The Revolution will be televised, over and over: Repetition in Utena
As always, the shadowplayers say it best.
How to make a Student Council Arc episode of Utena:
- Introduce a member of the council as your focus
- Make sure that character has a run-in with Utena
- Optional bitch-slap
- Challenge
- Grab the handle, close-up on the water hitting the rose ring
- Begin JA Seazer’s Absolute Destiny Apocalypse song
- Climb the stairs
- Transform Utena’s uniform
- Power of Dios, Utena for the win (usually)
Previous discussion on Utena in the comments saw some people decrying this pattern as monotonous and boring, while others declared it ritualistic and symbolic in itself. Me? My design schooling kicked in and said hey — Utena is in fact a “series.”
Yes, of course, you say. Utena is a series. A television series. But there is a design trick called a series as well; it’s a group of items that illustrate the design principle known as repetition. Repetition is exactly what it sounds like. But any series, in order to avoid monotony or maybe to express a point (if you have that in mind; when designing wallpaper it seems imprudent to try to make any kind of explicit statement), usually incorporates another design principle: variation. This, in turn, creates a third principle, emphasis. The changeup in the series is emphasized by virtue of its difference from the rest.
The variation or anomaly usually doesn’t come at the end, but then again straight design doesn’t have a temporal element. When elapsed time comes into play, obviously pulling the old switcheroo at the end is going to provide maximum impact. Utena’s student council arc puts the variation near the end but not at it — and brings back the familiar Utena victory to neatly cap off the arc.
So it’s a great design tool, extrapolated across 13 episodes as a motif. Lots of fun, too. But what about that lingering possibility that there is a representative purpose to the “ritualistic” repetition? Well, I’m not sure about ritual, but the options are there:
- End of the World seems to be some sort of puppet master, and it might require (or at least desire) a degree of religiosity in order to operate. The Council’s devotion to the dueling process is certainly quasi-religious, and until Touga subverts the process with his faux End of the World letter, they seem to hold the process in strict regard.
- Dios, too, might be looking for Catholic-level ritual worship in order to fully awaken — look at his name, even.
But regardless of the purpose of the repetition, the end result (for me) was to reinforce the futility of the Student Council’s quest for Revolution. For all of their dedicated faith in dueling, they can’t keep Utena from beating them and walking away with Dios’s power, and the Rose Bride.
I have nothing much to really offer in the way of interpretation; that was just how I viewed the arc, and part of what made it so satisfying to me. I’ll say it again: it’s clear to me that Utena is something. It’s the real deal, and it’s been a while since I saw something with quite this much going for it.
By the way, two things:
1. Go read animekritik’s post on the same set of episodes.
2. DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT spoil me, him, or anyone else in the comments. Resist the temptation to be an asshole! Don’t even use the spoiler tags, please, because I see what’s inside them when I get comment emails and I might just look. Thanks, loveya, back to the blog.
Great post. Which reminds me I have to get back on this thing. I’ve still to start the next arc.
Yes, I think repetition with variation is the key here. It’s so masterfully employed. Religious tones are everpresent too, although playfully so (Japanese-style).
Looking forward to the next arc!
True, they never seem to take a very “religious” stance on religious matters (see ghostlightning’s haruhi post…)
The next arc is a little crazy so far, although the drum machine version of “Absolute Destiny Apocalypse” it uses is clearly inferior.
Eh, I always checked my email while the stair-climbing scene was on. And it would’ve been nice if Utena had more than one move.
I don’t think the repetition detracts from the show at all. It’s the form that’s recycled, not really the (important) content. Oh well. Good show.
Pretty much what I’m trying to say. But yeah, as cool as that move looked the first time, it would be even cooler if you didn’t have to look at it every time.
Utena is largely similar to old robot shows in structure, except with fabulous teens instead of kids with their robots. I like it a lot. Enjoy the next arcs!
I suppose it is a bit
monsterduelist of the week. And it is indeed fabulous…The repetition really works in Utena’s favor, I think, especially since it is so ritualistic. I want to say that Ikuhara would have done it even if it weren’t for the fact that he was doing it on a shoestring budget after ditching Toei because they wouldn’t let him mess much with Sailor Moon (Utena became the holding tank for a lot of what he wanted to do with Sailor Moon, and then threw more stuff on top of it).
You have fun with the later arcs. I keep saying it but it’s true.
Sailor Moon would be quite interesting with this kind of stuff, that’s for sure. I’d like to think it would go that way too, although maybe not 3 whole minutes or so of recycled footage every episode, and perhaps the killing blows would be animated instead of covered with a spinning rose.
Great post. I done did learned me something.
While no music expert by no stretch of the imagination, classical pieces are variations of a theme: a musical line played over and over involving different instruments in different harmonies. Many of the notes are exactly the same, some are in different octaves, but many remain the same.
Take Beethoven’s 7th, 1st movement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptYQLXD8E6g
(I reiterate, I’m not even a longtime fan of classical music, but this piece is the OP and main theme of Nodame Cantabile live action. Watch it!)
It’s actually one of the requirements for a canon (as in
Taco Bell’sPachelbel’s). There is an initial theme, and then repeating versions of it that build in complexity or variation. Actually, in Kanon the anime/visual novel, the structure of the story was sort of meta-compared to that musical structure. In that case, the protagonist gained a little bit of his lost memory with each “contrapuntal derivation;” in Utena it’s the machinations of Dios that reveal themselves slightly more every time.And the slight variation in the ‘2nd’ part of the duel music. ‘Apocalypse’ plays the same, but the actual duel has a very similar but different song (lyrics, some arrangement).
Excellent, excellent post! Thanks for taking the time to write it!
thanks for all the information. have a good day and stay on the rocks.
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