pixiv, why do you ruin my life?!: "Revolutionary Girl Utena" Edition
Oh god, I've discovered the Shoujo Kakumei Utena tag at pixiv.
Why is so much of it so pretty? Delicious ensemble pics. And cute?! ;_; Argh, we can't pretend this was a happy show!
Too. Many. Lush. Utena. Anthy. Pics. Really. For reals. On and NSFW on. Sigh. Never this happy canonically. Who tops? Neither (NSFW) in defiance of gravity!
Even Ruka/Juri/Shiori? Huh. (But you can't trust that bitch Shiori! But maybe you can't trust Ruka either?! Okay, in all fairness, it wasn't like Juri was honest and upfront. Maybe Juri should have fallen for someone else! 'Cause Shiori was a bitch. [I have very ambivalent feelings about Juri/Shiori.]) And Kozue and Miki? ('Cause the show needed more shades of incest. [How does one show manage to flirt with so much incest?!] But they were pretty twins.) And faceless duelists. Mercy, even Nanami and Wakaba look great. (Oh, Wakaba.)
You know . . . really, what was that ending all about? I mean, is this what happened? Thinking about it still makes me sad. :(
But I have never been so pleased and thankful for a show with such aesthetics to spawn pretty, pretty fanart. Of characters I like to look at. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Yeah, I'll be here all night.
Hm. Utena/Anthy vs. Juri[/Shiori] vs. Shizuru/Natsuki. Which one holds the most yuri power? They've all got their own weird dimensions. Like Utena/Anthy has this weird thing where it's mostly subtext until the Movie, but both Utena and Anthy strike me as more bisexually-oriented characters. I don't think either's relationship, sexual, and emotional histories should be ignored when considering the two of them as an item. Juri was really the only straight out lesbian in the SKU cast (with Shiori not one at all--the movie makes things even more confusing with the Shiori-Touga interactions because . . . wtf? Not that much of the movie made sense anyway! But it sure was pretty to look at!). Shizuru and Natsuki are on a weird sliding scale of "item-ness" too--in Mai HiME they are only "officially" together because some subsequent non-anime work says it happened (probably because the ShizNat story line ended up being popular?); in Mai-Otome, the show refuses to state it plainly that Viola and Kruger are a thing. (Who knows why.)
I mean, I know Shizuru garnered a huge following with her one-sided love story line, but Juri preceded her by how many years? Though while they are both badasses whose sexuality is central to understanding their characters, they definitely come off dealing with their desires on different levels: we get to see Juri be way more bitter and disgusted with herself than we get to see Shizuru. Probably because Juri got more screen time in her show as one of the initially central duelists (and is integral to parts of the Black Rose arc and the final arc) while Shizuru really only began to be injected more heavily into the second half of Mai-HiME. But then again, Shizuru's love interest wasn't intent on backstabbing and tormenting her at every opportunity. Natsuki is obliviously clueless; Shiori is just as oblivious to being the object of Juri's affections until later in the anime, but before that her jealousy of Juri as a person spurred her to lash out in petty ways. (This is where I get conflicting feelings about whether Juri/Shiori could actually work. It's interesting that you get a fair number of fics that put them together and an equally good number that make them move on.) But while Juri was villainized in a way because she kept her feelings secret while objectifying and pining after Shiori, she never crossed the Moral Event Horizon the way Shizuru did when Shizuru snapped. In some ways it's easier to feel sorry for Juri in the aftermath of SKU than it is to easily reconcile Shizuru's actions in the wake of MH.
Hm.
Of course, Haruka/Michiru preceded all of them. But, oddly, they were not part of the foundation of my yuri fandom. (Probably because Sailor Moon was part of that period of time when I knew more about a series' fanon than its canon. Weird, I know. But that's basically Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, and even Neon Genesis Evangelion for me.)
Hit me with your Yuri Power Ranking scale!
ETA: Why did I look at the SKU TV Tropes page? /depressed all day
Why is so much of it so pretty? Delicious ensemble pics. And cute?! ;_; Argh, we can't pretend this was a happy show!
Too. Many. Lush. Utena. Anthy. Pics. Really. For reals. On and NSFW on. Sigh. Never this happy canonically. Who tops? Neither (NSFW) in defiance of gravity!
Even Ruka/Juri/Shiori? Huh. (But you can't trust that bitch Shiori! But maybe you can't trust Ruka either?! Okay, in all fairness, it wasn't like Juri was honest and upfront. Maybe Juri should have fallen for someone else! 'Cause Shiori was a bitch. [I have very ambivalent feelings about Juri/Shiori.]) And Kozue and Miki? ('Cause the show needed more shades of incest. [How does one show manage to flirt with so much incest?!] But they were pretty twins.) And faceless duelists. Mercy, even Nanami and Wakaba look great. (Oh, Wakaba.)
You know . . . really, what was that ending all about? I mean, is this what happened? Thinking about it still makes me sad. :(
But I have never been so pleased and thankful for a show with such aesthetics to spawn pretty, pretty fanart. Of characters I like to look at. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Yeah, I'll be here all night.
Hm. Utena/Anthy vs. Juri[/Shiori] vs. Shizuru/Natsuki. Which one holds the most yuri power? They've all got their own weird dimensions. Like Utena/Anthy has this weird thing where it's mostly subtext until the Movie, but both Utena and Anthy strike me as more bisexually-oriented characters. I don't think either's relationship, sexual, and emotional histories should be ignored when considering the two of them as an item. Juri was really the only straight out lesbian in the SKU cast (with Shiori not one at all--the movie makes things even more confusing with the Shiori-Touga interactions because . . . wtf? Not that much of the movie made sense anyway! But it sure was pretty to look at!). Shizuru and Natsuki are on a weird sliding scale of "item-ness" too--in Mai HiME they are only "officially" together because some subsequent non-anime work says it happened (probably because the ShizNat story line ended up being popular?); in Mai-Otome, the show refuses to state it plainly that Viola and Kruger are a thing. (Who knows why.)
I mean, I know Shizuru garnered a huge following with her one-sided love story line, but Juri preceded her by how many years? Though while they are both badasses whose sexuality is central to understanding their characters, they definitely come off dealing with their desires on different levels: we get to see Juri be way more bitter and disgusted with herself than we get to see Shizuru. Probably because Juri got more screen time in her show as one of the initially central duelists (and is integral to parts of the Black Rose arc and the final arc) while Shizuru really only began to be injected more heavily into the second half of Mai-HiME. But then again, Shizuru's love interest wasn't intent on backstabbing and tormenting her at every opportunity. Natsuki is obliviously clueless; Shiori is just as oblivious to being the object of Juri's affections until later in the anime, but before that her jealousy of Juri as a person spurred her to lash out in petty ways. (This is where I get conflicting feelings about whether Juri/Shiori could actually work. It's interesting that you get a fair number of fics that put them together and an equally good number that make them move on.) But while Juri was villainized in a way because she kept her feelings secret while objectifying and pining after Shiori, she never crossed the Moral Event Horizon the way Shizuru did when Shizuru snapped. In some ways it's easier to feel sorry for Juri in the aftermath of SKU than it is to easily reconcile Shizuru's actions in the wake of MH.
Hm.
Of course, Haruka/Michiru preceded all of them. But, oddly, they were not part of the foundation of my yuri fandom. (Probably because Sailor Moon was part of that period of time when I knew more about a series' fanon than its canon. Weird, I know. But that's basically Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, and even Neon Genesis Evangelion for me.)
Hit me with your Yuri Power Ranking scale!
ETA: Why did I look at the SKU TV Tropes page? /depressed all day