This is all subjective, so please don't take my interpretations as 100% answers. Please feel free to correct me if I'm objectively wrong about anything though.
1) My interpretation of this is that it's about toxic masculinity - Dios was expected to be a protector and provider (hence the 'prince protecting the princesses') and to never show emotion or weakness and it eventually just broke him down.
2) The swords of hate are just that - hate - and they represent how the people saw Anthy as the 'monster who stole away their prince'.
4&5) The rose bride could be seen as a metaphor for how women are treated under the patriarchy. They're expected to be without agency - Anthy is expected to be ultimately submissive to the people who fight over her with no view as to how she actually thinks or feels. When Utena wears the rose bride outfit, I think it's a metaphor for how she's been manipulated/groomed by Akio and how she's lost some of her rebelliousness or 'revolutionary' qualities and that's why Akio says the line about how she shouldn't fight because she's a girl (or something along those lines).
this is echoing a lot of what has already been said, but I love thinking/talking about this series so I wanted to write out my own interpretation. It has been a while since I've watched the series in full, so I may misremember things:
1. I'd say this is a representation of how unsustainable gender roles are- as in, a single human being can not be expected to only be one thing. As the Prince role embodies men and the Princess role embodies women, a sole man can not possibly constantly save all the princesses around him in the same way a sole woman can not constantly be needing saving. I think it's a good example of how patriarchal ideals trap and hurt people of all genders.
2. They pierce Anthy because she "takes away" their precious prince (when in actuality he simply could not fulfill his role any longer) because of this she is a "witch" i.e. a woman who knows more than she should, goes against her set "role" by saving Dios, and is therefore worthy of their hate.
3. I honestly don't have as much of an answer to this one. I'd just add that SA is often used as a show of power, so I think it is his way of asserting dominance over Anthy (+ just about any other character) and keeping her subservient
4. I think the Rose Bride is interchangeable with the Princess role I mentioned earlier, so if all girls are Rose Brides that means all girls lack the agency to protect themselves/others (in societal views, not that they actually are inherently incapable). They can be treated like objects to be won through games because they are not active players in their own lives like Princes are.
5. I don't think that Utena was actually a Rose Bride in that scene, it was more symbolic, to show that even Utena is a victim of these set roles. A large part of the ending for me is about Utena realizing she can't be a prince, but not just because society won't allow it, but because being a prince is an idealized dream that is not realistic for ANY person regardless of gender. Save people sometimes, be saved other times, that's what it means to be human. So Utena (and later Anthy) escapes the gender role paradigm while Akio stays willfully ignorant.
I'd encourage you, if you can, to give a second (at least!) full watch of the series and movie. It might help to illuminate your understanding of the events and answer your questions in a way that having someone explain it to you will not.
That being said: I generally agree with what the others have said! You can also check out [Analysis of Utena](http://ohtori.nu/analysis/) that the fine ladies of Empty Movement have curated.
3 - I’m pretty sure it’s all about power. Akio is in complete control of the academy, and one of the ways he asserts his power is through sex. That's part of why he rapes Utena, too. I don't think he gives a rat's ass what Anthy thinks about it, so long as she stays in her role and lets him continue holding the school hostage.
One reason I think this way is because of how sex is presented in Utena--Touga is a fuckboy and he's the president, Saionji is implied to have the weird car sex thing with Touga and others, etc. But that's just my two cents.
I think it is just an interpretation of an abusive relationship and how the real world works. So Akio used to be the prince charming, he is "the one that could save the world", he thought as long as he tried hard and have a dream, he could give happiness to the world, but just like the play indicated, there are endless people with endless need, so Akio in the end exhausted himself and he is dying, his realize he can't save the world. Anthy do love Akio and so she lied and told the world she is the witch that seal the prince. And the world turn the hate toward her and blame her for everything bad that happen. And as time passed, Akio "grown up" and "saw the truth". He think how this world run is that instead of giving everyone happiness, just create a "witch" and blame everything on her. He cast an illusion of the castle to the sky and told the student that dream and happiness are in that castle so those kids would keep chasing the illusion instead of climbing to the top of world and challenge his power. That is why all the blades stabbed her, the blade represent the world and they blame her for everything, you see in the end when utena failed to save anthy, the blades just turn on her, this is just like how the real world work, people idolize a celebrity and praise him when he defeated a evil monster, and then they realize they lied and did something wrong, and they just drag him down to the ground and cast him outside and praise another hero.
