Where I watch Revolutionary Girl Utena, Episode 9

[cypsiman2]

Admittedly, weird stuff's been happening on this show from the very beginning, but this episode is the first one that really felt like a mind-screw. I mean, first of all, the flashback where it would seem that Touga and Saioniji met with Utena the day her parents died...why was there a third coffin there? I mean, it has great symbolic value of course, but why was it there to begin with? Also, what was the nature of what happened under the castle? Was it nothing but an illusion, or was there any substance to it at all? In other words, were Saioniji or Anthy ever in any real danger? And why did Touga go through all that elaborate manipulation and misdirection, simply to get Saioniji out of the way?

On the plus side, while Saioniji isn't technically any better a person from when we first saw him, his better jealousy of Touga and his desire to defeat Mr. Perfect at something, anything, does make him more human than his previously motiveless dickery. And now we do know one thing for certain; Touga is seriously bad news, and by extension so is "The End of the World".

Comments

[oneplusme.livejournal.com]

I think this was the point at which I really fell in love with the show. It's the combination of the memorably powerful imagery (the coffin; the inverted, unreachable fairy-tale castle in the sky) and the way the shadow play girls manage both to make you laugh and to deliver an emotional sucker-punch all at the same time ("So please, won't you leave me UFOs?").

[cypsiman2.livejournal.com]

Yepk, the shadow play girls were in top form in this episode, and we saw one of them crossing their arms, not just their shadows! Makes me wonder if we're going to be eventually shown them in the flesh and see them as actual characters...probably not.