radio414

There're videos of the original German lyrics to Pirate Jenny with English subtitles but the audio is worse so you get this one.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Duel 09 -- The Castle Said To Hold Eternity Or: The Two Worst Characters (So Far) Grew Up Together That Means We Can Ship Them, Right? First thing’s first, I came across a pretty comprehensive list of content warnings for Revolutionary Girl Utena. It’s already in the opening post, but I’m also going to post it here for those who have been following along just in case. Again, I’ll say the major ones in these posts themselves, and we haven’t gotten to those yet, but if you find content warnings useful, especially related to mental or physical abuse, I recommend checking out that link. I apologize for not doing due diligence and seeking that out sooner. With that said, let’s talk about video games because Utena has a video game. Someday, My Revolution Will Come (there are a bunch of translations for the title, most notably “Story of the Someday Revolution” or “Four Days in Ohtori Academy” but “Someday…” is my favorite so I’m using it here) is a visual novel for the Sega Saturn published in 1998. It has largely the same writing team and voice team, and takes place within the anime’s canon, specifically between Episodes Eight and Nine. It involves a playable new character interacting with not only the rest of the main cast, but also the mysterious Chigusa Sanjouin, who also seeks the power to revolutionize the world. Finding gameplay of this game was a bit difficult, actually. If you want to play it, you can either learn Japanese and have a Sega Saturn (and a bunch of money to snap Someday… up should it pop up on eBay), or you can trawl through an archived forum where not every page got saved hoping that the thread where the game got talked about is still there, find a Saturn emulator and a virtual disk drive, download not one, but two .iso files, and run a .bat script, but only after a little bit more editing in the process. I did all that (the second option, I mean), but then I realized it was late Friday night and I wasn’t going to be able to process most of what I was doing anyway, so I just watched a playthrough instead. Maybe I could do an LP of my own someday, but for now, let’s just do a general overview of the story. There isn’t a content warning list for this game that I could find, but a good substitute would be going through the broader ones featured in the list above, specifically the ones of the first two arcs, “Student Council arc” and “Black Rose arc”. Despite taking place between Episodes Eight and Nine, it also serves as a primer for that second arc, as well as serving as foreshadowing for the third “Apocalypse” arc, including Anthy’s brother Akio at times and a few pictures of eventually relevant Ruka Tsuchiya. I say that it serves as a primer because the Black Rose arc -- and I’ll talk about this more when we get to it in a month or so -- is all about character foils. We’ll learn about each of our main characters largely through exploring who they are not. With that in mind, the question of the game becomes, who is Chigusa Sanjouin a foil to? Spoilers for the game, by the way. It’s easy to say Utena. Chigusa constantly describes herself as masculine, from her appearance (which isn’t very clear in the key art but who’s to say) to her activities, which is similar to Utena constantly striving to be a prince, but Chigusa is constantly portrayed as uncomfortable with this presentation of herself. Her “more masculine qualities” are what caused her to lose her crush, which then led to her burning down the old duel hall in an act of suicidal arson. It’s also easy to say this because the game’s main character is a bit wishy-washy and constantly over her head, to the point where one might imagine she’s not a character at all, simply a conduit for the player. But that’s not really the case. The main character of Someday, My Revolution Will Come does have a story and it is important to the game. Her father was Chigusa’s crush, and her mother was the rival Chigusa lost to. We also see a few references to Snow White, not only in the imagery, but also during the climax, where Chigusa literally calls herself the “Evil Queen” and the PC “Snow White-san”. Part of me wants to say it’s not a very interesting counterpoint, as it literally pairs the two canon foreigners in a way that they can easily be missed, making the game unnecessary, but it is notable that it literally introduces the stockiest of stock characters for us to play as before challenging those assumptions. I mentioned that I would talk about “why” each character fought for Anthy’s hand and the power to revolutionize the world. In this case, the game states it outright. Chigusa fights for all the Evil Queens of the world because if she wins, it proves that they are superior and can, in fact, someday find their prince. But she’s misguided. “Evil Queens” in