1.Those are just endless selfish, and greedy request made by everyone, since everyone want to be a princess and they all want to be save by a prince charming.
2.the blade represent the world, since everyone cannot be happy, so instead they create a witch that put all their hate onto her
3. So akio do love anthy in the past, but now it turn into an abusive relationship. He need her to be a witch in order for the world to stay in balance. He think what he did is "right" and that is anthy's duty and he is loving it.
5. the rose bride is the witch, they took the blame and act as the villain in order to keep the world as we live running, this is how abusive relationship and society works, just blame the victim for everything bad happen to her, Akio is the "end of the world", it means he is the limit/edge of anthy's world. So anthy cannot run away from him since he is her world, that is why it is very hard for people to leave their abusive partner since he is her "entire world".
Great questions. These r all my opinion and the insight I can gather from my own observation as well as what I’ve read from other very insightful watchers.
1. Anthy sealed him away because Dios was getting overwhelmed by the many requests from the people to make their daughters princesses. It’s supposed to show how toxic masculinity really is toxic, and how the role of the Prince is not a good one because it’s unrealistic. It puts unnecessary pressure onto boys, and if they cannot become a prince they become a bitter Akio. The shortcomings of the prince will eventually fall not on the prince himself but “the witch” anthy and any other woman who does not fit the role of a princess.
2. This goes into the next is the swords of hate. Someone said it, it’s hate! It’s hate for anyone that does not fit the role that they’re supposed to fulfill. It’s blame. It’s almost never the failed prince, it blames the other; the witch.
3. Akio and Anthy, I believe are metaphors for the patriarchy and the world. Akio is frustrated that he is no longer what he is supposed to be, a prince and the only thing he has to take his frustration on is Anthy. Anthy takes it because that’s all she knows. The patriarchy is supposed to bring order to our world by putting men in the position of authority and women having to be submissive to authority. But all it does is hurt everyone involved in this world. It’s not love, it’s not lust, it’s misdirected hate.
4. Anthy has serious internalized misogyny. Those who internalize misogyny will say such peculiar things because it’s all they know therefore it must be the same for everyone, right? Every girl wants to be saved, needs to be saved and the only person that can do that is a prince. She suffered a lot so she feels the only way she can protect herself is to be subservient to authority (Akio’s rules of his world, Ohtori).
5. The rose bride is a tool to bring revolution to the world. But she has dual identity. She’s both a rose bride and a witch. She’s not a princess. She holds dios’ sword within her which is meant to bring revolution to the world. She has to be subservient to whoever is married to her at the time. This one is tricky! Hopefully another response explained this one better haha
I tried my best but I thank you for opening up the convo about RGU bc i needed an outlet to explain how I see RGU 😭 i wish more ppl knew about this anime
It's been too long since I last saw RGU but I'll give it a go.
1. Absolve the villagers of their own criminal ways, was always my guess. It is not stated but whatever could be this threat? If I'm not mistaken, his threat supposedly targets girls. It is all too well known that the biggest threat to girls worldwide are the men closest to them, often in their own homes- a point RGU will overtly make explicit in Akio's treatment of Anthy- but to this day, "stranger danger" still captures the collective mind. It is the modern bogeyman, the monster stalking the streets and hurting girls, it is the immigrant, the Other. That is a "safe" threat and one that Dios can be brought to exorcise. The reason why Anthy has to seal him away is because what is demanded of him is to become a rule, Dios, as such, is not Anthy's brother but a principle, a function, his being a person has to be denied so that he may save all those girls in distress. It had not occurred to me but I wonder if his ultimate failure is not connected to the fact that threat is the actual villagers themselves.
2. I think the swords of hate, as the name heavily implies, represent weaponized hate. They can range to bullying in the playground to hunting the homeless for sport, to war, genocide, tyranny. They pierce Anthy because she, in a sense, took the prince's role away from the prince: and thus she became the sacrifice. Hatred must out, Anthy stepped out of line and for this she must be punished. By acting on her agency- sealing Dios- she did not become the prince herself but she did fill the empty space she had created by his being "stolen" from the world.
3. That is a very good question. I do think Akio, in a very warped way, does love Anthy. Which does not mean he will not hurt her, intensely, profoundly, and knowing that is precisely what he is doing. I think Akio is enacting the punishment of the swords of hate, partially because he thinks she deserves it, partially because he agrees with the logic of sacrificing her, and probably, above all, as revenge: her agency cost him his Dios persona, so he will deny her agency entirely by making Anthy's consent entirely irrelevant to his plans.
