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Utena's ending.

edited August 2006 in Anime
I Finally finished watching utena completely and I have to say this...I was disappointed.
I mean the ending was what you expected (I'm counting the movie also.) but it also left an unsatisfactory sensation on my mind.

What are your thoughts on it's ending?
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Comments

  • Utena is probably my most-watched and favourite anime series ever. I do indeed have thoughts on the ending. (You can essentially ignore the movie, which throws out all but one of the important themes of the show).

    Alas, if a single word were used to describe my answer, "brief" would not be among the contenders.

    More than likely, we'll simply do a show on this topic instead of subjecting you to a many-page essay.
  • edited August 2006
    Hell yeah! Well now I think differently and know I'm just disturbed with the fact the Anthy and Utena were making out on a motorcycle.

    Well the ending does leave you with something think about. That makes it one of my favorite anime series also the other thing that makes Utena one of my favorites is the double side everything has I.G Anthy's personality or Touga's feelings for utena.

    (side note: Did I mention I have a shirt of the back rose signet? It's a black on black design and It's what originally started making me watch the anime.)

    Edit:Sorry for the stupid error.
    Post edited by La Petit Mort on
  • Utena is probably my most-watched and favourite anime series ever. I do indeed have thoughts on the ending. (You can essentially ignore the movie, which throws out all but one of the important themes of the show).
    This makes me feel better. You always talk up the show and I, having only ever seen the movie, could never figure out what you could have seen in it. I had just sort of written it off but if the movie is that different from the series I'll have to give it another go.
  • Behold! I'm now with the black rose on my display picture! Now call me dark rym! (I'm joking.)
  • Note to self: Re-watch Utena series.
  • Utena is a series you must watch more than once to really understand it.
  • Utena the movie is just an animated artbook with naked cars at the end.

    Utena the series is crazy awesome. Watching it through once you should be able to "get it". But once you know the truth from the ending, you can watch it a second time and the show is completely different. It's sort of like watching the 6th sense for a second time, it's completely different.
  • The main thing to remember about Utena is that, in addition to the themes, the actual events are subject to interpretation. There are multiple. wholly-consistent ways to chart what happens in the show, and why it happens. It's as though you watched five different shows at the same time. They all mean different things, and different things happen in them, but they're intertwined in such a way as to be compatible.

    If we don't do a show on this soon, there's a good chance I'll make a spoiler thread here to discuss it in greater detail. There are specific events in the show I'd need to cite to prove my point.
  • Behold! I'm now with the black rose on my display picture!
    Wow, this thread just became very hard to read, haha.

    On that note, I suppose I'm going to have to watch this series now, huh? Tho I'm extremely skeptical; I keep hearing things about the movie and cars and things ...
  • The main thing to remember about Utena is that, in addition to the themes, the actual events are subject to interpretation. There are multiple. wholly-consistent ways to chart what happens in the show, and why it happens. It's as though you watched five different shows at the same time. They all mean different things, and different things happen in them, but they're intertwined in such a way as to be compatible.
    Yeah like Anthy's behaviour, which could be taken as sarcastic, innocent or emotionless.
    If we don't do a show on this soon, there's a good chance I'll make a spoiler thread here to discuss it in greater detail. There are specific events in the show I'd need to cite to prove my point.
    How about no spoiler beyond the black rose arc?
  • edited August 2006
    They all die in the end.


    /I kid kid.
    //They have all have a fantastic orgy in the end.
    Post edited by Ametto on
  • RymRym
    edited August 2006
    The problem with only going up to Black Rose is that all of my talking points are dependant on later events in the show.

    Once you've seen Utena all the way through, the show is different from the very first. Immediately, you can see all sorts of things that before were puzzling but now make sense. Words characters say now suddenly have new meaning. You start to figure out what those spinning roses meant, and why different colours appeared at different times.

    Let's take an example. I don't think this will spoil anything unless you've been preternaturally perceptive throughout the show thus far.

