revolutionary girl utena
So a few weeks ago I was randomly browsing the web when I came across Larry Wall's speech about Perl being a postmodernist programming language (whatever that means). And as I'm reading it I see he makes this offhand comment that "if you'd like to see an unashamedly postmodern anime, you should get ahold of Revolutionary Girl Utena," and I think to myself, "Postmodern anime? I have got to see this!" So I order it, sight unseen, from Amazon. When the package came, I eagerly opened the box, and saw the DVD cover...
...and thought, "What have I gotten myself into here?" You see, I'm really a novice when it comes to anime -- I've only seen one series (serial experiments: lain) and a couple movies (Princess Mononoke and some really weird one that I got dragged to by some friends which I can't remember the name of or anything else about except that there was this one line in the movie which got translated as "Taste my flying card!", clearly a reference to LSD in my opinion). I'd never seen a "shoujo" anime before, or even knew that such things existed at the time, so as I was watching I was pretty confused about all sorts of things, like: Why doesn't anyone have a normal hair color? Why are all the guys riddled with angst? Why all the blatant sexual symbols? (Roses, swords, etc. -- reminds me of that horrid movie Gladiator.) What's with all the androgyny? (I seriously thought that the dude with the short blue hair was a girl until about the 4th episode or so.) And most of all, how in the hell is this a postmodern anime?!? I don't remember seeing any chain-smoking existentialists or bald, stern-looking French guys in turtlenecks. (Now that would be something to see -- a yaoi featuring an anime version of Foucault. ^_^;)
Anyway...I guess the point of this is, I finally understand why Perl is such a screwed up programming language. @_@
...and thought, "What have I gotten myself into here?" You see, I'm really a novice when it comes to anime -- I've only seen one series (serial experiments: lain) and a couple movies (Princess Mononoke and some really weird one that I got dragged to by some friends which I can't remember the name of or anything else about except that there was this one line in the movie which got translated as "Taste my flying card!", clearly a reference to LSD in my opinion). I'd never seen a "shoujo" anime before, or even knew that such things existed at the time, so as I was watching I was pretty confused about all sorts of things, like: Why doesn't anyone have a normal hair color? Why are all the guys riddled with angst? Why all the blatant sexual symbols? (Roses, swords, etc. -- reminds me of that horrid movie Gladiator.) What's with all the androgyny? (I seriously thought that the dude with the short blue hair was a girl until about the 4th episode or so.) And most of all, how in the hell is this a postmodern anime?!? I don't remember seeing any chain-smoking existentialists or bald, stern-looking French guys in turtlenecks. (Now that would be something to see -- a yaoi featuring an anime version of Foucault. ^_^;)
Anyway...I guess the point of this is, I finally understand why Perl is such a screwed up programming language. @_@