/u/ - Yuri

We're streaming on Saturdays only btw.

Here's the OST:

https://nyaa.si/view/228900

https://nyaa.si/view/838771

>>44357

Yeah I know that feel. Rinbu Revolution and truth are also really good.

>>44351

First six episodes are a good introduction to the themes that are present. Anthy is the rose bride and the bride has the power to "revolutionise the world," meaning that each person on the student council wants her for a reason and is substituting her for someone. With Miki it's Kozue, his sister and wanting to play music with her again but probably just wants to be closer to her. Saionji wanted Anthy because she was a girl who wouldn't say no to anything he did, hence why Anthy ends up like a doormat. That was before being saved by the pink haired princess however. Juri I would say is the most interesting ones and she keeps her cards very close to her chest.

Looking forward to the next few.

Beware Ep 32. You know what I mean.

>>44453

Christ, I thought I was late to the party watching Utena ten years after it aired. I can't imagine what it must be like to only just now start it, 21 years later.

While THAT episode is one of the most rage inducing twists in any series I've ever seen, coming close to Evangelion's bullshit final episodes, it is necessary for Utena and Anthy's character development throughout the last episodes. It wouldn't be a proper deconstruction if Utena really was as perfect as Anthy wanted her to be, and the ending wouldn't be half as satisfying if she were.

Friendship: Against Saionji and gaining Anthy as the bride.

Choice: Against Saionji again, and Utena made the active choice of protecting Anthy.

Reason: Against Miki, who wanted Anthy as the reason to get closer to his sister. Kozue.

Love: Against Juri, who wanted Anthy to grant the miracle of Shiori. Inside I'm hollow.

Adoration: Against Nanami who wanted her brother's love instead of it focused on Utena.

Conviction: Against Touga, this was to test Utena in how she'd fair when she lost Anthy and how badly she wanted her back.

Self: Against Touga again, She regains her senses and makes the active decision of trying to pry Anthy out of her shell.

All that time Utena spent with Anthy has turned her into a duelist, now all she needs to do is keep winning.

>>44748

Right Mamiya is the guy cultivating the black roses and Mamiya (boy) wants to replace Anthy as the Rose Bride.

From here on the arcs start getting more esoteric. Anyway, first time I watched this I though Juri liked her senpai in the fencing club and was angry over Shiori stealing him away, hence she didn't believe in miracles for her love was stolen. But opening the locket it's infact the other way around, she liked Shiori and the miracle of them getting together didn't happen, which means her love was denied.

Maybe Miki and Kozue will get better now, who knows. The arc after this is a bit more confusing and heads into /y/ territory.

>>44749

I miss the 90s ascetic, all the hair and CLAMP limbs oddly go together. Anyway, there's still the movie to look forward to after the series is over.

I'm gonna stream at 8:05PM EST tomorrow - might do 12 eps instead of 9 so 16-27 maybe depending if the audience is up for a full 12 eps. There will be an intermission part way through.

Okay, so Shiori found out about Juri and that resulted in a good episode. Juri being able to easily face Utena in a fight but can't work up the courage to ask Shiori something important. Shiori herself feels guilty over stealing the senpai that liked Juri but as it turns out she didn't even like him. Something tells me this isn't the last we've seen of her.

But more importantly, Nemuro was a ghost being manipulated by Anthy on orders from Akio in order to give Utena more fights. It turns out Akio is probably orchestrating all of this but for what reason remains unclear.

It also appears that Ohtori academy exists outside of time, with people unable to move-on/leave because of personal biases, issues, guilt and other things. There was a hourglass measuring time in Nemuro's office and Miki's stopwatch thing is also measuring the time passing, to see wither it really passes. How this will affect Utena and her wish to find her prince I don't know.

This is Ikuhara's commentary of ep 22, the one with the hands.

