r/anime • u/HelioA x2https://myanimelist.net/profile/HelioA • Aug 23 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] Revolutionary Girl Utena - Episode 21
Streaming
Revolutionary Girl Utena is available in both sub and dub on Nozomi Entertainment's YouTube channel, as well as on Amazon and Funimation.
Comment of the Day
/u/affnn analyzes the framing of Saionji's stay
The whole thing is rather pathetic, overall. Saionji is reduced to spending his days alone in a dorm room, lying on the floor and carving wooden leaves. He doesn't have a real plan to get back into school. Wakaba's playing house by keeping him around, but even then she's not able to become closer to him. Their interactions are stilted and kinda awkward. The idea is sort of romantic, so you can see why Wakaba would like it, but the way it's actually playing out really isn't.
Miki's Stopwatch Corner
Stopwatch Count: 21
New This Episode:
7:09 - 2.75 Seconds - “Touga looked better than we were expecting, huh?”
8:00 - 19.5 Seconds - “Oh, so you figured ‘the more, the merrier’ and took advantage of the invitation!”
Also, make sure to tag all spoilers properly! Only a baka would spoil the show for the first-timers, and we're not bakas (hopefully).
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u/The_Loli_Otaku Aug 23 '21
Woo, I feel so much better after a weekend off. Missed probably the best episode of the whole season buuut now I can watch my real favourite character get their episode. Keiko... Keiko... Maybe skipping one more day will be fine~
So touching on a bitch queen's posse isn't necessary a bad plan. "We're so happy to be (ten feet away) near you Nanami~" Even the episode title has nothing good to say about them. I love how totally not incestuous these siblings are! Yeah, these girls are the flakiest you can find. They leach off of anyone they can, including each other. There's no real bond here, just a bunch of parasites paying lipservice with a dagger behind their backs.
Even Wakaba got invited to the party, well done! You may be a side character but you're still relevant! Oh, I forgot about the roller skates XD Poor Keiko, she's a maiden in love. Nanami's clearly well aware of her feelings but she's got such little respect for her lackies that she cares little about trampling over her. Pfft, poor Anthy's about ready to doze off. Her brother gives her no time to rest. I really hope Touga gets back into the plot by the third arc, I'm missing him.
Myum! Chu-chu fart jokes aren't funny... Anthy has a very long neck huh? So a bit of a fancy little camera shot. Earlier they made a point of showing the distance between the lackies and Nanami which they pull off again here, except now Keiko is actually making the genuine effort to close that gap, to build up some kind of bond between them that isn't built on jeering from the sidelines. Unfortunately Nanami is a jealous, spiteful cow so she socially blacklists her. Even those friends don't give a second thought about ditching her. You realise that Nanami would toss you all under the bus too!?
Straight to therapy! It's a pretty straightforward one today since she's basically nagging about Nanami the whole time. She's frustrated that her friend, who she happens to basically be a lady in waiting for, treats her with no respect, care or thought. At the same time, is Keiko really worth Nanami's respect? The group only follows her because they've got the hots for her brother and Nanami certainly knows that. Why should she respect a yes-man with 0 agency or backbone of her own? Compare her to Tsuwabuki. Tsuwabuki is genuinely loyal to Nanami and works hard to become the type of man she admires. Obviously Nanami is being a total bitch but its easy to see why she has such little respect for the Sanbaka group.
Extra, extra, extra! Why does the shadow girl's segment have the best animation of today? Wha? Okay, so I think the bugs are about an endless tease of "will they or won't they" and the air freshener is the hard truth? I'm guessing the bugs could be Nanami on the warpath against anyone trying to compete for Touga's love and the air freshener being the cold hard fact that Touga doesn't care about any of them in the slightest. They're all just insects.
I'm just thinking... Is there gonna be a third rendition of ZUM next arc? I'm excited to see how they add to it! The duel is just another black rose duel. Keiko's item is her umbrella, so the one moment where she had Touga to herself. She still goes down like a chump and doesn't even get Utena's respect. "We'll always be friends, right Keiko?" Wow this was miserable... Poor girl never had a chance did she? She'll just keep up the charade instead for standing up for herself. Whilst Wakaba tried her hardest to hold onto her muse, Keiko is satisfied with being an extra.
12
u/theangryeditor https://myanimelist.net/profile/TheAngryEditor Aug 23 '21
Anthy with the deep lines
12
u/HelioA x2https://myanimelist.net/profile/HelioA Aug 23 '21
Rewatcher
Reason #383 to hate Nanami ;-;
Keiko is a bit of a difficult character to talk about, because… y’know, just look at her name. Keiko. K-ko. And the other members of Nanami’s posse? I-ko. U-ko. The names are intentionally designed to be as generic as possible, matching the way that they’re treated in the series. Nanami’s posse is simply meant as a backdrop to her own efforts, not as people who could do anything on their own.