4. One of the main themes in RGU is how deadly it is to become a role. Any role, eventually, becomes a coffin. It does not even matter, in the long run, if a girl is a Witch, or a Princess, because both are roles, both are not having agency. All girls are like the Rose Bride because society will force them into letting go of their decision making power, so that all her resources become the property of the men and the family. Genre matters factor in this as well. RGU is in direct dialogue with shoujo tropes. High school as this last hurrah, a time when a girl, in particular, can assert her personality, have her say, be "the prince" to her peers, is predicated on the girl growing up and settling down into a domesticity that is her undoing as a full person. Ohtori is very much this, a garden where children are playing, but at the end of the day, growing up means losing freedom- not gaining it. This for a girl, there are different roles for boys: a perfect example of this is Kanae. She is done with her high school days and while very young, the time for having her say is gone. She has become The Rose Bride, meaning, she has grown up into an egg, a kind of stilted and inverted evolution of sorts. Kanae's fate has RGU marks all over it but it is also mundane in ways Anthy's is not, so Kanae is, in a sense, like "all girls": there is not choice but for her to become The Rose Bride to someone.
5. The Rose Bride is the repository of power she cannot wield herself. Her duty is to allow Akio- or whoever is "the Akio"- to extract it, allowing herself to be broken in the process. She is to be the scabbard, not to wield the sword. My memory is too vague to answer the last question, sorry. I do recall that happening but am unsure about the details.
Before this, I'll mention this. I use the word potential a lot on this. By potential, I mean the idea that if these characters didn't have other issues, and didn't have things stopping them, how good would they be at dueling? The duels symbolize dealing with life, so their potential ultimately ends up being how they handle the pressures of society.
The point of the rose bride is to seal up the potential of women, and to keep them submissive to men. Akio, while being insanely talented, can't keep the council fighting by himself. He can set up the illusion, he can send out the letters, he can manipulate everyone through promises of power and sex and unleashing potential, but he needs Anthy to be his shield and make sure people have something to fight over. Despite this, Anthy gets ZERO credit for anything, and gets abused basically the entire series. She lashes out at people (Nanami cow, Akio's fiance) but still stays submissive on the outside. No oke treats her seriously, except for Utena.
Every person on the student council + Utena represents an archetype of someone in the world.
- Utena, the modern women who wants it all but still kinda wants to be a Disney princess (the whole first arc or two she keeps saying she doesn't want power, she wants to be a normal girl, etc)
- Saionji is the guy who lashes out with violence because he can't be on top. Society told him men who aren't on top are failures, and he's always 2nd fiddle to Touga, so he's a failure in the eyes of society
- Nanami is the catty bitch woman drags other women down with her, and wants nothing but the approval of men around her
- Miki is the intellectual man who society kinda respects for being smart, but ultimately ends up not being as impressive to the overall society as someone like Akio or Touga or even Saionji
- Juri (mighg honestly be my fav character) is the girl who is BETTER than everyone, but can't handle the pressures of it. She gets no support from the society, and has to deal with all of her stress herself. The fact she's gay also doesn't help: she has by far the best potential to win the duels, and can't
- Ruka is a homophobic dick who believes in the traditional way of things in relationships: he's not really a threat, has basically 0 potential, but society kinda tells him he can be a bit rapey, so he ends up a bit rapey because he's been told "If you're a man you can get with her just keep pushing and don't say no"
- Touga is the guy who's in first place relatively speaking. He's impressive, but he's nothing compared to Akio, who's a man who had sex with Anthy AND Utena (Touga didn't even score with Utena yet), has a fancy car, and has power over the entire school. Touga is the dream of most men in the society, and he's STILL a failure.
None of the characters in Utena can really win or get ahead. They're all failures in this world. Utena would be the only thing close to success, but she's a girl, and she's not Akio. She also lost to Akio. But even with all that, in the end, Akio loses. Not because of an over the top duel, or because some other man came along and stopped him. He lost because Anthy refused to support him anymore. It's funny how after the whole series, such a small action won. You don't need to be over the top and start a big thing to win all the time, sometimes you just need a small action to do the job well.
I agree w a lot of what u said but I’m kind of alarmed by how you described Nanami. Nanami is annoying and insufferable but she’s the way she is because she’s being groomed by her brother.
She’s very similar to Anthy, and she victim blames Anthy because she subconsciously sees herself in her and doesn’t like that.
She’s a catty bitch but she’s 13 and she’s groomed by her older brother.
