Chatty AF 216: Revolutionary Girl Utena Watchalong – Adolescence of Utena (WITH TRANSCRIPT)

CY: [Laughs harshly]

VRAI: Let them have it, Cy.

CY: Laughing in Black! They gave my girl the Korean makeup treatment, where they said, “We have three shades, and if you aren’t almond, pistachio shell, or, God’s-blessing pale, we’ll find a way!”

[Introductory musical theme]

VRAI: Hello and welcome to Chatty AF: The Anime Feminist Podcast and our finale to our Revolutionary Girl Utena watchalong. We are finishing things up by watching the [1999] film The Adolescence of Utena. My name is Vrai. I’m the daily operations manager here at AniFem. You can find me on Bluesky sometimes @writervrai. And with me, once again, are the wonderful Chiaki and Cy.

CHIAKI: Hi, I’m Chiaki Hirai, one of the editors for AniFem, currently taking a minor hiatus but I’m still hanging around. But where I’m not hanging around is Twitter. I am out. It is gone. Go follow me on Bluesky @terrible.moe.

CY: Hi, I’m your Rusband—that’s Rose Husband—Cy, and I am also not at Twitter anymore because, like… I don’t understand stanning billionaires, but this is the end, Elon. You suck. So you can find me on The Bluest Sky [@pixelatedlenses], where I am editing and watching anime and having—I’ve learned a new term—a menty B. Sometimes.

CHIAKI: A what?

CY: It’s a mental breakdown, a menty B!

CHIAKI: Oh, oh, I get those all the time.

CY: [crosstalk] It’s a new word! It’s a new word! It’s a menty B! [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: Is this kinda like “rizz” and “Ohio?”

CY: Yeah! Yeah, it’s Gen Alpha.

CHIAKI: And “skibidi”? Okay, okay, I’ll remember that.

CY: [crosstalk] I still don’t understand what “skibidi” is, but I do know my menty B’s are not skibidi.

CHIAKI: I do know my menty B’s.

VRAI: I presume that after you’re delulu, you have your menty B.

CY: Yeah.

VRAI: And now we’ve caused all of the children in the audience, if they’re there—

CY: Sigma!

VRAI: —to cringe fully out of their skin.

CHIAKI: You’re welcome.

CY: It’s because I got that Ohio skibidi rizz.

VRAI: [Laughs]

CY: Bruh.

CHIAKI: Legit.

VRAI: Oh… I have… Well, you know, this is good. We’re talking about adolescence—adolescence and the importance of creating new language to break from the former generation and to confuse and make us feel old. This is part of the natural law of cycles. This is good.

CHIAKI: You know why these words work, right? It’s because it infuriates older people. That’s the only reason.

CY: I hope that when President Joe Biden, who is a listener of our podcast— That’s a joke. I don’t know what he listens to. Probably the sound of, like, fly fishing. But I hope when Joe Biden listens to our podcast that he’s like, “I’d loved Utena, but not until Cypress Catwell said, ‘Sigma.’ Like…

[Chuckling]

CY: [Obscured by crosstalk] Joe.

VRAI: If you are just joining us for this particular podcast because you only wanted to know about the movie…

CY: Go listen to the—

VRAI: [crosstalk] Well, welcome along.

CY: Go listen to the other episodes, too.

VRAI: Just… Yeah, I feel like it’ll maybe acclimate you to the vibe some more. Just so you know, if you’re new, this will be a completely spoilerful discussion of the film, as well as any necessary points from the TV series. If you haven’t watched the film yet, first of all, probably go do that first. But just as a heads-up, necessary content warnings, if you’re still thinking about it. This film and, as such, this discussion is going to get a lot, like the TV series, into discussing sexual abuse, particularly child sexual abuse, exploitation of minors and violence against women, and, just to get it done up at the top, we should go ahead and talk about the colorism with the movie designs. Let’s just go ahead and do that straight away.

CY: [Laughs harshly]

VRAI: Let them have it, Cy.

CY: Laughing in Black! They gave my girl the Korean makeup treatment, where they said, “We have three shades, and if you aren’t almond, pistachio shell, or, God’s-blessing pale, we’ll find a way!” And they said, “Let’s make her uwu! Let’s remove her buccal fat. Let’s give her some mewing lessons because that jawline is sharp!” But it’s not. And then they said, “Let’s throw a keratin treatment on top of it!” Anthy is a whole different shade! And don’t come in, too, with that [Assumes a nasally voice] “Well, Cypress, actually, it’s a different color palette.” [Returns to normal voice] I don’t give a fuck. I don’t give a fuck—in Black or in BIPOC! It sucks! It’s different. And it’s notably different. Like, can dark brown girls have a W? Can they have a W?

VRAI: There definitely would have been a way to keep the warm, vibrant shade of the film with a darker brown.

CY: They could have just chosen a warm brown! Make her cinnamon! Y’all love to call BIPOC people all sorts of food skin colors. Make her cinnamon! [Chuckles]

VRAI: There’s some really pretty fan art on Tumblr, which I think the site… It either has been reblogged or is in the queue for the site Tumblr that somebody did go back to some screenshots and do some color correction. They’re very good. They look nice.

CY: Yeah. Because it really bothers me. Slightly facetious joking aside, it bothers me that for her to be positioned in the role she is in this movie, she is lighter and also uwu-ified. It’s this weird thing where it feels like none of the progress of the main series, which this series is deeply entangled with… this movie is deeply entangled with that as a text, and you could almost position it as a sacred text to the movie. It feels really interesting in a negative way that Anthy is shorter and she’s incredibly high femme and she’s presenting as a lighter-skinned woman. 

Which, I’m also going to say: is Anthy being positioned as a Southeast Asian Indian or Bengali, Sri Lankan woman? That’s really problematic that she’s lighter, because those are cultures that have a history, due to colonization, of colorism. And Japan is not new to colorism. Japan has very severe colorism, as well. I mean, I think [in] most nations where there is any kind of divide between a lighter-skinned person and a darker-skinned person, unfortunately, you’re gonna find colorism. But it really struck me that Anthy is shorter and also more prominently feminized, but there’s still the really horrific context of this movie’s sexual abuse of her. And that could have been poignant, still, if she was the same fucking skin tone.

CHIAKI: It is really curious. You know, what possessed them? Because there had to be a reason. There had to be some kind of discussion or conscious effort to look at her in the art room and be saying, “Hey, we should lighten her up for XYZ reason,” right? Because otherwise you can use the same sort of tones and vibes, and it wouldn’t have impacted anything.

CY: Like, was it that they couldn’t find that one guy that the internet thinks mixed all the paints for cels. Which, that guy doesn’t exist, by the way. So many people mixed paint for cels. Do you really think it was one Japanese man carrying the weight of a nation on his back?

CHIAKI: I mean, unless they outlawed a ingredient that made it that specific shade of brown and they could no longer make it anymore, no. Yeah.

