Top Five Meme and Utena

[eastofthemoon]

Stole this from amelia_seyroon

Ask me my fannish Top Five [whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post in the comments of this post, because I am lazy.

Also, as an anime fan, I have a confession to make. I have never watched Revolutionary Girl Utena (I've seen the movie and bits of the series, but I never sat down to watch the whole thing.) However, Rightstuf is currently releasing the series and I finished watching the Student Council and The Black Rose saga is suppose to be releashed on in August, which I do plan to preorder.

So far, I'm enjoying the series, I know it gets a lot more darker later one, but it will be an interesting contract to how INSANE and CRACK some of the earlier episodes are. gullwhacker is still laughing about those elephants from the body switching curry episode and I found Touga/Crispin Freeman punching a kangaroo quite enjoyable to watch.

Also, I will say that you can tell how a lot of people that worked on Utena were the ones to later work on Star Driver. Star Driver might not have as many mysterious and double meanings (there are some, but not as many as Utena I find) but it does carry the same style and feel that Utena does. Plus, Vice is revealed to actually has a purpose while Chu Chu just seems to be there to be random. XP

Comments

[beccastareyes]

Hooray for Utena! Also horray for re-releasing -- I still don't own half of it. (I will say the manga does make a bit more sense in the ending, and some of the characters are very different*.)

* Can't say much because it might spoil the anime for you, but Touga, while still a creepy playboy, loses some of the other elements of his character that make him more likeable. OTOH, I like Juri's role in the anime, since they put the Ruka story in as a main story instead of a side story, and added Shiori. (In the manga, Juri was attracted to and rejected by Touga, so she came off as catty towards Utena rather than as a popular and gifted young woman who was despairing on the inside.)

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind reading the manga if anything to just compare the differences between the two. Since they're releasing the anime maybe we'll be lucky and they'll release the manga again as well.

With that said, I would recommend you check out Star Driver at some point (and it has been announced for a North American release) because the two series have a lot of similarities and both are quite enjoyable.

Here's where I've been getting the Utena DVD: http://utena.rightstuf.com/

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Top 5 meme, huh? How about...."Top 5 ships"? ^_^


I usually HATE the "Mind Fuck" genre of entertainment (I cannot sit through Evangelion); but I like Utena. Though I think a lot of my enjoyment of it is colored by nostalgia. It was one of my "gateway animes" back in high school and I remember getting a kick out of hearing some of that messed up dialogue coming from the woman who voiced Misty/Jesse in Pokemon! So it's interesting to see how someone like you (who has no nostalgic attachment to this show) reacts to it.

The Shiori/Juri storyline is one of my favorites simply because they executed the "straight-laced woman falls for a person that she KNOWS is totally wrong for her" plot very well.
Also, Lisa Ortiz is surprisingly effective as a villain. Seriously, it's a shame she never got more roles like that because she's damn good at it! O_o


FAIR WARNING: Finish the series before you try watching the movie. If you don't, you will be totally lost.
....actually, the movie is so bizarre that knowing the series doesn't help all that much. So just sit back and watch the pretty pictures. LOL

[beccastareyes]

Yay more anime that I need to catch up on!

(Seriously, sometimes I think I'll celebrate my Ph.D defense* and/or getting a postdoc with a several-day marathon of watching things I keep meaning to watch and video games I own but haven't finished yet.)

* It's generally accepted that, unless you are on a tight deadline to revise your dissertation so you can turn it in to the tender mercies of the Cornell Thesis Publishers**, that most people want to take a day or two after the fact to do Anything But Science. This is also how I spend the day or two after a conference. Especially this fall, where I'm going to be horribly jet lagged, since I'm going to France.

** They won't care about the content, but god help you if the margins aren't properly set or you misuse the page break.

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Ah, that advice would have been so useful so many years ago. Unfortunately, a friend made me watch the movie, knowing I've never watched the series. @_@ I think it took 24 hours for my mind to soak in the mind fuck that movie gave me. Although, I thought the dancing scene with Utena and Anthy was really pretty.

Anyway, I'll be sure to post more of my reactions as I watch the series.

EDIT: Almost forgot, Top Five Ships

1. Amelia/Zelgadis
2. Takuto/Wako
3. Amu/Ikuto
4. Bearice/Battler
5. Luke/Tear

(These are off the top of my head. )

[auriga]

Don't worry, you're not the only one! I've only seen a part of Utena too, though I do love the opening and ending.

Let's see, for the meme...How about Top 5 Heroines!

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Which anime are ships #3 and #4 from?


One of the funniest moments of my life was trying to explain the Utena movie to my sister (who missed the last 30 minutes and wanted to know how it ended):

"...the ending....Well...uh...Anthy's brother is dug out of a garden. So Anthy and Utena decide to leave that crazy place. And then a random carwash pops out of the ground and characters start turning into cars....then the Utena car breaks...then there's lesbian barbie sex on a speeding chassis. Roll credits. The End."

