YOU SON OF A BITCH
what a warped episode, huh? the black rose arc seems to come to a close, the whole thing seemingly orchestrated by akio, using anthy as a false mamiya. some questions are answered, but many more are raised as nemuro dissipates and akio solidifies his place as the power behind the scenes.
down to the final black rose and unable to find a way to defeat utena head on, souji redoubles his efforts to recruit her into the seminar, unromantically confessing to feelings for her and posing himself as a savior - someone with the genius and resources to help her and her friends out of any trouble. utena considers; she's usually able to get herself out of any scrapes, but there is someone dear to her who seems powerless. dreaming of her time in the coffin after her parents' death, utena wakes in a dim room, the tv playing static, anthy's hand entwined in hers. a transference occurs in this ghostly, liminal space - utena recognizing her past helplessness in anthy and that sometimes outside help is needed.
meanwhile, souji experiences his own transposition, seeing utena as tokiko and substituting her in utena's place. it's an uncanny moment that foreshadows the strangeness to come. as the end approaches, he coldly dismisses his secretary, who notably resembles tokiko, and her comment that she can "finally let her hair down" seems pointedly loaded. untethering himself from his worldly connections, he floats between the present and the past over an unending banquet table, remembering how he refused the lab boys' duel challenges once his work had finished. mamiya appears at his bedside, bringing flowers as if to a funeral, and questions his opening of the arena and castle. knowledge of the arena's existence seems to instill the academics with the belief that eternity will be attainable by the champion duelist. suddenly, mamiya changes tone. "don't you want the power to revolutionize the world?.... i want... eternity."
until now, it had seemed mamiya was reluctant to be preserved like the roses in tokiko's garden, but his strong words now spur souji into action. in the memorial hall, as utena beholds the portraits of the black rose duelists, he confesses to her yet again, this time as both the architect of the black rose and tokiko's would-be lover. but, he argues, utena and the other black rose duelists aren't so different, are they? at their core, they are bound to their most precious memories, have based their lives upon them, and are willing to fight for them. and fight utena will, punching souji and pinning him to the ground for daring to equate them. he smiles, acknowledging her memories must be very precious indeed. he's not entirely wrong, which is what angers utena, but he does seem to make a key misapprehension - utena doesn't wish to live in the past, she looks towards the future. her childhood experience of pain and salvation is something that she draws strength from, but it isn't something she wants to eternalize. nevertheless, she can't allow souji to continue his schemes, which have threatened her friends and endangered anthy, so she formally challenges him to bring an end to all this.
collapsed in the elevator, souji has a vision of the past, extending his funeral-like air from earlier into something like his dying words. visited by mamiya's spirit, he accepts that dueling utena is his last hope, as she is closest to the power of dios. and yet, there is some relief in this desperation, as he feels he has been reunited with tokiko - perhaps, to die by her sword is its own kind of eternity. somehow, the spirit of mamiya hands him the final black rose, allowing him to call forth a sword that looks strikingly like the sword of dios.
the duel begins amid a sea of photographs of tokiko and mamiya. souji continues his psychological warfare, drawing parallels between himself and utena and claiming that their lives were both changed by a special person in their past. this, he says, is why they can enter the arena - their lives are built on an elusive memory. utena rejects his comparisons as mere manipulation, and souji begins to falter more and more. his shoulder wound ails him, he slashes the photo, and, most damningly, he fails to realize anthy's deceit in the duel's final moments. hearing "mamiya's" voice in the arena, he becomes lucid for a scant few seconds before his rose is severed, his last sight the true image of mamiya.
akio takes a phone call. calmly, he reveals everything to souji. nemuro's regrets over tokiko froze him in time, and mamiya passed away long ago. akio used this to some advantage, but no longer. "the path you must take is not prepared for you. now graduate from this place." and with that, just as all the black rose duelists lost their memories of the black rose, so too does ohtori lose its memory of professor nemuro. the hall he had rebuilt in his memories lies derelict and forgotten. "he was never really here," akio says, sounding very like the end of the world. "just like you." anthy turns to face him, smiling.
reflecting on nemuro's last moments and his life of regret, i thought of the lyrics to "komm, süsser tod” from end of evangelion:
i wish
that i could turn back time
'cause now the guilt is all mine
can't live without the trust from those you love
i know
we can't forget the past
you can't forget love and pride
because of that, it's killing me inside
...
i'll never love again
my world is ending
stray thoughts:
during the duel, souji's style seems to mimic past duelists' techniques, just as the black rose duelists' imitated those of their swords' sources. i noted saionji's sweeping horizontal slash and juri's footwork - i'm sure there are other connections to be made.
the silhouettes depict a father missing the golden days of his youth, which have been replaced by the challenges of adult life. to recapture that glory, he attempts to re-enter high school, just as nemuro reinvented himself as the student mikage souji to remain at ohtori.
the use of the word "graduate" seems significant, extending the metaphor of the school as purgatory, and begs the question of what (adult) life outside the school is like. the staff don't seem to be a viable source of information, and the only visitors have either been transfer students or tokiko herself (and nemuro, at first). perhaps kanae, hoping to advance in life, realized that akio would always be "in school" and misdirected her frustration towards anthy.
i look forward to learning more about the nature of the school and how the saga of nemuro aided akio's plans, especially given that utena doesn't seem to remember the experience - what role will the black rose come to serve in all this?
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