Utena - Saionji’s arc

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Saionji.
Saionji

Saionji is the simplest major Utena character, and the easiest to understand. That’s no doubt why he is Utena’s first duel opponent.

Not that I have plumbed all his secrets. His vision is corrupted (he has purple eyes) and partially blocked (by wisps of hair), and yet he has surprising insights from time to time. (Episode 1, the castle in the sky is a mirage. Episode 35, we are all in coffins.) How does that happen? Is he connected to Tiresias (Wikipedia)? It’s plausible. Tiresias is blind; Saionji has obscured vision. Tiresias struck two snakes with a stick, so Hera turned him into a woman. Saionji strikes Anthy, where Anthy and Akio may be two snakes (since Akio is the serpent of the Bible), and Anthy is Hera. And Saionji is the woman of Saionji and Touga. But I’m not convinced. Where did Saionji get his gift of prophecy? The variant myths about Tiresias don’t fit Saionji on that point. It’s still a mystery.

Saionji is violent and rude. When talking with Touga, for “you” he chooses kisama, which is an insult. His love is Anthy, and signs are that he maintains his love after getting together with Touga (just as Touga maintains his love for Utena). He appears self-confident, but desperately envies Touga. In the Black Rose he is dependent on Wakaba, and his show of self-confidence is shaky. He has the ethos of a warrior: In episode 2, he says that victory is what matters, not survival. (It can be taken as a sign that Utena dies in the end, if it is one of his mysterious insights.)

Saionji is similar to Utena in key ways, even though Utena is good and Saionji is bad. I think every character is implicitly compared to Utena. The comparison shows what they lack to overcome Akio, and jointly the comparisons show how rare Utena is.

meaning

In the allegory, Saionji personifies an aspect of the patriarchy: Physical control of women by violence. Saionji is abusive, and loves Anthy who passively accepts abuse. Compare Touga, who seeks psychological control of women by deception and allure.

In Utena, women are sometimes controlled by violence, as when Akio strikes Anthy. Men never are, including Utena as prince—with the exception of Anthy’s backstab, when Anthy sees Utena as a girl and unable to be a prince. Duel losses make the loser a wife, so they are no exception. In episode 7, Touga traps Miki in place with thrown knives, but it is not violence directed at Miki, who is in any case half female. Still in episode 7, Juri strikes down Anthy, but she cannot steal Utena’s ring by violence. In episode 29, she tries to strike Ruka and cannot.

In Utena, deception is more effective than violence at controlling women. Touga wins practice duels against Saionji. Deceptive Touga has more patriarchal power, and that’s why Saionji envies him.

story

The Student Council arc.

Utena defeats Saionji twice in duels. His worldview and self-image are based on his male privilege, and he cannot accept that a younger girl overturned it. Like Nanami, he keeps struggling to regain it. It’s a psychological weakness. Touga exploits it to set up his episode 9 plot to convince Utena that he is her prince.

Touga and Saionji in the church. Young Saionji’s hair is tied into a tail that falls over his left shoulder.
Episode 9, young Saionji
Young Saionji in the church in episode 9 tied his hair into a tail. He was already the girl of Saionji and Touga, even though he wore the short pants of a boy... like Utena. The hair over his shoulder implies that he was already violent, too.

Saionji is expelled for the violent action that Touga (presumably Anthy via Touga) provoked him into. It seems to have been another goal of the plot, and Anthy must have been behind that aspect because it is part of setting up Wakaba’s Black Rose duel later. I don’t see a motive for Touga to want Saionji expelled.

The Black Rose arc.

Saionji is apparently not from a wealthy family, or if he is then he does not dare go back to them in disgrace. He relies on his fangirls to support him and put him up. I think Anthy arranged for Wakaba to draw the duty, as part of setting up Wakaba’s duel. Saionji wanted to leave Wakaba (and no doubt go to another fangirl), and Wakaba believes he was unaware of her, so he was not counting on Wakaba in particular. But Anthy’s plot works, as hers always do, and Mikage gets his hands on Saionji. Mikage works his own plot, also steered by Anthy (playing Mamiya), and provokes Wakaba into dueling. Saionji ends up readmitted to the Academy.

In episode 20 with Wakaba, starting when he is carving the leaf, Saionji ties his hair into a ponytail that roughly echoes Wakaba’s S-shaped ponytail. Cute. He’s not only the woman of Saionji and Touga, he’s a girl in Wakaba and Saionji. Does that make Saionji like Utena, or the opposite of Utena? Maybe both! Like Wakaba with Utena, he does not take the relationship seriously.

The Apocalypse Saga.

