Let's continue the analysis and talk about utenas house. This house is a real house in tokyo.

This house belonged to Yukio Mishima, a famous japanese novelist post World war 2, who almost got a nobel prize and later committed suicide after he failed a REVOLUTION to return the full Power of the Monarchy. (So in a way, he wanted to restore the powers of the prince.😅) Mishima was also famously gay but at first tried to hide his homoeroticism as an appreciation of Heroic masculinity. He detailed this aspects of his life in his autobiography Confessions of a mask. According to some Bonus Material, that book was an influence on Arisugawa Juris character. (Who in the series hides her lesbian Feelings for Shiori.) Interestingly, the book also Talks about Jeanne Dark and because Juri is basically Utenas variant of Lady oscar,, there is a small connection here as well.

Mishima also wrote his magnum opus, the Sea of Tranquility tetralogy. This book has themes if cycles, illusions, princes and revolutions (in multiple ways to interpret.)

One of the biggest metaphors of the book is the idea of the prince as an amoral figure. (Inspired by Macchiavellis book the prince, where the title, the prince, is also a symbol for Lucifer. And in Utena, akio is connected to the morning star. Because the morning star appears close to the sunrise, in ancient times, he was called the light bringer, e.g. Lucifer.)

This series of four books describes history as a cycle/revolution of four ages with each book depicting one age and one season of the year.

The book was influenced by Buddhism. The protagonist in the book, Honda, wants to save his friend Kiyosaki who is trapped in a cycle of revolution, rebirth and suffering.

In the first book, Kiyosakis suffering and death come from him loving a girl named Satako, but Satako being forced to marry a psychopathic, abusive prince. The first one already has themes which remind on Utena.😅

The second book depicts Kiyosaki as a revolutionary who wants to restore the glory of the Monarchy because he fears the influence of megacapitalists on Japanese society and morals. Honda wants to save him from his death.

In the end, its stated that Growing societal nihilism and apathy destroyed the possibility of heroism in society and this is why his Revolution failed. As I already said, Utenas opening Rinbu Revolution touches on exactly these themes.

The third book has one plot element certain parts of my Readers will find interesting and maybe funny. (Especially the crowds with a certain blue and pink flag on their page.😅)

Because in this book, Honda travels to Thailand, meets Kiyosaki again and sees he is now a woman (!).

He was reborn as a Princess in Thailand and later, they start a sexual relationship. Later, she dies due to being bitten by a snake and her death was foretold in visions.

In the last book, Kiyosakis "final reincarnation" now becomes a villain and an abuser and deceiver lead by hatred, lust for revenge and lust for Power, who frequently manipulates and harms women. He is also called a fallen prince and a fallen angel. (This final Reinkarnation strongly reminds on Akio. But it also reminds on Anthys brief betrayal in the end of the series.)

Interestingly, Honda realizes that him trying to save Kiyosaki and his reincarnations was a mistake and he was unable to save him. And while in past, he thought he acted out of a divine mission, he now realizes that this was delusional and selfish desire clad in romantic stories of Heroism. Just like how in Utena , she and many other characters have the same realization.

Content Warning: Mentions of incest and sexual abuse

So, Miki wants to preserve things he finds beautiful, “shining”, but never really goes into what that means. Well, what he found “shining” was his childhood memories of Kozue, before she changed. This change was spurred by the implied sexual abuse of her by their father, which led to her becoming hypersexual and being unable to enjoy the innocent activities of their childhood any longer. In a sense, she was forced to grow up extremely quickly, while Miki stayed trapped in the idealistic version of their childhood. To Miki, her becoming ‘impure’ meant that she was no longer ‘shining’. He’s also shown to be extremely affected by displays of sexuality towards Kozue or Anthy; Touga manipulates Miki through a relationship with Kozue. He loses his second duel when Kozue kisses Anthy. Touga all but outright tells Miki that the only way he can preserve the purity of women is to own them. Miki wants things to remain as they did in his childhood; he wants Kozue to remain as her child self. He also is shown to value femininity in Anthy. These two things reflect the infantilization and feminine ideal that go hand-in-hand with the standards for women’s purity.

Because for all of Akio’s posturing of power and prestige it is important to remember that it is kind of an illusion. Akio is not some powerful mastermind, he is just preying on extremely emotionally vulnerable teenagers, he is not singularly powerful and influential, he just lives in a society that is very quick to hand out power and influence to men, and for all of his talk about how good women should be princesses protected by strong men like him he the one constantly protected by and leeching off the women he exploits.

The only reason Akio Ohtori is in charge of Ohtori Academy, the only reason he has his position of ultimate power, the only reason why he’s even Akio Ohtori in the first place is because he is Kanae Ohtori’s fiancé.

The actual chairman is Kanae’s father, who is ‘sick’ (actually poisoned by Kanae’s mother) and therefore out of commission - and, y’know, obviously Kanae’s like 18 and still going to school so she probably shouldn’t be appointed the principal just because her dad was. But it’s still notable that the idea of her having any part in managing Ohtori Academy after she graduates is not mentioned at all, and it’s just as notable that control of the academy didn’t go to the guy’s actual wife… The Chairman Position instead went to the only man that is considered even remotely part of the family… even though he’s not even technically part of the family yet. 