My visual image here was Sou Kitamaru’s play Aoi Suisei no Ichiya (A blue comet Night). I came across that piece during my student days, when I was going to plays all the time in search of something post-Terayama. A conservatory made of glass. A swarm of researchers in white coats in the adjacent sanatorium. What could their research be about? Is “that night” the eve of the world’s destruction? When they eventually look up a comet streaks across the sky before their eyes. Is it the flash of light heralding the world’s destruction…? That’s what the play was about (I think, but I could be wrong).

the carts that kept appearing are icons of “death,” perpetually stuck in the corners of your vision. The background art skillfully depicts a transcendental realm3- a place where time seems to have stopped; a dreamlike place. A transcendental realm is a realm where the “End of the World” manifests itself.

The meaning of the “pointing fingers”?

They’re telling you that there’s someone controlling the laws of this world.

… just kidding.

And a theory on the time bubble:

It was also indicated in the an interview that the black cats, at least, were just supposed to represent time passing or something. Just in the span of that conversation, so much time has passed that the cats are reproducing and making a family.

So this means, like Ikuhara alludes to, Nemuro exists outside of time- time is running regularly outside his little bubble, but it’s stopped where Nemuro is. That’s why Tokiko comments that the hourglass must be running slow because the tea hasn’t gotten weak even though she let it sit for the same amount of time she usually does. Nemuro exists in that “transcendental realm”, But also, he personally is stuck in place. No time passes for him because he isn’t accomplishing anything, he doesn’t care about anything, he has no connection to anything. He isn’t moving forward, so time has stopped for him.

>>44945

>>44946

Upside is that they'll be sharing a bed with probably some /u/ moments, downside is Akio and ep 32. Akio becoming more interested in Utena at the cost of alienating Anthy is kinda harsh.

I could sense there was something out of the time, heh, with the Nemuro Hall. In the first place there was that guy who mysteriously resembled Anthy and the fact he could never be seen by other characters other than the pink haired guy. Another point was the first dialogue between Miki and Utena as they mention the story of the Hall. It surely did help they show us the Nemuro Hall as it was before instead of the actual one. One of the most interesting details where the scenes in the confessional room as the paitings changed from butterly to a coccon as like the characters were regressing back in time to engage Black Rose Circle activities then got to their own time and duel Utena in the present. One random thought I had in mind during the first episodes of the Black Rose Arc was the following detail: Anthy cared about roses in a garden most of time time during the day and most of these roses were ones you could find in real life. Contrary, when it comes to Nemuro Hall you cannot find pitch black roses in nature, unless you do some manipulations, meaning that place is out of the scope of the usuall plane of existence and finally this little poo in loo caring the black roses in the absolute dark really gives you an idea what kind of person that being truly is in reality.

>>44968

After Utena and the Movie, will we watch Penguindrum and then Yuri Kuma Arashi? That would complete this unofficial Ikuhara film cycle.

Owwwww, man. Good shit this week. Miki and Saionji got resolved but the last two are the ones I really wanna talk about. Juri had always kept her feelings for Shiori a secret and Shiori stole Ruka away from Juri even though he didn't like him. Ruka enters though, dates Shiori for awhile, breaks her heart, dumps her then goes after Juri but that courage she displayed even when her secret was discovered. In the end, Ruka entered the school to get Shori and Juri together, with Juri fighting Utena again to realise her own feeling.

"Miracles are built on the corpses of others." Ruka proclaims. And then when Juri is standing in the rain, allowing her sadness to engulf her. She finally realizes the futility of keeping her feelings a secret, why after all this time hadn't she told Shiori how she felt. Ruka himself loved Juri but she would never return the affection, so he used what little time he had to pull these two together, even if he had to hurt both of them in the process. So happy end for Juri, maybe. Better than what Miki got with Kozue.

Now Nanami, instead of being made fun, finally was confronted with her feelings for her brother. Jealous of Akio and Anthy, she wanted Touga but he's of course lying in that they're full blooded siblings. She really wises up and isn't the Ojou idiot she usually is.

