Utena: Variations
Oct. 20th, 2006 02:35 pmUtena has four different versions: the TV series, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, the movie, Adolescence Mokushiroku , the manga, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, and the manga, Adolescence Mokushiroku . The different versions do not build on each other or carry on each other's plotlines, and the manga, which came after the anime, do not cleave very closely to the original. Instead, each variation retells the whole story in a different way.
The movie is considerably more elusive, and allusive too, in its storytelling than the TV series. The uncovering of past events makes up most of the action, all bearing down on the present moment, which is merely a sketchy framework for most of the length of the movie. It isn't until the very end that much action takes place in the present.
One of the more curious aspects of this past-actions focus is that many characters seem to be dead. Anthy's condition is more problematic than the others, but the silhouette shown of her, when she and Utena are sketching each other, shows an empty space where her heart should be, and the video shown of her and Akio suggests that he may have been the one to cut it out. That same video, of course, shows him falling to his death. Touga, we learn after several there-and-then-gone appearances, drowned while saving a girl who had fallen into the water; rather than Dios, in this iteration it is Touga who seems to be Utena's exemplar of what a Prince should be.
The movie is also far more intensely and explicitly sexual than the TV series. One of the things that is clearer in the movie is that the sexuality starts with Anthy, and that Utena is the vehicle, literally, of Anthy's power and will, should she chose to use them.
This dovetails with the way in which several of the symbols the movie shares with the TV series have altered. The car, for instance, has become a genuine movement, a true mode of progress, and rather than being left driverless by Akio, it is driven by Anthy. The direction is hers while the motive force is Utena's, and this is sufficient for them to succeed. The driverless cars appear only as lesser incarnations of the worst-trapped characters such as Kozue and Shiori. The metaphor of the castle is also intensified. Rather then simply being an unreachable illusion, the castle is a tempting mirage that is supported and run by huge mechanical treads that seem to seek actively to destroy anyone attempting to escape. The brother who appears along with the castle is also altered; he looks like Akio, older and taller, but he wears the uniform and loose hair that mark Dios. Perhaps Dios does not exist in the movie world, and it is merely a guise. Perhaps, with Akio's death, the two are rejoined in this form. Perhaps this is simply emphasizing the fact that Dios is as much a dead end, in his own way, as Akio. What he is urging Anthy to do, after all, is remain in stasis, as if dead, which matches well with the notion of Dios as a perversion of the Preserver.
The most significant difference, of course, is that Anthy and Utena do escape together. And this suggests a possibility that was first pointed out to me by a friend, that it is possible to read the movie as a continuation of the TV series--as the next round in the spiral of repetition. If Utena did not understand Anthy's freedom, she may well have been trapped and Anthy returned to free her in turn, and both of them have to make the round of the story one more time to win all the way free. This would certainly fit with the stronger awareness and intentionality that Anthy shows in the movie. Anthy of the movie is no longer passive.
Another way to read these differences is that this is the Utena story as it would take place at a particular moment in time: adolescence, as the title indicates. This would also account for the more active and aggressive sexuality, and for the more marked and vivid metaphors.
The manga, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, leaves me with the irresistible impression that Saito was sorry for Touga, and wanted to make it up to him. The TV series gives us Touga as a dupe, a would-be manipulator who is, himself, being used by Akio and who is discarded in the end. The movie makes him a dead Prince, which efficiently displays just how much of a dead-end Princeliness is in all of these stories. This manga, however, redeems him. He starts out attempting to manipulate and seduce Utena into the Princess role, but when she defeats him he experiences his own personal revolution. He comes to join Utena and Anthy in their isolated home and be Utena's domestic help.
More than that, he is the one who recalls her, when she succumbs to Akio's manipulations, and tells her that this (the Princess) is not what he admires and follows.
The manga Adolescence Mokushiroku follows the movie fairly closely, but the text makes it much clearer that the strange happenings, and the passion that motivates the duelists are all reflections of trauma. Touga drowns rescuing Utena and she denies the memory and tries to become him. Touga seeks power as a Prince and Duelist to protect himself from ever being victimized again. Anthy's sexuality as the Rose Bride directly repeats the way she shared her brother's desire for her. In fact, Akio states directly that the entire world of the academy is Anthy's creation, in an attempt to retrieve or preserve or replace her brother. The manga also makes is considerably clearer that half the cast is dead, and the fact that they are still walking around shocks Utena, allowing the audience to be surprised as well.
In short, the manga views its own content as strange, mysterious, perverse, which the movie doesn't.
As in all versions of the story, however, the roles of Prince and Princess are traps--living deaths that only repeat themselves, moving in a closed circle forever. Anthy is at the center of the world, but only in order to give her power to another. Utena could be the Prince at the center with her, but only by drowning herself in her idealized memories of the dead past. In this version, Anthy's power to begin and end the closed world is even more marked than usual, and it takes only a declaration from her to break free.