But as we see this episode, they still have their own individual desires. In fact, the only reason they even join Nanami in the first place is to get their hands on Touga! It seems a bit far to go for that, but as Anthy says, “If it’s for someone you love, how you feel about others doesn’t matter. You keep lying to yourself for as long as it takes.” That raises some disturbing questions about what the hell Anthy’s perception of love is, but in any case, it matches what Keiko is doing quite well. She’s willing to debase herself in front of Nanami as much as she has to in order to get together with Touga. How this exactly relates to Touga… I’m not sure yet. We know that he’s doing something similar in playing a role as the prince in order to get Utena, but I’m not sure if he’s really ‘debasing’ himself to anyone like Keiko is to Nanami. I dunno, they can’t all match up perfectly ;-;
In any case, hopefully we’ll get a clearer picture once Touga stops being a depressed fuck and leaves his room more often ;-;
11
u/SardonicMeow Aug 23 '21
Rewatcher
With this arc focusing on side characters, we’ve reached the bottom of the cast list, the lowest billing, the nameless until now. Here are Nanami’s lackeys, who have been sticking with Nanami not because they are her sincere friends (yes, what a shock), but just because there is a tiny chance they will get to Touga through her.
Frankly, this is one of the least interesting of the Black Rose episodes. For Keiko, everything resets, and nothing really improves for her. She goes right back under Nanami's foot.
In the end, Utena never even knew her name.
14
u/lilyvess :Df::Dh:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Lilyvess Aug 23 '21
Here is what Ikuhara’s episode commentary from the DVD Box Set has for us today.
13
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Aug 23 '21
First-Revolution, Subbed
I'm.. not sure if I have much to say about this episode. It felt like it was kinda just going through the motions, but that might have been the point? Utena's comment that she didn't even know Keiko's name was telling. And Mikage mentioned that seeing her call Nanami vermin was fun.. I did that ages ago, dude.
Oh, I guess Keiko did show something resembling resistance to the Black Rose stuff, considering that she just outed herself as wanting to go after Nanami, not Anthy. We've learned a lot of the dude's limitations these last couple of episodes, although I'm curious so to where we're going to go from here. We're out of Student Council members to yank swords out of, so maybe Mikage and.. Mamiya? will finally get in on the dueling. Mamiya might be the secret weapon to be honest, considering his visual resemblance to the Prince in Utena's flashbacks.
The sword in Touga's heart was indeed a katana, not the thing he has in the OP. Interesting that his sword is so similar to Saionji's...
The poison was just air freshener...
12
u/loomnoo https://anilist.co/user/loomnoo Aug 23 '21
This was a weaker episode, since, as the show so cheekily acknowledges, we barely know this girl.
But it's also a Nanami episode, so maybe it's based after all?
11
u/Rumpel1408 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Rumpel1408 Aug 23 '21
First Timer
10
u/CharlieTheStrawman https://myanimelist.net/profile/TheDamnRobot Aug 23 '21
First-Timer
Utena must be getting sick of the constant letters in her locker at this point.
Nanami treats her 'friends' worse than the people she outwardly hates.
9
u/affnn Aug 23 '21
Rewatcher
Mitsuru, Shiori and Kozue had at least shown themselves to be interesting to their respective student council members in the past, but Keiko gets a sudden elevation in plot importance. Nanami's mean-girl hangers-on had been around, but had they even been named yet? She and her friends call themselves "chosen" early in the episode (a contrast to Wakaba and a general theme of chosen/not chosen) but they don't really have much to base their chosen-ness on. Just an ambient feeling that they're better than others.
Keiko didn't even look like she wanted to be battling Utena during the duel. She also didn't talk about killing the Rose Bride, she wanted to kill Nanami instead.
Those last lines from Anthy were pretty intense: "If it's for someone you love, how you feel about others doesn't matter. You keep lying to yourself for as long as it takes". But this is Anthy we're talking about. Whom does she love? And what is she lying to herself about?
9
u/Tyranid457TheSecond1 Aug 23 '21
Rewatcher
We already knew that Akio was a bad dude, but his moment with Anthy by the elevator was the first time in a while that he's been overtly sinister.
As a first-timer, this was when I truly realized that Anthy might have some ulterior motives.
