This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
Hello, study abroad student here, cut off from my DVDs and manga. In the absence of these, could anyone tell me where they think Ohtori is on the map? I dimly recollect the manga having more of a sense of place than the anime did-- maybe in the prologue, or when Akio takes Utena to the ocean? I would love to hear any guesses as to which ocean they're at, or even what island they're on.
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I think we eventually figured they were in Tokyo, because you could see Tokyo Tower.
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According to the forms the Black Rose duelists fill out to Mikage (such as Kanae and Kozue) it says they're in Kanagawa... this would make sense since you can see Tokyo Tower at one point, and the ferris wheel in the background of episode 33 is visible in that area (I should know since I've been there)
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...now I have to go all over Kanagawa to find the exact spot that Ohtori should be.
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In the manga, they mention Hou'ou'shi, or Hou'ou City, which is supposedly a sister-city to Amsterdam, but I have yet to find out where Hou'ou is.
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Lady Nilamarthiel wrote:
In the manga, they mention Hou'ou'shi, or Hou'ou City, which is supposedly a sister-city to Amsterdam, but I have yet to find out where Hou'ou is.
I always wondered about that. Believe me, I looked it up several times. I don't know why, but it just seems strange that if it is indeed in Tokyo, it's sister school is in Amsterdam. Does that not seem slightly odd to anyone else? And in 'The Barefoot Girl' I believe they mention the sister school. It is all just so odd. And then they have to throw in all the French and English influence. Gah. That's Ikuhara for you though.
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Edmonton has a sister city in China, Harbin I believe (not sure if it's still called that) and from what I can gather, all it means is that the cities do certain things for each other, like send delegations, give each other presents, and make it known that these two cities are tied together. Of course, I learned all of that in grade six, so that may have all changed by now.
Edit:
Edmonton is an official sister city of several cities worldwide:
Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
Wonju, Gangwon province, South Korea
Austin, Texas
Nashville, Tennessee
Hull, Quebec (now a part of Gatineau, Quebec)
Last edited by Yasha (03-28-2007 04:24:24 PM)
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Also in that same thread, there's a screencap of an envelope addressed to Miki and Kozue that shows their house is in Tokyo too.
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Raven Nightshade wrote:
Also in that same thread, there's a screencap of an envelope addressed to Miki and Kozue that shows their house is in Tokyo too.
Yes, but that's their house, not the school...
Just because you can see the Tokyo Tower doesn't mean you're in Tokyo. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, but it's a prefecture in itself, as is Tokyo...
Kozue's form is the same, and I don't know if we see Keiko's (I double checked for Wakaba and Mitsuru, and we don't get a look at their form...) But either way, it'd be redundant since they're all from the same place.
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Undead Princess wrote:
Raven Nightshade wrote:
Also in that same thread, there's a screencap of an envelope addressed to Miki and Kozue that shows their house is in Tokyo too.
Yes, but that's their house, not the school...
Just because you can see the Tokyo Tower doesn't mean you're in Tokyo. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, but it's a prefecture in itself, as is Tokyo...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v495/ … nagawa.jpg
Kozue's form is the same, and I don't know if we see Keiko's (I double checked for Wakaba and Mitsuru, and we don't get a look at their form...) But either way, it'd be redundant since they're all from the same place.
That's true. The address on Miki and Kozue's letter is for Suginami-ku, Tokyo, which is west-ish of Shinjuku.
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Yasha wrote:
Edmonton is an official sister city of several cities worldwide:
Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
Wonju, Gangwon province, South Korea
Austin, Texas
Nashville, Tennessee
Hull, Quebec (now a part of Gatineau, Quebec)
how cool! the town of Fairhaven MA (where i live) has a sister ciry in japan, Tosashimizu. in high shool we would have exchange students come down and stay for two weeks, we also have a fesitval for it and this year a friend of mine and i are having our own booth for it!! wer get to teach little brats to draw "anime" and teach a little about it. we were asked to make suggestions on what to play on a little tv behind us and i was like "UTENA!" and my friend just laughed at me. i dont know why that was the first thing into my head though.
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Yasha wrote:
I think we eventually figured they were in Tokyo, because you could see Tokyo Tower.
NULLIFIED!
That couldn't possibly be Tokyo for one reason and one reason only...
There's not enough room in the damn city for a sprawling beautiful academy.
I imagined that it was around kyoto for a while, but then I thought about it and realised that the general surrounding architecture is WAY too influenced by European designs to be in such a traditionalist area as Kyoto.