I would argue Azure Paler Than The Sky and Romance Of The Dancing Girls are some of the best episodes in the series. That last Juri ep especially. She gets 4 eps for herself and Shiori but that's really all she needs. Juri is /o/u/rgirl/

>>45233

Few things going forward, who is Anthy's Prince? And what is the eternal thing that Utena desires? What was shown to her inside the coffin?

I'd also like to believe they've had sex at some point, they're around Akio, it would rub off on them at some point.

**Ep 33 wasn't that bad and things move along quicker now that it's over. Maybe Utena will stop being dense for a bit but something drastic will probably happen to force her to wake up.&&

>>45234

>Screw up spoilers.

Whatever, Imma head to bed.

>>44371

Watch the movie, more /u/ in that.

>>45233

>Juri couldn't help who she loved, Shiori was a lying manipulative bitch but she still loved her.

I get that but to me I think it was the juxtaposition of her courage. She can face Utena in the arena, be calm and collected in her fencing class but has to hide away this secret close to her chest because she doesn't have the courage to just tell Shiori what she feels and try and straighten her out.

Here's the artbook for the movie:

https://exhentai.org/g/315450/7766140251/

Small artbook:

https://exhentai.org/g/796930/ca3bd645f7/

Small translated doujin by Morinaga

https://exhentai.org/g/238096/0b9c1040be/

There's unfortunately some futa stuff for some reason rather than yuri.

>>45244

If you find the original design, I'd love to see it.

The movie is freaking crack, Ikuhara is crash. After Koto I wouldn't mind streaming Yuri Kuma again afterward.

Concerning the end, do you think Anthy found Utena in the outside world? I'd like to think so.

I'll have a mega link for the manga in a minute, just need to gather all the images.

>>45498

That dance in the garden has to be one of the best yuri things I've ever seen.

>>45499

Okay, so Utena got a game on the Sega Saturn and it's basically a dating sim, for instance if you go for Juri, she gives the main character girl (you) a new locket with her picture in it.

There's also a translation, let me dig it up.

>>45503

It's not emulateable is it?

Got it working~ So playing this tomorrow. Right, so grab both the ISOs and the translation. Instructions are provided with the translation and I recommend you right-click edit the translate.bat so you can set a custom character name, the kanji you pick from the game won't be applied. Anyway, run the translate.bat with the ISOs inside the folder and you should get Utena_English ISOs. Mount the first one and grab these two files, the Emulator and Bios.

https://mega.nz/#!feYRQLQD!WzbHn6y4NhWK-y6AKKz49SVjxZNNBaIaOoURlhsDO4s

https://mega.nz/#!nXYC2YgT!T81YfupbXCc8CSkTXynXXb4xrrzP6LycrpWNkv8z1tE

Extract both and start SSF.exe. It should generate a bunch of files and boot up. Now go Option > Option and you'll get a bunch of options. With the Saturn Bios, you need to path that to the Bios you extracted, that's a multi-region one so it should work. Second is to change the CD Drive to CloneDrive or however you emulate CDs. Install some software if you have to. Once that's done, go over to crontroller and bind some keys to the keyboard, remember which ones are A, X and Start. Quit once you're done then restart. And it should work automatically from there.

>>44844

http://ohtori.nu/gallery/Series/Animation_Backgrounds

>Talking about having a girlfriend does nothing, talking about a boyfriend does.

>Character mistakes her for a boy and gets laughed at.

>Talking about boyfriend introduces Wakaba saying Utena is always going on about her prince.

>>46013

Holy shit

>>46014

Okay, that's disturbing…

Christmas cake alert, she catches the character snooping around the fencing lockers but knows her parents.

It should be noted that all the character's seiyuus reappear for this and their lips move while talking as a sprite even if they're in a static position.

>+1 point from Juri automatically because character has purple hair like Shiori.

