Um does the next episode commentary count? Because Utena makes a comment on one of them that there's a rumor that Juri loves Shiori going around.
Also Touga seems to know about the other duelists dirty little secrets. He's pretty good at making enigmatic statements about them. Saionji actually tells him about the exchange journal on screen.

Yasha wrote:

Mai_Kanzaki wrote:

Um does the next episode commentary count? Because Utena makes a comment on one of them that there's a rumor that Juri loves Shiori going around.

I think we eventually decided in one of the threads that the next episode commentary doesn't count towards what they know in the show, since they say things in the commentary that don't carry over to their knowledge in the show. I can't pull up any evidence to back it up right now, though, so feel free to reopen the debate.

That's from the same thread too. I didn't want to bring it up because I was already going overly long to start with. But one of the examples:

Episode 13 wrote:

Anthy:  Utena-sama, let me introduce my older brother to you.
Utena:  What? You have a brother?
Anthy:  My brother doesn't know that I'm the Rose Bride or about the Duelist's Code.
Anthy:  Please, Utena-sama, you must keep this a secret from him.
Anthy:  I don't want to burden him.
Utena:  But, suspicious people are after your brother's fiancee.
Utena:  Next time on Shoujo Kakumei Utena: The Boys of the Black Rose
Anthy:  The Absolute Destiny: Apocalypse.

Utena has no idea that 'suspicious people' are after Kanae in the following episode. She doesn't know anything about Mikage until much later and she never sees Mamiya. So even though nothing she said is untrue about the next episode, it is untrue that Utena has this knowledge. At the same time, Anthy tells the same lies here that she will tell Utena again in the episode proper.

Whether a viewer wants to take what's said in the previews to be canonical or not is, of course, up to them. But to do so requires extrapolated justification as to how it can exist within the context of the series itself, being that on its own it clearly breaks the fourth wall. Picking and choosing certain excerpts as being facts at any given time would be dangerous.

Yasha wrote:

Touga is probably the world's biggest gossip whore, I swear to god. I'll bet he knows a lot about everything that goes on in the school. That cell phone stapled to his ear isn't just for fun. Actually, his intelligence network isn't too bad, either-- if you're sleeping with half the girls in the school, you get all the pillow talk from them too. I think he'd make it a point to dig up dirt on the other duellists; even aside from the position he's in, and the manipulative sort of 'job' he has as Seitokaicho, he's the type of person who would enjoy having the dirt on everyone, just in case he needed to use it.

I agree, in fact I think Touga enjoys having dirt on people even if he never needs to use it. That said, it's also in his character to intimate he has more knowledge than he actually does. Hence why he makes enigmatic statements instead of obvious ones, so that he doesn't get tripped up in details. He knows Juri has a secret; that she wants the power to revolutionize the world to make a hidden desire come true. Yet there's no indication he is aware of what the secret actually is. That probably doesn't matter to him, since all he has to do is elude to knowing in order to have the same effect.

Ragnarok wrote:

I agree, in fact I think Touga enjoys having dirt on people even if he never needs to use it. That said, it's also in his character to intimate he has more knowledge than he actually does. Hence why he makes enigmatic statements instead of obvious ones, so that he doesn't get tripped up in details. He knows Juri has a secret; that she wants the power to revolutionize the world to make a hidden desire come true. Yet there's no indication he is aware of what the secret actually is. That probably doesn't matter to him, since all he has to do is elude to knowing in order to have the same effect.

Oh yeah, definitely. I bet he'd have a girly little hissy fit if his allusion was wrong, though. Somewhere private so that no one saw him do it.

Kidding, kidding, but for me that's a disturbingly real mental picture. The guy's got balls to pull off that sort of thing, though. Goodness knows I would never want to get caught out not knowing something I said I knew. It's true that you don't have to know all of the details to know what's going on inside someone's head. People can be disturbingly predictable. If I saw someone clutching a locket and looking grim, I'd take note of it, and if it happened more than once, I'd know there was something important there. Furthermore, if the person clutching the locket never mentioned it or showed that they wore it, I would know it was a secret thing. That's really all it would take for me to figure out that I needed to know more about the locket; Touga might have just seen Juri a couple of times and ran with what he had.