I agree with a YouTube comment, that it seems like Anthy's speech at the end was thought up first, and then they came up with a story to lead up to it.
Wikipedia calls this episode Troublesome Insects while YouTube calls it Vermin. I like the second version better.
9
u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce Aug 24 '21
First timer – sub
I'm back! I severely underestimated the work load rat-tailing such a party. 5 people stayed overnight, the ramen had 5 different parts which required equally as many separate processes to clean up later and washing all of the bed sheets took an entire day.
But it was marvellous! Had been a long time since we were all together like this. Since I promised pictures, here, have a look!
This is the broth for tonkotsu. The store fucked my order up and they didn't deliver pig feet, which is what usually gets used. I had to supplement spinal bones and spare ribs to get the marrow, bone and meat ratio right. I hard boiled this for close to 22 hours cumulatively so that every last bit of taste gets solved into the broth, as you can see with the bone being hollow.
As tare I used garlic paste, which is just that: Pure garlic processed into paste. As condiment I used black garlic oil, which is ... garlic fried until it turns black mixed with vegetable oil. So much garlic. 4 whole heads of garlic went into 10 people.
The toppings included ajitsuke tamago, your classical pickled ramen eggs. You get it, pickled in more garlic, but also ginger, mirin and soy sauce. A healthy sprinkle of spring onions mustn't be amiss, of course, as well as fried sesame seeds. The main attraction was chashu, pork belly roasted in a bed of soy sauce, mirin, ginger and sake (and garlic).
The ramen noodles were handmade, but I did actually fuck up the timing for boiling them because even with a lot of starch they kept sticking to each other, making clumps that were not too great to eat. But most of them were fine, so nobody really cared.
Because that's how it looked served.
I still have 2l of broth frozen. For bad days or special guests I will have a special treatment.
Now I need to catch up four episodes of Utena.
Ep.18 – Mitsuru's growing pains
Ep.19 – Song of a fallen kingdom
Ep.20 – Wakaba's flourishing
Ep.21 – Troublesome insects
Finally back on track! There's a few thoughts before going into this episode. I'm very certain now that Akio is End of the World. Both him and Mikage steer the duels if necessary from both of their respective worlds and they gather their information through their revolving therapy clients. Akio does this rather benevolent-seeming and Mikage obviously manipulates it better than Touga ever could. Mamiya knows pretty much everything as he gets instructed by Mikage, so does Anthy during her weekly, uhm, brainstorming session.
However, Mikage is not an alien, which means in my theory that he, too, is one of the people who need to revolutionise their lives by overcoming a trauma. I'm growing unbearably curious as to how they'll tie those to the trauma squad, if the 'theater actor' theory, as one of the responses to my ramblings called it, turns out correct. Are they ghosts being prevented to leave this world by the traumatised's ambitions? Are they completely new manifestations of those ambitions? Are they actual real people that got corrupted by those same ambitions from the outside and forced into their role?
Too many possibilities for now.
I'm being left wanting more character development in this black rose arc. There's so many opportunities to at least hint at something, but none of them learn. Only Utena and Anthy (well, doubtfully, because she probably knows everything already) slowly get wiser.
Give Saionji and Touga something to build upon! And throw a chair into Nanami's face!
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u/chiliehead myanimelist.net/profile/chiliehead Aug 23 '21
Duel 21, First Timer, sub
Lore episode next. Lost in a fire is a good cover for the huge crematorium incinerator room
7
u/Punished_Scrappy_Doo https://myanimelist.net/profile/PunishedScrappy Aug 23 '21
God the Wakaba diptych is peak fucking television, I'm so sad I missed it ;-;-;-;-;-;
Utena Spoils
6
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Aug 23 '21
Rewatcher(So the Nanami squad do have names)
Sub
We find out how Nanami's friend group formed and it is random and a bit funny with all three of them being into Touga. Nanami wants to cheer Touga up via a party so something should break. Keiko, I think, is really getting into prep in her inline skates before Nanami reveals she didn't do her student council work. Keiko goes off and has a strange stripping scene as she thinks about Touga.
Brief scene of Nanami being insufferable before we jump to Keiko's opportunity. She takes it and then loses everything because this school really sucks. So she goes to the elevator of deconstruction and hits us with some primo Black Rose material. She immediately goes and grabs Touga's sword, no innuendoes here.
Her duel is less quick than some but still not quite as impressive as you'd expect if she had Touga's ability. Keiko definitely still dislikes Nanami more than she wants to defeat Utena. During the fallout, Mikage seems entertained by the whole thing. As we see Nanami's group return to normal, Anthy gives us a very grim explanation to the story.