>Ends up sleeping in Utena's room when she doesn't have a bed in hers.

>>46014

>>46025

>>46026

>>46025

Guess he likes iron stuff, chairs, railings.

>>46016

Looked at the walk-through and it gets a bit sidetracked a bit later, I'll focus on Juri, Utena, the other club members then Anthy.

>+1 point with Chigusa gave me a black rose.

>She's having memory trouble but gets troubled around character when she mentions her parents.

Uh oh.

She has the best music though 1.17 in the OST is her introduction and finally found it 3.14 is used in a scene. All the music in this is great.

>>46035

>Spend afternoon fencing with Juri.

>Chigusa appears and steals her locket.

>Go and shower together afterwards.

Still got that beautiful art.

Someone showed up. Shiori actually isn't in this but Kozue is.

Utena is pretty much key to any of the student council routes in that you have to focus on them but the guide says you also need to bump Utena's score up abit as well. I hope I get the Juri ending, the game slashes the nobility rating of the characters periodically and I'm struggling to get them up to what the guide recommends.

This here is the Infirmary, not scene in the show I think.

>Nanami is picking on character and in walks Juri.

>The student council is decided by age, Touga is president because he was born first, then Saionji.

>In cooking class, Chigusa put a thumb tack in with some chocolate sauce and had character taste test it. Utena came to the rescue like she usually does thankfully.

>Giving black hearts to Chigusa impacts how many are taken away during nobility slashes.

Whelp, looks like I'm restarting.

>>46082

If you play is smart, she gives this reaction. I did mess up, negative points for her means no losing points from others. If you plus 3 like I did on the 23rd, everyone loses 4 points and that how my nobility rating for Utena went from 72 to 27%

Now I can just focus on Juri.

Slight branch on the 24th, in that my score was so low Saionji disappeared but here I'm still good with him so he's stuck around and they've gotten a card from End of the World instead of investigating where Saionji went.

>Chigusa handed back the locket to character.

>+5 for getting her locket back.

>Nanami's back and character learns the truth about her parents 15 years ago, they were both expelled from the school because he was the fencing club advisor, a teacher, and she was a student in the club.

>Juri arrives like the prince she is and Nanami isn't hiding her claws.

Should also be noted this take place in the first arc, Utena has 4 wins under her belt and Akio and Anthy are doing things but this is before the major black rose stuff, even though that's one of the endings.

>>46085

Here we go, the good stuff.

>Juri thanks character for retrieving her locket and they go to the old fencing hall together.

>Juri shows character what's inside and character basically confesses.

Now, it's only been 4 days since she arrived but I honestly believe over the course of a few months character here could replace Shiori as an interest for Juri.

>Chigusa breaks them up. Anthy isn't messing around this time, instead Chigusa's poison is what brought her back, she wants revenge against the fencing sensei she loved that left her to die in a fire 15 years ago.

>>46086

>Chigusa remarks that you shouldn't be cheating on the person inside your locket, Juri.

>Chigusa's story is the same as Juri's but she wanted the attention of her sensei, character's father.

>"My prince went to a princess who did naught but wait for her happiness while I worked so hard but turned into the evil queen."

>"Thanks to a certain person, I've returned to this world."

Black rose duelist confirmed.

>She's going to use the power of the Revolution to bind sensei to herself, making character never exist.

<The way Juri speaks that line is almost a whisper yet is filled with kindess.

So yeah, Utena faces Chigusa in combat and the song for the duel has this weird echoing effect like it's being broadcasted around the school.

>In my playthrough, Saionji and Miki had their nobility stolen but Touga had like 7% left so he was safe. Juri fights Saionji.

They actually animated that fight, they must do that with all the characters. Hmm. Anyway, I'm in kind of trouble, that fight with Saionji slashed half my roses and Miki is still left, so I think I'm gonna fail this playthrough.

>Still got 3 roses with Utena so maybe I'm okay.