Over the course of the arc, Akio maneuvers Saionji and Touga into a homosexual relationship. To Akio, it is a subgoal of isolating Touga from Utena, which is a subgoal of isolating Utena from all support. The main discussion is under Touga’s arc.

The epilog. Touga and Saionji don’t stay together. When Akio releases his pressure on them, they return to their past relationship—or something like it. See epilog - other characters - Class S.

Saionji’s television world

Anthy and Utena live in a fairy tale world with princes and princesses. Saionji is older, and lives in a television world. It’s essentially similar, with indomitable heroes and unchanging true love.

In episode 20, preparing to leave Wakaba’s room, he monologs about preparations being completed and entering a new age of glory, and finishes with hasshin! “take off!” It is the language of a mecha anime. It may be a specific reference.

In the duel of episode 25, thinking he is about to defeat Utena, he says moratta! “I’ve got you!” It is taken directly from episode 139 of Sailor Moon, where a little girl defeats a grizzled old swordsman. Sailor Moon remarks that it is like a samurai drama.

In episode 1, Saionji makes fun of Utena for acting as a prince trying to save the princess. He considers it childish; he is more mature than that. But he sees himself as the hero of a TV drama, and it’s not very different.

Saionji’s kisama insult when speaking to Touga is common in fiction and over-the-top in real life. I think it comes from his television world.

the frog

The frog bothers Chu-Chu as Saionji arrives.
Episode 9, Chu-Chu and the frog

Before this picture, Chu-Chu was harassing a pill bug. A frog showed up and ate the pill bug, showing violent cruelty like Saionji. Now the frog badgers Chu-Chu as persistently as Saionji badgers Anthy, though more comedically. It’s a Saionji episode, the frog is green, Saionji’s color is green, Chu-Chu connects to Anthy. The frog is Saionji. Utena confirms it, telling Saionji “That’s you!” (though the subtitles translate it differently).

It’s a reference to The Frog Prince. My interpretation is not 100% firmly anchored, but I believe it. How does Saionji feel about his own violence? He knows in some way that it is bad, and certainly knows it is unprincely—and every boy must seek to become a girl’s prince. I think he excuses it to himself, in the same way that Utena makes self-excuses to minimize her corruption in her own mind. When he hits Anthy, I think he tells himself that it is her fault. If she would only be a proper princess and do as he demands, he would become a proper prince.

In other words, if Anthy would only kiss him, he would transform into a human prince and they would live happily ever after. The frog harassing Chu-Chu is telling us, indirectly, why Saionji harasses Anthy.

Anthy prefers to avoid Saionji because he is violent. Chu-Chu tries to fend off the frog. If Anthy were to kiss Saionji, he would not really become a prince, he would remain abusive. Who would kiss a frog? His fangirls don’t know he’s a frog, but Saionji is not a Lothario like Touga. He’s steadfast in seeking princess Anthy, even after pairing off with Touga.

Who turned Saionji into a frog? See the next section.

The frog in a well. The frog can also refer to a proverb about a frog in a well, which believes it knows everything because it knows its well. It doesn’t seem crazy to say that Saionji has that kind of tunnel vision. Utena insists that society as a whole has that kind of tunnel vision: The culture fails to see beneath its own surface, only knowing what is in its well.

speculative backstory

A man, apparently a church official, shows a menacing silhouette with blue shining glasses.
Episode 9, man seeking little Utena

How did Saionji come into his violent and abusive pattern? I don’t know much about how that kind of behavior arises, but it doesn’t seem likely that his childhood was in a happy environment. Someone must have modeled violent abuse for him. How else would he learn it? Young Saionji is already marked as violent in episode 9. When the men searching for little Utena appear, he sees them as sinister silhouettes, though he does not seem afraid of them. It is as if he sees them as dangerous, but does not fear danger to himself. Without further evidence, I imagine that his father abused his mother, practicing violence against women that Saionji internalized.

Saionji is a Student Council member, and I think Akio intervened in the lives of all the Student Council members, when they were children, in hope of inducing in them the Power of Dios. (And in the lives of many other children, including Utena.) Akio’s interventions mess people up. Akio requires Anthy to do his dirty work; she directly or indirectly caused somebody to model violent abuse for Saionji. In other words, Anthy the wicked witch cursed Saionji to become a frog.

Anthy’s misdeed comes back to trouble her. It’s possible that Anthy manipulated Utena into the dueling game to escape from Saionji. I think it is likely, and in that case it is part of the resistance that Akio’s harmful reign inspires—even in his most loyal subject.

However he came by it, Saionji is a product of the system of control and acts to perpetuate the system. Like everyone else—but especially like Anthy, whose job it is.

Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 9 June 2024
updated 11 November 2024