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Ikuhara's Episode Commentary: 23: "The Terms of a Duelist"

The climactic duel scene. I agonized over the dialogue between Mikage and Utena, and over Akio’s dialogue in the last scene. I edited it over and over, right up until the eleventh hour, just before recording began.

The last scene. The original plan was for it to be Tokiko on the phone with Akio.

“Why hello, Tokiko. Have you thought about what I said? That’s right… about Professor Nemuro. He was lying to himself, clinging to his past with you.”

It was all an illusion that Mikage himself had created for his own sake.

“Yes… that dream that he let the 100 boys die seems to be another lie he told himself to keep himself in the past. It’s just like magic, isn’t it? Why do you suppose so many people believed a false rumor like that? Perhaps they wanted to believe… that miraculous power dwells within friends.”

The illusion Mikage wanted to see. Were the Black Rose Duelists people his illusion resonated with?

“While you cling to your memories, time stops. Perhaps that was the eternity he found, though… Yes… good idea. If you’ll come and fetch him, I imagine he’ll be released from the memories.”

Tokiko symbolized the lost “real time.” And she said she would come for Mikage. The time had finally come for him to be released from his illusion of his lost time.

But.

Was that really all right? I thought it over.

The story in episodes 11 and 12 about the dueling game. Episode 23 picks up where it left off in laying the groundwork for the final episode.

Wasn’t Mikage’s fate the same fate that Utena would eventually meet? In which case, shouldn’t it be crueler?

I tried making the person on the other end of the phone line Mikage himself.

“The path you must take is no longer prepared for you. Now graduate from this place.”

Those who reject that place are, conversely, rejected by it as well. This is the nature of systems: the moment you reject them, you are forced to realize that they’re the very ground you’re standing on. Mikage noticed the trick behind the system, and he hurriedly attempted revisions. But the adult who’d created the system just said “Let’s not,” and unilaterally brought the curtain down. The system of illusion was finished. Mikage could no longer exist there. That’s why he disappeared from the memories of those who’d interacted with him.

People’s happiness or unhappiness shouldn’t be determined by struggles over the device called “the Rose Bride.” Utena rejects the duel system.

However.

Ikuhara's Episode Commentary: 39: "Someday, Together, We'll Shine"

There are two meanings to the Japanese word utena. One is “the calyx of a flower.” That’s also the meaning of the title, of course. The thing that supports the beautiful petals; the one with the noble heart. And the other meaning of utena is “tall tower or pedestal.” We translated this into a visual: the tower at the center of Ohtori Academy, the one with the Chairman’s room on the top floor. And the dueling arena located deep in the woods is the same.

In the early stages of production, when the story wasn’t firmly established yet, this was one of the aspects I most wanted to visualize and produce for the screen.

A world where demons roam. In its center, a tower called the “Tower of Revolution.” Whosoever can remain victorious in his battles against the demons can reach the pinnacle of the Tower of Revolution, and at the same time receive the power to revolutionize the world; the power that changes the rules of the world.

However, when he reaches the pinnacle, he learns the world’s govering laws.

He faces the ultimate choice: will he stay nobly, beautifully powerless? Or will he accept ugliness into himself and gain absolute power?

He desired both.

Or rather, perhaps he couldn’t choose either.

His mind in anguish, he divided himself in two. His “noble heart,” and the “adult with absolute power.”

And so.

With one last wish that the day would come when someone would awaken him, the “noble heart” that had lost its body, in other words the prince, fell into a deep sleep.

Early on in the series’s conception, I kicked around the idea of placing something like the above at the heart of the story. Later, after several changes, it became the tale as you know it, but without doubt, he did reach the pinnacle of the Tower of Revolution.

It was a place where “eternity” dwelled.

And “eternity” turned out to mean perpetual sleep.

The prince (Akio) who became an adult while in perpetual sleep lost something. What he lost was “the power to create an enjoyable future.”

Revolution means gaining “the power to imagine the future.”

The prince chose to sleep on, and the princess chose to wake up. At the top of that tall tower, the princess bid farewell to the prince. No - she wasn’t the princess any longer. She quit being “a person (thing) ruled by someone.” The victory bells rang, but there was no “tower (rule)” beyond them now. She’d learned where freedom lay. She crossed the threshold of that “Door of Revolution” which had always been closed for her before, and began walking. The “girls’ revolution” lay in the girl’s future.

“Wait for me… Utena.”

Ikuhara's Episode Commentary: 31: "Her Tragedy"

There was once a girl who said, “When I grow up, I’m going to marry Daddy.” I wonder who she actually ended up marrying.

Blood relationships are the only relationships we have where people want us exactly as we are. To a child, the daddy who affirms everything about her is her prince and the “world” itself. So the words, “When I grow up, I’m going to marry Daddy” mean the same thing as “I’m going to make the whole world mine.”

However.

In the process of becoming an adult, there comes a moment for each of us when we’re rejected by the “world.” The person we were so in love with dumps us. The school we wanted to go to so badly doesn’t let us in. The career we were trying for doesn’t pan out.

Everyone has a moment like that.

And that’s okay.

There’s no such thing as something which mustn’t be lost. Everyone has the freedom to love someone or something.