The patriarchal standards of the world of RGU basically just handed over to Akio a position of power he only ‘deserves’ because of his connection to Kanae and the actions of her mom (who got her hands dirty for Akio’s sake), but as a man he is the one to benefit from it. It actually puts him in a position of power above Kanae (as the Chairman of the school she goes to) and one that allows him to more effectively exploit her.

And this is just… also basically his situation with Anthy. With the power of Dios locked away, it seems like she is the one sibling with more ‘substantial’ supernatural power left, she is the one doing the more subtle and clever manipulations in most of his schemes, she is the one thing that allows him to even walk around freely instead of being Stabbed With All of the Swords All the Time. Anthy is the true source of a lot of Akio’s power, and it is a power that Akio uses to build up a system where Anthy is at the bottom - constantly tormented and undervalued. And it is bigger than Akio, it is the patriarchal system itself that makes the power he steals from women into a power only men can use. After all, Akio didn’t make the Swords of Hatred stab Anthy instead of him, they did that on their own. Akio just sits back and lets them do it cause he can reap the benefits. 

And it really just goes to show… how Anthy and Kanae are like two sides of the same coin. One is probably the most ‘classic’ Princess archetype in the whole show, and the other is our ‘Witch’. One is almost entirely oblivious to the strange and supernatural going-ons in the story and the other is probably the most aware person in the entire academy. One is Akio’s public-facing and respectable relationship that allows him to keep up the image of a devoted and princely young man, and the other is his most shameful and most disgusting secret. But both are capable of hurting the other; Kanae is just one more person who hates Anthy for being off-putting and strange, part of the millions of little stabs that reinforce Akio’s narrative that Anthy is unlovable and Akio’s abuse is the best she’s ever gonna get, and meanwhile Anthy probably helped Akio straight-up murder Kanae. 

Either way, Akio is the only one who truly benefits from the harm. 

And both are used by Akio, who steals their power and turns it into his own. With Anthy being the source of his hidden, supernatural and manipulative power as End of the World, and Kanae being the source of his public-facing visible social power as the Chairman of Ohtori Academy. And also the source of some of his ‘supernatural’ influence considering the whole ‘the Dueling Arena and the Castle are both an illusion cast using the Planetarium that’s installed in the Chairman’s Office’ thing, I guess. 

Either way it’s his female victims who are the true ‘source’ of Akio’s power, and it’s not just him but the whole of society that channels their power into him. The biggest difference is that Kanae is someone he was quite happy to ignore and discard as soon as he got everything he wanted out of her.

I don’t know how much Be-Papas researched into Hindu mythos, so this might not have any credence at all. HOWEVER, I’ve been having this thought for a while and was wondering what Utena Tumblr would think?

So, episode 3 and its connection to Draupadi’s humiliation in the Mahabharata. For context, Draupadi is the wife of all five of the Pandava brothers (long story) and she, in very Rose Bride fashion, is treated like an object and is lost in a bet to the king Duryodhana. In the text, she is deemed a “whore” for having five husbands (first of all, not even her fault, second of all, sound familiar? She’s little more than a status symbol to all of them as well..) and the king orders her to be humiliated by stripping her. She prays to the lord Krishna to save her, and he makes her dupatta (the scarf/shawl in some Indian clothing) endless to the point it makes it impossible to disrobe her of it.

Anthy also gets humiliated out of animosity by a figure jealous of her romantic interest (Nanami to Utena —> king to husbands? Kind of.. Nanami also exerts a lot of power and has a lot of followers in this situation), also by stripping, as apparently the worst thing that could happen to a woman is having her purity stripped away. And Utena saves her by creating a dress out a tablecloth, which oddly resembles a shawl/dupatta? Maybe I’m making connections out of nothing.

Interesting that Utena is being portrayed as a godlike figure in that case. Not to mention that Krishna is an AVATAR of an actual god, similar to how Utena is like a second coming of Dios in a way? Perpetuating the ideals of a god? And DIOS IN SPANISH MEANS GOD? Am I making sense? Or am I word vomiting?

The five husbands are relevant in a way that… remember how the student council has five duelists (interchanging both Utena and Nanami.. maybe Utena can be paralleled to Arjuna) who all use Anthy for their own desires, even non romantic or sexual in nature? And how she’s basically in a blunt rotation with all of them? Draupadi is basically in a blunt rotation with all of her husbands since she’s stuck being married to all of them. Waiting for a god (A PRINCELY IDEAL!! AN IDEALISTIC VERSION OF A GOOD MAN!!) who may or may not come and save them? AHHH

I hope this made sense.. my bindi post had me brainrotted about Anthy’s parallels to Indian and Hindu culture.. if you have any questions feel free to ask away! And PLEASEE add your thoughts if you have any <3