godsofthecopybookheadings wrote:

Seriously, is that shade of "green" flattering for any skin color? And those poor boys look like walking tubes of toothpaste

I like the theory that Akio designed the boys' uniforms to be as unattractive as possible so he could have his pick of the female students and leave some for his chosen pawn Touga. Nothing sets a girl's heart to racing like a guy wearing head-to-toe seafoam green.

From a more sober standpoint, I think the clothing in SKU says a lot about the nature of the setting and about Japanese culture in general. The uniforms are hideous, and in the case of the girls, sexualized to a clownish degree, but the students accept the dress code without question. The uniforms speak to the disempowerment of women and, to a lesser degree, men by entrenched social institutions. After all, how can you take someone seriously when she's wearing a micro-miniskirt and poofy sleeves bigger than her head?  The student council uniforms also play into this - isn't it kind of ridiculous for schoolkids to dress like 18th-century French military officers? But the only person who questions the obvious absurdity of Ohtori's dress code  is Utena, in keeping with her title of "revolutionary girl."

If I was the director, I would've given Saito a clearer idea of what SKU was actually about from the offset, so that then she could've made a better manga. (Having said that, I personally enjoyed the movie-manga a lot; it's just the first manga that was lacklustre to me.)

I would also have given Shiori and the other Black Rose duellists more facetime, explored Touga's motives for duelling a little more, and had Saionji and Nanami interact with each other more often.

I would reset SKU in an anachronistic renaissance France and given just about all the characters French names.  Also Anthy would serve as the sheaf for both champion's and challenger's sword and depending on the person and their mental state, the type of sword they pull out of Anthy will vary.

The title of this series would be renamed Renaissance Fille Calice.

[boring crap that shouldn't have been posted]

Last edited by Atropos (11-30-2012 03:36:16 PM)

The_Lame_Goat wrote:

gorgeousshutin wrote:

'restrictive male gender role' idea

I had never really deeply considered that aspect of the male role, but now that you've brought it to light, I actually really want to see it being done.

You know, I kind of feel like it already is?

You don't have to whack any of the cast over the head with the It Sucks to Be Male Stick to portray the harm it does them.  The male cast members get plenty of angst dumped on them, and if they were able to see outside of the hetero-normative male gender roles that they enact, (as, perhaps, they do in the ending, to differing degrees) they wouldn't suffer so much.  The enforcement of said roles isn't obvious, but then it isn't in real life, either, most of the time.  Growing up in a liberal community, I've found that it's all too easy to start thinking that pathologic gender roles are just a thing of the past, a now-dispelled fairy tale, because the ways that they're enforced are usually really subtle.  Well, aside from all the homophobic graffiti.

What would I change?

Not much.

Extend the ending a bit, so we can actually see how the characters have grown, rather than having to guess based off like, one shot.  Also so we get to see what Akio does after Anthy's gone.