brian wrote:

The manga is better:
In the episode where Utena loses and regains Anthy and herself. Touga is manipulative but he also sincerely wants Utena. He shares his desire to reach the castle and the chick speech works better. The interaction between Utena, Anthy, and Wakaba is better done, and we see better how Utena touched Anthy's heart. The one regrettable thing in the manga is that Juri doesn't loan her sword to Utena. During the duel itself he is not as nasty to her even though he is practically killing her. Touga's reaction to defeat is more interesting. Instead of going into a long sulking depression, he jumps up, profers himself as Utena's servant, and keeps on scheming. He is much more resilient. The turning point in his character starts to happen here. Eventually he sees the truth better than Utena. He sees what she is getting suckered into and tries to stop her. At the end of it all he says, "Every time she bested me, I loved her all the more." That is much better than the almost unrelenting cruelty of the anime. In fact there he is needlessly cruel

Okay, I don't feel as guilty for liking manga Touga. I read the manga before watching the anime ... and have been a closeted Touga X Utena fan for years. Just been scared to admit it. I also got excited for Miki x Utena when I got to that part of the second volume. (shrugs).

I DID dislike manga Juri. It feels like she's Shiori and Nanami smashed into one character. Anime Juri is too amazing for words. I also felt deprived at the fact that Nanami wasn't in the manga at all (except for the photo). Once I saw her on screen, I immediately thought: "No way! Why couldn't I been introduced to her sooner?!" Then again, I don't think manga Touga would have manipulated his sister. Oh, and of course, there's Movie Akio (shivers).

YamPuff wrote:

I have to admit I'm not very fond of the first arc. When I first watched the series I was pretty unimpressed. Oh, look the school bitch. Oh, look the pretty playboy. Oh, look the tomboy. I didn't like or dislike any of the characters because I didn't really care too much about them. I have a feeling people are turned off the series for the same reason.

But by the time to Black Rose arc came around...and characters got deeper....

Agreed. I started watching the show from the Black Rose Arc onward, and I strongly suspect that if I had started from the beginning I may never have got through it. I mean, I like my mindfucks as much as anyone else around here does, but the first arc is a bit fluffy. I remember someone comparing the cover of the first DVD to the cover of the last and pointing out the huge contrast in tone and emotion between the two, and it's so true. The first arc gives only a smidgeon of an impression of what is to come...which is both interesting and off-putting. Ah, well...

Yasha wrote:

I'm not going to argue that the first arc is a shining example of what we love about the show, but just think of all the people that got lured in by it, started to care about the characters, and then were utterly horrified by the rest of the show but couldn't stop watching.

I swear to god, I think that's exactly why it was done that way and no one will convince me otherwise except the Be-Papas themselves. It makes us happy, precious.

Ha, that's what makes Akio's "wrap-up" of the first arc so appropriate. "Now, let's look back on the happy acid trip of the last twelve episodes BEFORE I SCREW YOU ALL TO HELL AND BACK BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" ...not that he'd word it that way. But we all knew that that was what he was thinking.

I am sad in some ways that I didn't see the show in its proper order, actually, but I don't know. Even within the first episode of the BRS there's a massive switch from "this is the slightly crazy school with the slightly crazy kids" beginning to the "WTF DID HE JUST STAB THAT GIRL IN A MORGUE WITH A ROSE?!" bit that I swear to God I started laughing with joy when it happened. I think I was just glad to find an anime that was that happy to screw with my mind. And the affair goes on.

Yasha wrote:

Welllll... one does have to admit that the episodes focusing on Nanami, Saionji, and Touga (directly after the curry episode... 9-12, I believe) were pretty damn dark. That's where the kitten killing came up, and the whole 'don't open it' and 'why does everyone keep on living if they're just going to die' and... yeah. It seems like as soon as they got into Touga's backgrounding (yes and Nanami and Saionji and Utena, I'm allowed to show favoritism sometimes ), it took a slightly curving left into the darker realms. So I don't really see those as fluffy. But the rest of the first season is pretty much just fluff, yeah.

Actually, I think Episode 3 is my least favorite. I can never remember whether there's even anything that advances the plot at all in that episode. God, stop with the dancing! More twisted sex and mindfuck plz!

Point on the darkness -- although from what I used to watch as a kid in the eighties, it probably wouldn't have surprised me as much. It seems to me that it was the nineties when the censors went nuts, because when I watch all my favourite things from childhood now I end up thinking: "Holy crap, they NEVER would let this through now!" Which sucks. I mean, I'm a messed up adult now, sure, but I'm sure it's not because I was allowed to watch the original cuts of Labyrinth or The Never-Ending Story. (...although then, maybe David Bowie's...hmm...)

I am with you on episode three. I can't stand it. Although it is weird...I can accept a car driving through a massive latticed window with no injuries to anyone in the vicinity (or to the car, mind you), but a flicked tablecloth turning into a dress? OH PLS. [laughs] I love how selective my willing suspension of disbelief can be.

Aww, I liked episode 3! It was cute and gay and it showed Anthy's fear of crowds. I love the first arc, because it was so much fun and that was when I started loving the series [by episode 3 I was obsessed]. Besides, if there's one thing I like better than a mindfuck series, it's a mindfuck series that starts out innocent and then sneaks up on you and fucks with your brain.