>Miki defeated. Time to help Utena in her duel

>Juri recons that if Chigusa is just a soul, if they destory a yorishiro, the object that keeps her soul tethered to this world.

>Juri refers to her world as the real world.

Heh, from what we've seen of Anthy…

>The Yorishiro is a red string tied around character's father's old nameplate.

>Character destroys it, Chigusa staggers back in agony, Utena does the squat thrust and she disappears in a cloud of rose petals.

>Character is transferring out, deciding to do a sensible thing and go to an ordinary school.

>Everyone is there to see her off, Touga's actually respectful here and seems kinda sad she's going.

>Utena's sad she's leaving but gives her the saber.

>Juri isn't there and character reflects that she's gonna think she's a weirdo for telling Juri she liker her.

>Now she's sad that Juri wasn't there.

>Juri appears and says she can't return her love but gives her a locket.

Damn it. Shiori really does hold a grip on Juri's heart.

>>46088

>Juri gives her a quick kiss that was so quick I didn't quite get it in time.

>Character pleads her love to Juri

And I'm inclined to believe it, but Juri still has that locket with Shiori in it.

>End credits.

And that's Juri's path. Not too bad actually, finding that locket was crucial I think, to free her from Chigusa's grasps.

>After credits, Akio laments that his black queen was brought down by a prince.

>Experiment in a manifested soul serve as a duelist.

And this leads into black rose arc with Nemuro.

>>46089

>Touga saying "SEEEEGAAAA."

Honestly I kinda wanna end it there. I've already seen as good as it'll get. Might do a summary.

Audio

Pretty damn good, borrows stuff from the series but has alot of it's own music you can find on Disc 7 of the music box set. You've got slow paces like Hitomi No Naka No Yokan which are always welcome. The music is as good as ever.

Visual

It is a bit of a downgrade visual wise, don't have those clear sharp lines like you do in the BDs and making it bigger blurs it out but that background and using limited moving sprites, combined with plenty of CG AND animated battles towards the end really do hype up the tension. It's over 20 years old but it follows the exact same artstyle as the show.

Story

Using a proxy stand in for the player and then wrapping the story around her was a good way to go I think, it's a short little mystery as to what happened but towards the end of disc two things really do ramp up. It's also a side story but it can connect as a bridge between Touga's second duel and the beginning of the black rose arc. Too bad everyone seems to have amnesia and forgets character though.

Characters

We already know everyone and all they're seiyuus are back bar Shiori but do you really need her anyway. Nanami only shows up twice and isn't a duelist herself yet but everyone else gets alot of screentime. Character herself does play along like a typical girl however, bright eyed transfer then turning fangirl over who she becomes close to. Chigusa herself was interesting, not just a throwaway villian and just before crashing the Yorishiro, she hesitates for a bit. She also laments that they could have been friends if she were still alive and there are moments where you do have friendly interactions with her that result in negative points for her. Taking away a person's nobility was another good angle, she took away Juri's locket for example and not only would that force her to comply, it was sink her heart deeper into despair, resulting in them become lost.

Overall

It's a fairly solid VN for how much time has passed since it's creation. It's focuses on the characters, giving some fanservice and having four more days at Ohtori you can live through. The individual routes are a bit short but the animations, visuals and all the seiyuus really do make up for it. Worth at least one playthrough for your favorite character.

Is this a/u/tism?

>>46275

I'm ready to shitpost about Mahiru being a cuck in cuckchan until I get banned.

>>46350

Surely there must be a big gay baby for her to adopt as compensation, r-right?

>>46351

Banana is not a baby, she's badass.

>>46357

Glasses should stay alone because she's ugly tbh. Banan interacts with Mahiru a lot in the live performance so it's not too far fetched to ship them together.

>>46360

Because childhood friend won the instant she returned from abroad. Mahicuck can't compete anymore.

>>46275

>depicted alone while everyone else is paired up

OH NO NO NO AHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHA