tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5106243389695628804.post9103692232081982197..comments2023-05-08T04:26:41.949-04:00Comments on My Little Po-Mo: Utena dump, and a brief introduction about truthFroborrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08782366056731381450noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5106243389695628804.post-77720776417854616022014-08-14T10:44:57.257-04:002014-08-14T10:44:57.257-04:00Oh goody, poetry. Still, I said I was going to giv...Oh goody, poetry. Still, I said I was going to give it another shot, and I will. Thanks for the advice!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07117285086030971922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5106243389695628804.post-88424320285975808792014-08-13T23:03:33.751-04:002014-08-13T23:03:33.751-04:00I think the main thing to keep in mind with Utena ...I think the main thing to keep in mind with Utena is that it's like the televisual equivalent of a poem. It is heavy on image, metaphor, and emotion, and the <i>characters</i> are quite consistent, but it's not too concerned with things like making logical sense or being set in anything like a coherent universe. It demands a very different toolset than most television, but in my opinion is well worth it.Froborrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08782366056731381450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5106243389695628804.post-84423317117066678712014-08-13T20:34:54.049-04:002014-08-13T20:34:54.049-04:00This recommendation makes me want to give Utena an...This recommendation makes me want to give Utena another shot, but I have a feeling I'll need to go into it with a certain mindset to really appreciate it. Do you have any advice on this?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07117285086030971922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5106243389695628804.post-82355725841614258342014-05-25T03:16:43.979-04:002014-05-25T03:16:43.979-04:00Spoilers for episodes 28 and 29 below.
I am very ...<b>Spoilers for episodes 28 and 29 below.</b><br /><br />I am very fascinated where you're getting the homophobic reading of Ruka from. Sure, that one scene taken in isolation, but in toto? If anything, he seemed a bit asexual overall, like it was all a means to an end. Just look at him during his oh so suggestive car ride with Akio and Touga: he's not creeped out or horrified; he's bored. I never got the sense he was doing this because it was Shiori she was in love with, just that it was a lousy person she was building up in her head. It would have made for a more interesting episode had Juri been obsessed with a boy, but made Juri a less interesting character overall. Which incidentally is one of the many reasons why the manga simply isn't as good.<br /><br />Though if martial prowess corresponds to homosexuality, why can Ruka defeat Juri?<br /><br />I found him terribly interesting because he's one of the very few glimpses we get of someone who is now outside the system, someone who seemed groomed to take a position in it, but was broken and discarded, used up, as it were. A version of Touga who was too physically weak to survive the process. Ruka already knows he's dying; there's no possibility of a relationship there. All he can do is help get his terribly stubborn one time pupil out of her rut and perhaps outside of the system as well. Even that horrible forced kiss of his is in service of getting her locket and getting her over a bad and destructive relationship. Note that the moment she's clinging the locket to her chest he's ready to take Shiori back. Because Juri just won't say out loud that <i>she'd</i> rather be with Shiori instead. Because just like with Miki, whose hair color Ruka shares (darker, with one forelock of light), that kind of distant admiration that ignores who the person really is isn't healthy. It has nothing to do with what kind of love you practice (the dueling arena is covered with freshly sprouted cars for gosh sake), and everything to do with the person. Juri's illusions, the locket, are what is shattered. She chooses to end the duel, tearing the flower off herself, and to walk away from it all. And afterwards, how do he fulfill his promise to make it alright? He dies. He gets out of her life, so she can live it herself. You don't free someone by continuing to hang around. If Juri and Shiori can make a relationship work now that both of them have had their hearts broken and know the feeling, perhaps a miracle has occurred after all, dueling arena and power of Dios be damned?<br /><br />And then there's Ruka's resemblance to fore-locked series creator and director Kunihiko Ikuhara (he was much thinner back in 1997), whose love of cross dressing, yuri, and the belief that Tuxedo Mask should have gotten out of the way so Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars could be together is rather well documented, and how the whole thing can read perfectly as his brief meta-fictional intrusion into the narrative via the most external character the series has resulting in the shows only unambiguous lesbian finding herself in a complete fulfillment of his own personal beliefs.<br /><br />Is Ruka a good guy? Nah. He's a manipulative bastard, even if he has good intentions. Being mean to someone who was mean to someone else is wrong. Forcing a kiss on someone is wrong, even to make a point and get them to stop emotionally torturing themselves. But an interesting guy? Definitely, and one of the few to turn out to have selfless motives in the entire program. He just went about it the way that you do when you can't be honest about your feelings.<br /><br />So, you know, just like every other character, really...Spoilers Belowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07597399767668746626noreply@blogger.com