Oh, and I hate the BRS's version of Zettai Unmei. That male voice irks me to no end.

Last edited by Hina the Prince (03-18-2007 06:46:46 AM)

Hina the Prince wrote:

...it's a mindfuck series that starts out innocent and then sneaks up on you and fucks with your brain.

Hey, that's like a perfect interpretation of Akio and Utena's relationship! ...well, it wasn't JUST her brain, it was...um...hmm. This isn't IFD. I'll be quiet now.

...dammit, I need like an "angel" icon or something. But because I don't have one, I'll just have to be Satan instead. Never let it be said I don't have a sensible streak of practicality, people...

Lightice wrote:

Rae wrote:

... Not to mention Utena's uniform hiding underneath her gown.

Yeah, especially when her dress has no shoulders, while the uniform has huge shoulder-pads.

Yeah. Stealth!bike shorts I can accept, but stealth-shoulderpads?! Surely that's an oxymoron not even a ninja could pull off!

Either that, or Akio's projector has some really weird settings...aside from the usual, I mean.

Yasha wrote:

It seems like as soon as they got into Touga's backgrounding (yes and Nanami and Saionji and Utena, I'm allowed to show favoritism sometimes ), it took a slightly curving left into the darker realms. So I don't really see those as fluffy. But the rest of the first season is pretty much just fluff, yeah.

Touga's role in the first arc has always made me wonder if the animators quite knew where they were going with the series that early on. It's clear that there was a decided on narrative by the second half, a rarity in itself for shoujo from that era. I recall Ikuhara stating in an interview quite honestly that the first few episodes were meant to lure in the shoujo fanbase associated with Sailor Moon.

Touga's character in the first few episodes is so massively removed from anything like how he is even later in the arc that I tend to think they were still a wee bit on the fence as to how exactly they wanted to portray him. I would imagine his allegiances were set even this early on; I know in the manga he's already cut himself off from Akio, but Akio in the series would never put up with such a rebellion and then let Touga hang around Utena. Manga Akio's machinations were more passive. Even so, I wonder how Touga's development would have differed had his voice actor not gone MIA for a whole arc. I tend to assume that's where his development episodes might have fallen, but instead, we were given enough material elsewhere to develop him. Perhaps he was originally slated to be a slightly more sympathetic character? Say what you will about you personally relating, but it's pretty clear the series didn't try too hard to make you like him.

As for the fluff...honestly had Saionji not spent the whole first episode smacking Anthy around, I'd have lost interest. The frequent and casual abuse made me curious.

Giovanna wrote:

Perhaps he was originally slated to be a slightly more sympathetic character? Say what you will about you personally relating, but it's pretty clear the series didn't try too hard to make you like him.

Most of the wacky school stuff like the boxing kangaroo does advance the plot or at least highlight characters. Nanami's rescuing Mitsuru from the kangaroo is about the first time we see Nanami as something other than a total witch.

This may belong in a different thread but anime Touga is my least favorite Touga of all. Other Touga's had hideous childhoods and managed to turn out better. This one just seems spoiled by his family and corrupted by his talent for manipulating others. He's almost meaner than Akio -- even after there is no more reason to lie he won't tell Nanami the truth about her childhood.

In his final duel he does manage to convince himself that Utena will benefit from defeat and he was nice to Nanami when she first gave him the kitten but it's hard to find much else. There is a good chance he knew what happened to the kitten (a little crow told him) and that might explain a few things.

If someone starts listing all the impossibilities in these stories it will make a thread bulkier than all other threads combined.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

Hinotori wrote:

Part of what I love so much about Utena is that while it's glaringly obvious to you that we're not in Kansas anymore about 70% of the cast doesn't notice, even if it's right in everyone's face. Everyone mostly goes about toying around in the roles they set for themselves in the first few episodes. Utena's still a tomboy naively trying to save the day, Juri's still in love with her childhood best friend, and Nanami still has a brother-complex and most of them would rather pay attention to that than the weirdness that went on in the Black Rose arc.

Word. I always found that really funny.

Their obsessions... It reminds me of the time when Juri laments over the consequence of a person whose heart is enslaved by jewelries, and then she flashes a wrist full of dangling niceties and shows off her earrings with huge diamonds.

Hina the Prince wrote:

http://www.ohtori.nu/gallery/revelation … ap0552.jpg And its companion.

Utena looks like the victim of child molestation in that screenshot...

Hmm... "But Akio... mommy told me not to let people touch me there..."



Excuse me while I go bang my head on something so the badness might fall out my ear...

Oh, Gio....

Maarika wrote:

And the kangaroo episode .... It's just plain weird without any symbolism (or is there any symbolism? That's scary...). For example, you can find some interpretation for the egg in episode 27, but there's no way to make a passable excuse for using kangaroos or chickens!

It would be interesting to find symbolism in the kangaroo. At the moment he just more "Divine Justice" out to propel Nanami along her path to enlightenment and multiple broken bones. He's comic relief like the drunken servant in Hamlet. Maybe he's a reincarnated kitten.

It shows the brother-worship of Nanami. The envy of Mitsuru. Nanami's potential for altruism. Utena's deception by Touga's prince-act. Touga as more than just a playbody. Utena is not automatically able to triumph against all challenges.