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Shoujo Anime Is Different… and thats a good thing
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
- Let the record show I started and finished watching Utena and have yet to go back to JJK... Imma let you draw your own conclusions.
and I almost had a quick turnaround with this one
Shout outs to @itsbasicboi @ColleensMangaRecs @inakyu @harriyanna and all the shoujo content thats taken over my algorithms.
Intro 0:00-5:40
Kimi Ni Todoke 5:41-14:40
A Queen and an Old Maid 14:41-21:00
Revolutionary Girl Utena 21:01-32:38
Outro 32:39-33:34
the more you learn about utena the crazier it gets. I want you to imagine a pissed off sailor moon director fed up with constraints decided to make and produce his own show. bc that's what it is/
YUP
And then there's Adolescence of Utena lmaoooo
Spoiler warning for anyone not having seen Utena yet. Addressing your critiscm of Utena’s use of incestuous abuse, I believe it’s important to theme of being groomed in repeating the cycles of abuse (e.g. Touga and Nanami as a mini version of what Akio and Anthy have)
Loved the video! I haven’t picked up AQueen and an Old Maid yet, but it definitely caught my attention when Colleen talked about it.
Vague spoilers for Revolutionary Girl Utena below:
I think that in Revolutionary Girl Utena, while the themes of incest are meant to represent a loss of innocence, they are also meant to critique adult society for never teaching sisters healthy ways to express familial love towards their brothers. Girls are never told how to love boys in any context besides romance and sex.
It’s one of the supporting arguments for a broader thesis in the show: heteronormative culture harms our children more than it helps them.
Don’t get me wrong, the incest is also there to draw in more audience members by appealing to a specific fetish. But that’s not, like, the only purpose it serves in the show.
My RGU opinions may not be true for the movie, I haven’t seen it.
Hmm I guess I can see how they were going for that theme. Especially looking at Nanami lol
I grew up with Utena and Eva and the similarities were apparent even back then. The other of my top 3 from that era somehow bridges the two in both style and substance is Escaflowne. Romantic fantasy mecha slice of life kinda thing that boggles your mind. Its got elements of shoujo and shonen but in my personal opinion narrowly lands on the side of shoujo. It gets a heap of bonus points for having music composed by Yoko Kanno, famous for the legendary scores of Macross Plus and Cowboy Bebop. The Vision of Escaflowne is criminally underrated and damn near forgotten from what I can tell.
I genuinely had no idea what was happening in Utena until I did a deep dive into the symbolism and character analysis (another similarity with eva 😭). Even now I couldn't tell you the plot, I just know its saying something about the exploitation of women and liberation. I still enjoyed it so much though.
I also loved Juri's story, I was crying at the end of it. Even with how melodramatic it was, it was still relatable and imo very romantic (thats not the right word but yea).
:D
btw i loved this video
Yes cuz juris final moment in the last episode when she was talking to miki was so melancholy 😔
I didnt know Kimi Ni Todoke was getting a new season! This is great news 😊
hi! kind of late to the party here, but i've been into shojo for awhile now and i really appreciate all of the youtubers lately who have been supporting shojo/josei anime and manga. i love seeing support for such an underappreciated demographic! i subbed to you, and i hope your channel and channels like yours get more support in the future :)
Thank you! I’m glad i started making the effort its been such a breath of fresh air!
Man you really sold me on Utena with this! This video was great! Subbed today and am excited for more!
Thanks for the sub! I hope you like it as much as i did!
Spoilers
In my opinion I didn't mind the repeated animations in Utena. I think because I am so used to watching anime that reuse animation (like 90% of them do that because of time constraint and/or budget) that it never bothered me. And a lot of animated shows in general in the 80's-90's reuse animation, shows I grew up on. The music was great and how every song is symbolic from the opening to the songs used in the fights and I admired the usage of 3d(the castle in the sky of the arena and a little bit of the spiral staircase) and 2d animation. Luckily the repetition aspect is very symbolic, almost everything in this show is symbolic of something. This is a show where rewatching it means you will find something you never thought of before.
The incest part of the anime was honestly a breath of fresh air because of how different its protrayal was. It was very hard to watch for me as well(still is even after rewatching it, I look away, cringe, etc), but it was a critique of it rather than something that is normalized. So much anime and manga have incest that is seen as good and/or normal, its ridiculous. This is like the only anime I can think of that really shows why incest is bad which is very sad. I hate how incest is so normal in manga/anime, I can pick up a random manga/anime and somehow itll have incest in it and literally no critique on it or seen as something romantic. Or like please do not include incest, I wanna read or watch something that does not have it. It is very tiring. I always have to look at reviews of shows or sypnosis to find out if it doesnt have romanticization of incest, minor and adult relationships, etc.
For sure this is an anime where you need some experience (or an explanation) watching or reading shoujo anime/manga especially in the magical girl genre all set in middle school (12-14 in Japan) and high school (15-17 in Japan). It uses so many tropes like the tomboy that every girl admires, the best friend of the main character that explains everything, the suave student council president, the elgant student council member, the girl that somehow everyone likes but she is very plain, the sister/brother complexes, the smart student council member, the annoying character (usually a girl), age gap(minor and adlt) relationships, incest, the intimadating manly student council member, the hot teacher (a man usually) and flips it on its head. Really goes deep as to why these characters are experiencing these things and act this way rather than leaving it as a trope.
