(Roald Dahl’s voice) A TV killed my whole family once
Nothing against him, but between Matilda’s family and Mike Teavee I’m 99% sure that if Roald Dahl was alive today to see smartphones he’d have a stroke
(Roald Dahl’s voice) Let me present you the villain of my new story, Jerry Smortfone
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That feel when you finished a book two days ago but still can’t stop thinking about it
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twitter is the place to be if you want to meet cool interesting people online
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6 Great Halloween Costume Ideas For Duos
When it comes to dressing up, two is always better than one!
Ikuhara's Episode Commentary:
39: "Someday, Together, We'll Shine"There are two meanings to the Japanese word utena. One is “the calyx of a flower.” That’s also the meaning of the title, of course. The thing that supports the beautiful petals; the one with the noble heart. And the other meaning of utena is “tall tower or pedestal.” We translated this into a visual: the tower at the center of Ohtori Academy, the one with the Chairman’s room on the top floor. And the dueling arena located deep in the woods is the same.
In the early stages of production, when the story wasn’t firmly established yet, this was one of the aspects I most wanted to visualize and produce for the screen.
A world where demons roam. In its center, a tower called the “Tower of Revolution.” Whosoever can remain victorious in his battles against the demons can reach the pinnacle of the Tower of Revolution, and at the same time receive the power to revolutionize the world; the power that changes the rules of the world.
However, when he reaches the pinnacle, he learns the world’s govering laws.
He faces the ultimate choice: will he stay nobly, beautifully powerless? Or will he accept ugliness into himself and gain absolute power?
He desired both.
Or rather, perhaps he couldn’t choose either.
His mind in anguish, he divided himself in two. His “noble heart,” and the “adult with absolute power.”
And so.
With one last wish that the day would come when someone would awaken him, the “noble heart” that had lost its body, in other words the prince, fell into a deep sleep.
Early on in the series’s conception, I kicked around the idea of placing something like the above at the heart of the story. Later, after several changes, it became the tale as you know it, but without doubt, he did reach the pinnacle of the Tower of Revolution.
It was a place where “eternity” dwelled.
And “eternity” turned out to mean perpetual sleep.
The prince (Akio) who became an adult while in perpetual sleep lost something. What he lost was “the power to create an enjoyable future.”
Revolution means gaining “the power to imagine the future.”
The prince chose to sleep on, and the princess chose to wake up. At the top of that tall tower, the princess bid farewell to the prince. No - she wasn’t the princess any longer. She quit being “a person (thing) ruled by someone.” The victory bells rang, but there was no “tower (rule)” beyond them now. She’d learned where freedom lay. She crossed the threshold of that “Door of Revolution” which had always been closed for her before, and began walking. The “girls’ revolution” lay in the girl’s future.
“Wait for me… Utena.”
The world (the stage) is free and wide.
Ikuhara's Episode Commentary:
24: "The Secret Nanami Diary"This is just between you and me, but when I was fourteen, I confessed to the girl I’d loved for a long time, and she turned me down.
I couldn’t give up. I secretly followed her when she left the school.
But, as I did so, a UFO telepahtically transmitted this message to me:
"Stop acting like a stalker."“St-Stalker”? What’s that? Is it some hip slang from the future?
"Live your life heroically. Live it with style. If you live heroically and with style..."If I live heroically and with style, what?
"When you grow up, you will direct an anime about girls revolutionizing various things."
Ikuhara's Episode Commentary:
23: "The Terms of a Duelist"The climactic duel scene. I agonized over the dialogue between Mikage and Utena, and over Akio’s dialogue in the last scene. I edited it over and over, right up until the eleventh hour, just before recording began.
The last scene. The original plan was for it to be Tokiko on the phone with Akio.
“Why hello, Tokiko. Have you thought about what I said? That’s right… about Professor Nemuro. He was lying to himself, clinging to his past with you.”
It was all an illusion that Mikage himself had created for his own sake.
“Yes… that dream that he let the 100 boys die seems to be another lie he told himself to keep himself in the past. It’s just like magic, isn’t it? Why do you suppose so many people believed a false rumor like that? Perhaps they wanted to believe… that miraculous power dwells within friends.”
The illusion Mikage wanted to see. Were the Black Rose Duelists people his illusion resonated with?
“While you cling to your memories, time stops. Perhaps that was the eternity he found, though… Yes… good idea. If you’ll come and fetch him, I imagine he’ll be released from the memories.”
Tokiko symbolized the lost “real time.” And she said she would come for Mikage. The time had finally come for him to be released from his illusion of his lost time.
But.
Was that really all right? I thought it over.
The story in episodes 11 and 12 about the dueling game. Episode 23 picks up where it left off in laying the groundwork for the final episode.
Wasn’t Mikage’s fate the same fate that Utena would eventually meet? In which case, shouldn’t it be crueler?
I tried making the person on the other end of the phone line Mikage himself.
“The path you must take is no longer prepared for you. Now graduate from this place.”
Those who reject that place are, conversely, rejected by it as well. This is the nature of systems: the moment you reject them, you are forced to realize that they’re the very ground you’re standing on. Mikage noticed the trick behind the system, and he hurriedly attempted revisions. But the adult who’d created the system just said “Let’s not,” and unilaterally brought the curtain down. The system of illusion was finished. Mikage could no longer exist there. That’s why he disappeared from the memories of those who’d interacted with him.
People’s happiness or unhappiness shouldn’t be determined by struggles over the device called “the Rose Bride.” Utena rejects the duel system.
However.
In due course Utena will be rejected by the duel system and that place, and no longer be able to exist there. This foreshadows the final scene of the series.
Ikuhara's Episode Commentary:
22: "Nemuro Memorial Hall"“Research to gain eternity,” he says.
What was Professor Nemuro researching?
“Not medicine,” he says.
Maybe.
Maybe it was research in a field of study from the future, one we don’t know of yet.
My visual image here was Sou Kitamura’s play Aoi Suisei no Ichiya (A Blue Comet Night). I came across that piece during my student days, when I was going to plays all the time in search of something post-Terayama. A conservatory made of glass. A swarm of researchers in white coats in the adjacent sanatorium. What could their research be about? Is “that night” the eve of the world’s destruction? When they eventually look up, a comet streaks across the sky before their eyes. Is it the flash of light heralding the world’s destruction…? That’s what the play was about (I think, but I could be wrong).
The carts that keep appearing are icons of “death,” perpetually stuck in the corners of your vision. The background art skillfully depicts a transcendental realm[3] - a place where time seems to have stopped: a dreamlike place. A transcendental realm is a realm where the “End of the World” manifests itself.
The meaning of the “pointing fingers”?
They’re telling you that there’s someone controlling the laws of this world.
…Just kidding.
[3] The word translated as “transcendental realm” here is higan, a word used to refer to the Other Shore, and by connotation the Pure Land. When Director Ikuhara says this he is implying that these scenes depict a realm which completely transcends normal human realities; he may or may not be referring literally to the Buddhist Pure Land, but he is deliberately evoking images of it: a place in which one may be free of the cycle of death and rebirth.
I haven’t been on in months, but I want to let everyone know I’m still alive and well. If you need me you can message me and I’ll get back to you (someday).
Ceremonial Zoomorphic Dagger
- Dated: mid-16th century
- Culture: Indian, Vijayanagar or Deccan
- Medium: steel, bronze, rubies
- Measurements: overall length 42 cm
In an elegant, flowing style the hilt consists on one side of a rather large lion holding a small elephant between his front paws and a phoenix bird and a dragon with a long tail on the other side. The base of the hilt consists of two phoenixes with their heads facing the steel blade.