Well, Shiori said that she and Juri grew up together, so one would assume they go a ways back.

Yasha wrote:

The guy's got balls to pull off that sort of thing, though.

Nevermind the assumptions he makes about Juri, his whole prank in the end of the Student Council Arc ran on impressively little information for how effective it was. But then at that point, Touga was calculating for 'girl', and succeeded for a short time because Utena still fell in places into that set of assumptions he carries.

Is this the symbolic relevance of him throwing knives while he discusses Juri's problem in the Student Council meeting? Throwing a knife is a lot like reading people on small pieces of information. There's a calculation involved, but most people don't actually do the math to make a successful throw. They learn how to just do it, and the process of thought because almost indiscernible from genuine intuition. Touga's throwing knives at the board while analyzing, out loud, Juri's position, and even when blindfolded, he doesn't miss, just as even with very little information to draw from, he has Juri's number down.

Then there's Juri on the gossip front. She seems to be herself keenly aware of what goes on in the school. Kozue comments on this. Obviously, her sources are different, or drawn from differently, than Touga's, although there are benefits and drawbacks to both methods. I get the impression Juri does very little with very much information, where Touga gets a little information and draws a lot from it.

Saionji knows the least and understands the most. Miki knows his homework and he knows your homework, but seems to know little beyond what he learns from Juri, and even with that information, wouldn't know what to do with it.

Dammit Giovanna why are you so damn good at saying what I'm trying to say but can't?

Romanticide wrote:

I have always said is not the same being intelligent and/or litterate and being smart.

Very true. I'm very good in school when I pay attention but I can't read people at all.

Well, that was the conclusion drawn, and I agreed to play by the rules, but I never agreed that episode commentary didn't count. :)  Things said there mean something to me, but it's so inconclusive that I recognize it's not good evidence for using in our conversations.

Because I assume (and it is an assumption) that anything Utena says in the Next-Episode bits she *will learn* in the next episode and know after that.  But I know it's impossible prove that assumption and that's likely it's not really her talking "in-character."

I still think that Utena has to be aware that Juri "has a crush on" Shiori by Episode 37, after all the duels and particularly the whole thing with Ruka.  The episode commentary is just interesting.

Juri:  Thinking back, despite being a member of the Student Council, I was thinking only of myself.
Juri:  And it's pathetic, but I've got my hands full with my own problems even now.
Utena:  Are you talking about Shiori-san?
Juri:  Why is it?
Juri:  Why can't I have any control over my own feelings?
Juri:  What will you do about Anthy?
Utena:  What?
Juri:  You love her, right?
Utena:  Well...it's not like your "love".
Utena:  Mine is pure, and...well, I guess yours is pure too, but...
Utena:  But I can't...Himemiya...
Utena:  any longer...

Miki:  Hey, Tenjou-senpai.
Utena:  What?
Miki:  I've been really worried about you lately.
Juri:  Well well, is that a confession?
Utena:  Miki loves Himemiya, right?
Miki:  Can't I switch over to you?
Utena:  I'll think about it.
Juri:  Could I have a picture of you too?
Utena:  What for?
Juri:  I was thinking of putting in the new pendant I just bought.
Miki:  Oh man, a strong rival just appeared.
Nanami:  What are you, idiots?

That whole bit of dialog equalizes Miki's statement that he might "switch" his crush from Himemiya to Utena with Juri's request for Utena's picture, since Juri is joking that she also might "switch" her crush from Shiori to Utena.  Utena laughs, and I can't imagine why she would without understanding the meaning behind that statement.  I don't think it's funny, otherwise.

Last edited by rhyaniwyn (03-23-2007 03:02:49 PM)