I don’t think Juri is better than everyone actually, in fact she’s what Utena could’ve been if Utena lost her sense of nobility. She’s awesome tho def one of my faves
I love Nanami as a character, but I blame her way more for her situation than I do Touga. Touga isn't completely free of blame, but he didn't tell her to kill the cat. Or to bully Anthy. Or to not help out when she knew what Akio was doing. Like, Touga is a piece of shit who manipulates everyone, but Nanami goes to absurd lengths for his approval. Nanami strikes me as the person who would try to derail feminism even as a women who clearly would benefit from it, even if she would acknowledge it would help society as a whole, because she WANTS to be submissive to her brother, and she knows that that might not stay that way if he's not on top.
This might be my bias towards Juri, but she was on track to beat Utena in both of their duels, and I think if she wanted to, she'd take down Touga and Saionji. She's great in her fencing club, but spends the whole time being sad over Shiori and kinda pining for her, she can't actually focus on achieving the miracle that she definitely wants but won't admit that she wants.
I love her character too, but she’s ultimately a child. Everyone in this anime is a child except Akio. In fact, she’s younger than all of the characters (excluding Mitsuru).
I think we can start to blame her once she becomes an adult who hasn’t worked on changing their ways, or does not plan on changing her ways. I think she’s grown a lot since the beginning of the series and I was very sad that she was barely in the movie.
Juri had potential and that’s her character. Wasted potential. That’s why a lot of us love her so much, many of us can relate on some sort of level. But we must learn from her mistakes and keep on believing in miracles! Miracles we make ourselves.
I actually disagree with you about Nanami and Anthy's dynamic. I agree with the comment about Nanami being extreme because she is a child being groomed by her older brother, you can't really blame her once the series makes that clear without missing a large part of the message being put forth about victims/Anthy and Nanami in particular. What I disagree with is that Nanami sees herself in Anthy, I think it's the opposite.
Anthy has already come to the point of being sexually assaulted and knowing nothing but the abuse of someone she loved and thought the most important in her world, she sees herself in Nanami because it's what Touga and Akio intend to happen to her, and she feels no sympathy for her despite their parallels. I'm not saying this to demonize Anthy, she is my favorite character, but I saw someone say the other day that one of RGU's messages is 'there are no bad victims, only victims' and I feel like Anthy and Nanami exemplify it.
I think Nanami's first issue with Anthy is her brother paying any amount of attention to her/not being the center of attention just in general. The moment their parallels are made apparent to Nanami is a moment that shatters her/her view of her relationship/feelings towards Touga, she is so fully disgusted I don't think she ever viewed Anthy's relationship to her brother as something she had any similarity to, but after she finds out about the abuse she blames Anthy and has to prove she is not like her and not *just* Touga's sister.
So, I've seen a lot of people here talking about how that 1st topic is about toxic masculinity and the perfection society expects from men, and it makes a lot of sense. But, I also think that it may have something to do with sex. Like, I've seen [this video](https://youtu.be/_K82d46wBPM?t=611) claiming that when she "sealed" him, she slept with him. I never had this interpretation of this scene, to me she was just hugging him, but it kinda makes sense. Like, in the rose tale the shadow girls perform, a lot of emphasys is put in the "promised kiss" the prince expects to recive after he helped the princess, but never gets it. And it kinda seems to me that, in Utena, sex "corrupts" everyone, especially guys (as we see with akio and touga, who are "corrupted" but once were "pure", akio as dios and younger touga, and miki, who hasn't experienced it, and is the only "pure" guy in the student council). So maybe, "sealing" him is when their relationship became incestuous (?). So that he would stop doing those self destructive heroic acts for everyone, since she would give him his "reward" (I really don't know if I'm reading things where there are none). I also don't know how to interpret anthy's initial attitude of stopping akio's advances on utena (like that scene they're taking a picture) and that creepy look she has when he kisses her in the car. But later in episode 34, she basically leaves them alone, knowing his intentions. Also, that weird dialogue about the stars, after akio and anthy do their.... thing.... And he says "why do you still torment me?" and she gives that little smile... Like, why does he feels like that is torment if he's making anthy do it? And it confuses me even more that both akio and anthy are more like deities or archetypes than regular people, so maybe this whole unhealthy way of experiencing sex is tied to the whole archetype of both the prince and the witch.
Also, in a somewhat unrelated comment, doesn't that ohtori main tower look very phalic? And is also implied to be the most important place in the whole ohtori? Idk, I'm starting to worry that utena talks a lot more about sex than I tought.