CY: Right, there’s very little excuse, especially considering that this movie comes out near turn of the century. We knew about skin tones in the ‘90s. I can understand Anthy being added— I mean, I can understand within the context, I should say, Anthy being in the series and her heritage not really being talked about outside of that whole curry episode gag, but I can’t understand here—

VRAI: Yeah, she does have a bindi in the TV series. It’s much less prominently visible.

CY: Yeah. And it’s just, like, the straight hair… because there’s no texture to that hair. That is bone straight. Sis ran that under an iron, it is so straight. And it’s egregious, coupled with the fact that she is moe-blobbish. And also, that’s wild to me, too. Like, this is “Anthy Gets Her Groove Back: The Movie.” You didn’t have to make her cuter. In fact, I think that kinda undercuts a whole lot of meaning into the story. And I mean, you know, you can get past it pretty quickly, but it’s one of those things that if you open your anime-viewing eyes, you will see it and you will not be able to really ever put it aside.

VRAI: How do you feel about… Where does the film sit to the two of you? Right, because I think there’s a lot of going back and forth with people that are like, “Well, is this an alternate retelling of the movie? Is it supposed to be standalone?” Not to— I think my cards are pretty out on the table; I think that it’s a direct sequel. But I think that there is a lot of discussion.

CY: This is “Revolutionary Girl: Rebellion.” This is absolutely a sequel. Because you can’t help but kinda— I can’t, at least, help but see it as a sequel with the intertextuality. It is so tangled with the original series. This is the timeline that Anthy steps into to have that perfect run.

CHIAKI: Because a lot of— You don’t know what is going on exactly, but Shiori only really makes sense as a character if you’ve seen the actual anime. Right? Similarly with Touga, there’s sort of the “Oh, he’s dead” kind of thing. It all plays to expectations that you build based on the animated series.

CY: Yeah, Shiori, for sure, and Juri. Juri doesn’t function without the original series either.

CHIAKI: I will say, though, I feel like the movie was created in a way where if you haven’t seen the anime… And granted, it is 39 episodes from two years ago in the ‘90s. I will say, yes, people could have bought the DVDs or a tape, people could have been very religiously watching and recording it, but I will say that this is from an era where there are people coming in fresh, and the movie was structured in such a way that if you were coming in completely blind, you could probably still do so.

CY: Yeah, because I did have that thought when I turned it on. I was like, “This was probably someone’s first introduction to Utena,” and this was probably a lot of somebodies’ introduction and then they just went and backfilled in their knowledge with the anime.

CHIAKI: In the opening credits for the movie, it does give prominence to “Based on the manga by Saito.” So, does that have any bearing to this? Because I would feel that this is more closely intertwined with Ikuni’s anime rather than the manga.

VRAI: No, the manga’s very different from this. Actually, the Adolescence manga, too, is— I don’t really— Even if I respect what Saito sort of needed to do from a pragmatic marketing standpoint for her runtime, I don’t really like the Utena manga much, but I do like the Adolescence manga as just sort of an alternate take. It focuses a lot more on the Utena–Touga stuff but still ends with Utena and Anthy out in the real world, and it’s very sweet and some of the imagery is extremely lovely. But, yeah, no, I think that’s just more because it’s a multimedia project, you know? You want to accredit it out front.

I will say, on the subject of this being people’s first introduction to Utena, I mentioned in the first recording, I think, that there was some wonk with how the series was released in America. The film was released in America before the Black Rose and the Apocalypse saga. So, in a very real sense, yes.

CY: Oh, my God, I cannot imagine, after going on this journey, seeing this movie first and walking out and being like, “Damn!” and then… like, in a good way, you know?

VRAI: You saw the first 13 episodes, and then this.

CY: Yeah! That would be wild!

CHIAKI: [bewildered] Why?

VRAI: I truly don’t know! I would like to, but I don’t!

CY: Yeah, because this movie would leave you with so many questions! Especially around Akio! You don’t have any context for why everyone hates this shit of a human being. Well, okay, I mean, you do get some context in this movie. But you don’t have the wider… as the wizards say, the deep knowledge of why you should not like Akio. You’re just like, “Dang. You’re giving him, like, The Revolutionary Elbow.” You don’t have that further context, though.

VRAI: Yeah, Akio to me is the most “Oh, this is a sequel,” because, you know, they recast him, obviously, for the film. I’m sure it’s extremely obvious!

CY: Akio also gets… You’ve heard of Dark and Lovely; Akio is light and beautiful. That’s right: he’s also lighter. It’s not as egregious, but he is. And it complicates it because on one hand I’m like, darker men tend to be cast as evil, so should I be like, “Yay, light-skinned men can be evil, too”? It’s very fraught. It’s very fraught. [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: Yeah, no, I was thinking about that, and I think I said this in an earlier recording as well, but I’m really curious what the reasoning behind it was, because I’m pretty sure no one in the writers’ room or the artists’ room was thinking like, “We gotta be whiter because, you know, kids like it when people are whiter.” I don’t think it was anything necessarily exactly that, but I’m really curious because I’m not sure what possessed them. What was the reasoning? There had to be some kind of process of logic that isn’t just like… that is racist but isn’t like straight-up “Because we hate black people,” right? Like, what the hell happened?

CY: [crosstalk] There’s gotta be a rationale. Maybe Ikuhara came in that day and he knocked over a bottle of brown paint and he was like, “Oh, shit desu!” and they were like, “It’s too late! We’re behind! We gotta ganbatte!”

[Chuckling]

CY: And that’s why Anthy and Akio are lighter, is they just ran out of time. And actually, Ikuhara wrote in his journal that night. He was like, “I’m so sorry. I apologize to the subcontinent of India for my crimes. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu,” you know?

CHIAKI: When I’m editing photos and I’m trying to balance out light and make features more visible for photo editing, I sometimes go like, “Oh, geez, am I lightening somebody too much? Oh, no, is this a problem? Oh, gosh,” as I’m just trying to work with a bad photo. And maybe that’s what happened. Like, “Ah, shoot, the colorist screwed up the tones. I guess we just gotta lighten everything up too much. Oh, gosh.” Like, was that the case?

CY: And I do totally know that I’m approaching this with a 2024 mindset, where if Adolescence came out today and this shit had been done, I would have been like, “We’re working in Procreate now!”

VRAI: Well, it’s not like the conversation I haven’t seen on Tumblr within the last year where people will do lighter-skinned fan art of a darker-skinned character and be like, “Oh, but it’s the color palette I’m using. It’s stylistic.” So, we’re not past this. But I will also say that—

CY: I mean, Vrai, don’t you know that Black people appear in pastel? [Chuckles]

VRAI: You know, I think we would all say, correct me if I’m wrong, that the internet was a whiter place in the 2000s.

CY: Yeah, absolutely.