Ohtori is probably somewhere on Japan's coast near a populated area. But not Osaka. If it was... well... lets not even go there, shall we?
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hyacinth_black wrote:
Yasha wrote:
I think we eventually figured they were in Tokyo, because you could see Tokyo Tower.
NULLIFIED!
That couldn't possibly be Tokyo for one reason and one reason only...
There's not enough room in the damn city for a sprawling beautiful academy.
I suspect that the place is slighly, should we say 'floating' so, that we may witness landmarks of various places without rhyme or reason. I think that the letter that Miki's father sent to him and Kozue had "Tokyo" written on the address. Nevertheless, the place really doesn't feel like Tokyo, despite of the tower, like you say - it doesn't fit in the Metropolitan-area, physically or spiritually. Because of this I like to think that the Academy is exactly where it's convenient to be, at any given time.
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I always wondered about that. Believe me, I looked it up several times. I don't know why, but it just seems strange that if it is indeed in Tokyo, it's sister school is in Amsterdam. Does that not seem slightly odd to anyone else? And in 'The Barefoot Girl' I believe they mention the sister school. It is all just so odd. And then they have to throw in all the French and English influence. Gah. That's Ikuhara for you though.
It's the sister school to the one in Amsterdam, because that's where all the drugs are, and that's what makes the students there cattle-like. Because they're all high.
I mean, really, would you care if anything you saw at Ohtori seemed strange to you if you were high?
Probably not. It's just the drugs, man.
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Madam Cheezy wrote: because that's where all the drugs are, and that's what makes the students there cattle-like. Because they're all high.
Now I can't watch those crowds of students walking aimlessly in the credits without sniggering.
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Madam Cheezy wrote:
I mean, really, would you care if anything you saw at Ohtori seemed strange to you if you were high?
Probably not. It's just the drugs, man.
It took THIS freakin' long for somebody to say that? We've had the forums up for HOW LONG and somebody has the cojones to finally say that?
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I bet for those who don't attend Ohtori Academy, it looks like the run down basement of a house. Like in Fight Club. Except Tyler Durden has a Peter Pan complex.
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Well now, that is made of win. My explaination was always: "Think of Elric Melnibone..." the world expands when it has to. That may be the cold talking, though. Like winter, prefer summer for when I can swim.
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Quoth Giovanna:
I bet for those who don't attend Ohtori Academy, it looks like the run down basement of a house. Like in Fight Club. Except Tyler Durden has a Peter Pan complex.
Exactly. That's why it has so many could-be places. Once the Japanese police crack down on one house, they shuffle off to the next squat.
The roses? Bunched newspaper.
The swords? Broomsticks. (Movie reference, here. They even show it bluntly in the first duel. )
The rings are twist-ties, Chu-chu is a New York-sized rat, and Dios is seen as a god-like figure because he is, *gasp*, the best drug lord there is. He is the pied piper of LSD.
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In the Sega Saturn game, it is said that the Ohtori Academy is located in "Houou City".
Don't have a clue about what city is that, still I'm not good with that stuff
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Tangerine Lieutenant wrote:
In the Sega Saturn game, it is said that the Ohtori Academy is located in "Houou City".
Don't have a clue about what city is that, still I'm not good with that stuff
That's where it was in the manga I believe.
I always assumed it was a fake city they made up cause the name fits so well with Ohtori.
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allegoriest wrote:
Tangerine Lieutenant wrote:
In the Sega Saturn game, it is said that the Ohtori Academy is located in "Houou City".
Don't have a clue about what city is that, still I'm not good with that stuffThat's where it was in the manga I believe.
I always assumed it was a fake city they made up cause the name fits so well with Ohtori.
I'll check it out after some sleep, to tell U the truth I was wonderin' about the some thing.
Tomorrow we talk again, then.
Last edited by Tangerine Lieutenant (02-20-2010 12:54:50 AM)
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According to the JBC brazilian translation of the mangá, Ohtori Academy is located in Houou City (Cidade de Houou).
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What could be happening here is not a matter of time and space, but a matter of Multiversal proportions.
Ruminate on this: Who said the Earth that Ohtori Academy is in is OUR Earth? Sure, it might be in Japan, but nobody said it was the Japan we know. For all we know, Hou'ou City and Ohtori Academy are a reasonable part of an alternate Earth in an alternate Universe in an entirely Alternate Dimension. Which just so conveniently supports concepts like sorcery, which is as far as I'm concerned the only way Akio, Mikage and Anthy are able to do what they pull off in the series.
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