#and yeah they basically pried my third eye open with a crowbar.

[carlyraejepsans]

I’ve started watching Utena because of you. What. Is going on

HI. WELCOME TO THE CLUB, watch the trigger warnings. but yeah, revolutionary girl utena veers more and more towards surrealism the further you get into the series. it often and voluntarily forfeits narrative/logical consistency in favor of visual storytelling, metaphors and symbolism. i was just talking about it with nic the other day, and if the story weren't so harrowing, i would recommend it to everyone who wants to get into literary analysis, because it is SO packed with symbolism EVERYWHERE that it actually encourages you to try to decode it.

whatever you think utena is about, it is NOT. you can't go in and treat it like your 49293th classical shoujo. utena is a firework show of visual symbolism and it very rarely, if ever, explains itself to the viewer. it refuses to handhold you, but it never berates you for trying and getting it wrong either. there is SO much handholding in modern day media, but utena trusts its viewer to take away something meaningful from itself and to piece its message together on their own. it's one of my favourite pieces of media of all time just for that

#it's almost closer to a poem and to poetry than to a story in the sense that we think think about today #you see why ye standard transformative fandom was never able to take hold with utena? #my suggestion is try to actively analyze what's going on and the symbols presented to you as you go along #find recurring motifs. utena deals a LOT with cycles and repetition (they were playing into their budget limitations and did it brilliantly #what objects keep returning. what characters are they associated with. how do they relate to the irl systems of power the story criticizes #what does the white rose mean #^ had a lot of fun trying to figure that one out. i landed on something other people in the fandom also got but then nic told me his take #and yeah they basically pried my third eye open with a crowbar. #this anime made me want to try out symbolism and allegories in my own works #it's so fucking good #but hey if you finish it and still feel like you didn't get 90% of that you can go to nic metanarrates' blog and check out his rgu tag #basically 50% of the fandom posts are visual and narrative analysis. the other 10% is breathtaking art. the remaining 40% is memes #BUT! wait until you're finished..watch for spoilers #rgu #answered asks