CHIAKI: Sure.

VRAI: Even then, even then, it was a noted thing that, like, maybe it’s a little fucked up that Anthy looks so much lighter in the film. And actually, this is something that’s continued to be a problem because she’s portrayed by a light-skinned actress in the stage play.

CY: Huh?!

VRAI: So, the merch for the stage play—

CY: Huh?! [Laughs]

VRAI: Yeah.

CY: [Laughs] No!

VRAI: It’s so egregious that actually Empty Movement color-corrected the little chibi keychain art before putting it in their gallery. So, Akio was voiced by Kosugi Jurota in the TV series, in a voice that is just, you know… his whole career is being discomfitingly extremely sexy. For the film, he was voiced by Oikawa Mitsuhiro, who was a very popular idol model rock star at the time, and it was his very first film appearance. And it seems, from looking at the behind-the-scenes stuff, that that was a little bit of a spontaneous thing that came up in discussion. But I think it works incredibly well because I feel like movie Akio is like Anthy’s vision with her illusions kind of stripped away of how extremely failson and pathetic he is. And I love that.

CHIAKI: Yeah, I did like his new take.

CY: It really undercuts the fact that this is a person who has allowed the trauma that was dealt them to just completely become their narrative, and it excuses him from any wrongdoing and any responsibility for the really, genuinely horrific things he does. Like, willingly.

VRAI: I don’t know. To me, I quite like Akio in the movie because he’s so…

CY: Oh, yeah. I’m not saying I don’t like him. I’m just saying, this movie really undercut, like, “Oh, this is a really sad person who has acted with impunity and is now kind of being forced to face that, and to face that his sister is no longer going to allow that, and that’s not the narrative.” I will say, shout-out to him doing his sick flip over the taxi. That did make me laugh. [Chuckles] That did make me laugh. And I was like, “Mm, Akio, this is kinda why I love you, actually. You’re a horrible person, but I love you.”

VRAI: Yeah, yep! The butt-polishing.

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] The epitome of a Tumblr sexy man.

VRAI: Yeah. I’m so haunted by the stabbing scene where Anthy is doing her best… She’s created this situation that she can live in where she’s accepted that her brother does this to her and made a rationalization for it, and he’s angry at her for doing that. That’s the problem he’s found with this, is that she dared to not be unconscious while he raped her.

CY: It’s brutal. It is such a brutal scene because, you know, we’ve gone through the entire series where… and I’m putting “willingness” in quotes because in the case of incest, especially with someone who holds power over you, obviously there’s not willingness. But they’ve created this system where she “willingly” goes along with this and engages with Akio. And here, it’s just stripped down. He’s roofying her. He’s drugging her. And this time he realizes she wasn’t unconscious. 

And it’s really fascinating watching this because in our real world right now, there is a case in France with a… And I know survivors feel very weird about being called brave. I, myself a survivor, feel weird about being called brave because it’s not brave that I survived assault. But there is a very brave older French woman who is dealing with the fact that her husband, for, I believe, about a decade, was drugging her and allowing very similar things that Anthy engages with, allowing men to rape her. Anthy, as far as we know, is only being assaulted by her brother. But in the real world, this happens, too, where men prey on women, but the misery in him being like, “You weren’t asleep,” and then she’s trying to almost kind of… it’s not baby talk. You know what I mean by that? Kinda trying to soothe him? And then he fucking dies.

VRAI: It’s fucking incredible. Yeah, on the subject of— I think… I think the first thing you typed about this movie was like “Why is it so horny?”

[Chuckling]

CY: This movie is horned up. This movie is horned up. Everybody is, as the kids say, DTF, and it’s such a fascinating vibe because it really puts the adolescence in Adolescence of Utena. I mean, they are horned up. Like, they were cooking something at the end of the millennium. They were cooking! [Chuckles]

VRAI: There is a note, I think, in the notes for the premiere pamphlet about how the characters are older for the film, and so they went with sexier designs. But of course, also, you can do more with the paywall of a film, basically, I think is something that we’ve heard people talk about before. And these are all things that are implied in the TV series, like that Anthy is a sexual object of anybody she’s engaged to. But the film is like, “Well, we’re gonna talk about that overtly on its face now.”

CY: I mean, she gets in Utena’s bed and sis unzips it. And thank God Utena is a decent human being and is like, “Uh… no.” Because Anthy is just like… I mean, could’ve put a Brazzers logo on that scene! I was just like, “Everybody’s down to fuck!”

[Laughter]

CY: Because I live alone, I’m just talking at the TV, as I do, and I was just like, “Whoa! Whoa! Everybody’s just so horned up! Horned up and traumatized!” Which, I mean, that’s a mood!

CHIAKI: That’s me.

CY: Oh, Chiaki!

VRAI: There we go. It really has to carry the weight of basically being experimental theater, where we have 87 minutes so every scene has to be like six levels deep, dense with representational meaning of what you could do in 39 episodes, which, I feel like, is fascinating and also so interesting because this movie came out around the same time as X, a beautiful movie that makes no goddamn sense and arguably isn’t very good narratively speaking, but I do kind of love it. And you put that next to this movie, where this movie seems like it makes no good goddamn sense, but it’s actually very logically plotted if you’re willing to pick out all the symbolism from it.

CY: Absolutely. This movie is a buffet for the mind.

CHIAKI: Yeah, Vrai, you know, as I said after I watched it the first time, I just said, “I am not intelligent enough for this metaphor.”

[Laughter]

VRAI: Which is a lie, but I accept that this is a natural impetus of seeing Adolescence for the first time. This also means that after kicking the can down the road for five podcast recordings, we can finally talk about Touga.

CY: Oh, my God, my sweet son! Oh! My sweet son! Okay, I just want to make sure that I read this scene right. Let me open my iPhone and pull up my notes. Giving you a little peek behind the curtain. So, I wrote that I was pretty sure he was sexually assaulted by his surrogate father, right? Am I right to read…? Okay.

VRAI: Yes.

CY: I was just taking from the scene… Which is just horrific, and unfortunately, in such a painful way, it explains a lot about him and the specific way he navigates his trauma. And I was like, “Wow, okay, so he was given to someone who was supposed to care for him and take care of him as adults are charged to do of children, and this person hunts him down basically and rapes him.” And that is a willing choice that adults make. There’s no excuses here. And it’s just really fucking sad.

CHIAKI: Touga had no choice, but it was indeed an adult who essentially ruined his life.

CY: Yeah, and it explains why he is the way he is, because this adult took his autonomy from him, and it sucks!

CHIAKI: And I think… Like, I know Akio was the boogeyman in the anime, right? And so, the implication of… you know how I called it, like, every time Akio takes somebody into his car, he’s basically fucking them—including Touga, in my opinion. But this kind of sets it apart and tells you Touga… You know, it kind of makes that sexual assault a little bit more real and serious, I feel.

