Utena - paired character comparisons

Utena does not think it’s enough to compare characters to each other one by one. It pairs up characters and compares the pairs to each other. The pairs are usually siblings or couples, which can be the same thing. Anthy and Utena are metaphorical siblings—see siblings and incest and Anthy and Utena are twins.

Anthy + Akio = Nanami + Touga

Nanami and Anthy are individually parallel, and so are Touga and Akio. And they are in parallel relationships: Anthy incestuously loves Akio who coldly exploits her, and Nanami incestuously loves Touga who coldly exploits her.

Shiori + Juri = Mari + Mitsuru

Mari is independently compared to Shiori by her character design. The paired comparison comes with reversals. Shiori is Juri’s childhood friend, one year younger. She loves Juri, doesn’t realize it, envies her, believes falsely that Juri looks down on her, and tries to get revenge. Mari is Mitsuru’s childhood friend, one year older. She likes Mitsuru, looks down on him, boasts of her (slightly) greater maturity, and cruelly berates him for what she sees as his failings. In other words, Mari acts like Shiori for an opposite reason, and Mari acts as Shiori imagines that Juri acts.

Juri loves Shiori and does not dare admit it. Mitsuru loves Nanami and is open about it. The implication is that Mari is lashing out in frustration. The relationships are dysfunctional because of Shiori’s and Mari’s age difference expectations, about one-year age differences that should become irrelevant by late adolescence. The problems are ultimately Akio’s doing; he set bad expectations. Mitsuru has, I think, a two-year age difference with Nanami, which is big at his age but will also become irrelevant later. The age differences are indirect commentary on Utena’s relationships with Dios and Akio, with a wider age gap. Utena doesn’t care about the age difference, and that’s wrong too. Akio takes advantage in both directions.

Shiori + Juri = Saionji + Touga

They are two couples with unrealized mutual love. Shiori feels overshadowed by Juri in the same way that Saionji feels overshadowed by Touga, so that Shiori and Saionji are bitter for the same kind of reason.

Good Juri sees Shiori as innocently cruel and blames her own weakness for being unable to let go. In fact she keeps Shiori trapped; that is what her locket stands for. She unintentionally crushes Shiori’s self-esteem and Shiori becomes maliciously cruel. Bad Touga exploits Saionji much the same way he exploits others.

Utena + Akio = Shiori + Ruka

In episode 28, the story of Shiori and Ruka is parallel to the story of Utena and Akio. Some elements of episode 28 are parallel to events earlier, and some to events later. When Ruka meets Shiori, first he lures her into a suggestive lie, “I polished your sword every day.” When Utena and Akio meet for what Utena believes is the first time in episode 14, he tries to lure her into a lie, “The students never fight.” The lies relate to the dueling system. In a reversal, corrupt Shiori repeats the lie while honest Utena dodges it. Ruka holds a hand on the side of Shiori’s face and kisses her. Shiori is seduced. Akio holds a hand on the side of Utena’s face and kisses her in episode 30, contributing to her corruption. The hands express control or manipulation. Ruka and Shiori’s second kiss seconds later (to repeat the link) is parallel to Akio and Utena’s kiss in the Second Seduction of episode 36—the poses and the degree of seduction match. In each kiss, Shiori faces left because she in truth loves Juri, not Ruka. Utena faces right because she has in truth fallen for Akio. They are mirror images. The episode’s shadow play alludes obliquely to Cinderella, tying Shiori to Utena’s Cinderella scene. It also alludes to Akio’s car, which carries them to their separate sex scenes. Three couples get sex scenes in Utena: Akio and Anthy, Ruka and Shiori, and Akio and Utena.

Individually, Shiori has a parallel with Utena. And Ruka is like Akio in that both carry out complex evil plots to control others, involving love and sex, that run roughshod over everyone in the way. Unlike Akio, Ruka’s goal is less than 100% selfish: He wants to free Juri from her obsession with Shiori (unless we are being misdirected, pretty likely in Utena).

We can extend the parallel: Shiori’s true love is Juri and Utena’s true love is Anthy, so Juri is parallel to Anthy in this comparison.

In a reversal, the controller Ruka is dead by the end of his two episodes, possibly murdered by Anthy’s slow poison. I think he was dead from the start. In contrast, Akio plans to murder the controlled Utena. I think the reversal is evidence that Akio did have Ruka murdered.

