Wakaba Shinohara - Tumblr Posts
I've decided if people are going to call male characters babygirl then I can do it the other way around for female characters. She's my man now. That woman is my boyfriend. My boytoy even.
No matter what I do for him, no matter how I think of him... in the end, she's the only one he ever cared about!
REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA 🌹 EP 20: WAKABA FLOURISHING
I did some Utena Portraits!! I'm really happy with how they all turned out :)
I find it so funny that Wakaba (sweetheart, horrible judge of character most of the time, especially when it comes to the pretty boys/men in her life) canonically hates Touga's guts like. In episode 35 she hears his voice and this is her immediate response
She looks ready to physically attack if necessary. Where's our "Wakaba tackles Touga down a flight of stairs, killing him instantly" episode Ikuhara
wakaba shinohara makes me fucking insane. you are the main character’s best friend and you know it. you do your best to keep her from harm and still you fail because she is the main character, and you don’t even know the extent of what she’s going through, and you’re not around for long enough to find out because you’re the main character’s best friend and the story doesn’t need you to know. but you know her like no one else does, if only in words. you know when she’s had a fight. you don’t know why she’s wearing something different today but you know it isn’t good. you know how to cheer her up, but you don’t know why it isn’t working. she gets a funny look in her eyes and then she’s sorted it out on her own, but she thanks you anyway. one day, something happens to you and you finally feel seen and important and special, and then once you’ve been hurt again you realize that you’d fallen into the arms of a different main character, and you can never be a protagonist on your own: your specialness lies in your proximity to special people. you fight her in the arena above the forest, and she refuses to draw her sword. you forget it the next day. time goes by and things are so boring for you, and it’s too quiet around here, and you wish something exciting would happen, a fight or something, wouldn’t that be exciting? a fight? you’re the main character’s best friend and she’s escaped the story but you don’t know it, and you wait a while at the door of the tower she’s never explained to you, as the sun sets, peaceful, quiet, and you don’t know she’s gone for good, you don’t know you’re soon going to forget that too. you wanted to do your math homework together.
Day 15 of Trying to Convince @itmustbek8 to Watch Revolutionary Girl Utena
(without context)
Wakaba nearly killing our protagonist multiple times
the way utena held onto wakaba and anthy's hands, trying her best to not let go (even though utena was barely holding onto anthy's hand, i'm sure she never wished to let anthy slip away from her grasp). both shots were lit with soft lighting ⟶ to highlight the importance of the person utena was holding onto and their bonds to utena.
the fact that she reached out to them with her left hand, the hand on which she wore her rose crest ring (the ring being clearly visible in both shots) ⟶ utena believed that she could only save wakaba and anthy by being a prince/playing the role of a prince.
utena caught wakaba's right hand with her left hand; wakaba wasn't holding back. meanwhile, anthy reached out to utena's left hand with her left hand as well. i think the difference in how each pair held hands may lie within the ideals between the pairs in their respective circumstances. with regard to wakaba, she harboured lots of pent-up emotions and thoughts about how unfairly the (ohtori) world treated the people it regarded as "special" and "ordinary," such as utena and herself. wakaba was clouded with feelings of inferiority and wanted to be special, to put it simply. utena didn't understand/wasn't aware of these dichotomous mechanisms/systems at play, at this point at least. these conflicting ideals, as in, awareness versus ignorance, were represented in the way they held hands; the hero/chosen one with her firm grasp on the motionless hand of the underdog/forgettable one.
with regard to anthy, the moment utena cracked open her coffin was the first time the both of them saw each other as they truly were. utena believed in a world beyond eternal pain and suffering anthy had to endure and wanted to share that view with her, wanted anthy to see and experience such a world, to save her from this needless perdition for good. eventually, anthy took the chance on the possibility, given how unyielding utena was in trying to reach her despite being stabbed by anthy herself; anthy hesitantly reached out to utena. both utena and anthy wanted to believe in a world where suffering is transient when they reached out to one another through the coffin opening, and not an eternally all-consuming pain as their fates in ohtori. they shared similar hopes in that moment.
utena reached out to both wakaba and anthy with kindness and love:
in the duel with wakaba, she never drew out the sword of dios or fought her. utena de-escalated the duel carefully by taking hold of wakaba's sword (the sword pulled out of saionji) and cutting off the black rose. despite not understanding the sequence of events that had them facing each other off in the dueling arena, wakaba was one of utena's closest friends and utena would save her. it's a little interesting to note that the audience (and utena, too i believe) didn't get a glimpse of wakaba's face during utena's speech as above. in addition, the focus on their interlocked hands when utena mentioned about not understanding the situation and saving wakaba is also interesting (even though the interlocked hands were due to them struggling against each other). it's possible what utena said at that moment may have reached her heart even while being under the control of the black rose. perhaps the speech may have made wakaba realise that she was indeed special. this "specialness" was emphasised by utena not letting wakaba fall into the outline of one of the bodies like the other black rose duelists; because she mattered to utena. "to not be chosen is to die" but in a way, she was chosen by utena here beyond the presented choice between her or anthy. utena chose wakaba and anthy.
in episode 39, akio used the sword pulled out of utena to break through the rose gate. utena was injured and incapacitated by anthy's stab, while anthy was relentlessly impaled with millions of swords embodying humanity's hatred. akio's futile attempts eventually broke the sword and he gave up on the pursuit. so long as he had anthy, he could try again, as in, try again to gain the power to "revolutionise the world" instead of freeing his little sister. utena tried opening the rose gate with her bare hands; dragging her injured body there, clinging onto the thorny vines of the roses on the gate, pushing through the large stone doors. she only wanted to stop the swords from hurting anthy, to help her. utena's love and care for anthy finally unlocked the rose gate into anthy's coffin. utena steadfastly held out her hand to anthy despite anthy's protests. utena's efforts moved anthy to tears, and she reached out to her. in episode 38, utena chose anthy over akio, and all the way back to episode 11, utena chose anthy over the power to revolutionise the world. utena had always chosen anthy against all odds and choices.
the aftermath:
wakaba wasn't holding back possibly due to being under the control of the black rose while anthy's hand eventually slipped away from utena's hold.
nevertheless, utena's efforts matter, very much so, because wakaba will always be on utena's side no matter what happens and anthy will find utena no matter where she is.