Dude, who even knows.

18th February 2021

Post with 28 notes

Looked at from another angle, Utena is a testament to how far you can get by on aesthetics alone, that J.A. Seazer score and Ohotori Academy backgrounds and thematic resonance and formalist shadow puppet aliens servicing a plot that at no point actually made sense

Tagged: revolutionary girl utenashoujo kakumei utena

  1. 8-bitmono reblogged this from kontextmaschine
  2. vexingsibilant said: and I think Bebop might have the advantage over Utena in gifs.
  3. vexingsibilant said: I dunno, some of the spaceships looked pretty cool.
  4. insertbearpun said: (Tho the simple/superficial answer is that most of them DON’T want to revolutionize the world any more than Utena does, they just want something Anthy represents. Touga wants power, Saionji wants someone who can’t leave him behind, Miki wants an innocent bride to bring his childhood into adulthood with him, Juri wants to prove that there was nothing she could do to make Shiori love her even with magic, Nanami wants to be special and to be loved.)
  5. insertbearpun said: Well, I can’t fit the essay it would require to answer those questions in a tumblr reply but those questions ARE answered by the narrative, some more explicitly than others? The characters’ motivations are very consistent, they’re just all stupid self-important teens being manipulated by people with way more knowledge and power than they have, so their decisions obvs look silly to The Audience, Who Know Better.
  6. kontextmaschine said: @insertbearpun but why do the other student council members even want the Rose Bride to revolutionize the world *for*, what’s Mikage’s deal
  7. insertbearpun said: I want to appreciate this post but the plot of Utena does make sense tho. It’s like, buried under a bunch of symbolism and abstract “is this literal or just symbolic” smokescreens but the actual basic plot of “the whole Dueling experience is Akio and Anthy grooming Utena to be a ritual sacrifice so Akio can regain the powers of princehood” is consistent and underlies every arc!!
  8. kontextmaschine said: @quoms Well, “dog is quizzical” is as primal as “girl has boobies”, there was that too. And a big part of Utena’s sui generisness is we didn’t see Rose of Versailles or any of the shoujo following from that
  9. quoms said: the only indelible, classic image from cowboy bebop that requires no experience or context to appreciate is faye’s big bahongas
  10. quoms said: if anything, aesthetics might be the thing that matters for long-term relevance. imagine looking at a screenshot of utena vs. a screenshot of cowboy bebop and you’ve never seen either show. i don’t think it’s any contest
  11. kontextmaschine posted this
    Looked at from another angle, Utena is a testament to how far you can get by on aesthetics alone, that J.A. Seazer score...