oh god. My brain just exploded with yummy analytical goodness. What an appropriate metaphor for the relationship those two could have had. Wakaba wanted to help Saionji, wanted to be needed, and when she has that, she finds the situation gives her more power over him than she wants. Trying to help him only got her a control she couldn't handle, and when she gets his sword, which she'd never wanted, what happens? It, Saionji, cuts her down. And if the sword didn't give it away, he does shortly after, abandoning her that tried to help him. The sword made the point a little more violently in Utena's hands, but the message was clear: Saionji didn't want her help.

OnionPrince wrote:

Also, can someone clarify something for me? If Utena (and everyone else) forgot about Mikage at the end of the arc, did she also forget about the individual duels themselves? If so, it really smacks of the "it was all just a dream" sort of handwaving and rather takes away what she learned by confronting those duelists.

Actually I'm rusty on this one...is it ever made explicit either way that Utena remembers or forgets the duels? I got the impression she remembered them in part, but her memory is hazy where it would concern using the information to any great degree. Her short term memory is obviously not the best anyway, since she stares at Akio's car in episode 30 in a confusion trying to remember where she's seen it.

Ragnarok wrote:

This does depend on Akio speaking about Anthy's version of Mamiya as "the same way you haven't" rather then, for example, Anthy herself.

I'm trying to figure out how it changes your position if he is referring to Anthy there. You can argue that technically, Anthy doesn't exist there either-- she exists in her coffin, and what we see is a projection of her self. If this is the case, Mikage enters that double-state of being-and-not-being, affecting things without truly being present, his 'self' at Ohtori while the rest of him resides elsewhere-- very probably in one of those hundred coffins.

Yes, there are holes, like 'where are the coffins located', but it's still an interesting thought to ponder. I think that given enough time and thought, you could 'prove' that Nemuro died in the fire he set when he became Mikage-- which again throws him into the position of being-and-not-being, in that at the moment of Mikage's birth, he also died.