The Adolescence of Utena

One of my favorite movies from one of my favorite series, though recently I hopped on the cesspool that is MAL and saw a lot of people hated it, making me curious:

What Sup Forums think?

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>recently I hopped on the cesspool that is MAL
You're part of the problem

>"Wow OP, you use a website for keeping track of anime to just look up an anime's information?!"
Fuck off.

It was great, but I liked the series a lot more. The movie is defnitely one of the most beautiful animated works in general but the show just gets a chance to develop the characters and story more and ends up having more impact by the end.

I think you should stay there.
Seriously, if you're one of those people that allows other people's opinions to affect them you shouldn't come to this place, ever.

film is the definition of style over substance and the main argument that ikuhara needs someone to reign him in

it's a very, very beautiful film, but that's all it is. too busy with incoherant symbolism (cars lmao) and sexual content he couldn't get away with on the TV show to make anything resembling a story, narrative or characters

there's also the scene where akio falls out of a window trying to find his car keys, which can't decide what sort of tone this scene is supposed to have so I end up feeling nothing at all

That's obviously not true. I feel like people always say something is "style over substance" whenever the work has a bit more attention put to visual direction. The thing is usually those are the kinds of works that do have more substance, as it is in this case.

explain in one paragraph or less why utena turns into a car

She was Anthy's vehicle of escape. Not even the same poster.

you need to go back,

One of the main idea of the anime is that Utena trie to free Anthy from the cycle of abuse she's trapped in. Yet that even if she physically "saves her" she is still trapped because of her own mentality. Ultimately she stops fighting for her, she leaves the academy and that gives Anthy an example to follow, she leaves the academy by herself. Well in the film it's the same, Utena in a sense helps Anthy by being literally a vehicle of her freedom, but Anthy is the one that holds the wheel and has to drive towards that freedom herself.

>develop the characters
I'm still amazed by how she got her character development even when he was simply standing in the background.

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Escape from what? And where? Since we're (I assume) working under the assumption that utena didn't literally turn into a car and that was alll just an extended visual metaphor, what was the "real" reason that utena couldn't go with anthy in the end? What does the other girl turning into a car represent, or the shadow girls?

The problem with being too wrapped in metaphors and icons like this is that you start losing track of where the ground is.

Sure, except that in the series everything has a baseline explanation once you throw away all the "magic" and has the benefit of almost 40 episodes to build up the characters and their relationships, whereas the film is just a big mess of visual imagery that kind of says the same stuff except also everything is completely different from the series which means you can't really take it as a companion piece

Look user, just because you didn't get it, don't force other people to think they didn't. I mean I don't get quantum physics for example, but I don't claim that scientists just make that stuff complicated on purpose or try to convince people that it all actually doesn't make sense.

If it makes sense, you should be able to explain it easily, right?

Yes, but it makes me mad then when we did explain something to you completely ignored that you were wrong on that front and started latching on to something else. If you admit you were then sure, I'll explain those question. If you don't then I can assume you'll just be doing the same ad infinitum and I would have to have absolutely no respect towards myself to indulge you in that.

Did I say my opinion was affected? No. I asked for Sup Forums's thoughts after saying I loved the movie; I only even asked out of pure curiosity. I think you should go back to school and learn how to read.

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Anthy is the Rose bride. She is what other people make her, she is the desires of whoever she is engaged to. What is she escaping? The system, the idealism, the patriarchy, childhood, everything; they escape the school, which is both childhood as well as an idealistic world and way of thinking, and go into the twisted adult world, having only each other. Is the symbolism that hard, or the story that convoluted? Utena is the way for her to escape the childish and idealistic mindset as well as the physical area of the school. She is the literal vehicle for Anthy, though Anthy has to be the one to drive them out and free her own mind.

How does being raped by her older brother symbolize childhood and idealism?

Did you even watch the movie?

I thought the movie the culmination of the entire show; it played out all the themes in a lavish and madly stylish production. Maybe it's me, but the visuals wowed me so much that I didn't care that there was less character development or plot; just the visuals themselves were enough to create a great impact on me. Compared to the 40+ episodes of the original, some of which I'd fall asleep in, I loved the movie.

I'm talking about the series.

But you don't just use the website to "look up information." In this case, you used it to look up the irrelevant user-generated score of a movie, then hop on Sup Forums and make a thread about that score.

>a lot of people hated it
Fuck them and fuck you.

The movie is a mixed bag. The first two thirds are fucking incredible (if you've watched the show first of course). The moment Utena turns into a car the movie goes to shit. I get it, I don't mind visual metaphors one bit, the scene with Shiori turning into a moth is incredible. But the car section goes on way too long at over 15 minutes. It's not choreographed well enough to be entertaining on it's own and it's so disconnected from the rest of the film it's hard to be emotionally engaged. When Utena turns into a car the basic human interest of the story is lost until she reappears at the end. I get it, I just don't enjoy watching it.
I'm mostly disappointed in the ending of the movie because the end of the show is the best ending I've ever seen. Of course the movie couldn't live up to that standard but it's hard not to compare. Still pretty though.

You really need to see the series beforehand for the movie to make any kind of sense, that's probably why.
MAL ratings are pretty questionable anyway, unless you genuinely believe that Gintama should be occupying the majority of the top 10 anime slots by itself

Does anyone else get distracted by the fact Anthy and Utena look like Barbie dolls at the end when they're on the lesbian luge?

This is probably the realest reply

/thread