Chigusa’s mind, are women who don’t conform to feminine ideals. But Utena Tenjou is exactly that, and she seems perfectly content with her lot. And when Chigusa loses, it is because of someone feminine, relying on her own experiences to break the four-day curse on Ohtori Academy. If there’s a reason to dislike this game, it’s because the relationship between the protagonist’s parents goes completely uncommented on, or if it is, it is in a way that is uncharacteristic for the series. This is a marriage that initially formed between student and teacher, and in a show that examines how power dynamics like this one can wreck a relationship, it’s a little unclear why this one was not. In fact, outside of the main story, Someday My Revolution Will Come includes a lot of fanservice. To be fair, I would have expected as much in a game with dating sim mechanics (the specific ending you get is determined by the “nobility” of the main characters, and you raise nobility by spending time with them), but some of the scenes are especially heavy on it. “Juri and I played a fighting game and I won!” is a possible option, for example, not to mention the multiple shower scenes. All in all, I think the game presents some good ideas, and I’m glad it exists, but let’s talk about an actual episode now. Saionji is the Vice President of the Student Council while Touga is the President. A simple distinction, but one that looms over both of them. Touga always wins, after all, whether it’s when they spar or who gets the girl. As one can imagine, after ten years of this, Saionji has developed quite the inferiority complex. Even when Saionji has a flashback that’s a third of an episode long, it’s still mostly about Touga. But let’s talk about that flashback for a moment. Remember way back in Episode Three when I made the distinction that while Touga definitely isn’t Utena’s mysterious prince, he definitely has a connection to Utena’s past? Here’s where we first see that. This is the first time we see the framing story, the “Once Upon a Time…” that begins many of Utena’s episodes, and it’s interesting how it drops the fantastic nature of it. Utena isn’t a princess, she’s a young girl whose parents were in a car accident. She isn’t sad -- there aren’t tears for potential princes to wipe from her eyes -- she’s crushingly depressed, hiding away in a coffin and waiting to die. Touga cannot provide the “something eternal” that she wants, again, revealing that he isn’t, nor can he be her prince, but also the episode starts pulling back on his intent as well. He doesn’t want to be “her prince,” he wants Utena to forget her prince in favor of him. This is evidenced in how he saves her at the end. He doesn’t say “Because it’s what your prince would do,” he says, “wasn’t your prince a guy like me?” It’s Utena that conflates the two. But while Touga is infatuated with the girl in the coffin, Saionji notices something else: Touga’s failure. This is the gap in Touga’s otherwise impenetrable armor and it’s something that Saionji fixates on, because if he can find something eternal, he can prove himself better than his friend/rival. It still objectifies Anthy and he’s still an irredeemable jerk to her, but we are continuing to humanize the Student Council by giving them familiar motivations at least. Meanwhile, though this just turns Touga Kiryuu into more of an anomaly, because he appears to be devoid of these motivations besides seducing Utena and winning Anthy’s hand, going so far as to manipulate Saionji into breaking the rules of the dueling game and expelling him when he does. It’s this charming inscrutability that makes him more of a threat, I think, so the motivation card works both ways. We’ll learn more about Touga eventually, but it’s going to take a while. -r Next time: You know how in the opening we see Nanami fighting Utena? This is that part. ←Previous Post -- Link to Episode -- Next Post→

Her name was Leila. Okay, that was a useful bit of information to get out of just a “hi” and whatever Hana was doing. Though Leila also asked if they were part of a club and Peter was pretty sure that had been explained at some point. But maybe she had missed it like Peter did with most of Hana’s ramblings. Before he could answer though, he was distracted by Hana pulling more handfuls of noodles off the shelf. “Why do you think I got two carts?” Hana said, followed by “I dunno if that’s enough…” “Well, one for each person and then a couple extra in our cart just in case, right? You can get whatever you want as long as you don’t expect Coach Clara to pay for it.” Telling Hana to cut loose in essence was probably asking for trouble but it seemed like she was already doing that without their help, so it wasn’t like it was going to hurt. Or hurt too much, anyway. Meanwhile, there was still Leila’s question that needed answering. “Yeah, we’re, uh, we’re part of Horizon Academy’s dueling club. I’m Peter, that’s Makoto, and she’s Hana. Where do you go, Leila?”

Either Chris had completely misjudged the speed at which the mushrooms could move or they’d spent too long settling on their plan, but either way, it quickly became obvious that they weren’t going to outrun anything without at least a little skirmish. On the plus side, dealing with the closest ones was less than dealing with all ten? That was something, but the mushroom men were ready now, so not getting bogged down was going to be more difficult than before. Chris focused on going with the group for as long as possible, getting everyone as far ahead as they could. Once the first of the mushrooms got close enough, he kicked off the left wall, converting all his momentum to move towards it in a flying lunge, swinging his sword in a diagonal arc aiming to cut through the stalk of the thing as cleanly as possible. A battle cry wasn’t normally his thing, but he still let out a “Yaaaah!” as he flew towards the monster. His sword didn’t manage to go all the way through, though. In fact, he didn’t even manage to get it halfway. It was still a nasty gash, but there appeared to be spores around the edge of it that surely were going to do something, and either way, the mushroom was completely unfazed. Worse, now Chris found himself in stabbing distance and had to pull back pretty far to avoid that particular attack, nearly bumping into the wall behind him. But he managed, and, having wasted enough time, took off down the perimeter of the cavern again. There was still at least one more mushroom they’d probably have to deal with before they could finish their mad dash, but all Chris wanted at that moment was to get as much distance between him and the now crooked fungus, who in turn continued in its chase.

Elsie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with her not-even-half-empty mug of “ale”. She considered just pawning it off on Lucine since she seemed to enjoy it for some reason, but Lucine had already ordered a second straight from Lauryn, so that plan was over before it even began. She thought about just casting a spell and turning it into water or something, but she didn’t want to do it with Lauryn watching in case it caused a scene, so when she sat down with them that plan went out the window as well. All that was left was just ignoring the mug and hoping that it just went unnoticed. The food was good at least. Elsie wasn’t as picky about food, but it was still above average, she thought. She placed a few pieces aside for Corbin, who hopped down to the table and started happily pecking away. Of course, in all the excitement about food and drink, Elsie hadn’t been paying as much attention to the actual questions being asked. She did pick up on Lauryn confirming that yes, these were nighttime attacks, though, which snapped her back to attention just in time for the most interesting part, that the number of people missing and the number of monsters seemed to be related. “Oh, we’ll definitely have to look into that,” Elsie said. “I guess that means we’re staying the night, then? You have room for, uh --” she did a quick count on her fingers “-- eight, no, maybe nine?” “And a bird,” Corbin chimed in. “Eight or nine and a bird.”

I would post 500 times and I would post 500 more

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children -Ephesians 5:1 (NIV) Not explaining her plan until the eleventh hour seemed to work out in Melissa’s favor, she thought, or at least the improvisational efforts of her schoolmates seemed to do well enough. She did wonder a little bit about whether everyone’s safety was more because of the actions of Souji and the Skull Servants who had kept the perimeter, or if it was because of the duel fields and good thoughts, but she decided not to think too hard about that. The important thing, again, was that it worked. Even better, people were still coming in! Most of them were people Melissa didn’t know, but across the field near Taylor Hall were some faces Melissa did recognize. One was just the duelist she and Gabby had watched at the dance (his name was Yushiro, right?). Next to him was Ashley Rendleman, and Melissa supposed it was a good thing she was alive to do whatever she needed to on campus. The third face, though, was Elizabeth’s! She was okay! Or rather, she was as okay as anyone could be at the moment. Melissa gave her a wave to welcome her inside, though Jun jumped in to start answering questions before Melissa could go any further than that. Not that she begrudged Jun for it. It was what she’d been assigned, after all, and she seemed to have a bit of rapport with Yushiro already. When she turned around, she saw Gabby interacting with a monster -- a Kuriboh, or something like it. That was on purpose, right? That it had made it through Gabby’s barricade? She seemed friendly enough with it, so maybe? And yet, at the same time, Melissa recalled her first monster experience of the day, a horde of seemingly cute Mokey Mokey who had crashed their way into her history classroom. It made her uneasy just thinking about it. But she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about things like that, so Melissa tried to think about something else. She turned back around and went over to Jun, Yushiro, Ashley Rendleman, and Elizabeth. “I’m really glad you could make it,” Melissa said (to the group in general but Elizabeth in particular). “I don’t know what’s going on, but at least we can all ride out the storm together now. Oh, and --” she motioned to their duel disks “-- it would help if you turned those on.”

When The Islands Were Young Dia’s eyes softened at Finn’s question. She’d had her hand raised, ready for another blow across the cheek but instead it slowly drifted down to her side and the water around her calmed. “Like I said when we first met, it was a long time ago,” Dia said. “It would have been just after it became clear that yes, humanity would survive after the apocalypse, just after we agreed on having watchdogs execute our will. Of course, I immediately tried to find one. Most of the gods did. It was especially important to me, though, because what is life without water? How can a world survive without the sea? “Her name was Sarah Rosewater. She was a lot like you. I suppose that’s the point of a watchdog, really. She presented herself before me, and I did not find her devotion lacking. She had an energy to her, much like you do, and a drive to succeed. But she wouldn’t have ‘cannonballed’ into sacred water, or done anything to earn more than a playful jab to the shoulder “Like I said, back then, the biggest fear was running out of water, and that the world would dry up. Dies, my sister, and her watchdog had been trying to help with rainwater, but the constant downpours were causing more problems than they were solving. Obviously. “We weren’t as concerned with worship back then. We just wanted to help. All Sarah thought necessary was an unending spring in places that either had a lot of movement or that would be hard to deliver water shipments to. Galatea has one, and so do many other islands. That’s most of what she did. Aside from the preaching and the service, I mean. It’s not this pool, this was just consecrated with the mother of pearl. But if you go underground -- and there’s a tunnel just outside the city that will take you there -- you can see the remnants of Sarah’s work. “The problem, of course, is that it’s a tourist attraction now. Nobody goes there to praise me or sing the songs of ‘Her Holiness Dia, Mother of the Sea,’ it’s just one of many interesting features, divorced from me in all but name.” Dia raised her hand again for another slap. “You’ve made me wistful. Now, you can either find a way to have Galatea accept the ocean it deserves or, failing that, make them remember just who is keeping them alive.” Emily Awake Emily had said nothing since being led into Myria’s temple, mostly because she’d been so overwhelmed at the sight of it. Myria was not a deity she’d been brought up worshipping outside of the occasional night she’d woken up from a nightmare and had it disappear when she finally fell back asleep. She’d never seen the inside of her temple before, and she only came back down from her wonder when the watchdog motioned for her to remove her shoes before leading her on to a much smaller room for just the two of them. If her situation were less grave, Emily would have said something like, “This isn’t an excuse to proposition me, is it?” But here too, she kept her mouth shut, instead focused on what she wanted to ask. “Breathe deeply and slowly,” the watchdog said. She did so. “Seek her guidance and ask her for answers.” Interlude: Levanna The nerve! After the watchdog walked off so satisfied with himself, Levanna couldn’t find any reason to stay in Dia’s temple any longer. It certainly wouldn’t help in calming her down; despite its soothing palette, the watchdog was still in the building, which meant she couldn’t be. And yet, outside was barely any different. Even after a few deep breaths, the world seemed to only find new ways to aggravate her. The crowd in front of the temple to Taros had been contained, yes, but it had not been significantly diminished. Of all the times to not execute her instructions promptly, why today? Sure, the Taros watchdog had seemed like he was about to take care of it, but that was no excuse. And they still hadn’t found- “Lady Levanna!” A guard interrupted her train of thought, breaking from the group she had summoned earlier to sprint across the square. “Lady Levanna! The watchdogs you sent us to find, we’ve found them!” That was good news at least. Levanna felt her expression soften. “Ah, yes, very good. Have you directed them anywhere or were you waiting for my instruction?” “Well…” The guard scratched the back of their neck. “One is currently occupied in their temple, and the other…” They gestured with their other hand towards, no, just near the crowd to where the young girl stood, watching, waiting. “She was headed to her temple when we spotted her. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to interrupt, but with you here and her there, what are your orders?” “Orders? I would have asked you to escort them to me, but I am already here, so you may consider that task finished. Your other one though, I might suggest moving a bit more quickly on?” The guard nodded and sprinted back to the rest, who moved with a bit more urgency, even if it was still too slow for Levanna’s liking. Levanna didn’t bother managing them further, though. She had watchdogs to corral. She made confident strides over to the girl, who barely moved from her spot, and once she was within earshot, Levanna began to speak. “Oh, you have to forgive me for losing you earlier!” Levanna said, still moving closer as she did so. “We were afraid you had gotten lost and had been looking all over for you. I trust you are well?” Levanna moved even closer. “You’ll also have to forgive us for the commotion, but you must trust that it will be handled with or without your onlooking. In fact, that Taros watchdog just went in there with a whip so I’m sure they’ll all disperse in just a moment.” She got even even closer, and this movement came with an attempt to change the subject. “What did you think of your temple? Was it as grand as you had imagined it?” Emily’s Dream There are so many questions Emily wants to ask, but even the most basic, even something as simple as “What should I know?” sounds silly in her mind. She dreams of a raging storm, thunder echoing in every direction, a lightning flash anywhere she might have chosen to look. And yet, the downpour doesn’t seem to affect her. Droplets that would have wet her skin do not, instead stopping centimeters, no, millimeters from hitting her and sliding away. Her eyes do not flinch away when a bolt of lightning strikes the ground, and the thunder becomes almost a rhythm she can follow along to. She can feel the presence of Myria’s watchdog, even if she cannot see him. That helps too. Soon, she has her first question, and the world shifts. Emily dreams of a temple. It is not Myria’s temple, nor is it any other one she recognizes, a fact not helped by its ruined state. The altar has been torn asunder, and only the tattered remains of tapestries hang from the walls, fluttering in some unfelt wind. The glassless windows show nothing outside but a dark void. The silence is oppressive. The world rotates for her, she does not move or turn from her spot. There, in the pews, lay dozens of sculptures, all unique, and all of stone. One is a column, with tines sticking out of it, one is a small cylinder lying on its side, chipped three times at the top. And so on, and so on. Emily asks her second question, and the world shifts again. She dreams of a fire, and a crowd around it, all humming (singing?) in unison, except for one, who stands in the middle, next to a fire, holding a piece of the fire aloft. In her hands is a small container, a bucket of sorts, and she can feel its weight. It is full of something -- some sort of liquid, and there is little she can do as she watches it leap from the bucket. The fluid moves in slow motion, oscillating and warping yet always moving forward. But just when it’s about to hit the fire and the figure next to it, Emily wakes up. “Okay,” Emily said. She felt out of breath and needed several before she was able to continue speaking. Her forehead felt a wet sort of clammy, too, and she didn’t need a mirror to know it was peppered with droplets of perspiration. “Okay,” she said again. “I guess, did you make anything out of that? I think I know- I think it helped, but if you have any additional guidance, I would appreciate it.” Homily (The Islands Are Old) Simon laughed, though the laugh quickly turned into a cough, which then grew worse, becoming a series of hacking coughs. His attendants looked worried, though they did nothing to assist him, and eventually, the fit did subside on its own. “The short version, hm?” Simon said. “Do you have places to be? No, it is of no matter. If you insist. “But oh, my dear watchdog, where to start? If I tell you about myself and how I came across my revelations, would you accuse me of wasting your time? Should I just get on with it in such brief words as I can describe them? If I gave you a list of ninety or so theses, numbered and organized, would that assuage your frustration? You have to understand, I am at a loss here. Normally I lead up to all this. But I can tell by the look on your face you would call this stalling too.” He coughed a few times, though this did not into another set of hacks like his last. “Why do the gods exist, do you think, dear watchdog? I will answer this for you: the gods exist because people believe in them. Not just that, the gods exist because people worship them. It’s a symbiotic relationship, don’t you see? The gods keep things in order, and we thank them for it as best we can. This was my first revelation. “My second revelation was this: the world has ended. This is not the world as it should be, irreparably damaged as it is from an apocalypse we surely only used to speak about in myth. And yet…” Another cough. “And yet, here we are. So maybe what I should say is this: the world is ending. It is falling into decay. You intend to bless a sword today -- what do you think will happen to it? Eventually, it will cease being maintained, and it will rust. “People believe this deep down, dear watchdog. If they tell you otherwise, they are liars. All we’re doing is bringing that belief to the forefront of people’s minds. Many find it comforting, actually, and those are the people who beckoned you in today. Some ignore it, and we work ever harder to welcome those people in with open arms. And some…” Simon seemed like he was about to say more, but he drifted off, and the sentence was left uncompleted. The only thing he added that seemed to be in that regard was this: “Belief in oblivion can be a harsh mistress, I suppose.” Simon was wrapping up now. “All we ask for is legitimacy, really. I’ve told the religious council this as well: we just want a temple of our own to worship in. But if you are determined to not host us in yours, I suppose we’ll simply move on.” OOC