And in this manga, as in the other manga, Touga is the one who tells Utena what she needs to do to free herself.
With Butter
The movie is considerably more elusive, and allusive too, in its storytelling than the TV series. The uncovering of past events makes up most of the action, all bearing down on the present moment, which is merely a sketchy framework for most of the length of the movie. It isn't until the very end that much action takes place in the present.
One of the more curious aspects of this past-actions focus is that many characters seem to be dead. Anthy's condition is more problematic than the others, but the silhouette shown of her, when she and Utena are sketching each other, shows an empty space where her heart should be, and the video shown of her and Akio suggests that he may have been the one to cut it out. That same video, of course, shows him falling to his death. Touga, we learn after several there-and-then-gone appearances, drowned while saving a girl who had fallen into the water; rather than Dios, in this iteration it is Touga who seems to be Utena's exemplar of what a Prince should be.
The movie is also far more intensely and explicitly sexual than the TV series. One of the things that is clearer in the movie is that the sexuality starts with Anthy, and that Utena is the vehicle, literally, of Anthy's power and will, should she chose to use them.
This dovetails with the way in which several of the symbols the movie shares with the TV series have altered. The car, for instance, has become a genuine movement, a true mode of progress, and rather than being left driverless by Akio, it is driven by Anthy. The direction is hers while the motive force is Utena's, and this is sufficient for them to succeed. The driverless cars appear only as lesser incarnations of the worst-trapped characters such as Kozue and Shiori. The metaphor of the castle is also intensified. Rather then simply being an unreachable illusion, the castle is a tempting mirage that is supported and run by huge mechanical treads that seem to seek actively to destroy anyone attempting to escape. The brother who appears along with the castle is also altered; he looks like Akio, older and taller, but he wears the uniform and loose hair that mark Dios. Perhaps Dios does not exist in the movie world, and it is merely a guise. Perhaps, with Akio's death, the two are rejoined in this form. Perhaps this is simply emphasizing the fact that Dios is as much a dead end, in his own way, as Akio. What he is urging Anthy to do, after all, is remain in stasis, as if dead, which matches well with the notion of Dios as a perversion of the Preserver.
The most significant difference, of course, is that Anthy and Utena do escape together. And this suggests a possibility that was first pointed out to me by a friend, that it is possible to read the movie as a continuation of the TV series--as the next round in the spiral of repetition. If Utena did not understand Anthy's freedom, she may well have been trapped and Anthy returned to free her in turn, and both of them have to make the round of the story one more time to win all the way free. This would certainly fit with the stronger awareness and intentionality that Anthy shows in the movie. Anthy of the movie is no longer passive.
Another way to read these differences is that this is the Utena story as it would take place at a particular moment in time: adolescence, as the title indicates. This would also account for the more active and aggressive sexuality, and for the more marked and vivid metaphors.
.
Domestic Trade
The manga, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, leaves me with the irresistible impression that Saito was sorry for Touga, and wanted to make it up to him. The TV series gives us Touga as a dupe, a would-be manipulator who is, himself, being used by Akio and who is discarded in the end. The movie makes him a dead Prince, which efficiently displays just how much of a dead-end Princeliness is in all of these stories. This manga, however, redeems him. He starts out attempting to manipulate and seduce Utena into the Princess role, but when she defeats him he experiences his own personal revolution. He comes to join Utena and Anthy in their isolated home and be Utena's domestic help.
More than that, he is the one who recalls her, when she succumbs to Akio's manipulations, and tells her that this (the Princess) is not what he admires and follows.
.
Wounds
The manga Adolescence Mokushiroku follows the movie fairly closely, but the text makes it much clearer that the strange happenings, and the passion that motivates the duelists are all reflections of trauma. Touga drowns rescuing Utena and she denies the memory and tries to become him. Touga seeks power as a Prince and Duelist to protect himself from ever being victimized again. Anthy's sexuality as the Rose Bride directly repeats the way she shared her brother's desire for her. In fact, Akio states directly that the entire world of the academy is Anthy's creation, in an attempt to retrieve or preserve or replace her brother. The manga also makes is considerably clearer that half the cast is dead, and the fact that they are still walking around shocks Utena, allowing the audience to be surprised as well.
In short, the manga views its own content as strange, mysterious, perverse, which the movie doesn't.
As in all versions of the story, however, the roles of Prince and Princess are traps--living deaths that only repeat themselves, moving in a closed circle forever. Anthy is at the center of the world, but only in order to give her power to another. Utena could be the Prince at the center with her, but only by drowning herself in her idealized memories of the dead past. In this version, Anthy's power to begin and end the closed world is even more marked than usual, and it takes only a declaration from her to break free.
And in this manga, as in the other manga, Touga is the one who tells Utena what she needs to do to free herself.