    In the first story arc, there is a scene where Anthy, having been "kidnapped," appears captive in the dueling arena amidst extremely strange and seemingly unexplainable scenery. A cataclysmic event then occurs. Now, this being anime, it's easy to write off what happened as just some cliched overdramatic scene. Events like that happen all the time in animated shows. The audience moves on and just accepts what happened without a second thought.

    Think about it more critically. It doesn't make sense what happened, does it? Hell, the castle in the sky doesn't make any sense. None of it does. Nonetheless, that castle is there, floating. It's not just a postulate of the setting that this castle appears in the sky. That's not "just the way this world works.'

    One of the things that makes Utena great is that there are no "anime cliches." That scene wasn't just animated that way to be pretty. Castles don't just float in the sky. Anthy's Rose Bride powers aren't just some unexplained setting/plot device. These things are all explained. They're all self-consistent. By the end of the show, you come to realize that you could have taken all of those things at face value, not just as stylistic elements, and that the show still -works-.

    Utena is a fairy tale. It is, independently and parallel to this, a tale of mental illness. It is allegory for adolescence. It is a straight-forward fantasy. It is a straight-forward science-fiction. Any of these is accurate. The show is entirely self-consistent within multiple frameworks.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • This weekend I did something that I know I shouldn't have. I watched the ENTIRE Utena series in one day. I shit you not when I say that my dreams that night were FUCKED UP! Oh and Rym is right....the only real cliche is Nanami. But her behavior is explained.
  • edited August 2006
    They did have a cute little animal. chu.

    I think he was there for a reason...
    Post edited by Ametto on
  • It could have been there to emphasize Anthy's love for animals.

    By the way, I made a conclusion about the movie/series connections without spoiling the TV series. (That much.)

    Akio most loved thing sex and cars, both which in the series symbolize maturity, now putting that aside, when he takes people to end of the world don't you realized they are driving the same rode Utena and Anthy were driving during the movie?
    Also since the movie is called adolescence of Utena, won't her turning into a car symbolizes her maturing?
    Isn't that the same with Anthy being more...Horny?
  • Seriously. Ignore the movie. Don't even consider the movie in your analysis of the show.
  • edited August 2006
    I don't, but I just wanted to say what popped out of my mind at the moment.

    By the way here's something to entretain you.

    Anthy sleeps with the rose champion.

    Utena sleeps with Anthy because she IS the rose champion.

    Touga sleeps with anyone who is willing.

    Saionji wants to sleep with Anthy.

    Nanami does not sleep with anyone, but acts like she does.

    Miki sleeps with no one, but quests for a shinning thing, and is molested often by Juri.

    Juri wants to sleep with Shiori(who sleeps with everyone) but molests Miki.

    Kozue is Miki's sister, and tries like hell to sleep with Miki.

    Akio sleeps with anything that moves and some things that don't.
    Post edited by La Petit Mort on
  • edited August 2006
    I have always loved Utena since its first episode, but the movie was a little bit weird, especially the cars. Can someone please explain the cars to me?
    Post edited by MrPeriod on
  • Ignore the movie, it just like amethisttomoe said "They all have a fantastic orgy in the end." Which is true for the most part.
  • And to think this was a low budget anime.
  • I just wrapped this up today. I was slightly confused but am definitely going to re-watch it to see some of the things you guys are talking about, both here and the Utena show.
  • I'm resurrecting an old thread because I finished watching Utena the other night.

    I didn't get it.

    My impression is that it is a random show with weird stuff in it just for the sake of being weird, with ambiguous endings for characters that I didn't really care about. All the duels seem to have nothing to do with what is supposedly "really" going on in the show, and what is "really" going on didn't really make much sense.

    Any help? Some people speak very highly of this show, but I just didn't understand what was so good about this. I'm willing to give it a chance though. What am I missing?
  • What am I missing?
    The complex adolescence metaphor, to start.
  • What am I missing?
    The complex adolescence metaphor, to start.
    Apparently.