CY: Mm-hm. Yeah, because the movie doesn’t gloss over it. There is no beautifying the scene. It is horrific. Like, it is just— What I really like about this movie is the horrific moments are frightening in their frankness and in the fact that they are deeply unkind to the person who the trauma is being visited upon. And yeah, it does make you realize— Which, once again, I don’t know you can watch this movie and not have the series—I’m so sorry to everybody who did—because this immediately tangles everything with Akio and Touga. You’re like, “Oh, this is another adult that should have cared about him that took advantage of him and presumably used that trauma and also sexually assaulted him.”

VRAI: It’s real bad. It’s one of those things that’s never… I think you can read it retroactively, but it’s never directly even implied to the degree that other dark and sexual themes are in the TV series. And yet, once you see it, it makes so much sense. And then, if you want to sit down and spend some time, you can feel really sad about how it informs his relationships with Saionji and Nanami. It’s really heartbreaking in terms of Touga being a character for, you know, everything is about sex except for sex, which is about power. And yet, at the same time, for the purposes of the film, it’s almost an extraneous scene, right, if we look at as a film qua film, because Touga is more of a representational object of the death of the prince and how there are no princes in the modern world for Utena. So, it’s just interesting to me from a filmic perspective.

CY: Well, and then it’s interesting because he’s kind of paralleled against Shiori, who… I think in my notes I wrote, “Shiori just still sucks!” She still sucks.

VRAI: Oh, Shiori.

CY: She still sucks. And then I— I don’t know why I have a note that says “Transphobe Shiori. Scratch that. TERF Shiori.” I’m not sure where that came from, but we’re gonna say that, too. Because she just…

VRAI: I don’t know, but I’m fully willing to hear you out?

CY: It had to be something that she said about Utena, who I have a note next to that says, “T-boy swag.” So, I don’t know what I was cooking during this movie, but connect those dots as you will.

VRAI: Oh, I know what scene you’re talking about now.

CY: [Chuckles] I don’t know what scene I’m talking about.

VRAI: It’s because of the scene— Yeah, I do. It’s because of the scene in the parking garage where she’s trying to rile up Juri by saying that Utena is acting like a man, which is wrong of her, which is like the most trans-v.-lesbian inner-community violence scene.

CY: [crosstalk] Yes! Okay, that explains my two bullet-point notes, because I think the brutality of Shiori’s character is like, you understand her so intensely. And I think if you have ever had any connection to femininity as an identity, whether you were raised, assigned, have shifted into femininity, have any kind of connection where it’s impacted your life, I feel like you understand Shiori on a personal level, because she reminds me of the really intense friendships that cis women will often have in high school, where it is a blending of almost romance with this intense passion and this intense, almost soulmate-like bond. And that’s kind of her and Juri. Except Juri is trying to move through that pain and Shiori just sucks. Just sucks.

VRAI: One thing that… I actually only thought about it this… This is like, what, the sixth time I’ve seen this movie, easily. But I think one thing that you come away with at the end of the TV show versus the movie is the TV show is about how Utena and Anthy find and help and ultimately are instrumental to each other, but at the end of the day you can only revolutionize yourself, right? You can only come to your own self-realization. And the climax of the film is about the intrinsicness of their partnership and about community and bond. You know, they’re not getting out of that tunnel without their friends who aren’t as far along in the cycle of samsara, or self-actualization, if you like. But Shiori, she turns into a car, she has that drive, but it’s a bitterly negative and self-destructive vibe, and she doesn’t have—

CY: [crosstalk] Do we get to talk about the car scene? Do we get to talk about that car scene now?

VRAI: Not yet.

CY: Damn it! Vrai!

VRAI: [crosstalk] Not yet, but we will. And she doesn’t have a driver. She has no direction for all these extremely powerful feelings, and so she self-destructs. And it made me sad!

CHIAKI: She’s just like a Tesla.

VRAI: [Laughs]

CY: You know what? Shiori is the Cybertruck of Adolescence, honestly. She honestly is. And I think, listener, you know exactly what I mean. She honestly is. [Chuckles] Rest in peace.

VRAI: One more thing, and then we can talk about the cars, because this will, in fact, lead into talking about the cars. Kissing.

CY: Oh!

VRAI: Film got kissing.

CY: Oh, my God!

CHIAKI: Yeah! Yeah!

CY: [crosstalk] Naked kissing at that!

CHIAKI: So much kissing!

CY: Oh, my God!

VRAI: Lots of kissing. This is—

CHIAKI: You know, I did watch that. I did watch that and go like, “Oh, man. This is actually gay. This is actually, really… It’s happening. It is really happening.”

CY: I’m not gonna lie. When the kissing happened, I was halfway off my couch, sobbing. [Chuckles] And I started singing the song that was playing, and I was like, [Imitating the song “Toki ni Ai wa”] “La la-la-la, la-la-la!” I was laid out! I was like, “My girls get it! Girls win! Yay!”

VRAI: The dance scene is honestly one of my favorite scenes in the film, full stop.

CY: [crosstalk] Oh, the dance scene is so beautiful.

VRAI: Yeah, apparently, it’s completely digitally made. And there’s actually a special note from Ikuhara, during the director’s commentary, that they were really pleased with how warm and natural it came out, looking like hand animation, because it was completely computer done.

CY: It’s beautiful. It’s stunning. And especially with the parallels. Ah, it’s beautiful. Ah!

VRAI: Mm-hm. This is also an excuse for me to read you some more from Ikuhara’s director’s commentary, because I have an eternal and personal and petty vendetta against all the people who are like, “The movie’s gay, but the TV series… not that gay.”

CY: What?

VRAI: So, this is from his commentary over the first kiss scene during the duel with Saionji. So, “Here we see them kiss. We had a lot of discussion among the staff about whether we should let them kiss, and opinions were split. There were many that felt that they ought to kiss. In the TV series, we have the characters looking as if they were going to kiss, but they never actually do. Many felt that having them kiss but not quite was the right way to go. They wondered why the characters would suddenly kiss in the film after all that time not kissing in the TV series. And others felt that they ought to kiss because it is the film version. Well, since it’s the film version, after all, I guess this is what we went with. Maybe it’s just that I wanted to see them kiss.”

CY: You know what?

CHIAKI: You know what? That’s what a creator does.

CY: That’s a person of taste right there.

VRAI: Mm-hm.

CHIAKI: Yeah. Because if you’re a creator and you’re not getting your OCs to kiss each other and forcing everyone to watch, what are you even doing?

CY: Exactly. Exactly.

VRAI: Exactly. I also love how this is a much more horned-up film and yet we’re still going abstract. Like, the sketching scene is definitely about drawing each other.

CY: Oh, my God, that sketch— Once again, this movie is horned up. That sketching scene! And Utena is blushing.