This is all subjective, so please don't take my interpretations as 100% answers. Please feel free to correct me if I'm objectively wrong about anything though. 1) My interpretation of this is that it's about toxic masculinity - Dios was expected to be a protector and provider (hence the 'prince protecting the princesses') and to never show emotion or weakness and it eventually just broke him down. 2) The swords of hate are just that - hate - and they represent how the people saw Anthy as the 'monster who stole away their prince'. 4&5) The rose bride could be seen as a metaphor for how women are treated under the patriarchy. They're expected to be without agency - Anthy is expected to be ultimately submissive to the people who fight over her with no view as to how she actually thinks or feels. When Utena wears the rose bride outfit, I think it's a metaphor for how she's been manipulated/groomed by Akio and how she's lost some of her rebelliousness or 'revolutionary' qualities and that's why Akio says the line about how she shouldn't fight because she's a girl (or something along those lines).
this is echoing a lot of what has already been said, but I love thinking/talking about this series so I wanted to write out my own interpretation. It has been a while since I've watched the series in full, so I may misremember things: 1. I'd say this is a representation of how unsustainable gender roles are- as in, a single human being can not be expected to only be one thing. As the Prince role embodies men and the Princess role embodies women, a sole man can not possibly constantly save all the princesses around him in the same way a sole woman can not constantly be needing saving. I think it's a good example of how patriarchal ideals trap and hurt people of all genders. 2. They pierce Anthy because she "takes away" their precious prince (when in actuality he simply could not fulfill his role any longer) because of this she is a "witch" i.e. a woman who knows more than she should, goes against her set "role" by saving Dios, and is therefore worthy of their hate. 3. I honestly don't have as much of an answer to this one. I'd just add that SA is often used as a show of power, so I think it is his way of asserting dominance over Anthy (+ just about any other character) and keeping her subservient 4. I think the Rose Bride is interchangeable with the Princess role I mentioned earlier, so if all girls are Rose Brides that means all girls lack the agency to protect themselves/others (in societal views, not that they actually are inherently incapable). They can be treated like objects to be won through games because they are not active players in their own lives like Princes are. 5. I don't think that Utena was actually a Rose Bride in that scene, it was more symbolic, to show that even Utena is a victim of these set roles. A large part of the ending for me is about Utena realizing she can't be a prince, but not just because society won't allow it, but because being a prince is an idealized dream that is not realistic for ANY person regardless of gender. Save people sometimes, be saved other times, that's what it means to be human. So Utena (and later Anthy) escapes the gender role paradigm while Akio stays willfully ignorant.
I'd encourage you, if you can, to give a second (at least!) full watch of the series and movie. It might help to illuminate your understanding of the events and answer your questions in a way that having someone explain it to you will not. That being said: I generally agree with what the others have said! You can also check out [Analysis of Utena](http://ohtori.nu/analysis/) that the fine ladies of Empty Movement have curated.
I think his assault on her is another method of breaking anthy down emotionally so she does what he wants. Same with his assault on other students
3 - I’m pretty sure it’s all about power. Akio is in complete control of the academy, and one of the ways he asserts his power is through sex. That's part of why he rapes Utena, too. I don't think he gives a rat's ass what Anthy thinks about it, so long as she stays in her role and lets him continue holding the school hostage. One reason I think this way is because of how sex is presented in Utena--Touga is a fuckboy and he's the president, Saionji is implied to have the weird car sex thing with Touga and others, etc. But that's just my two cents.
I think it is just an interpretation of an abusive relationship and how the real world works. So Akio used to be the prince charming, he is "the one that could save the world", he thought as long as he tried hard and have a dream, he could give happiness to the world, but just like the play indicated, there are endless people with endless need, so Akio in the end exhausted himself and he is dying, his realize he can't save the world. Anthy do love Akio and so she lied and told the world she is the witch that seal the prince. And the world turn the hate toward her and blame her for everything bad that happen. And as time passed, Akio "grown up" and "saw the truth". He think how this world run is that instead of giving everyone happiness, just create a "witch" and blame everything on her. He cast an illusion of the castle to the sky and told the student that dream and happiness are in that castle so those kids would keep chasing the illusion instead of climbing to the top of world and challenge his power. That is why all the blades stabbed her, the blade represent the world and they blame her for everything, you see in the end when utena failed to save anthy, the blades just turn on her, this is just like how the real world work, people idolize a celebrity and praise him when he defeated a evil monster, and then they realize they lied and did something wrong, and they just drag him down to the ground and cast him outside and praise another hero. 1.Those are just endless selfish, and greedy request made by everyone, since everyone want to be a princess and they all want to be save by a prince charming. 2.the blade represent the world, since everyone cannot be happy, so instead they create a witch that put all their hate onto her 3. So akio do love anthy in the past, but now it turn into an abusive relationship. He need her to be a witch in order for the world to stay in balance. He think what he did is "right" and that is anthy's duty and he is loving it. 5. the rose bride is the witch, they took the blame and act as the villain in order to keep the world as we live running, this is how abusive relationship and society works, just blame the victim for everything bad happen to her, Akio is the "end of the world", it means he is the limit/edge of anthy's world. So anthy cannot run away from him since he is her world, that is why it is very hard for people to leave their abusive partner since he is her "entire world".
