Hm. I'm not the best person to be answering this sort of thing on the basis of my not having even seen the whole series (damn money problems) but I can cobble together some snap answers from what I've read around here (and why not try a bit of fanwank while I'm at it, right?). So, let's tackle the questions as we approach them.

1. Touga says he is the one capable of bringing the Sword of Dios to maximum power, but then Touga would have you believe that you're the only girl he's ever had sex with too. He's spewing out of his cakehole, to use a crass colloquialism. If anybody has the power to do that to the sword, it's Anthy. I figure she only does it to give Touga the illusion of the power he craves so much and Utena a chance to reassert herself as the champion by knocking the supposedly-now-undefeatable Touga off his high horse. Remember, Anthy's very much into the mind games like her brother is; she just has a different way she likes to play the game, is all.

2. If Utena has the power of Dios himself to help her out (that and, as she IS a jock, she's got plenty of strength and coordination to jump into the game without knowing what she needs to do; slow though she may be, she's not an idiot), she doesn't need to amp up the Sword's power itself. Storywise, she probably forgot she could do that sort of thing and Anthy decided that it wasn't worth it at the time to remind her; plotwise, it wouldn't be much of an intriguing anime if Utena was capable of destroying everybody in less than five seconds every time she whipped out the Sword of Dios. Besides, the Sword's power doesn't seem to be much extra at full strength outside of doing some shonen-y wind-repel effect or something (to my untrained eye, anyway) and the purpose is to get in close enough to take out the rose, not play keep-away until the clock hits zero.

3. No. Utena's heart-sword is emphatically not the same as the Sword of Dios. If anything, I'd say the Sword of Dios is Dios' heart-sword or maybe a shadow of it after Anthy sealed him. It might even be Anthy's heart-sword, born from her love for her brother Dios or stolen from him and imbued in her spirit at the moment of the sealing or somesuch. Which leads us to...

4. Akio may think that Utena's heart-sword may be the blade of a prince, but it's not enough to have a blade to try and muscle through the Rose Gates. Physical strength isn't what Akio needs, and as Utena herself eventually pointed out, opening the gates isn't the end-all answer. He's not using the power of Dios to get to the power of Dios. What Utena does do is probably open the gates of Anthy's shut-in heart, heralded by her despair at being stabbed by the Million Swords for who-knows-how long now. If Anthy wasn't interested in changing her fate, not even our heroine could've opened those gates, but throughout the series it's made evident on many levels of interpretation that she gave the Rose Bride the courage and drive she needed to "open up" enough to somebody, and once she opened up, so did those gates to the one person she felt comfortable baring her soul to: Utena Tenjou.

5. Utena didn't have the power of Dios. She wasn't the legendary Prince because she was her own kind of prince. I think that Dios was something of a stealth mentor to her, and when she finally didn't need his help, when she finally could walk on her own as a somewhat heroic figure, he knew and stopped counseling her. It's arguable whether or not Utena-as-prince's power was greater than Dios's own power in his prime, but sometimes strength and greatness can't be measured in common denominators. His strength could have been greater than hers on many levels, but hers was perhaps greater on the one level that mattered.

I'm not much better on analyzing individual characters, but I am learning to analyze symbolism and interpretation on more abstract concepts. If anybody wants to add information or provide counterpoint, I'm always willing to listen.

Edited to add a bit of flavor and to correct a really dumb spelling mistake of mine

Last edited by BioKraze (08-13-2011 12:21:20 PM)