VRAI: [Suave] “Draw me like one of your French girls.”

CY: And she’s like, “Well, I can’t be the only one.” Girl! Girl, if that’s not the most queer thing I’ve ever heard. No one heterosexual has ever been like, “Why can’t I be the only one nude?” That’s a girl’s girl or maybe a tomboy’s girl or, like, T-swag girl, whatever you want to label it. That scene… Which is wild that you could be horny after climbing that many flights of stairs. Could not be me. But oh, my God.

CHIAKI: Endorphins.

CY: Yeah, I don’t know that I experience those anymore. I have depression. [Chuckles] That whole scene was just like… Told you something was cooking in ’99. Something was cooking at the turn of the century. This movie is so horny! Whew! Jesus!

VRAI: But still, if I may use a very—

CY: [crosstalk] Very tasteful.

VRAI: Yeah, I was gonna say “classy,” but “tasteful” is better. Like, this movie is so horny but classy.

CY: There’s a Frenchness about it in its horniness. It’s got that certain, as they say, je ne sais quoi, you know?

CHIAKI: Je ne sais quoi! [Chuckles]

CY: Like, it’s got… got that je ne sais quoi.

[Chuckling]

CY: That, um… What does Lady Marmalade say, that “voulez-vous coucher avec moi” about it? You know?

VRAI: Yeah, well, they do!

[Laughter]

CY: Oh, that took me out. They do. [Chuckles] Yeah, no—

CHIAKI: Well, I mean, you know, Titanic came out in 1997, so they had time.

CY: Yeah. You know what?

VRAI: Oh, I meant to say this—

CY: Titanic walked so Adolescence…

VRAI: I meant to say this earlier, while we were talking about Anthy and disappointments and bad implications. But there’s actually a line from her voice actress that went into that film booklet.

CY: Ooh!

VRAI: Yeah, from Fuchizaki Yuriko. All the major cast members had little blurbs. And hers was “Well, you’ll see a greater change in Anthy than in any other character. I suppose you could say she gives off more human warmth? Something must have changed for her thanks to Utena, I think,” which I just put in my little sequel pocket. But yeah, I fully agree that there’s… not to bring the conversation back there, but I was just thinking for a moment that on the one hand, it’s like Anthy feels more free to openly emote and to express having desires which she didn’t feel like she could before, but on the other hand, you’ve straightened her hair and lightened her skin, and that has so many implications what are bad!

CY: But on the other hand, Anthy can drive. Can we please talk about the car?

VRAI: Yes, we can talk about the car.

CY: [crosstalk] Oh, my God!

VRAI: [crosstalk] How do you feel about the cars? Let’s talk about the cars.

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] Car, car, car, car, car, car!

CY: Why did no one tell me that the car is the metaphor, but also the car is the chase sequence, but also she goes through a fucking Costco car wash to become the car? [Chuckles] What! This scene played out so differently in my head before I watched this movie because I was like, “Maybe it’s the magic and they’re both the car.” No! Utena is a big pink Cadillac, prince style, and Utena is being driven by Anthy, because a car without a key turns to rust. And then Shiori’s a car. And then the castle is a Final Fantasy X tank. And then Wakaba’s a car? [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: So, Cy, Cy, let me just read you my notes for this section.

CY: Oh, my God, please!

CHIAKI: “Utena: a car. Shiori: a car. Sexual assault, PTSD: a car. The castle: a car. The penis: a car. Your rapist: a man. Pixar, eat your heart out.”

[Chuckling]

VRAI: Put that on the box.

CY: I will say, I know Akio is a horrible man, but when we started Michael Jackson moonwalking over to his sister that he rapes, I was like, “You still fucking suck!” but then I was also like, “Damn, Akio’s smooth, and I hate that for me! I hate that.” But then I was like, “Mm, sexual trauma is complicated!” Oh, my God. If you had told me that this was the way the car scene was gonna play out, I would’ve been like, “No, it’s not.” And then Utena’s like, “I’m going to the real world. Come with me,” and Anthy has to take… Utena gets put through a fucking car wash in the Rose Garden. Utena paid $15 at Costco for that premium express with the scented tricolored soap [Chuckles] and pops out…!

CHIAKI: Do they wash your car at Costco?

VRAI: Not at my Costco.

CY: [crosstalk] Yeah. Oh, my Cos—

VRAI: You have a fancy Costco.

CY: [Assumes a snobbish voice] Well, my Costco has a car wash.

CHIAKI: A fancy one.

CY: [Laughs in a sneer]

[Laughter]

CY: And I bet if I went through it, I would not turn into a car; I would turn into a hospital patient.

VRAI: [Laughs]

CY: But if you had told me this is how this went, this is the most fuck-ass Ikuhara scene I have ever had the privilege to watch. And I was silent during this whole sequence. I took notes after it, but I could not look at my phone this entire sequence because I was like, “When did we turn into Initial D, queer version?” [Chuckles] So good!

VRAI: Would you like me to read something else from the director’s commentary… 

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] Please.

VRAI: … about the car? Well, first of all, the reason that the Costco car wash scene exists is because he thought it would be too boring to do a normal action climax, and he didn’t want to do that. [Chuckles]

CY: Of course!

CHIAKI: Okay, yeah, sure, why not, hm?

VRAI: [Chuckles] “Many ask why Utena ends up being turned into a car. I try not to answer that. I mentioned this before, but the reason I don’t want to answer that is because I feel that it would limit the meaning of the story and make it less interesting. I’ll say one thing that was on my mind, though. Let’s see… There’s the story of Sleeping Beauty, where you have the princess who’d been asleep for a long time, who’s awakened by the prince. But the Utena character has been the prince from the beginning of this story. So, the idea of Utena being turned into a car suggests that she’s being put to sleep. So, I thought it would be interesting to reverse the roles played by Utena and Anthy in their respective relationships. In other words, Utena’s the one who becomes the princess. She’s the one forced into sleep, and only Anthy can free Utena from this sleep. That’s how things come to an end. I thought it would be very interesting to reverse their roles.”

CY: Yeah, it is. It is, actually. And it’s really interesting because you have a really fascinating callback to the brutality of her being betrayed by Anthy, in that Anthy covers her with the blood-covered garments of her dress, and that actually revives her this time instead of like in the series, where that was a symbol of the blood spilled when Anthy stabs her. I thought that was pretty neat. And I do like— What? Sorry, I just had a straight thought. What do you think Anthy’s blasting in that car? Like, Chapell Roan? Surely Chapell Roan.

VRAI: Back in the day, there was a pretty good AMV set to “Shut Up and Drive,” the Rihanna song.

CY: I like that. I also like Tatu, anything by them.

VRAI: [Inhales sharply] Mm!

CY: Oh, wait, oh, wait, no, Tatu’s fraught. Oh, shit. They’re fraught.

