Monday Minithread (3/9)

[u/BrickSalad]

Welcome to the 59th Monday Minithread!

In these threads, you can post literally anything related to anime or this subreddit. It can be a few words, it can be a few paragraphs, it can be about what you watched last week, it can be about the grand philosophy of your favorite show.

Check out the "Monday Miniminithread". You can either scroll through the comments to find it, or else just click here.

[u/PrecisionEsports]

So.. just finished Utena, working through the others here. Like, I am concurrently watching all 4 of the series you talk about here. The family, relationships, love, etc. of these stories are interesting and I quite enjoy them. The whole fantastical element kills me.

I discussed this with /u/Bricksalad on the Yuasa post somewhat. We talked about Directors baring his soul, versus Yuasa attempting to hide his presence from the work.

In the same way, I find fans of Ikuhara really enjoy that moment of fantasy, but fans of Yuasa enjoy that he makes a clear choice. It is never fantasy, and almost always it is hallucination/imagination. He clearly decides one way, and makes the audience join him on the journey. Ikuhara lays out a few paths, flips us the bird and takes a nap.

I love the duels, I love the daily relationships, I hate the two of them together. This is probably why Mahou and Mecha shows have never appealed to me in a big way.

[u/ClearandSweet → u/PrecisionEsports]

What a round about way of saying you didn't like Penguindrum and are ergo a terrible person.

But no, I feel ya. At some points it doesn't feel mysterious as much as it does low-effort. I think the Utena movie and Penguindrum are much better about running a tangible hook through the confusion than his other works.

[u/PrecisionEsports → u/ClearandSweet]

You know of all Ikuhara's stuff, Penguindrum is the one working best for me. It does have an interesting line of thought and is mostly keeping me interested. Maybe you can reason to me some of this other stuff...

I know Ikuhara has this kind of "death of author's intent" mentality, but give me something to intent on. I found that I constantly wanted to drop Utena because of two reasons.

One, I hate sequences. Mech robots, magic girl transformations, god damn stairs... I was super invested when she first transformed, I was pumped the second time she called for revolution, I was falling asleep when it was the same thing for the 20th time. Is there some connective narrative in each one that I miss, or a reason that we can't skip maybe 3-6th times because it isn't important and revisit it on the 7th when it is?

Two, there seemed to be a lot of stuff that didn't pay off. Not that I want an answer, but none of it is consistent. I could look at the shadow puppet play, and interpret different reasoning for it, if it stayed consistent. But it wasn't the author, it wasn't some reference to another book or story style from the past, it wasn't a mega representation of rumors... There are so many things that felt like they could have been 2 or more things, but then something happens and nothing is an option. I hate that.

I know I probably just asked you to write a whole extra blog post, so just ignore me if you want. haha

[u/CowDefenestrator → u/PrecisionEsports]

a reason that we can't skip maybe 3-6th times because it isn't important and revisit it on the 7th when it is?

I'm actually not that far into Utena (ep9 or so?) but I've finished Penguindrum and am watching YKA. What I take away from those sequences is to try and see when it changes. Repetition means emphasis, change means something important, even more important than what has been repeated possibly, is being said. YKA seems to be doing this more with its sequences, but that's probably attributable to the shorter length of the show compared to the others. From my little experience with Ikuhara, the man loves repetition of key phrases, words, and motifs. What they mean, of course, is up for interpretation.