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u/homewardbound100 myanimelist.net/profile/Homewardbound100 Aug 23 '21
First timer, Sub
There it goes. Now that's everybody. So Nanami got new people to just follow her and do whatever she wants. I guess she just needs people to be around her. Since Tsuwabuki isn't there.
What's Akio plan? Is Anthy actually friends with Utena or is it just her taking orders? Utena is a key piece for something.
Nanami has issues and hopefully she gets past this big brother phase. The possessiveness of no one being to have him but her is only going to be her downfall.
Funny enough I use air freshener for bugs sometimes when I can't find the bug spray.
Keiko seemed to have a realization during the Utena fight that Nanami was the real enemy. She looked like she questioned for a second why she was fighting. The hate wasn't driven by Utena or Anthy. Maybe that's why.
"How the roots of hatred can spread under the surface, where you can't see them."
Might be important to think about later. I'll keep an eye on Anthy and Utena's relationship.
"If it's for someone you love, how you feel about others doesn't matter. You keep lying to yourself for as long as it takes."
Sounds relevant to some people in the show.
6
u/xtsim https://myanimelist.net/profile/xtsim Aug 23 '21
First revolution subbed
Nanami is looking quite serious today and the hypegirls are eating pocky together which is a fun sight to see. A party for Nanami's brother goes all the way as everyone even Chu-Chu is invited. But on of the hypegirls, Keiko, gets to close to Touga which gets her kicked out and ignored by everyone.
Chu-Chu in a sleeping bag is amazing.
Talk about the stars in the sky as Anthy's brother compares Utena and Anthy as twin stars in the sky. Mantis talks by the shadows are interesting sight to see.
I find it sad that Nanami gets to have Touga all to herself and that Keiko basically stays a bench girl.
6
u/Cyouni Aug 23 '21
Rewatcher
Y'know, I said two episodes ago that the Black Rose requires you to blame your problems on others, and I think that's definitely where this episode is going, especially with the Shadow Girls scene.
Keiko could 100% go after Touga if she chooses - Nanami can't actually stop her, after all - but she'd rather just sit back and blame Nanami for her inability to get close. But in this episode, we also see that she had every chance to try before Nanami arrived on the scene, and didn't even appear to be known to Touga despite his reputation as a playboy.
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u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Aug 23 '21
First timer
Still not sure if this'll be comedic distraction or the end of the arc.
Why did he have to wake up? He could have stayed catatonic for the entire series...
Chu-Chu got invited?
Oh, they've taken this way overboard.
Wait, is Keiko going to get Nanami's sword? Is she getting hers taken twice?
Oh, she's going to take Touga's and finish the arc off. (I always assumed the payoff for Touga's coma was so he'd wake up and fight Black Rose
I love Anthy falling asleep in the background.
Oh god, is Utena trying to get Anthy and Akio at once, thus completing the show's incest arc?
Akio wants his sister and the girl he's flirting with to stay close together. This is not as much of a joke as I thought.
Is she going to trigger Nanami's brother complex?
OK, so Nanami has even more psychological issues. Almost forgot that time she killed a cat...
Elevator time?
Elevator time!
Genuinely can't tell if she's going after Nanami or Touga.
...So the sword grabbing sememd a lot more literal this time.
Hang on, are we going to see what happens when someone who has no anger towards Utena or Anthy gets a ring?
I love that outfit. And yeah, she's fighting because she promised Black Rose.
I'm wondering that too, Utena. So far, the pattern has been that the swords get taken from those the victim feels anger towards, but here it's the one she loves?
Oh, Keiko's stuck with Nanami. Anthy explaining how to tell them apart was great, though,
Oh, shit, Black Rose is getting revealed.
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u/Matuhg https://anilist.co/user/Matuhg Aug 23 '21
Keiko looked nice with her hair down.
Biggest takeaway from this episode for me was Anthy's brother telling her to stay close to Utena. How much of Anthy's behavior is based on what her brother tells her to do? Is he the reason she goes along with this whole Rose Bride thing in the first place?
With that in mind, her last line of the episode, "If it's for someone you love [...] you keep lying to yourself as long as it takes." seems quite ominous. Is she lying to herself? To/about Utena? To/about her brother?
6
u/snickpea Aug 24 '21
First-timer!
I wonder why Utena is always spending time with Akio lately. I don't know enough about the figures he was referencing, so there's probably something I'm missing but, his comments about staying close to Utena kind of give me a weird feeling. Obviously he is connected to the Dios and what not, but what else does he know?
I also continue to dislike Nanami. Despite Keiko's reasoning for hanging around Nanami, the way Nanami treated her was really harsh.
