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Utena

Feb. 3rd, 2004 08:18 pm
branchandroot: oak against sky (Default)
[personal profile] branchandroot
Hindu mythology is just written all over this show. As if the physical appearance of Dios/Akio and Anthy weren't enough, we're whapped over the head with all the symbols associated with Nanami: elephants, cows, eggs. The power to revolutionize, to turn that is, harks strongly to the whole concept of yugas--well, actually, to the cycle of time in general, which has all sorts of manifestations in Buddhism. As for Dios/Akio, he rings loud Trimurti bells, only missing Brahma, which seems to be a major plot point. What is behind the Rose Gate, I would say, is the aspect of the Creator. See, I take Dios as the Preserver (Vishnu) and Akio as the Destroyer (Shiva). Dios is the one who preserves a stable condition (for all girls to be princesses, to be protected from all trouble). Akio, the Morning Star, the End of the World, well, what more do we really need to say? The Preserver's time ended when his sister sealed him away to save his life, sacrificing and suspending her own life by doing so. The Destroyer's time ends when Utena makes it through the gate and offers a new choice to Anthy. So it's back around to the Creator.

Anthy represents, I think, not so much power as a chance, an opportunity to turn the ages. She is the occasion of agency, but doesn't have any of her own except at the very beginning, when she chooses to end the Preserver's age and take on the hatred that action engenders, and at the very end, when she reaches out to Utena, making a new choice and ending the Destroyer's age also.

Agency is a complicated thing in Utena. Akio attempts, more or less, to steal Utena's agency, which I expect is why he fails. He can never make it though the Gate, because he simply doesn't have the capacity--he can't change, he is, as Anthy says at the end, locked in his cozy coffin. I think that's what the progression of the swords is all about. We start with normal, external swords; Black Rose moves to using the sword/soul/agency of another person, stolen; the final arc progresses to using one's own sword/soul/agency, called forth in cooperation with someone else. That last is something that cannot be effectively stolen.

Love and sex are another tangled item here, not least because I can't right offhand think of an example of love in this story that is not also sexual. Well, maybe Wakaba. As the story went on I started to think of the sexuality as radiating from Akio, but I wound up thinking of it as ultimately coming from Anthy. That, I think, is the witch aspect, what Kozue calls impure, the opposite of a proper princess. It's filtered through the age of the Destroyer, though, which is what I think makes it such a tangled thing, always doubled back on itself, claustrophobic, hurtful. The three sibling pairs, Juri and Shiori, definitely Saionji and Anthy, Saionji and Touga, Mikage and Mamiya, etc.--they're all twisted up. There is also that rather disturbing shot toward the end of Anthy riding in the car with Akio; at first she looks and sounds like she's experiencing sexual pleasure, especially given the seductive connotations of that car, and then Akio asks if she's in pain and we see a flash of the swords. Sex and pain are completely elided at that point, and it made me wonder if they weren't elided all along. Another possibility for why the sexuality sourced in Anthy is so troubled, if it's actually an expression of her agony.

The repeating motifs, on the other hand, are simply a joy: circles like the carousel, spirals like the stairs up to the dueling ground--figures of no escape. The elevator in the Black Rose arc, with the butterfly regressing until we're left with a leaf: something drawing into itself until its nature changes completely. The gondola, which looks like it's traveling straight up, when the outside view shows it tilted--or is it the castle and ground that are tilted? The cameras and photographs that seem to alter rather than capture a scene--capturing souls? And, of course, the basic unit of Duelist and Bride, in which so many Duelists seek to substitute a Bride that will not put them to the test that Anthy's imprisonment will.

Curious, that the movie focused so much more tightly on the psychological aspect, the idea of the school as, more or less, the inside of one's head, the castle as a trap, the whole thing as a metaphor of growing up and moving into the outside world, the world outside oneself, one's own mind, outside the stories and pretty, simple roles. It did make it much clearer that the sexuality starts with Anthy, and that Utena is the vehicle, literally, of her power and will should she choose to use them.

*happy sigh* Great series.

