HAPPY DAYS ARE GETTING LONGER TIME!!!!!!

[motorbike]

Aw I can't cry at dese comment pages trying to imitate words press. Web 2.0 is so wild yeah! The effect is in gen really pathetic and disorienting but I like it.

Comments

[saturnoolaa]

So in your calculations, Shoma and Kanba are alive post-series and get to start over somewhere else? Because I just assumed they were dead and that affected the way I read the ending.

[motorbike]

I could see it going either way. Presupposing the whole world-as-metaphor Ikuhara deal I more or less just figured that this ending was like the Utena ending in that at the end Utena wasn't literally cut up into little bits, she had just completed her part in Anthy's story. Not to rely too heavily on the material of another series, I also figured that the "where do you want to go?" line was supposed to tone toward freedom or w/e, like either they are actually dead and they get to start over or now they have options in life that are beyond "never amounting to anything"

[canis_m]

I also didn't suppose that Utena was literally cut up into bits--her disappearance made sense because Ohtori Academy was Akio's world i.e. The Patriarchy and Utena had broken free of The Patriarchy (and broken Anthy free of it in the process) which of course Akio cannot grok because he lives and breathes The Patriarchy forever and cannot even conceive of other modes of existence. Thus Anthy's "She's not gone, she's just not in your world anymore" or whatever, can't remember. I do suppose that Shouma and Kanba--and Momoka too--are dead. Moving on in manner of liberated spirits or w/e, but dead.

[canis_m]

It's sort of a nonwestern concept, so I think I understand why it doesn't sit right with everybody;

Natalia if you try to tell me that the reason it doesn't sit right with me is because it's "a nonwestern concept" I will punch you

[motorbike]

I know why it didn't sit right with you lol

[canis_m]

My ship in flames yes obv but that was totally expected. Amei only gave it 10 out of 10 because Yuri/Tabuki got happi endo.

[motorbike]

I was actually hoping Yuri and Juri2 would do it

[petronia]

Speaking as someone whose experience of the fandom was mostly watching shippers freak out repeatedly on Tumblr, I can only express admiration that Ikuhara managed to validate EVERY pairing while simultaneously jossing it. EVEN THE CRACK YAOI KANBA/SHOUMA SHIPPERS EVERYONE ELSE WAS SIDE-EYEING FOR TWENTY EPS. Not to mention the bait-and-switch where the ppl who thought they were shipping a non-incest pairing turned out to be shipping the incest pairing and vice versa, that was classy shit

[petronia]

Actually you know what: while Penguindrum is arguably not a better ripoff of Utena than Madoka, it may be a better Evangelion than Evangelion. In that what it really did very well is portray a completely non-abstract (despite the symbolic 'verse) real world example of the Hedgehog's Dilemma: here are these kids who reconstitute a family in which they are each other's only support against past trauma and an unfeeling world, and they have good times and make precious memories etc. at the cost of repressing a part of their selves and true feelings at all times, and the constant low-level emotional masochism that goes with that. Like the version of the Little Mermaid story where every step she takes on land feels like walking on broken glass (speaking of that finale...). And this is not, in fact, conventionally resolvable even if Himari weren't dying, so the only way out is the grand gesture of self-sacrifice.

[petronia]

Like, I think the answer to "why is Penguinhat such a bitch" is that a lot of fusion Penguinhat princess was actually Himari's mononoke, as it were, rather than Momoka's personality.

[canis_m]

what good is symbolism that forces you to DO FRACTIONS?

THANK YOU

I mean I'm sitting here going "Okay, so 1/4 of a Life Apple is apparently enough to get by on, unless you're an Ill Girl, in which case your stats are crap and your HP drains faster than anyone else's...?" Also, if you can save ppl by sharing apples, why doesn't Ringo have an apple to share? SHE IS THE APPLE, THE APPLE IS HER idk