Shoujo Kakumei Utena

Shoujo Kakumei Utena:  A

Revolutionary Girl Utena is something of a famous anime, if you grew up on anime from the late 90s and early 2000s, because you couldn't get it all legally, the license was bought and then sat on, so the only way to watch the series was on bootlegs, which circulated around my high school during my junior and senior years, so I've got a long history with this show.

I was not expecting to give it an A this watch-through.  I was thinking "eh, I think it'll only make B+ this time," and "I bet it won't hold up against its younger brother Star Driver."  But, to my modest frustration, it does, and I end my watching going "Well dammit, I guess I'm giving it an A."

Utena is a lot of things, as a show, but the number one thing that it is is open to interpretation.  More than almost any other show I've ever seen, everyone who sees Utena walks away with a different idea of what happened and what meant what.  I only watch the series every five years or so, and I've come up with different interpretations each time.  And each time, those interpretations have involved me so much that I can't put the series down, especially toward the end.

Utena may also be the single most twisted show toward its characters I am aware of; there are shows that are dirtier, bleaker, more depressing, have a higher body count and a greater degree of active sadism, but I can think of no other anime series that is so personally and deliberately hurtful to its characters.  It's one of the things I love.

My criticisms of Utena mostly come in the early series, and a few stick throughout.  Utena is fairly heavy on clip shows and filler, and while these are both done in ways which are entertaining, in a series that is so heavily built on mystery and symbolism, you get episodes where you just go 'gaaah, give me some goddamn plot!'  Secondly, Utena feels like it leaves too much to the imagination, I've often said in describing the series that the series is definitely 30% symbolism and 30% absurdity, but I have no idea where the other 40% falls on that scale.  There is no way to create a theory to correlate with everything that occurs, and the series does not bother explaining itself.  Finally, and this is a minor thing, Utena doesn't reverse telegraph its secrets.  Watching the series when you know what's going on doesn't cause you to go 'Hey, there's the abusive relationship that I know about that but haven't seen much of.'  Utena doesn't tip its hand, so you only learn secrets as they are revealed.  It's a minor thing, but I like the other way.

All that said, Utena is a fantastic story about friendship, lust, growing up, idealism, wishes, truth, hatred, dependence and defiance of self, of society and of rejection.  Don't let its stylized art and shoujo nature fool you, this is a story that has plenty to offer the grown-up audience... if you have the patience to unravel it.

Melody of Oblivion

Melody of Oblivion:  N/A

Hoo, boy.  This series is really something.  One of these days I'll go back and review Revolutionary Girl Utena so I can finally have my opinions about Melody of Oblivion (Bokyaku no Senritsu, in Japanese), Star Driver and Utena all down in the same place, which is relevant, because they're all very similar series.

I want to give Melody of Oblivion a B and a C, and I kind of want to give it an A as well.  I really can't manage to pick between these three, so it gets an NA.  It gets a C because it's freaking bizarre and if you're not paying much attention to it and trying to reconstruct some kind of pattern out of the symbolism it will just drive you crazy.  It gets a B because it's fun to watch and conceptually very interesting.  It gets an A because the symbolism of it is fascinating and the story is ultimately good.

I'll spare you a short version of the plot, because you can just read my Star Driver 5-13 review (here).  Melody of Oblivion, even more so than Utena and Star Driver, has strong sexual overtones (which become rather hilariously no-longer-tones in the later parts of the series), and viewing it as an exercise in symbolic innuendo results in an intelligent story very much about some difficult-to-approach subjects.

This is also the series where I mention that there are dudes who are also motorcycles and also unicorns.  So it goes both ways.

Definitely a series for those of you who like weird stuff, I do consider Melody of Oblivion the weakest of the three series, but that is due more to Star Driver and Utena's excellence than Melody's lack.

Star Driver

Star Driver - Kagayaki no Takuto:  B++

"Revolutionary Girl Utena with Giant Robots."

The only thing keeping Star Driver from being an A is that it borrows a little too much from it's pink-haired big sister.  However, it is a lovely story of romance, intrigue and heroism with deep, human characterization and profound mythic feel, though it generally avoids direct references to mythology.