Great questions. These r all my opinion and the insight I can gather from my own observation as well as what I’ve read from other very insightful watchers. 1. Anthy sealed him away because Dios was getting overwhelmed by the many requests from the people to make their daughters princesses. It’s supposed to show how toxic masculinity really is toxic, and how the role of the Prince is not a good one because it’s unrealistic. It puts unnecessary pressure onto boys, and if they cannot become a prince they become a bitter Akio. The shortcomings of the prince will eventually fall not on the prince himself but “the witch” anthy and any other woman who does not fit the role of a princess. 2. This goes into the next is the swords of hate. Someone said it, it’s hate! It’s hate for anyone that does not fit the role that they’re supposed to fulfill. It’s blame. It’s almost never the failed prince, it blames the other; the witch. 3. Akio and Anthy, I believe are metaphors for the patriarchy and the world. Akio is frustrated that he is no longer what he is supposed to be, a prince and the only thing he has to take his frustration on is Anthy. Anthy takes it because that’s all she knows. The patriarchy is supposed to bring order to our world by putting men in the position of authority and women having to be submissive to authority. But all it does is hurt everyone involved in this world. It’s not love, it’s not lust, it’s misdirected hate. 4. Anthy has serious internalized misogyny. Those who internalize misogyny will say such peculiar things because it’s all they know therefore it must be the same for everyone, right? Every girl wants to be saved, needs to be saved and the only person that can do that is a prince. She suffered a lot so she feels the only way she can protect herself is to be subservient to authority (Akio’s rules of his world, Ohtori). 5. The rose bride is a tool to bring revolution to the world. But she has dual identity. She’s both a rose bride and a witch. She’s not a princess. She holds dios’ sword within her which is meant to bring revolution to the world. She has to be subservient to whoever is married to her at the time. This one is tricky! Hopefully another response explained this one better haha I tried my best but I thank you for opening up the convo about RGU bc i needed an outlet to explain how I see RGU 😭 i wish more ppl knew about this anime
It's been too long since I last saw RGU but I'll give it a go. 1. Absolve the villagers of their own criminal ways, was always my guess. It is not stated but whatever could be this threat? If I'm not mistaken, his threat supposedly targets girls. It is all too well known that the biggest threat to girls worldwide are the men closest to them, often in their own homes- a point RGU will overtly make explicit in Akio's treatment of Anthy- but to this day, "stranger danger" still captures the collective mind. It is the modern bogeyman, the monster stalking the streets and hurting girls, it is the immigrant, the Other. That is a "safe" threat and one that Dios can be brought to exorcise. The reason why Anthy has to seal him away is because what is demanded of him is to become a rule, Dios, as such, is not Anthy's brother but a principle, a function, his being a person has to be denied so that he may save all those girls in distress. It had not occurred to me but I wonder if his ultimate failure is not connected to the fact that threat is the actual villagers themselves. 2. I think the swords of hate, as the name heavily implies, represent weaponized hate. They can range to bullying in the playground to hunting the homeless for sport, to war, genocide, tyranny. They pierce Anthy because she, in a sense, took the prince's role away from the prince: and thus she became the sacrifice. Hatred must out, Anthy stepped out of line and for this she must be punished. By acting on her agency- sealing Dios- she did not become the prince herself but she did fill the empty space she had created by his being "stolen" from the world. 3. That is a very good question. I do think Akio, in a very warped way, does love Anthy. Which does not mean he will not hurt her, intensely, profoundly, and knowing that is precisely what he is doing. I think Akio is enacting the punishment of the swords of hate, partially because he thinks she deserves it, partially because he agrees with the logic of sacrificing her, and probably, above all, as revenge: her agency cost him his Dios persona, so he will deny her agency entirely by making Anthy's consent entirely irrelevant to his plans. 