[mercy-angel-09.livejournal.com]

I had a friend once sum up the movie: "Utena the Movie, where the walls of the school move, girls turn into cars and castles go on the freeway."

I watched the whole series back in high school (before it was officially released...XD) and enjoyed it because it made me think. Unlike Eva where I slogged through it and even after thinking my brain still went, "Does not compute." At least Utena, with a rather spirited discussion following episode viewings, made sense, or at least more sense than Eva ever did.

I almost forgot about this. I need to order a copy because as screwy as the series is, I would like to own it. Just having the movie by itself isn't enough.

As to the meme: Top Five Sidekicks

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Amu/Ikuto is from Shugo Chara, a magical girl anime that's also on crunchyroll and Beatrice/Battler is from Umineko na no koro ni a doujin game that was later made into an anime as well.

(Here's a music video of Shugo chara: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0iXzNTMvCE&feature=fvst Although, the manga is ten times better than the anime.
Amu is the one with pink hair and Ikuto is the one with cat ears, yeah, long story don't ask. XP

And this is the opening to Umineko: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek0Q4atNfv4
Battler is the red haird guy and Beatrice is the one with blond hair and the way over the top dress.
And here's the

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Top Five Heroines:

1. Lina Inverse
2. Mulan
3. Toph
4. Chloe (from Tales of Legendia)
5. Agatha from Girl Genius

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

That just about sums up the movie. I do like that Utena does make me think. Might be way I'm more interested in it now than when I was younger because I actually enjoy looking for hidden meanings in stories now. (In high school, you get enough of that from annoying English teachers. XP)

Top Five Sidekicks.

1. Max from Tangle
2. Vice the fox from Star Driver
3. Frisket from Rebbot
4. Mieu from Tales of the Abyss
5. Repede from Tales of Vesperia

[mercy-angel-09.livejournal.com]

Well, I was really good at reading between the lines and looking for hidden meanings and symbolism (which Utena runs on, apparently) back in high school, but that was also because taking college level literature courses that also ran on it, and I thrived in those classes. The friend I borrowed the series from used to try and tell me all about the symbolism, and I would laugh and say, "Yeah, I already got that."

Also, I heart Max from Tangled. He was awesome.

[amelia-seyroon.livejournal.com]

'I DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE. DDDD:'

...is what I would say, but nah, I'm not THAT mean. XDDD;

The curry body-switching episode is like one of my favorites, although I haven't watched the series in forever, I still remember that one. XD

Hmm.

Top five favorite ponies!

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I keep looking at Star Driver and Puella Magi lately. Want to watch.

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

As a fellow anime fan myself, I also have never seen RGU. I am SO glad I got that off my chest! I feel so free now...

;DD

Oh, and your top five pairings (if that hasn't been asked yet. I haven't read all of the comments).

[brendala.livejournal.com]

I watched the whole series back in high school (before it was officially released...XD) and enjoyed it because it made me think. Unlike Eva where I slogged through it and even after thinking my brain still went, "Does not compute." At least Utena, with a rather spirited discussion following episode viewings, made sense, or at least more sense than Eva ever did.

I think it also helps that, unlike Eva, Utena could also be fun. I didn't get a lot of the Utena symbolism the first time I saw it (and I still don't get all of it :P), but I still enjoyed the characters and the design.

Eva was just...relentlessly depressing and ALL of the characters were whiney jerks. And most of the symbolism was clearly bullcrap (even the director admitted that most of the Christian/Jewish imagery was slapped on at random).

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, make me choose. XP

1. Fluttershy
2. Applejack
3. Twilight
4. Pinkie Pie
5. Applebloom (I like her a lot for some reason)

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

You would enjoy them, especially Puella Magi, it's so your kind of story. ^_~

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

It feels so liberating doesn't it? XD

I did get asked that, but I don't mind listing five other favorite pairings, I have a lot of them.

1. Horo/Lawrence
2. Hiccup/Astird
3. Mikoto/Toma
4. Takuto/Wako (from star driver)
5. Jet/Mai

[mercy-angel-09.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Eva is heavy into the Faux Symbolism (probably because it looked cool more than anything else), while Utena runs on it - that and deconstructing the fairy tale archetypes, which gets...interesting...in places. Of course the anime is much screwier than the manga, though the manga has its moments, especially if you're more familiar with the anime. But the symbolism is legitimately there, unlike Eva.

As a general rule I tend not to watch anything by Gainax for that very reason - except Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann which runs on pure awesome, even if the ending is kind of typical for Gainax.

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

Heee, yes definitely to the first two!

*points to icon*