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Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

StandardVC10 posted:

Something kind of weird happened to me after I finally finished the Revolutionary Girl Utena TV series. I went to watch the movie, and I guess I was kind of distracted that day, which didn't help, but I just had a much harder time following it. Maybe with the shorter format I couldn't digest the symbolism quickly enough? Good visuals though. I'll probably give it another try sometime later.

it's weird and needs somewhat of a primer, since as I recall it also has elements based more on the manga version of some of the characters, or just replaces characters with others. Even if you paid perfect attention half of it would still be just as hard to follow. I'd say maybe watch it again, but the dvd release also had a pretty good commentary track/explanation iirc that might help. There's also quite a bit of stuff that's just plain goofy. Spoiler for a 20 year old movie just because it's really something that's outta left field, and worth being surprised if folks haven't seen it/don't know about it: Like the car thing. Ikuhara's explanation is "Oh, I had something in mind for what it symbolized, but then fans told me their interpretations and some of theirs were so much better. So I'm not going to say what my original goal was, except I was bored of final fight scenes, so only agreed to do this if they'd let me do something unique, and I'd never done a car chase before."

Some of the stuff brought up in commentary tracks/or that tied into the manga that I remember helped make a little more sense of it, or at least appreciate some aspects:

Shiori is a medium, as a reference to her name having shi/death in it. The weird sheets over furniture in rooms she's in is meant to be like funeral shrouds/the veil between worlds. Only she and Utena actually see/interact with Touga since he's a ghost.
Touga is meant to be more noble and tragic. In the anime he just pretends to be the prince who rescued Utena to get power over her. In the manga he actually has an experience similar to Utena's, where a girl survives but her parents drown. He tries to comfort her, but she's given up on life and lays with her parent's coffin until a prince whispers a secret to the girl, coaxing her back to the land of the living. He vows to become a prince too. -In the movie he actually did try rescuing the drowning girl, only to drown himself. I also vaguely recall "Oh yeah and Juri was the girl he drowned trying to rescue," but I also remember having no idea how you were supposed to glean that, and it may have just been one of the fansite theories/meant to explain why Juri also references Touga/loves him, also she might be dead too, which is even weirder.

Feel free to correct me if I'm misremembering stuff from late 90's websites with translated extra details, and the commentary track from the movie.
I really liked the series when I was a kid and it was released on vhs/I had only seen up to the black rose saga, then in college it all came out on DVD and was great to pick apart for symbolism and just absurd elements that couldn't be taken literally. It had a lot of depth for a children's cartoon while still having silly episodes about things like curry or boxing kangaroos. As opposed to other shows I cringe about having enjoyed our found deep when I was an angsty teen like Evangelion, I can still appreciate Utena.

Do the later series Ihuhara worked on have as much of a musical focus and neat soundtracks? Or was that unique to Utena? Like I just don't see Revue Starlight working without a huge musical emphasis.

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Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Momomo posted:

At the end of the TV series, Juri mentions being saved from drowning as a kid, so that is probably where you got it from. It wouldn't really make any sense if it was Touga in that continuity, but that's probably where the concept came from in the movie.

Yeah, while double-checking to make sure I hadn't forgotten stuff or muddled things I saw some reviews that commented on the movie really standing poorly on it's own, and I think I'd have to agree. It really was written too much for an audience already familiar with at least one of the other adaptations and uses a lot of shorthand. Like the scene with Miki and his sister doesn't forward the movie at all, and doesn't mean anything if you don't already know the characters.

The movie has a bunch of great visuals and takes on things but it's also a poor introduction to Utena, since it also flat out states a bunch of stuff the first two seasons tease out in the TV show. So if you show someone the movie first, you rob a few arcs of their impact and make even most of the main storyline feel like filler episodes. I'd say someone should at least see the blackrose saga/season 2 and its finale before seeing the movie. Though season 3/finishing the show is of course better.

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Momomo posted:

Then there's the manga, which is a much worse version of what we already saw.

Oh, can you go into that or have some highlights? I never read it, but just heard it wound up being radically different in the same way Sailor Moon was, and I think like most kids assumed it must've been different in a cool way.

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