    So how does this metaphor play out?
  • I also finally got around to watching Utena, and I am also having difficulty understanding just what was going on. I haven't seen the movie to destroy my mind with "naked cars" (whatever that means, though I think "huge orgy" has given me a pretty good idea). I didn't pay too much attention to the adolescence metaphor during the show, but thinking back, I'm not sure I've grasped it. Is the answer to just watch the show again? Many of the small events that I put in the back of my mind as something that would be explained later or were just little anime cliches weren't really explained, as well as the events of the black rose saga. Was ALL OF THAT simply symbolic? It seems like there's way too much of it for that. So my question is, should I watch the show again to get the full story, or will there be a spoiler thread/geeknights episode to discuss this startlingly complicated anime?
  • edited October 2009
    I can give you one of your answers: Yes. Watch that show over and over and over again. You'll constantly see and figure out new things.

    Utena can't possibly be only -one- metaphor, I think. It's one of those fun pieces of art that you can give several different meanings and have endless interpretations. I'd also recommend discussion. :)

    Also, IMO, the movie isn't as bad as Rym thinks. He told me not to bother with it, but I did, and I liked it. Although that might be because I'm such a huge lesbian. My mind was thoroughly screwed, but no worse than it has been by several other media I've subjected it to. Just don't watch the movie in an attempt to figure out the series. View them as two entirely separate entities.
    Post edited by loltsundere on
  • I can give you one of your answers: Yes. Watch that show over and over and over again. You'll constantly see and figure out new things.

    Utena can't possibly be only -one- metaphor, I think. It's one of those fun pieces of art that you can give several different meanings and have endless interpretations. I'd also recommend discussion. :)
    Perhaps I only needed more time to think. I rewatched the second episode just now, and found a bunch of stuff that makes better sense now, but I still feel a bit uneasy, like I'm still missing a bunch of stuff. Thinking back, I see a little bit of the adolescence metaphor, as well as how a certain character is very reminiscent of God, but mostly I'm finding A LOT to back up a metaphor about gender roles. I'll have to rewatch all of it to fully understand, but I'm going to take a little Utena hiatus before I watch it again, just to clear out my mind of all the confusing stuff.

    A discussion would be totally interesting! There is a bunch of stuff in Utena that could be symbolic of more than one thing, and a WHOLE LOT of things that aren't just flat out explained. Heck, there could be a whole discussion on the "Kashira" girls.

    As far as the movie, perhaps I'll watch it someday, but I have to watch Firefly first. XD
  • Seconding my immense desire to see the guys do an Utena final thoughts/analysis episode. That would rock so hard.

    In the indefinite wait until such an episode is released, at least there is quite a bit of existing Utena analysis out there that you can lose yourself in for hours on end. Most of the good stuff is housed at Empty Movement and its forum, In the Rose Garden. Topics range from broad series analysis to individual character studies to teeny-tiny detail analyses (seriously, there's even an essay excerpt at EM discussing a one-shot reference to two famous paintings by Manet and Titian in the Black Rose Saga). If there's a point you're curious about, it's bound to be in there somewhere; even if you don't agree with what others have come up with, it should at least give you food for thought.
  • Seconding my immense desire to see the guys do an Utena final thoughts/analysis episode. That would rock so hard.
    Many months later, I second that.

    Also, Utena has been re-licensed by Right Stuf. 3 DVD sets (instead of like 86 of them), remastered edition. Maybe this could be a good reason to spur you guys into doing a final thoughts episode soooomeday soon....
  • edited July 2010
    I've just started watching Utena and, at 10 episodes in, using hints from the Utena review podcast, I have a prediction of one part of the ending. Please confirm or deny.

    Prediction:Touga hates Nanami and will eventually kill her.
    Post edited by progSHELL on
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