The offical offical follower. Revolutionary fish utena!

Throughout the first arc, Anthy is slapped at least once per episode, often more. With the synopsis I give people about RGU as a master of subtle manipulation, they’re usually like, “Subtle???” (because this show cannot be recommended without discussing that aspect. “Oh, but spoilers—” nope. Ensuring people aren’t triggered comes first). This is also coming from someone who nearly dropped the show because I was tired of seeing a brown girl get physically abused every thirty seconds. The student body (mainly Saionji) slap Anthy, say she’s worthless and publicly humiliate her, to which Utena steps in as her prince on a white horse to defend her honor. Anthy is treated like shit, Utena saves her, repeat.

Then she loses the dual to Touga, and the vibe completely shifts. There’s sort of a running bit amongst live-bloggers where they keep tally of the number of times Anthy is slapped, but that only really happens in the first arc. Anthy accepts Utena’s kindness not because she believes she deserves it, but because Utena tells her to accept it. Even the cathartic moment where Anthy slaps back is revealed to actually be Utena. With this revelation, Utena wins back Anthy, and though the episode most definitely marks a turning point in their relationship, Utena still, and I cannot stress this enough, wins back Anthy to regain her own confidence.

The second arc begins, and Akio enters the stage. Saionji, the show’s biggest encapsulation of Anthy’s overt physical abuse, is expelled. Touga, the big bad of arc one, is completely absent. Utena thinks she finally has a handle on the situation, that her and Anthy are now on equal footing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This big, heroic, “I know exactly who I am” moment against Touga only marks the end of the first of four arcs.

The first arc sets up a type of abuse you clearly see and object to, only to pull the wool over your eyes with Akio. Akio, who never publically mistreats Anthy. Akio, who invites the engaged into his home, into the trap he’s spent years setting up. Remember when Anthy used to stay up late in the dorms watching infomercials and eating chips? I do.

Various deltarune-isms since I've last posted here

A very interesting parallel Suselle and Krusie share is that, while Kris and Noelle are clearly jealous of the other's relationship with Susie, they handle it in a very interesting way: instead of letting it inspire them to sabotage the other's relationship, their envy drives them to keep building on their own!

If you actually pay close attention to the scenes above, you'll see that Noelle and Kris don't say those things because they don't want the other to stop having a close and loving relationship with Susie; THEY WANT THEIR OWN RELATIONSHIP TO BE EQUAL TO THE OTHER'S!

Noelle isn't telling Susie they shouldn't go to the diner with Kris; she's saying she would like to have her own trips to the diner with just her and Susie, like she and Kris do now. And in the scene on the right, Kris isn't telling Susie she should carry them INSTEAD of Noelle, but that she should carry them AFTER Noelle so that they can listen to her heartbeat.