Date: 2004-02-03 06:37 pm (UTC)
ext_11704: (Default)
From: [identity profile] q-sama.livejournal.com
I don't have a lot of time to comment on your excellent analysis. I just wanted to run in and squee "Nanami/Touga!" ^___^

Date: 2004-02-03 06:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] moumusu.livejournal.com
I saw the end of Utena like two years ago, so all I remember is thinking that Utena was, like, the IDEALEST girl, ever. Made me love pink hair. (And no, I don't have anything smarter to say XB)

Re:

Date: 2004-02-03 07:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] moumusu.livejournal.com
SAME HERE. And I got over the whole annoying tiny child thing after a while, but...only after I saw Utena =_=

Date: 2004-02-03 08:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ex-res-judic324.livejournal.com
Utena is and always will be my favorite anime for all its wide and varied levels of metaphor, misdirection, symbolism, and theory. I could happily sit and analyze that anime for days.

The thing that got me about this anime is the role of men. The fact thatwe have an anime where the women really are the protagonists, not simply acting as foils for male characters or representations of ideals. None of the characters (except with the notible exception of Utena) are 'ideals' rather they are archetypes and alegories(sp).

I always thought of the movie as something of a sequel. Of Anthy coming back to lead Utena out of the place she became trapped in when she fought to free Anthy, and this time it was Anthy's turn. (except, the school being the labyrinth that it is, Anthy is caught again) because in that school Touga and Anthy are already dead. Touga more clearly a 'ghost' that everyone *but* Anthy and Utena walk through.

But there is such a wealth here. Reading someone elses analysis of the series always makes me want to write for it. #^_^# But I haven't the nerve. It is, very much, a yuri writer's ideal.

Re:

Date: 2004-02-04 11:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ex-res-judic324.livejournal.com
Anthy is so much more active, decisive in the movie. She chooses Utena right in the beginning when she tackles her, kisses her, and offers herself right there. Anthy is much more ... aggressive, and Utena is the one who needs to be shown the open door. Utena is the one who has to make the choice, rather than Anthy. (though that gets confused at the very end a bit because Anthy also has to choose to finally break not just with Akio but also with Dios, because her brother is mostly in the Dios form rather than the Akio form). And have I mentioned that I love, love, love her voice in the movie? It's one of the sexiest things I've ever heard. [lusts]

The idea of writing Utena terrified me for a long time but my style of writing is starting to get heavily influenced by T.S. Eliot and the like, so the idea of writing something short, something descriptive, though not necessarily real (as in ground in the real world, but rather a place where the real and the imaginary are hard to disentwin.) And... It's not that I would be adding anything, but more ... exploring what's in my head.

It doesn't help that the relationship between Anthy/Utena--specially the movie version, is such a beautiful vehicle for me to deal with some of my own issues regarding sex, sexuality, and the expression of sexuality. Rather like Relena/Dorothy is a way for me to deal with my ex issues. The offer of a completely new way of writing is so very seductive.

Date: 2004-02-03 11:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] claireoujisama.livejournal.com
...actually, that's a really interesting way of looking at the Anthy/Dios/Akio dynamic, in the terms of Indian mythology. I mean, I've run across vague ideas of that sort before but never expressed as succintly as this, and it's really fascinating. Makes me wish I knew more about Hindu mythology. Hmm. Should have got my Indian best friend to watch the series with me when we still lived in the same city, I suppose, [laughs]

Er, don't mind me. I'm a friend of [livejournal.com profile] narie's, just passing through because she mentioned you did an Utena-centric entry. I am a whore for that show and love to hear almost any opinion on it, hence why I dropped by. Damn, but I love that show.

Re:

Date: 2004-02-06 01:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] claireoujisama.livejournal.com
I agree with you on the dualism front...there's a LOT of that going around in the series that you have to take with a grain of salt. I mean, there's Mikage/Mamiya and Utena/Anthy to consider, for starters. You can say the first is the darker reflection of the second, but there's quite simply more to it than that. There are so many layers to everything in this show, and it's peeling them all back that's the fun part!

(And that of course begs the question...is the show layered like an onion, or like a cake...[grins])

I also agree with you on the interpretation of the end of the show -- and I have to say that's the most elegant way I've heard the "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" moral of the story explained. Anthy needed Utena to escape her coffin, sure, but Utena could only open the damned thing. Anthy was the one who had to climb out of it. (Which always makes me wonder...could you in theory do the same thing for Akio, if he could ever be made to want to change? Hmm. But then a redeemed Akio isn't half as much fun as the unredeemed version...)

This show has been punching my Analyse This! buttons for YEARS. I've already written two too long essays about this damn show. Next I will be getting into Hindu mythology just so I can write something equally rambling about Nanami...

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