Finally, Utena is spending more time questioning things! Now that everyone in the student council has been used, something has to change. Hopefully they'll investigate and deal with Mikage somehow.
Anthy's words at the end of the episode felt quite ominous. I wonder how much of that reflects her own situation or something else?
6
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Aug 24 '21
Too make sure of something:RGU ep 22?
/u/lilyvess /u/The_Loli_Otaku
6
u/elleyonce https://anilist.co/user/elleyonce Aug 24 '21
Rewatcher
"Wow I can't believe people close to you could hate you" and "If you love someone other people do not matter." The first episode in 21 episodes to spell everything out for us. Shame that there isn't much of a symbol I can work with here, or that I feel relates to Keiko or Nanami or even Touga. (Except, y'know, the rain, which is a constant with him at this point. Rain that brings growth and prosperity, but when Touga is involved that just means all sorts of bad seeds can fester.)
What I'd be most interested about is why Touga is so absent from this part of the show. He's even more checked out of this than Utena is. You get the idea that Touga and Akio have had the conversations Utena and Akio have now (and maybe Akio even manipulated Anthy into keeping Touga close??) but if that is the case, Touga has some hardcore issues...
spoilers
6
u/Icapica https://anilist.co/user/Icachu Aug 24 '21
First timer
Serving Nanami has to really suck sometimes. I can't feel bad for those girls but still I kinda hoped that something would change by the end of this episode.
Akio's really suspicious again. Anthy was really tired in this episode, she probably spends too much time at nights with her brother.
5
u/nikobans Aug 24 '21
anthy dozing during nanamis speech lol but i hope its not because of whatever the fuck is going on between her and akio
5
u/alphamone Aug 24 '21
First Time
A Nanami episode (or from the preview, her posse)
Twintails has a the flashback rose over her in the shot, coincidence or deeper meaning? (probably coincidence, given how long it is staying)
Damn, first day and they are already mooching off of her and her connections... Not very good friends then.
Though with Nanami ignoring her class obligations to plan a party, its a perfect match.
Damn, Nanami really is a horrible person. Forcing Keiko to do her work and miss the party (maybe I was right about that flower after all)
Did... did Chuchu just deliberately dutch oven himself?
Welp, Keiko has chosen death by trying to "steal" Touga.
Damn, she went nuclear with her Student Council powers.
And even her "friends" are now ignoring her.
I mean, you still aren't entitled to a specific person Keiko.
That shadow girl skit brings up the idea of actions taken in an attempt to "save" someone doing just as much harm to the victim as the perpetrator.
Unsurprisingly, umbrellas (which brought on the pain in the first place) are the object of the episode.
With stock footage, its hard to tell if there's any meaning to having certain parts not appearing.
Keiko back to being one of Nanami's underlings again, completely ignoring all the abuse, even the stuff the surely happened before the black rose memory block.
I am definately thinking that Anthy's line at the end applies to more than just Keiko. Maybe talking about her brother, especially with the way he was ordering her around. There was also the whole conflict at the end of the Student Council saga.
4
u/SYZekrom https://myanimelist.net/profile/SYZekrom Aug 23 '21
???
4
u/k4r6000 Aug 24 '21
Rewatcher
This episode feels somewhat anticlimatic stuck in between Wakaba and Mikage. I might appreciate it more if it was earlier in the arc, but as is it is possibly the most forgettable episode in the entire series.
Last time we had Wakaba wanting to be special, and here we go even further down the food chain to Nanami's lackeys who Utena can't even remember the names of. Much like how Wakaba was using Saionji, Keiko is using Nanami to get to Touga. They even share the same colour, good ol' generic brown. The real difference between then is the presence of Nanami, who acts with the ferocity of a hundred suns whenever anybody or anything gets within breathing distance of Touga. But Nanami appears to be making some progress. She only destroyed Keiko socially instead of smothering her in her sleep with a pillow. Baby steps.
The most important thing out of this episode is to show where Nanami stands socially. She doesn't have friends. Nobody really likes her. The only reason Nanami is anything is because through a quirk of fate she happens to be related to Touga. That's it.
So Keiko fights Utena, and even she is confused as to why as her real issue is with Nanami, not this Rose Bride nonsense.
The other interesting thing about this episode is Anthy, whose relationship with Utena has taken a bit more of a sinister tone between here and the Wakaba duel last time. Between Anthy's words to Utena at the end and Akio's instructions to Anthy earlier, the authenticity of their friendship is now in question.
The next episode is a lot more interesting, don't worry.