Utena + Akio = shy girl + Touga

Utena + Anthy = Juri + Shiori

The purpose of the prince is to maintain the patriarchy. That’s why Dios was invented. As long as Utena wants to be a prince, she acts to maintain the patriarchy: She traps Anthy at the Academy. It is parallel to Juri’s locket, which traps Shiori.

I suspect that the parallel is detailed. So far, I see that Utena breaking Juri’s locket in episode 29 (freeing Shiori) is parallel to Utena giving up on being a prince and vanishing from the Academy (freeing Anthy to leave). See sparkling transfers - Juri’s locket for more. Water falls from the locket when Shiori opens it in the confession elevator. It is the water of Shiori’s tears—she is sad to have been thrown away (though she doesn’t understand it). Anthy is sad when she leaves Akio behind at the end, though she dissociates her feelings onto Chu-Chu.

Utena + Anthy = Keiko + Nanami

Anthy backstabbing Utena in the final showdown is parallel to Nanami ostracizing Keiko for chasing Touga in episode 21. See Anthy’s backstab - prefigured images - Nanami and Keiko. Anthy’s manipulation of Utena is compared to Nanami’s control over Keiko. There is a closely-related second parallel to the backstab: In the end, Keiko seems to be breaking free from Nanami, and Nanami resorts to beating her up. In the end, Utena seems to be breaking free from Akio, and Anthy resorts to violence.

Utena + Anthy = kitten + Nanami

Nanami finds the kitten and gives it to Touga; Anthy follows Akio’s step by step orders to deliver Utena to Akio. Touga is delighted with the kitten; Akio is delighted with Utena’s power and naivety. Nanami decides to dispose of the cat out of jealousy; Akio decides to murder Utena and Anthy stabs her in the back out of jealousy. Nanami regrets killing the cat; Anthy regrets stabbing Utena, and Akio must take extra measures to keep her in line.

The kitten is innocent and ignorant, like Utena. The kitten bats at things with its sharp claws in play; Utena fights with her sword in the dueling game. The kitten seems helpless and doomed when thrown into the powerful water, but we don’t see it die; Utena seems helplessly swept along by Akio’s power of illusions (that water stands for), and at the end she is mortally wounded and may die, but we don’t see it.

Utena + Anthy = Miki + Kozue

On the left, a bird cage with bird. On the right, little Kozue. The colors are abstract, not realistic.

Episode 5, little Kozue

The picture compares little Kozue to Anthy and Utena at the same time. It comes up during a conversation in Anthy’s greenhouse, which is a bird cage—and here is a bird in a cage, equated with both Anthy and Kozue. (And later with the Kaoru family mother.) It associates Kozue with purple for corruption, like Anthy; Miki is telling the story of the failed concert, which is when Kozue became corrupted. (Like Utena, Miki blames himself for bad events; that is how good people act in Utena.) Meanwhile, Kozue’s hair is pink for Utena, and she wears a hair bow like the bow worn by the shadow girl who usually plays Utena in shadow plays. The following image makes a similar comparison with Miki instead of Kozue.

Utena is physically female. She wants to be a prince, playing a male role, and to marry the prince, playing a female role. Miki is Hermaphroditus. Both are mixed male and female, but Utena is male with respect to Anthy and Miki with respect to Kozue. Both are good at heart, though sometimes confused. Both have a sense of justice. The two are opposite in that Utena acts effectively on her sense of justice, while Miki is ineffective (Touga talks him out of stopping the duels to protect Anthy, and Juri tells him his sword is not for battle).

Anthy and Kozue are the female halves of the pairs. Both fear crowds (Anthy, Kozue). Both are corrupt. Anthy has dark purple hair for her deep corruption, and Kozue has blue hair that to me looks shaded toward purple (though the pixel values say otherwise), presumably because she was corrupted by illusions (and to relate her to Miki). Unlike Utena and Miki, Anthy and Kozue have incestuous interests, another sign of corruption. Anthy desires Utena, while Kozue desires Miki. They are opposite in the same way that Utena and Miki are opposite: Anthy’s actions are effective while Kozue’s are not.

The start of episode 15, Kozue’s Black Rose duel, is parallel to a scene from episode 1. In episode 1, Utena walks down the colonnaded way, and (noticing the smell of roses) stops and turns to see Anthy in the greenhouse. In episode 15, Miki walks down the same colonnade, and stops and turns to see Kozue with a boy. Kozue provokes Miki, drawing close and whispering to her boy. When the music teacher appears, Kozue pushes her boy away—her earlier Anthy-like vengeance in pushing the music teacher down stairs did not deter him.