VRAI: [crosstalk] No, the queerbait band cannot be this. [Chuckles]

CY: No! Oh, God, what’s something qu…? Kesha. She’s blasting Kesha.

CHIAKI: Oh, I was thinking, like, “Me and My Car.” The ’80 song.

CY: [Chuckles] That would be good.

VRAI: “Bitchin’ Camaro.”

CY: Like, I love it, though! It’s so good. And then the car gets broken down because fuck-ass Akio with his whole thing comes and drives, and Utena’s like, no! And then, y’all, it happens again, because he’s compressing them and they’re like, “Let’s revolutionize… the world!” And they break free! And it’s so…

CHIAKI: And then they become a motorcycle.

CY: It’s so fucking good! And then there’s just Wakaba carrying the student council. And I love that, because I really love the power of female friendship in the series. Wakaba’s a good friend. And she’s like, “No, I’m gonna help my friend to leave. I’m gonna help my friend.” And it’s just so good! And Wakaba’s like a little Jeep, just like a little Jeep.

VRAI: Yeah, she’s a sturdy little Jeep.

CY: And Juri’s leaving and Miki’s leaving, which, thank God he’s leaving. He needed some distance from his sister. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Oh, they go back to school. They’re not ready yet, but they’ll get there, though.

CY: They’re on the path. And I just…

CHIAKI: They got a car.

CY: Yeah. Do you think Wakaba brags about being a car?

CHIAKI: By the way, can I just mention, can I just mention… The concept of having a car, driving a car, being out in a car… It’s a symbol in American culture as well, but also, Japan looks to American culture as well. And so, it’s definitely the symbol of freedom for a lot of folks, right? You can go anywhere. You’re not trapped by trains and buses and other schedules. You can do what you want. You have the means to escape.

VRAI: Yeah, cars here are totally… Like, I think carrying over from the TV series, cars are totally like a symbol of adulthood and autonomy. And I think it’s notable that that early scene with Miki and Juri, they’re hanging around in a parking garage where they look at cars, and none of them get into cars but they’re vaguely gesturing at the idea that they could have a car as dualists, maybe.

CY: And it kind of continues the fact of how cars are in the main series, because cars are used as a symbol of freedom. Like, Akio has this freedom into adulthood, and what does he use? He uses a car, his fuck-ass car. Fuck that car. [Chuckles] Fuck that car. And it’s just so good. And I do like that Anthy gets to face down her abuser, something that is so often… I mean, I have really fraught feelings about the carceral system because I don’t think that the carceral system personally necessarily does what we think on paper it does for people who survive sexual assault, especially rape, and I don’t think it’s the neat and tidy solution we want for people who have dealt with rape. The solution is we teach—and, you know, speaking broadly—cis men not to rape. But Anthy is given this moment to face down her brother, the person that has been horrifically abusing her and say, “No. That’s it. I’m leaving. And thank you for being mulch for my rose garden. Really appreciate that. Saved me a trip to Lowe’s. But I’m out.” And it’s great! It’s great because she gets to move into the world and say, “No more. You’re not hurting me. You’re not hurting this person I care about.” So beautiful. Oh, cars!

VRAI: Yeah, apparently Ikuhara boarded the epilogue sequence himself and really poured a lot of imagery that spoke to his teenage self and ennui about feeling sort of hopeless about becoming an adult and the idea that you would sort of be inevitably… I’m actually just gonna find the fucking quote, because I think that’ll say it better. “The scene is set where you see endless piles of scrap metal and cars. It’s a desolate wilderness. The wilderness is, of course, an expression of the modern world we live in. In this sense, the collegiate world is like a dream world. It’s a dream world like we see in Disneyland.” (So, yes, the castle looks like that on purpose.) 

“So, the idea was to compare this dream world with that of the desolate wilderness—the adult world outside. Many ask why I made the last scene like this. As for why, I myself don’t really know. But I suppose it has to do with how I used to look at the world and society when I was a teenager. And that’s reflected here. These are probably the sort of visual images I had in my teens. That is, the adult world is not pure, and anyone with a pure heart would not be able to live in an adult world. So, if that’s the case, I felt that I didn’t want to become an adult. But then I wondered if it was okay, taking it to that degree. Not sure. In that sense, the last scene was meant to honestly reflect the true feelings I had when I was in my teens. So, that’s the kind of scene I want young teenagers to see before they head off into society. There’s a part of me that still thinks that I’m living here in a desolate adult wilderness. So, I think I made that last scene like that for my own benefit as well.” 

And then he sort of talks about being an animation director and the realities of balancing collaboration and financial realities and that kind of stuff. “Of course, I approached the last scene from the audience’s point of view, but I also approached it from the perspective of my teen years as well as from my present perspective. In that sense, I’d have to say that the last scene expresses my situation back then much more so than anything else I’ve done. And to hear people tell me how they liked that last scene makes me really happy.”

CY: Yeah, that last scene is beautiful.

VRAI: Really good. Also gay. It’s so tender and intimate. And like… yeah, you know. It’s so sincere… I guess is the best word I have for it.

CY: Yeah, because one thing— I normally don’t like romance and validation of romance being the prize you get at the end of a really rough journey. And I think it’s just a personal preference thing. I think it’s fine. But in this case, I was like, they deserve this love. They have worked so hard and they have helped heal each other, and they have realized that power lies in the community and the sharing of community you build with each other. They deserve it. I mean, they also deserve some Coppertone because they are just fully exposed to the elements. [Chuckles] 

But they deserve that love. And it’s just so good! It’s just so good. And they look at each other so tenderly, because it takes a few seconds and it rests on Utena, and it takes a few seconds and it rests on Anthy. And you’re just like, “Oh, I know what’s gonna happen.” And then they kiss! They kiss! It’s amore. It’s beautiful. It’s great. It’s healing. Honestly—I know I said this earlier—it’s kind of what I wanted Madoka: Rebellion to be like.

VRAI: [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: You’re not getting that.

CY: Because, thinking ahead to that film after this, I’m just like, damn! Some men really hit it and then some men are Gen Urobuchi. And there’s no in-between sometimes.

VRAI: But Walpurgis Rising is coming out and it’s gonna fix everything, Cy. It’s gonna fix everything. It’s only been 15 years!

CY: Vrai— Oh, my God, what? [Chuckles] You took the joke right out of me. I was gonna make a joke about… Vrai, your lies are just like Anthy’s skin tone: false.

VRAI: [Laughs]

CY: And then you just stole the words out of me. [Speaks faintly] Has it been 15 years? Shit.

VRAI: I hit you with the passage of time.

CY: Yeah, because this movie still holds up. Since we’re speaking about the passage of time, this movie holds up in 2024.

CHIAKI: Oh, totally.

CY: I mean, I think the passage of time has meant that you look back at something from the ‘90s and you say, “We’ve grown so much,” but I deeply appreciate this film and I feel like my life is better for understanding what this series means to people and having this, I would say, deep personal connection now to it, as well.

