In which the Mean Popular Girl is both Mean and Popular, and the entire ritual falls apart briefly.
(Also, I actually watched these three episodes last week; I just forgot to post my notes about them.)10. Nanami’s Precious Thing
This is two episodes that have her name in it. Maybe I should start calling her “Nanami” and stop calling her Mean Popular Girl? Naaaah.
Either some of the words in the title song are just very long in Japanese, or there is some serious nuance being lost in translation. It feels like there’s more information being transmitted here than those English lyrics hold.
Oh wow, from Red Hair promising to keep the exchange diary safe and saying “We’re best friends!” to him dropping it in the incinerator. NICE CUT.
The elevator ritual is back. Blue Hair is counting the length of Red Hair’s speeches again. All is right in the world.
Utena is having doubts about this whole plan to become a prince? NOOOOO. Hold on, Utena! Stay strong!
Anthy brings a kitten home. Down shot, Utena and Anthy watching the kitten drink milk from a saucer. All are on the floor. Utena’s pose almost exactly matches the one on the rotating roses in the intro. I don’t think this is an accident.
Rowr. Red hair is practicing sword outside in the dark with no shirt on.
It totally tears Utena up inside to have to thank Red Hair for saving her last episode. She’s a prince, damnit. Princes don’t need saving.
Huh. I think this is the first time anyone’s slapped Anthy in a while. She’s out of practice at just standing there and dispassionately taking it, she stumbled to the floor and is showing emotion.
Everyone in this show is too pretty to have nostrils. Nostrils just aren’t fetching.
Oh, geeze. Mean Popular kills kittens.
We’ve had the shadow puppets and now we’ve had the door opening and the ABSOLUTE DESTINY APOCALYPSE song before a duel. All is back to normal. Well, aside from Mean Popular being about to duel Utena. Can she even handle a sword?
Woo. Well she sure looks sharp dressed for combat, at least.
Big white revolving rose appearing over Utena slashing off Mean Popular’s rose, as something falls from the castle.
Also. “The baby carriage at the end of immortality?” WHAT. Man these dueling songs are fucking weird. And probably seriously lost something in translation. Maybe it’s just me bringing my own obsessions to the table (the good ol’ postmodern Death Of The Author) but there seemed to be some crazy mystical transcendentalism going on in that duel song.
I feel like whatever it’s “really” “about” this show is definitely an allegory for something very different from what it is on its surface.
11. Gracefully Cruel – The One Who Picks that Flower
Anthy made an elaborate three tiered lunch and Hellbeast Chu devoured the bottom tier. Just as we all have a ravenous beast at the core of our psyche, ready to eat all in its path. See! Allegorical! Every second of this showis potent with allegory! I am so full of shit.
I kinda want to have some really bad sex with Red Hair.
WE ARE THE CHICK THE WORLD IS OUR EGG! Rites.
Why is there a color changing balloon floating around this student council meeting.
Huh. This time Blue Hair Musician not only clicked his stopwatch, but read it off. “Six seconds fifty four”. What is he timing? Did he just time the awkward pause before he clicked his watch?
What was with all those balloons. Tons of them in the next to last last shot of this Council scene, with a loud POP over the closing close up of Red Hair.
Anthy continues to do exactly what her owner tells her to do. Even when her owner is telling her to behave like she hates this state of affairs,
Ooh. Red Hair Possible Prince is so coming on to Utena. For real or to psych her out in the upcoming duel? I don’t trust him at all.
Holy shit did Anthy just express a desire of her own?
Rose in the bottom of a cup of tea, then Anthy’s reflection in the tea. Roses are totally saturated as a symbol in this show by now but i think maybe the was supposed to suggest her sometimes feeling trapped in the role of the Rose Bride? I can’t tell.
Whose reflection is that in the Sword of Dios when Utena pulls it out of Anthy’s chest? Anthy’s face?
Aaaaaand Anthy is back to being a total will-less sub after Utena loses her to Red Hair. Is this girl even actually human, or some sort of construct?
12. For Friendship, Perhaps
Awwww. Utena’s original girlfriend is worrying about her.
Also note that Utena gets top bunk.
Holy crap Utena is cross dressing. She’s in a girl’s uniform.
This council meeting starts with the stopwatch right off the bat. 28s. And another stopwatch in a few seconds. 31 and change.
And now all the personality has gone out of Utena. She’s just sitting there letting Red Hair mack on her while her original girlfriend is all GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY UTENA, PENIS-HAVER.
Awww. And then original GF says “if you don’t like it then TELL HIM” and Utena says nothing. Just like Utena saying that about Anthy last ep after the Bride changed hands.
Awwwwww. Anthy DOES miss Utena, it seems. Guess the rose at the bottom of the teacup IS a symbol of how she’s trapped in being the Rose Bride.
Huh. Utena and her first girlfriend are having a conversation in front of the mural the Did You Know shadow puppets are always on. Except its bright mid-day instead of evening. And the girlfriend is talking about the assumptions she’s making about what’s going on.
Aha! And Utena is back. She thanks her first girlfriend with a chaste, princely kiss on the forehead, then walks off determinately to reclaim Anthy.
Dude Red Hair is totally snogging other girls right in front of Anthy and she doesn’t show a thing. She has to be a raging kettle of suppressed anger inside. Or just plain inhuman. Or really drugged.
Completely different music for this duel’s approach, as Utena comes in with a borrowed sword and a girl’s uniform. She has some determination back but she is noway nohow an ABSOLUTE DESTINY APOCALYPSE. I’m really really liking how this show plays with and uses the low-budget anime tradition of “lavishly animating a sequence you use almost every episode”.
Red Hair slashes off the girl’s uniform but Utena doesn’t care; she won’t be wearing it again any time soon. And then Anthy has a flashback to when she was the Prince? And the magic power she lent the Sword of Deos for Red Hair is revoked.
Next time on Utena: A new shot of the mysterious Remembered Prince who inspired Utena. And according to Wikipedia, the end of the first story arc!
And while I’m looking at Wikipedia? It mentions that the invocation that opens almost every Student Council meeting is a paraphrase from a Herman Hesse novel about the conflict between Maya and the Spiritual Truth. So yeah, definitely some transcendentalism going on beneath the surface here; this show is, I think, intended to be programming people in ways that are not immediately apparent.