back in the u.s.(s.r.)

[wingblossom]

Um, so. I'm back! And with a ton of things to say about my trip and not the first clue on what to start talking about first! Like I said in a couple of the emails I sent out before, I'm happy, contented, and a little sad to be back in the U.S. again. Those two weeks flew by like they were nothing, and all the journal entries to type up and pictures to upload and sheer amount of things I want to talk about are slightly overwhelming. But I really did have a fantastic time; I can't think of a better way to have spent those fourteen days in Osaka and Kyoto and Hiroshima and Kobe and Yokohama and Tokyo.

I think I've recovered from jet-lag now -- my sleep schedule is still kind of disordered and funky, but I'm not sleeping till ridiculous hours in the afternoon anymore. Still, it does feel strange to be in back in a different country in the space of forty-eight hours. So in lieu of actually typing up all my thoughts and feelings on my stay in Japan at the moment, I'm going to post a meme! Which is also a first for this journal.

The Unpopular Fandom Opinion Meme

Name a fandom, and I'll give you the scoop on at least three of my unpopular opinions related to that fandom.

Comments

[wingblossom]

Sorry about the late reply!

I'm not sure what counts as unpopular for Utena, given that opinions in fandom vary so much. But I'll give it a shot. XD

1. I'll be the first to admit that I don't grok Ruka (in fact, I'd go so far as to say that pretty much everyone else in the series makes more sense to me), but I don't think that he was any more enlightened than the other duelists. Because he only appeared in two episodes, he was largely a cipher (how did he become a duelist? when did he get sick? why were strings pulled to have him reappear in Ohtori right at that moment?).

Still, half his motivation was to find out what the Power of Dios was; in other words, see why Utena and Anthy kept winning the duels all the time. The other half was to manipulate Shiori into showing the ugliest side of her personality so that Juri would lose interest in her, thus "liberating" her from her unrequited love.

The only problem is that Ruka's motives were self-serving at best. He thought that he was doing Juri a favor by releasing her from Shiori, but he wasn't interested in her own thoughts on the manner, and wanted to be the beneficiary of that act. He may have convinced himself that he was doing the right thing -- and I really do believe he thought that -- but the means he took in order to do this were hugely flawed. I don't believe that he was a hero who freed Juri from her obsession with Shiori, because the problem with Juri wasn't with who she loved, it was how she loved.

2. Juri isn't perfect, guys. I'm keeping this short because of the tl;dr from before. Just off the top of my head: she's proud, obstinate, prone to wallowing in misery, and has a rather nasty temper. I like her a lot, but she's not a favorite of mine, and I wish that fandom wouldn't venerate her so much.

3. Oh, this is a big one. I don't understand how anyone in the fandom can think that Anthy is evil. This leaves me cordially -- and sometimes, not-so-cordially -- baffled.

If they don't understand that she's called a witch because of the societal trap they're in, where any woman who exercises free will or independence is addressed as such, then I feel that they missed the point of the series. Like someone more eloquent than I said, "Utena cannot save Anthy, and in the end Anthy saves herself. It's not enough for Utena to be a prince; she's not really saving Anthy as long as Anthy is still a princess. You have to toss out the entire paradigm: no more princesses, no more witches, no more princes, because princes are the counterpoint to princesses. If you don't victimize people, you don't need people to save them." <--c&p'ed this, but I can't remember where I got it from, ack