The bit with Kanae and the apple is right at the top for me, followed closely by Utena's deflowering. Akio

There are a lot moments that in hindsight are creepy enough, but the one I'll always remember will be the rapey scene with Akio's body on top of Anthy, I know there are others that may qualify as creepier but when I first watched Utena I was what? 10 or 11 yrs old, it wasn't even about the obviously sexual act, I was already familiarized with that it was the coaxing and the  incest thing, because I already knew siblings aren't supposed to be THAT close, and the look on Anthy's face was just so.... I remember being in a bit of denial after that, I didn't even told my mom even tough I really wanted to ask, because she would probably freak out or something like that.

For personal (and probably too strange to relate here) I can't even watch the episode where Nanami drowns the kitten she gave to Touga. I even walk out of the room for references to it in later episodes. Second is probably Utena's deflowering. I kind of knew about the sibling incest before seeing the more blatant scenes about it, so I was a little hardened to the idea before exposure.

10? Damn. I didn't watch it until I was 12 (although I did watch NGE two years prior).

I dunno about Tsuwabuki's innocence; he repeatedly puts Nanami in positions that could harm her or even kill her; we could argue with some success that he was too young to understand the consequences of his actions, but it's still quietly terrifying that he could even conceive of such actions at such a young age. I think that if he's unintentionally intentionally killed her, he would have found someone else to fixate on and done the same thing all over again. He's a scary little bugger, that kid.

crystalwren wrote:

I dunno about Tsuwabuki's innocence; he repeatedly puts Nanami in positions that could harm her or even kill her; we could argue with some success that he was too young to understand the consequences of his actions, but it's still quietly terrifying that he could even conceive of such actions at such a young age. I think that if he's unintentionally intentionally killed her, he would have found someone else to fixate on and done the same thing all over again. He's a scary little bugger, that kid.

I doubt he did all those things to Nanami just to hurt her, he just wanted to be important to her - as long as he gets to be close to her, he doesn't even consider his actions might make him a creeper.
His inability to perceive the consequences of of what he did is exactly what makes him so innocent and exploitable - he didn't feel like he was doing anything wrong. Innocence doesn't equal goody-goodness, in my opinion. I would even argue that his behavior has less to do with his age, and more with the fact that no one seems to be raising this kid, or care about how he behaves.

It is terrifying, but I don't think he had that in mind at all. If someone had told him upfront that he was being an obsessive creeper, instead of dancing around the issue (like everyone did), I think the awareness that he was unknowingly hurting his Nanami-sama would hit him quite hard.
Anyway, what scared me the most in that scene is that we're not used to seeing children in such situations. Most of his issues could have been eliminated if someone actually cared for that kid's well-being, but this being Ohtori, he's on his own. I think my reactions to those scenes were pretty subjective all in all, though.

Last edited by Snow (11-27-2013 12:41:34 AM)

The positioning of the shots and the way Utena is drawn while she's in the bed, how they animate her as so much more attractive and sexual is all because we, the audience, are seeing her literally from inside Akio's head.

Oh my gosh, I never really realized that!  I guess that I sort of did, but I never actually put two and two together and realized that we were Akio in that scene
I always found the most disturbing scenes to be the ones where Akio and Anthy were acting semi-normal in front of other characters, TBH.  The whole idea of a facade of wholesomeness hiding something like that gives me the heebie-jeebies.  Especially when they smiled at each other.

Yasha wrote:

Chrome Homura wrote:

...And then Kozue and Touga also play their respective parts in further corrupting the two, Nanami and Saionji are the only people who manage to escape this demented clique, and the 4 of them end up developing to the point where they all live together... but it's just messed the hell up because of how they've molded eachother and the whole story turns out like some terrifying, twisted mockery of a family. Remember how Mitsuru said he wanted to be adopted by the Kiryuus?


...

Seriously guys, Miki's totally half-adopted into the Kiryuu family. That's why it's Touga that usually manipulates him. They have a relationship that's largely unexplored by the series, but you see hints of it here and there-- they're super-familiar with each other, to the point where Touga can tell the difference in Miki's mood by the way he plays the piano. I wrote an essay on it a long time ago, but I think it still holds up.

With this in mind, you also kind of have to wonder... In his tricky fashion we can assume Touga has the means to pretty much make Miki do whatever it is he wants, and he has achieved these means after having spent time with the kid, in spite of plenty of other relationships in his life of varying priority levels. But what conclusion has Touga reached in his assessment of Miki's character? When he planned his involvement in the events that comprised most of ep.5, it's safe to say Touga was fairly confident things would go the way he expected them to, considering it went perfectly and all. He invited Kozue to meet him at the piano room, did whatever naughty things they did together, and if I'm looking at the footage correctly, quite possibly literally shoved her on her way out the door right as Miki opened it. After that all he had to do was act casual, say a few vague words, and his work was done. He spent the entire job having fun, I'd say that's a considerable accomplishment by itself.

(As an aside, I can't help but imagine Touga thinking "I want them to have a little run-in with eachother..." while noticing the joke, because obviously the thought of facilitating an interaction between two people just by causing them to physically collide with eachother is pretty funny, at least to me...)

What my question is, what particular point is it that gives him the most confidence that his plans will work, aside from his own pride? Does he consider it worthwhile to have spent the time learning the finer details of how to use him as a pawn (as well as the investment's added effect of building Miki's trust in him, thus further facilitating such decisions) or is Miki being generally young and impressionable (the surface level assessment) just the bigger slice of the pie from his particular perspective? I mean... what's his opinion on that?