VRAI: Yeah, this is— I mean, ultimately, I think the TV series is better, obviously, for having more time and space to explore its ideas with more nuance. But there is something about the film that I, every now and then, go back to it when I just want to feel a rekindled sense of the joyful urge to create. Something about this film makes me feel so profoundly wondering at life and art and… feelings.

CY: If you had to criticize this film, the biggest criticism is that there’s only… there’s just a stark lack of Nanami. I mean, I know she shows up.

VRAI: It’s a problem.

CY: I know she shows up. But, like, where’s my girl? Where’s my girl? We see—

VRAI: It’s a problem and you should say it.

CY: Yeah. We see her cronies. They appear in the final chase scene! They’re the flag girls at one point. They’ve got the sign… But where is she? I mean, I’m gonna be real, I think now is when I come out as a Chu-Chu hater. Didn’t miss him. But Nanami showed up as a cow. I was like, “Y’all done her dirty. She had a lot of growth over that series. And this is what she gets?”

CHIAKI: Well, maybe, she escaped already. Maybe she’s free.

CY: She’s free living her best…

CHIAKI: Off camera, she’s free.

CY: … her best bovine life?

CHIAKI: Yeah. Maybe she came out as a furry. Maybe that’s the thing.

CY: You know what? That’s a mooooood.

[Chuckling]

CHIAKI: That’s udderly terrible.

VRAI: [crosstalk] The cow scene is just there because we needed a breather between scenes, but I love and support your headcanon.

CY: Yeah, because I did miss her! I was like… Because I would really… A part of me was like, she would have fit in on the Wakaba-mobile. I actually can see that, of her even just doing it out of spite. And I was just like, dang! But also it doesn’t mar what is ultimately a really good film.

VRAI: I’m glad. I’m glad that it was enjoy—

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] I think it really puts… Yeah, I think it really puts a nice bow on everything at the end. And I really appreciated it.

VRAI: How are you two feeling having had, now, the full experience?

CY: I get it. I get why this series means so much to people, why it’s talked about the way it is, because I’ll fully admit—and I did not say this when we first started this—I really thought people were being a little big in their trousers about Utena being this great and this amazing. And I’ve actually… it’s not that I’ve reversed; it’s that I’ve expanded that into… I understand the importance of this, and I understand how impactful this would have been had I have seen it as a teenager or a young person who was dealing with sexuality and identity kind of internal crises. I get it. And at 32, I have a different, more enriched kind of experience with it because as someone who is aromantic and asexual, who is aging, and who is also transmasc, Utena speaks to me in a very specific way.

And this movie really— I want there to be more stuff like this. Like, I wish there were more series and movies like this nowadays that weren’t afraid to be… not even dark, because I don’t think sexual assault is dark; I think it’s mundanely horrific. This is something that happens to people, including myself, all the time, and that is the horror, is that it’s so common. Right? Like, those things aren’t dark in the sense of what I think people want them to be trope-wise. They’re just… they’re shockingly horrific in their ordinary nature and how we’ve kind of adapted to them as a society, right? I hope all that makes sense, what I just said. 

And I wish that there were more anime—and I know that’s not gonna happen because, Jesus Christ, every other fucking series is “I’m a guy from Japan, and look at my big, swinging dick. It can do cum magic” or something like that. We’re in a horrible landscape right now, where it’s just some dude and his weird sexual nature in an isekai. And that sucks. [Chuckles] But I wish there—

CHIAKI: Hey, sometimes—

CY: I wish there was more stuff like this!

CHIAKI: I mean, VTuber Legend had some very nice inward discussion about self, identity, and being true to yourself and, you know… Don’t worry about it! Okay, anyway.

[Chuckling]

VRAI: Was this about the adult baby fetish woman or…?

CY: Oh, no.

CHIAKI: Uh… Don’t talk about that. [Chuckles]

CY: I just wish there was some deep stuff like this instead of… [Chuckles] I don’t know, instead of, like, “The Ten Ways I Can Fuck My Stepsister.” Like, could we get some— I’m asking for a modicum of depth.  I’m asking for a modicum in this desert of… Yeah, in this desert of seinen, I’m asking for two girls going on an adventure and finding their truth. I’m just asking—for a friend. I’m the friend.

VRAI: What about you, Chiaki? I know that— I want to apologize one last time for destroying your meme.

CHIAKI: Oh, yeah, no, don’t worry about it. Honestly, yeah. So, as I said, sort of through cultural osmosis, I’ve really gotten a good idea of what makes the show special and so groundbreaking and so influential for people. So, I never doubted that going into this. Actually witnessing it in person, firsthand, watching it, enjoying it I think really gives me a technical appreciation, just how these visual aesthetics have become so influential to anime even 20 years on, 25 years on. It’s a pleasure to be able to kinda see everything and understand much better, have a deeper understanding. And also appreciating the depth it goes to. Like, I knew that it was important and it was meaningful for people, but the amount of storytelling chops this thing has. Overall, just an enjoyable experience.

CY: I’m gonna say something really out of pocket for the Sailor Moon fans specifically. I don’t understand why on those Twitter and Tumblr and Instagrams, there’s just, like, ‘90s anime stills for the people. I want to see more Utena. Honestly, because now that I’ve seen this series, I’m like, oh, I see the references in Western media. I see the references across different anime. And I want to see more of that, because there’s something here. I daresay, we’re never gonna have a series like this again. It’s just so wonderfully unique and of its time, in a really good way. And I want to see more of those “I grabbed some images from Google” kind of blogs and places, like, give Utena some love, y’all. This is the it girl.

VRAI: Oh, don’t worry. Those were all just a decade ago. I can take up some of them for you. [Chuckles]

CY: [crosstalk] Oh! I see. I am out of touch. [Chuckles] Okay!

VRAI: You’re out of time.

CHIAKI: [crosstalk] It’s Sunday. It’s Sunday; it’s not even Thursday.

VRAI: It’s not Thursday at all! Hm. No, there wasn’t really time or a good way to talk about it over the course of this podcast, but I do encourage everybody who enjoyed our discussion to go over to Empty Movement, just in general. But they have preserved— Somebody found and translated and preserved a fascinating scholarly article from the year 2000 called “Disturbing, Traversing, Borderless, Shaking Sexuality, the Place Where Revolutionary Girl Utena Was Born.” And it’s a two-person discussion between Ikuhara and Mari Kotani, who’s a sci-fi critic and a translator. And on the one hand, it’s interesting because it’s almost 25 years old now, so it’s sort of a snapshot of turn-of-the-millennium ideas about where feminism and gender roles and storytelling was at the time, but also just in general very interesting because it’s talking a lot about women’s fiction at the time and, in the latter half of the 20th century in Japan, being a lot of these stories about small-scale change and being able to revamp your world through one person or a small area closest to you, because that’s what women felt like they had to do because they were still so focused on surviving, whereas you would see more in fiction with male writers, like they almost had the luxury to be able to envision these mass-societal upheaval-type narratives. And of course, that’s not universally true. Like, you have stuff like Moto Hagio’s Marginal. But even that, you get into… They talk, actually, a lot about yaoi specifically in terms of yaoi in usage as the doujin circuit and that as a space of societal upheaval and role reversal. And it’s a fascinating discussion.

