Shiori. <- Previous • Next -> Utena.
Motto: The gay deceiver.
In the allegory, Touga personifies an aspect of the patriarchy: Control of women by allure and deception. Touga seeks psychological control of women. He loves Utena, a naive girl who is easy to deceive. Compare Saionji, who seeks physical control by violence.
Touga envies Akio for his power and wants to be like him. He is compared to Akio in many events, and comes off looking similar but lesser. Touga’s allure and deception are major tools that Akio uses, but Akio has a broader palette that includes violence, ideological control, and the creation of psychological dependence. Akio is far more powerful. Saionji envies Touga for a similar reason; Touga’s deception is more powerful than Saionji’s violence.
Touga was Akio’s expected dueling champion until Utena showed up. Apparently Utena indirectly saved Touga’s life: Akio murders his champions, as he plans for Utena. I think Ruka was the previous champion, from a year ago, and he ends up dead.
Juri is the most skilled with a sword. In the opener, she is the only character to fly, which represents her great skill. Why does Akio value Touga over Juri? It might be simple prejudice. But I think it is for the same reason that Touga is more powerful than Saionji: Touga’s skill at deception is more powerful than Juri’s skill at violence. Juri rejects deceit.
In his age 12 birthday party, we see the Kiryuu parents preparing Touga to become the patriarch of the family. (While they ignore and disempower Nanami.) He was presumably adopted into the family for that purpose. It’s parallel to Akio being adopted into the Ohtori family to carry on the family business and become the next family patriarch (see taking Ohtori).
Touga conventionalizes others. He not only plays his own conventional playboy role, he tries to arrange for others to play conventional roles. He does Akio’s social control work. He wants Anthy to be a bird in a cage. He wants Utena to be girlish: He is most attracted when she wears the frilly dress he gave her, and he gifted her with earrings that symbolize delicacy and dependence. He wants Nanami to believe she is unrelated to him, because it is more (conventionally) “romantic” (episode 32).
The Student Council arc. Touga first falls in love with Utena, then realizes that she has the Power of Dios and plots to take it for himself. He pursues two goals. Winning Utena’s love seems easy, since girls flock to him, so he postpones it until he has achieved the second goal: Defeating her in a duel to take the Power of Dios. He pretends to be Utena’s prince to direct her desire for the prince to himself. It works toward both goals, but the duel is the first order of business.
Touga’s plot against Utena has many and close parallels with Akio’s in the Apocalypse Saga. But Akio follows the opposite strategy: He first wins Utena’s love, then tries to exploit her. It comes closer to working.
Touga does win the Power of Dios. He cannot win Utena’s love, though she is attracted when an ordinary girl. When a prince, she rejects him (and after losing, she is a prince). And he can’t keep the Sword of Dios. Utena’s power of miracles belongs to herself, and not more than part of it is embodied in the sword. Anthy intervenes in the episode 12 duel and Utena regains her desired symbol.
Touga is doing Akio’s work under Akio’s control, which Akio exercises through Anthy. Touga coordinates with Anthy to set up and carry out his plot; it is especially clear in episode 9. See Anthy’s arc - working with Touga for a full rundown. Akio sets up Touga as Utena’s final test, to see whether her power of miracles is the real thing, worth nurturing and stealing. Akio’s test has two parts: For Utena to pass, Touga must defeat Utena, and Utena must bounce back and defeat Touga in turn. Utena’s loss will plant the idea that she is capable of losing (she has trouble realizing it). It’s valuable because Akio needs to beat her in the end to succeed. But I think the ability to bounce back is the key part of the test, because a prince must overcome all odds. If Utena cannot overcome a major setback, then her power of miracles is inadequate.
The Black Rose arc. Touga largely sits it out. He seems crushed and depressed by his defeat, as Utena was in episode 12, and unlike Utena he does not recover quickly. He features in Nanami’s “Dona Dona” dream in the cowbell episode 16. He appears silently in episode 21, drawing Keiko’s attention and attending Nanami’s party for him.
The Apocalypse Saga. A key part of Akio’s plot to control Utena is to sever her support and isolate her from influences other than Akio himself. The crucial supporters to cut away are Anthy and Touga, who love her and are knowledgeable and powerful. Akio follows a thorough plan to suppress Touga.
1. Set Touga up with Saionji. Akio starts this subplot early and completes it late. Touga rides in Akio’s car starting in episode 25, the first episode of the Apocalypse Saga. He’s sexing up Touga, countering his homophobia (ironically, because Touga is a rule-follower). Touga and Saionji are definitively together in episodes 35-36 (the scenes are presented out of order so that the episodes overlap in time). Even then, he tries to keep his options open with Utena as much as he can, telling lies to Saionji.
2. Break Touga apart from Nanami. Akio does it in episodes 31 and 32. First, Anthy manipulates Touga into convincing Nanami that she and Touga are unrelated (though I don’t know how she does it). Second, he follows a plan with Nanami that is closely parallel to his plan with Utena, so that Nanami rides in Akio’s car and comes to believe that she desires Akio instead of Touga.
3. Break Touga apart from Utena. See at night with Touga. First Akio offers Touga the job of giving a gift to Utena, then stages his own rescue of Utena and carries out the Second Seduction. It is an approach-withdrawal maneuver; it leaves Touga frustrated and Utena unhappy with Touga’s untrustworthiness. Second, in the re-approach step, Akio allows Touga to lure Utena to the dueling arena and controls the environment to help Utena decide to spend the night with him. Touga sees that Utena is attracted and is hopeful, but to get that far he had to promise that it was the last time. Third, in the dueling arena Touga tries to reactivate her attraction, but that finishes off Utena’s trust because he broke his promise that it was the last time. Being untrustworthy damages your power of stories, the power that matters in Utena. The break is final.
We’re not shown how Touga sets up his one-last-time plot to get Utena to stay overnight with him, but we know that Akio is behind it. It involves controlling the dueling arena, making it like episode 9, so it’s pretty sure that Touga coordinates it with Anthy in the same way as episode 9’s plot. Akio again exercises his control through Anthy.
As a prince, Utena would forgive Touga his sins, like Jesus. But Akio and Touga have worked together to make Utena into an ordinary girl, who is corrupt and unforgiving. Or to look at it from the opposite side, if Touga wants to be Utena’s prince then he must act the part. His constant deception is unprincely and breaks the illusion.
The episode 35 practice duel between Touga and Saionji shows us that Touga has lost his self-confidence. He wants to protect his love Utena from Akio, and he doubts that he can. Touga’s own support base is largely cut away already, and he knows that Akio is more powerful than he is.
The epilog. What Saionji says in the epilog tells us that Touga and Saionji don’t stay together. Akio put them together artificially, and when he releases his pressure the two return to their past relationship—or something close to it. See epilog - other characters - Class S.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 25 April 2024
updated 24 January 2025