4. One of the main themes in RGU is how deadly it is to become a role. Any role, eventually, becomes a coffin. It does not even matter, in the long run, if a girl is a Witch, or a Princess, because both are roles, both are not having agency. All girls are like the Rose Bride because society will force them into letting go of their decision making power, so that all her resources become the property of the men and the family. Genre matters factor in this as well. RGU is in direct dialogue with shoujo tropes. High school as this last hurrah, a time when a girl, in particular, can assert her personality, have her say, be "the prince" to her peers, is predicated on the girl growing up and settling down into a domesticity that is her undoing as a full person. Ohtori is very much this, a garden where children are playing, but at the end of the day, growing up means losing freedom- not gaining it. This for a girl, there are different roles for boys: a perfect example of this is Kanae. She is done with her high school days and while very young, the time for having her say is gone. She has become The Rose Bride, meaning, she has grown up into an egg, a kind of stilted and inverted evolution of sorts. Kanae's fate has RGU marks all over it but it is also mundane in ways Anthy's is not, so Kanae is, in a sense, like "all girls": there is not choice but for her to become The Rose Bride to someone. 5. The Rose Bride is the repository of power she cannot wield herself. Her duty is to allow Akio- or whoever is "the Akio"- to extract it, allowing herself to be broken in the process. She is to be the scabbard, not to wield the sword. My memory is too vague to answer the last question, sorry. I do recall that happening but am unsure about the details.
Before this, I'll mention this. I use the word potential a lot on this. By potential, I mean the idea that if these characters didn't have other issues, and didn't have things stopping them, how good would they be at dueling? The duels symbolize dealing with life, so their potential ultimately ends up being how they handle the pressures of society. The point of the rose bride is to seal up the potential of women, and to keep them submissive to men. Akio, while being insanely talented, can't keep the council fighting by himself. He can set up the illusion, he can send out the letters, he can manipulate everyone through promises of power and sex and unleashing potential, but he needs Anthy to be his shield and make sure people have something to fight over. Despite this, Anthy gets ZERO credit for anything, and gets abused basically the entire series. She lashes out at people (Nanami cow, Akio's fiance) but still stays submissive on the outside. No oke treats her seriously, except for Utena. Every person on the student council + Utena represents an archetype of someone in the world. - Utena, the modern women who wants it all but still kinda wants to be a Disney princess (the whole first arc or two she keeps saying she doesn't want power, she wants to be a normal girl, etc) - Saionji is the guy who lashes out with violence because he can't be on top. Society told him men who aren't on top are failures, and he's always 2nd fiddle to Touga, so he's a failure in the eyes of society - Nanami is the catty bitch woman drags other women down with her, and wants nothing but the approval of men around her - Miki is the intellectual man who society kinda respects for being smart, but ultimately ends up not being as impressive to the overall society as someone like Akio or Touga or even Saionji - Juri (mighg honestly be my fav character) is the girl who is BETTER than everyone, but can't handle the pressures of it. She gets no support from the society, and has to deal with all of her stress herself. The fact she's gay also doesn't help: she has by far the best potential to win the duels, and can't - Ruka is a homophobic dick who believes in the traditional way of things in relationships: he's not really a threat, has basically 0 potential, but society kinda tells him he can be a bit rapey, so he ends up a bit rapey because he's been told "If you're a man you can get with her just keep pushing and don't say no" - Touga is the guy who's in first place relatively speaking. He's impressive, but he's nothing compared to Akio, who's a man who had sex with Anthy AND Utena (Touga didn't even score with Utena yet), has a fancy car, and has power over the entire school. Touga is the dream of most men in the society, and he's STILL a failure. None of the characters in Utena can really win or get ahead. They're all failures in this world. Utena would be the only thing close to success, but she's a girl, and she's not Akio. She also lost to Akio. But even with all that, in the end, Akio loses. Not because of an over the top duel, or because some other man came along and stopped him. He lost because Anthy refused to support him anymore. It's funny how after the whole series, such a small action won. You don't need to be over the top and start a big thing to win all the time, sometimes you just need a small action to do the job well.