CY: Yeah, I’ll be checking that out.

VRAI: I also want— Totally. And I also want to say, just to wrap up, something that I think is interesting. You know, obviously we call it Revolutionary Girl Utena in English. The more literal translation—and I see why they didn’t use this from just a pragmatic perspective years and years ago—is “Girls’ Revolution Utena.” And this is something that Ikuhara has always apparently, colloquially, had an issue with and that he thinks it sort of misses the point, because it’s not about Utena being the one who revolutionizes the world. It’s the fact that with this set of circumstances, girls across the world are having their revolution. And there’s actually a lot of talk about that in the creator material for the movie in particular, this idea of a girls’ revolution and girls just being fucking up to here. And I think that’s just an interesting choice of language, right, that push and pull between legibility and intent you get with series like this. 

CY: And I do understand because “Revolutionary Girl Utena” does change the context if you go from purely a title standpoint. That said, I do think it is the better title.

VRAI: It’s a snappier title that you can sell to a new English-language audience.

CY: I mean, and that’s just what it comes down to. When you’re talking about localizing a title, you… I mean, I could speak to this as someone who localized a very popular novel series— Well, I guess it was a series in Japan; it was one novel in America, which is Qualia the Purple. That is the title that people clung on to. And while it should be Qualia of Purple, you know, you go with the snappier title. Shout-out to the fight I had to try and get it to Qualia of Purple. That fight was never going to be won.

CHIAKI: Yeah. And even now, a snapshot of the time with this title, I think there’s a little bit more leeway today. But I feel like there’s a lot more “Hey, we gotta make this more marketable and interesting” back then than today, right?

CY: I was just gonna say. I’m actually… Just coming off of what you said, Chiaki, [it] would be really fascinating to see who was in the room to be like, “We gotta license this. Gotta license this now!” because I feel like this is an automatic-y… Well, I don’t know that it would be an automatic yes today, because it’s very creatively not what I think a mainstream anime viewer audience is interested in. But I love it. You were gonna say, Vrai?

VRAI: Oh, no, well, I mean, I think it probably had a nonzero amount to do with sharing staff with Evangelion, honestly. But I don’t know. That would be just me pulling out of my ass. But I was gonna say, this is the part where I send you horrifying text documents about Ursula’s Kiss, which is the lost Enoki Films 4Kids-ification of Utena that’s pretty much lost media now except for a couple of press documents.

CY: Wait, excuse me, who is Ursula?

CHIAKI: [Laughs]

VRAI: That would be Utena.

CY: Ew! Ew! They named her… What? Is she a fucking octopus under the sea? Ursula?

CHIAKI: Do they, uh, turn…?

VRAI: [crosstalk] Anthy’s name was Angie.

CY: I’m sorry. Anthy’s name—

CHIAKI: Yes!

CY: Anthy’s name was what?

VRAI: Angie.

CHIAKI: Oh, I thought you said Andy. I thought they made her a boy.

CY: [crosstalk] Angie?

VRAI: No, sadly no. Angie.

CY: A-N-G-I-E. Angie.

VRAI: [crosstalk] Could be worse, though. Uh-huh. Could be worse, though. Saionji and Touga were Tommy and Kevin.

CY: Get the fuck out of here! No! Kevin?

VRAI: [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: You know what? No, no, no. They are Tommy and Kevins. I know a Kevin.

VRAI: No, you’re right. Akio was Mike.

CY: No, you’re fucking pulling— You’re pulling my leg. You’re pulling my leg at this point.

VRAI: I am not! Not, sir! Sir, I’m not.

CHIAKI: Yeah, no, actually, no, I’m sorry. No, this is bullshit. Akio would be a Steve.

CY: He’s a fucking Mike? I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

CHIAKI: Yeah, he’s a fucking Steve. I’m sorry. He’s not Mike.

CY: I’m so sorry. The most intimidating thing about a man named Mike is he’s probably gonna call you “little missy.” Like, Mike? Mike? Oh! Oh, I’m incandescent with rage. Mike? Oh, my God, that cut would have been wild.

VRAI: [crosstalk] In fairness, this was never actually produced and made. It’s just we have existing documents from planning before Central Park Media got the license.

CY: Could you imagine how confused…? The way that 4Kids would have defanged the heart of the series with fucking Mike.

CHIAKI: Could you imagine what Ikuhara would have been saying in interviews today?

CY: That man would have been lit.

VRAI: It might have been worth it for that.

CY: [crosstalk] He would have been lit with rage. Fucking Ursula?

CHIAKI: [Chuckles]

CY: And Angie?

VRAI: [crosstalk] Fucking delightful.

CY: “Ursula, we’ve gotta save the world with our rose power!” Get the fuck out of here, 4Kids! The only thing good about you is that One Piece rap.

VRAI: It was not actually 4Kids. I just want to clarify that point.

CY: Oh, okay. Sorry.

CHIAKI: Oh.

CY: Well, get outta here.

VRAI: No, it was this operation called Enoki Films. But, you know, the sentiment stands.

CY: I just, like… I… Oof. Oof! [Chuckles]

CHIAKI: Actually, no, no, no, no. I do want to hear a ‘90s rap OP of the Utena show, right? I kinda want to see what that would be like.

CY: Chiaki, I hate you. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Alright, I’m gonna run out of disk space, so we’re gonna wrap it up.

CHIAKI: Okay.

VRAI: Thank you both so much. I have had such a good time doing this and sharing it with you, and I’m so happy you agreed to do it. And thank you to everybody at home. It really, truly does mean a lot to me.

CY: This was a really special one.

VRAI: [groans fondly] I’m so glad. Good fit in for 200 episodes and then some change, because scheduling and life continues to happen. It’s fine. It’s fine. We’re fine. We got here.

CHIAKI: Mm-hm.

VRAI: Thank you so much for joining us, folks at home, too. If you liked what you heard here, you can always go find more podcasts and transcripts by going to animefeminist.com. If you really liked what you heard, consider tossing us either a monthly subscription at patreon.com/animefeminist or just a one-off donation at ko-fi.com/animefeminist. It really helps us to pay folks for the hard work they do and to keep up respectable rates for our contributors and editors, which is something that’s really important to us.

You can also find our various socials by going to our Linktree, which is linktr.ee/animefeminist.

Thank you so much for joining us at home, AniFam. And until next time…

CY: See you in the outside world.