Utena + Anthy = Kozue + Miki

The comparison is drawn clearly in episode 26, when Kozue rescues nestling birds. She risks her life to do it: She is a hero, like Utena. Then she falls and must be rescued herself. On the one hand, it is an example of the teamwork that was introduced in the previous episode: Miki saves Kozue after her fall, as Anthy makes it possible for Utena to leave the Academy. (It is also a reversal. In the final showdown, it is Anthy who falls away from Utena, and Utena who makes it possible for Anthy to leave the Academy.) On the other hand, it predicts Utena’s need for rescue at the point when she disappears from the Academy.

Then Miki takes responsibility for raising the nestlings. With Anthy’s help (which Utena remarks is unusually direct), Miki takes on Anthy’s nurturing role.

The parallel continues. In rescuing the nestlings, Kozue’s left foot is injured, and Miki carries her home. He complains that Kozue is leaning too close, a sign of her feelings. In episode 30, due to Akio’s interference Utena’s left foot is injured, and Anthy helps her toward the infirmary. Anthy keeps a hand on Utena’s breast, a sign of her feelings. In a reversal, Utena does not seem to care, or even notice, that Anthy is feeling her up. (Anthy is enjoying it—she’s smiling. She’s taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity. Compare the earlier library scene.) In episode 26, Kozue tells Miki that to get what you want, you have to lose your purity. In episode 30, Utena realizes that she wants Akio, and chooses to lose her purity to get him.

The nestlings stand for Kozue and Miki, and therefore also for Utena and Anthy. Both pairs work together to rescue themselves.

Kozue and Miki are not able to sustain their teamwork. By the end of the episode, Kozue (influenced by Akio) has returned to her spiteful self. Utena and Anthy also cannot sustain their teamwork under Akio’s pressure, but thanks to Utena’s miracle they regain it in the final episode.

The purpose of the comparison must be (at least in part) to show the differences between the pairs that make Kozue and Miki ordinary, while Utena and Anthy are special and capable of miracles. Kozue is a bad character, and can never have Utena’s idealism and willingness to make a genuine sacrifice, keys to her power of miracles. By extension, once the miracle is achieved, Kozue and Miki can learn from it and follow its lesson.

Utena + Anthy = Tokiko + Mamiya

Tokiko is in some ways a mirror image of Utena. Both have cantilever cheek hair, and Tokiko’s purple hair is similar in hue (not lightness) to Utena’s pink. Tokiko wears a flower-like emblem on the right side of her chest, the mirror image of where a dueling target rose is placed. Female Tokiko is the reverse of male prince Utena. Mikage repeatedly looks at Utena and sees Tokiko (in the greenhouse, at the wall of photos, in the duel). Akio seduces both (well, he seduces many so that’s nothing much), and both seductions are associated with roses in a bouquet (that’s more specific).

At the time of the Black Rose, Mamiya is long dead and is played by Anthy. He looks like Anthy in some ways. Mamiya tends roses in a greenhouse that corresponds to Anthy’s greenhouse. Mikage’s memories of Mamiya from when he must have been alive resemble the false Mamiya, which I take to be because Mikage’s memory is unreliable. He has illusions about Mamiya.

Tokiko and Mamiya are sister and brother, though it’s hard to see them as twins. Still, they go with Kozue and Miki and with Utena and Anthy. The two pairs are directly compared in episode 22, in images that show Tokiko and Utena trying to exert control and failing.

Utena + Anthy = Touga + Saionji

Touga and Saionji met as children, like Utena and Anthy. Saionji subordinates himself to Touga, as Anthy does to Utena. Utena is bold; Anthy is fearful. Touga boldly opens little Utena’s coffin; Saionji fearfully hangs back. In the duel of episode 36, Anthy helps Utena and Saionji helps Touga.

Above all: Utena and Anthy are different aspects of womankind. Their oppositeness implies that women are all different and a woman can be anything. Touga and Saionji are aspects of sexism. Touga favors psychological control; Saionji favors violent control. Their oppositeness implies that men are all alike in one way.

Wakaba + Utena = Nanami + Touga

Partially serious loves: Wakaba says that Utena is hers alone. Nanami says that Touga is the only man for her. They are both wrong.