zevrem wrote:

Word is that Tabris was a manifestation of Evangelion director Hideaki Anno's sexual attraction to Ikuhara himself.

What . . . ?

Anyway, on what I think Ikuhara intends for Akio the Ends of the World to be:
http://ohtori.nu/creators/a_ikuhara1.html

Ikuhara:  You know that a great many students commit suicide.
Ikuhara:  I think they're unable to imagine a happy future.
Ikuhara:  To put it more bluntly, they look at their mothers and fathers, who should be
Ikuhara:  motivating them for their future, and they can't imagine they will grow up to be happy.
Ikuhara:  The grownups they communicate with are their parents, their teachers and the like.
Ikuhara:  But looking at them, they can never be convinced that their future will be happy.
Ikuhara:  I don't think that's because of their parents, but because of their lack of imagination.
Ikuhara:  That may apply to me, too, though. I'm not so sure if I can portray this very well toward the audience, but...
Ikuhara:  Through this, you may be able to imagine a happy future,
Ikuhara:  or through this, you might be able to go on living happily. Or...
Ikuhara:  These are the sorts of things I wish to portray.
Ikuhara:  To put it nicely, this is why Utena is naive and foolish. She speaks of her Prince and the like, at her age.
Ikuhara:  To our sensibilities, we think of that as stupid.
Ikuhara:  I want to show that this sensibility of ours,
Ikuhara:  that leads us to think of that as stupid, is itself absurd.

The Ends of the World represents hopelessness, specifically, the hopelessness that the young feel when they look at the corrupted/unhappy adults around them (note how almost all adults in SKU are presented as bad role models for the young).  The Ends of the World is a powerful force (think society - one that pressures the young to conform and grow into its flawed definition of "adult") that limits the imagination of the young, such that they can only see themselves growing up to become like the flawed adults they hate, and despair as result.  Utena, on the other hand, symbolizes a force that dares the young to imagine how they can become something better than the flawed adults they see around them (think Prince); it's a "foolishly irrational" yet "spiritually empowering" force - one that can give power to counter despair.  The interaction between these two opposing forces - along with their respective influences on a number of passionate young people - makes up the story of TV SKU.

Last edited by gorgeousshutin (03-29-2013 04:13:21 PM)

zevrem wrote:

They look at their boring, quietly miserable parents and they become afraid of ending up like them.

And, realistically speaking, most of them will likely end up as just that; this is in part due to the limits set by their society, and in part due to their own limited strengths.

I believe that Akio - esp. his Ends of the World side - represents harsh realism to the point of being limiting-ly pessimistic.  His "knowing the whole of the world" (EP 39) allows him to play society like a fiddle, yet his inability to "dream impossible dreams" also ties him down.  Unable to be idealistic like Utena is, Akio could never sail above society-supported ideals; no matter how powerful to the world, he's really still a prisoner locked in a coffin called cynicism.

Last edited by gorgeousshutin (03-29-2013 05:35:38 PM)