Visually stunning and with a beautiful soundtrack (especially the North Maiden's song), Star Driver is an excellent example of modern Seinen: thoughtful, meaningful and active.

Star Driver 13-22

So, I think I'm going to change my official description of Star Driver to the following.

"Star Driver is Revolutionary Girl Utena WITH GIANT ROBOTS."

Need to put that on the Recycled IN SPACE tropes pages.

Feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs if you haven't seen Revolutionary Girl Utena.  Also, you may want to consider going and watching it.  It's a classic.

So I'm nearing the end of the series, and I'm liking it.  It lacks Utena's visceral brutality, but possesses much of its hidden symbolism, conspiracy plotline and quiet discussion of "how does a hero" that Utena was about.  That being said, it lacks the degree of symbolism that Utena had, and the symbolic misdirection of the former (Utena was between 10 and 70% nonsense, depending on who you ask) and, and this is crucial, Star Driver is a much more idealistic series as a whole.

It has the same undercurrent of "growing up" as it's pink-haired sister, along making metaphors for growing up out of leaving, dying, the loss of virginity/innocence and a number of other things.  And like Utena, the true measure of a hero or a villain is shown, not told.

Episode 22 set the stage for the finale, but it hasn't all aired in Japan yet, so I'm going to wait until the series is finished and then watch the remainder in one go.

Current Rating:  B+ (Ending could push it back up to A or down to B, but I don't think it'll go down as far as C.  It's gorgeous to watch and to listen to, and the story and characters are strong enough to hold it at at least B.)

Star Driver 5-13

So, I meant to go to bed early tonight because I've been terrible at waking up lately, but I had laundry in, so I figured I'd watch a couple more episodes of Star Driver.

And I have to say by Episode 13, I'm thoroughly torn on the subject.  So, up until the past couple of episodes, the entire series very much felt like a rehash of the same overall plot of Revolutionary Girl Utena and Melody of Oblivion:  A young, naive hero is gifted with fighting skill which they use to rescue a special girl from an arcane conspiracy, and then become part of a world of challengers facing them down, who defeat themselves through their own weakness rather than particularly through the hero's strength.  It will be surrounded by themes of repetition, western imagery used both properly and improperly with strong themes of growing up, corruption and sex.  When the Puppet Master finally reveals themselves, they will be very much like the hero and their ultimate defeat will be pyrrhic or inconclusive.

Now, I don't think that this is a bad formula, in particular, it's one that allows for a lot of characterization to be put into your villains and other challengers, but as of around episode 12 or 13 of Star Driver, I'm starting to think they may be mixing it up on me.  Any further would be spoiling, but let me just say that I'm at the halfway point and things (predictably) are starting to turn around.

Also, one of the guys at work (the one who recommended Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which I adore, to me, but whose opinions remain otherwise unknown) gave Star Driver a pretty tepid review, so I was prepared for it to go downhill, but it doesn't seem to have done so.  He may not have seen the two series that form the concept, and it's possible that my primary appreciation for the series is rooted more in the trio of series (Utena, Melody and Star Driver) than in Star Driver itself.

If the story continues in the vector that 12 and 13 left me in, I'm very interested to see what becomes of it.  If it goes in a different direction, we'll see...

Current Rating:  Tentative A.

Star Driver 1-4

I downloaded Star Driver a while back and the gg subs version of it has been sitting in my "to watch" folder, but I watched the first few minutes and they didn't get my attention, so I held off on it.

Tonight I cracked it, and my immediate thought upon finishing the first episode was, "Huh, this is like Utena meets Gurren Lagann."  Now, let's get straight that I consider both of those series to be excellent anime and worth anyone's time, but mixing concepts isn't necessarily a good idea.

I got curious around episode 4 and decided to look into who's writing this crazy, because a certain sequence reminded me of Ouran High School Host Club.  The following was my answer:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dji_Enokido

I feel bad not knowing this guy's name!  Those are some high class titles he's written!  I've seen ALL OF THEM except RahXephon, and now apparently I'll have to, since they were all pretty good.

Anyway, Star Driver is a B+ at the moment, but I'm only 4 episodes in.  It could be as good as an S if it really shakes things up later on, but so far it's a little mind-warpy, but worth watching.