It's a grey area. Removed from the lesbian corrective thing, it's a scenario that's well known to be SUPER DUPER ROMANTIC. There is a certain, often no small amount, of aggressiveness that a lot of women find very attractive. Especially in the context of fantasy. Women who would not want to get accosted by a lecherous employer in real life still think Secretary is a sexy movie.

I've never really taken that scene for being "corrective," though I suppose it really is. Whether Ruka means it to be or it's just being played that way to the audience. I guess the question to ask would be would Ruka do anything different if the locket contained a boy's picture? I actually think not. But that he feels all his actions in this are for her own good doesn't make it look any better for him here. Although I suspect he knows no matter how good he kisses, it won't change her.

In the early days of the fandom, it was Simply Not Said that episode 33 is from Akio's point of view. No one wanted to hear they were forced into his gaze. Even now I've seen people argue you're not in any particular POV. To me, it's so stunningly plain you have Akio's that it never occurred to me to think anything else. And...Akio's point of view is disturbing. It's supposed to be. You're supposed to feel dirty afterward. You're not supposed to like it. You're not supposed to enjoy seeing the things Akio chooses to pay attention to and focus on. That her concentration wanders and she yammers. That she has difficulty maintaining eye contact. That she's stretching, fidgeting, and basically betraying every sign of nervousness that she could.

He's enjoying watching her make her choice. He's enjoying that it's so hard for her, and so inevitable despite it. He's enjoying that she's nervous. And he's enjoying watching the change. The girl he takes into the hotel, the woman, sort of, he comes out of it with. (They even draw her differently afterward.)

He's enjoying himself. You, in his shoes, are supposed to be horrified. More so than you'd be if you just watched the scene portrayed indifferently.

Of course, some of us just had entirely the wrong reaction to that episode and are disturbed for more disturbing reasons.

I know, it's stunning how such an overall poorly animated show has such subtlety buried in the frequent inability to draw their own characters well.

That said I do like how the characters age. Touga and Saionji especially are drawn in a much more youthful bishonen style in the first arc. By the time you meet them again they look quite different. (Saionji in the BRS actually seems like a halfway point between the styles, even, sharper but not yet the hard lines of later on.)

I just remembered, the episode where Miki and his sister got a letter from their mother and later he gets a phone call from his father saying he's remarrying, OMG that scene when you see the father on the phone and asking Miki if he wants to talk to the step-mom, and you see its the Rose Bride!!!!!! because of the clothes!!! its an Anthy!!! like holy fuck that was such a creepy scene, like Anthy's getting everyone.

Yukio Oikawa wrote:

I can't even begin to imagine how traumatic it must have been for Nanami. Imagine if someone you really looked up to (maybe an older sibling, or a teacher) and who you thought would never hurt you turned out o be the one person who set out to do you most harm? (The worst cases of moletstation involve not only the act but the breaking of a certain trust, when done by a person whom the victim held in high esteem).

I think this is all the worse for Nanami because she doesn't quite see him as betraying her trust. Probably a common thread with these kinds of molestation cases, but I think right up to the moment he kisses her, she thinks on some, most, levels that that's exactly what she wants. She wants intimacy with him, and knowing she can't have it by blood alone (something she's expected for some time, since up to this point a lot of her character has focused on the widening gap between her and her brother as they mature) she thinks as a lover she can reobtain something of it. But.

Nanami presents herself as an incredibly uncompromising person. That's easy when we're talking about the latest fashions or punishing those she thinks of as insects. Her rejecting Touga in the car always struck me as an important moment in her growing up, because in this, she didn't know, maybe we didn't know, though Touga no doubt did, exactly how uncompromising she'd be. When faced with an option that could have maybe, through enough self-delusion, given her something back that she wanted, she said no, because she wouldn't compromise. She won't be a floozie. Even a high ranking one.

Not to forgive his behavior, which is disgusting in these episodes, but I think Touga knew just as well as Akio did, and without being told, that Nanami wasn't going to accept such terms. She'd lash out at the world and turn to blind rage before she'd be simply a lover of his. It's kind of a backhanded compliment, probably the only circumstances where being rejected felt good. He's so important to her that she won't settle for less of him than she had. She'd rather have nothing.

It's definitely a disturbing moment, but strangely, I see it through Touga's eyes more than Nanami's, and somehow it's more disturbing than that. Touga knows the script, he knows what she'll do, but even so...it was just as disturbing for him, I think. Nanami is kissed by the man of her dreams, thinking despite years of history that he's not related to her. Technically, from her perspective, deeper feelings aside, him kissing her is not wrong anymore, in the sense of moral outrage. This is certainly not to undermine the complicated mess of emotions for her, but the simple act itself is technically benign.

Touga, however, knows full well she is his sister, and I don't think he's quite so morally corrupt that that doesn't phase him. He's her brother, and has probably most of his life thought of her half as that, and half as his child. He raised her, after all, and now he's violating her, and not because he wants the enjoyment of the hunt. (That pleasure is Akio's, even here, where he's not cashing in on the liplock himself.) So here he is, kissing his sister, with his fucked up power dynamics male lover looking on, and while he's 99.9% sure she'll reject him...because Akio's there, if she doesn't...he has to make good on it. And that thought, remote as it is, must turn his stomach.