And of course queer stories. Specifically in wlw (women loving women) relationships. The first depiction of it was maybe the early 1900's in a novel in Japan? (I am not sure but very early on, please correct me if I am wrong) where the girl who fell in love with another girl had 2 paths. Either she "grows up" and doesn't have that "phase" anymore and marries a man when shes an adult or she or her gf dies where its tragic but one of them marries a man in the end. It came to be because of censorship where the Japanese government did not want these stories to "convince" girls to not be a wife and mother to a man and raise a family (i think this was the case, i will edit again if its wrong or someone correct me who has more knowledge on this) That was (im not sure still is) a very common trope in shoujo anime/manga that had wlw relationships. Always set in hs or middle school to show that she has a "phase" 70's shoujo anime Oniisama E has these tropes. And many others I probably don't know. Utena doesn't have that instead Juri and Shiori's relationship is so toxic that they should not be together because of their toxicity instead of a "phase" and Utena and Anthy end up together, 2 girls in love who grow up out of hs/middle school and still stay together into adulthood.
This show for sure is an anime that is very hard to watch and very hard to understand for many reasons. This is my opinion, and I may have some things wrong so please correct me. Thanks for reading if you did because this is long lol. I edited this 2 times.
Nothing to add, just a thank you for what you said.
Nothing to add, just a thank you for what you said.
Nothing to add, just a thank you for what you said.
Nothing to add, just a thank you for what you said.
Love this video! You’re so right about the lack of shojo and josei lately. I’ve been really into josei manga lately and there is so much of it that doesn’t get translated into English.
This vid has such nice chill vibes! Very well made, its great to see how many people are talking about shoujo. Very cool and underrated.
Thank youuuu
Omg you are getting people into utena,,,, good luck to them, it's my favorite show but,,,, good luck
while the incest is something that stops me from recommending the anime unless i straight up put trigger warnings i want to say it was kinda the point of the series playing with fantasy/mythology/shoujo and royal tropes especially in 90s shoujo during that time there was a LOT of popular series that either had pseudo or full on incest and royalty/mythology has that on a systematic basis like greek/abrahamic/egyptian/native ect myths, utena kinda badgers on that as saying "wow how abusive and fucked up is that to be trapped in a mythological cycle which mostly rewards the "princely godly brother"" which honestly i havent seen a lot of anime or most media talk about, a lot of the pairings are also reflections of utena/akio/anthy dynamic, for sure its very silly sometimes and abstract show but its a show i think about a lot
I'm A fan of The Anime Tea and I'm glad to see you watching more shoujo anime! I first watched Utena when I was about... 17 or 18? I've watched it.... Too Many Times. It is my favorite anime of all time. I love that you are watching the anime or talking about it at all. I have three general thoughts: 1. Most people miss a lot of the core messages the first time they watch Utena. 2. Might as well watch it again? 3. Utena is Dentsu rearranged
To whomever is watching this, in regards to Utena, I highly suggest watching Noralities two video essays on this series. I love them
A Queen and an Old Maid is goated, I dont give a fuck if I'm no the intended audience, it's really nice and comfy to read and Koyanagi is my spirit animal. Hopefully one day its released in physical.
Loved this, and love Colleen!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Anime aimed at separate demographic groups tend to be different as the demographics are different. That is why they exist.
The West could learn a thing or two about returning to a time where not everything is meant to appeal to anyone thus making it that much less appealing to everyone (mainly so corporations have to do less work like market research or reading trends across a variety or genres for 4 demo groups divided into yet more sub-groups.
Man this is how I found out Kimi Ni Todoke is getting a new season lol
You are so underrated
I would disagree that the themes of incest, sexual abuse and such exist in Utena and become more and more obvious towards the end are just to show how crazy and bad things are in regards to the plot and what's happening; instead, I think they're integral to the theme of trauma. Utena is about trauma and how it can stunt us, particularly in adolescence, and how hard it can be to break free from it. It's also about how both individuals and systems (particularly patriarchal structures) inflict trauma on both girls and boys, but arguably more focused on girls since almost everything that happens is ultimately framed through Utena or Anthy's understanding of it. It's about the complexities of trauma inflicted by people you love and the imperfect (and sometimes extremely toxic and harmful) ways the people you love can express love for you. It's definitely a series I give trigger warnings for when recommending, and it *is* difficult to get through; but it doesn't glorify those themes, and I don't think they're there just for shock value. I think the series has something to say about cycles of abuse and trauma, and the coffins we can find ourselves in, and how hard it can be to break free; but also, that ultimately you get a choice and don't have to be stuck in that cycle or space forever.
what was the voice line in the beginning from? was that shiori in the utena dub? she said something about her prince
Yep its Shiori in the utena movie
There's no such thing as "shōjo anime", demographic targets are for manga only and it's solely based on the magazine where they're published as single issues. Anime are divided into 'for children" and everything else.
couldn't be more wrong.
@@acai72 Nice comeback.
A fun fact a lot of people don’t realize upon their first watch of Utena is that it’s actually a time loop story. The recycled animation was on purpose to make the audience feel that continuous repetition and general madness the characters are subconsciously experiencing! The movie’s ending is about Utena and Anthy breaking free from the loop (aka the school) and going into the real world. 🩷