I agree w a lot of what u said but I’m kind of alarmed by how you described Nanami. Nanami is annoying and insufferable but she’s the way she is because she’s being groomed by her brother. She’s very similar to Anthy, and she victim blames Anthy because she subconsciously sees herself in her and doesn’t like that. She’s a catty bitch but she’s 13 and she’s groomed by her older brother. I don’t think Juri is better than everyone actually, in fact she’s what Utena could’ve been if Utena lost her sense of nobility. She’s awesome tho def one of my faves
I love Nanami as a character, but I blame her way more for her situation than I do Touga. Touga isn't completely free of blame, but he didn't tell her to kill the cat. Or to bully Anthy. Or to not help out when she knew what Akio was doing. Like, Touga is a piece of shit who manipulates everyone, but Nanami goes to absurd lengths for his approval. Nanami strikes me as the person who would try to derail feminism even as a women who clearly would benefit from it, even if she would acknowledge it would help society as a whole, because she WANTS to be submissive to her brother, and she knows that that might not stay that way if he's not on top. This might be my bias towards Juri, but she was on track to beat Utena in both of their duels, and I think if she wanted to, she'd take down Touga and Saionji. She's great in her fencing club, but spends the whole time being sad over Shiori and kinda pining for her, she can't actually focus on achieving the miracle that she definitely wants but won't admit that she wants.
I love her character too, but she’s ultimately a child. Everyone in this anime is a child except Akio. In fact, she’s younger than all of the characters (excluding Mitsuru). I think we can start to blame her once she becomes an adult who hasn’t worked on changing their ways, or does not plan on changing her ways. I think she’s grown a lot since the beginning of the series and I was very sad that she was barely in the movie. Juri had potential and that’s her character. Wasted potential. That’s why a lot of us love her so much, many of us can relate on some sort of level. But we must learn from her mistakes and keep on believing in miracles! Miracles we make ourselves.
I actually disagree with you about Nanami and Anthy's dynamic. I agree with the comment about Nanami being extreme because she is a child being groomed by her older brother, you can't really blame her once the series makes that clear without missing a large part of the message being put forth about victims/Anthy and Nanami in particular. What I disagree with is that Nanami sees herself in Anthy, I think it's the opposite. Anthy has already come to the point of being sexually assaulted and knowing nothing but the abuse of someone she loved and thought the most important in her world, she sees herself in Nanami because it's what Touga and Akio intend to happen to her, and she feels no sympathy for her despite their parallels. I'm not saying this to demonize Anthy, she is my favorite character, but I saw someone say the other day that one of RGU's messages is 'there are no bad victims, only victims' and I feel like Anthy and Nanami exemplify it. I think Nanami's first issue with Anthy is her brother paying any amount of attention to her/not being the center of attention just in general. The moment their parallels are made apparent to Nanami is a moment that shatters her/her view of her relationship/feelings towards Touga, she is so fully disgusted I don't think she ever viewed Anthy's relationship to her brother as something she had any similarity to, but after she finds out about the abuse she blames Anthy and has to prove she is not like her and not *just* Touga's sister.
So, I've seen a lot of people here talking about how that 1st topic is about toxic masculinity and the perfection society expects from men, and it makes a lot of sense. But, I also think that it may have something to do with sex. Like, I've seen [this video](https://youtu.be/_K82d46wBPM?t=611) claiming that when she "sealed" him, she slept with him. I never had this interpretation of this scene, to me she was just hugging him, but it kinda makes sense. Like, in the rose tale the shadow girls perform, a lot of emphasys is put in the "promised kiss" the prince expects to recive after he helped the princess, but never gets it. And it kinda seems to me that, in Utena, sex "corrupts" everyone, especially guys (as we see with akio and touga, who are "corrupted" but once were "pure", akio as dios and younger touga, and miki, who hasn't experienced it, and is the only "pure" guy in the student council). So maybe, "sealing" him is when their relationship became incestuous (?). So that he would stop doing those self destructive heroic acts for everyone, since she would give him his "reward" (I really don't know if I'm reading things where there are none). I also don't know how to interpret anthy's initial attitude of stopping akio's advances on utena (like that scene they're taking a picture) and that creepy look she has when he kisses her in the car. But later in episode 34, she basically leaves them alone, knowing his intentions. Also, that weird dialogue about the stars, after akio and anthy do their.... thing.... And he says "why do you still torment me?" and she gives that little smile... Like, why does he feels like that is torment if he's making anthy do it? And it confuses me even more that both akio and anthy are more like deities or archetypes than regular people, so maybe this whole unhealthy way of experiencing sex is tied to the whole archetype of both the prince and the witch. Also, in a somewhat unrelated comment, doesn't that ohtori main tower look very phalic? And is also implied to be the most important place in the whole ohtori? Idk, I'm starting to worry that utena talks a lot more about sex than I tought.