Nanami and Himemiya

At first glance, Nanami seems to exist just for comic relief. My opinion is that she's actually much more important to the plot of Revolutionary Girl Utena than that. Just consider that she gets eight whole episodes devoted to her (as well as appearing at least briefly in most of the others)! Nobody else gets that, and the "Nanami episodes," even if they often seem outside the continuity of the main series, always seem to be relevant to and reflective of what's going on in the surrounding episodes. In a whole lot of ways, Nanami is either exactly like, or exactly opposite, Himemiya Anthy. She's like a mirror image, and we see part of the story reflected in that mirror that the storytellers couldn't show us directly with Himemiya. Her function is a lot like that of the shadow girls. Here's a summary of ways Nanami and Himemiya reflect each other, with many spoilers.

Kiryuu Nanami	Himemiya Anthy
Thinks her brother is God.	There are clues that her brother may actually be the Devil.
Wants to marry her brother, even though she isn't consciously aware of what that means.	Boffs her brother on a regular basis, even though they're both engaged to other women.
So ignorant of sex that she thinks women lay eggs. Faints on seeing Tsuwabuki naked.	Sacred whore of the Crowley "Scarlet Woman" type. (See also the Whore of Babylon described in Revelation, but that's a topic for another essay.)
Acts sophisticated and worldly.	Acts naive and innocent.
No empathy at all; clueless about others' feelings.	So empathic she seems to have no personality of her own.
Manipulates everyone to serve her own nefarious purposes.	Manipulated by everyone to serve their nefarious purposes, and chooses to be so for reasons of her own.
Has a slave.	Is a slave.
Constantly worried that people might think her strange.	People do think her strange, and she doesn't care.
Fears ostracism, and invokes it against Keiko.	Under Utena's influence, wants to be left alone.
Pale skin and hair.	Dark skin and hair.
Often addressed as -sama.	Often addresses others as -sama.
Jealously possessive of her brother.	Saionji and others jealously possessive of her.
Resentful of her brother's pursuit of other women.	Aids and abets her brother's pursuit of other women, including her own best friend/fiancee.
Trampled by elephants (phallic symbols).	Penetrated by swords (phallic symbols).
Origin of tainted gift worn by Himemiya (gown).	Origin of tainted gift worn by Nanami (cowbell).
Is named Nanami, turns into a cow, and lays an egg like a hen.	Has a pet cow and hen, each named Nanami.
Evil, but also somewhat pathetic.	Evil, but also somewhat pathetic.

Comments

barashizu from 168.212.247.6 at Fri, 19 May 2006 20:24:08 +0000:
actually, these are really scary to read... because they are all true!

Tomb Raider from 150.140.141.124 at Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:55:25 +0000:
That reminds me of a comparison chart between Bush and Hitler, only this one is scarier! 0_0

"Boffs her brother on a regular basis, even though they're both engaged to other women."

*gigglesnort*

sedeara from 65.102.108.71 at Fri, 27 Oct 2006 01:28:39 +0000:
I've been coming to this site to read your synopses after watching Utena episodes that confused me--you know, just to confirm that, yes, the thing that I thought happened really did happen. This comparison chart is fascinating and lends a whole new dimension to the placement of Nanami and Anthy. I very much enjoy the Utena section of your site, btw.

J.C. from 64.186.240.129 at Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:42:30 +0000:
It's always interesting to look at Nanami-Anthy comparisons. I've seen a number of theories and fan speculation that after the end of the series Akio would try to use Nanami in some way as the next Prince or Rose Bride. Her existance in the series obviously places her in a very special position, for exactly the reasons you wrote above.

It's also probably worth re-iterating that, by many folks' account, everything "strange" that happens to Nanami during the course of the series is arguably caused by Anthy getting back at her for Episode #3.

lashley from 74.244.34.167 at Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:45:21 +0000:
Brilliant comparison. When it comes to "Utena" we can use all the comparisons people can think up. >.>?!

When Nanami first popped up, I felt like she was a diminishing element in an otherwise brilliantly progressive series (I mean, how many anime discuss patriarchy from the roots up?). Spoiled, bratty, and served as a "entryway" into all the petty scheming of her peers over the male duelists. Was exasperating! But by the last few episodes, yeah, her interactions with her brother suddenly hinted at what was happening between Akio and Anthy. We knew it - it wasn't hard to assume - but setting the two incestuous situations side by side highlighted the differences, and even led to a greater understanding of what happened in the end.

Thank you for laying it out so clearly. ^___^

Jurrasic from 24.82.128.205 at Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:59:29 +0000:
Excellent comparison. Many ideas that i've never even considered. I've never felt that Nanami was sexually ignorant, she knew exactly what Akio and Anthy were up to on that couch when she saw it,(I had expected her to immediately have a vision of Touga actually) but it's still an interesting contrast!

I've always felt that the fact that everything 'bad' that happened to Nanami was very clearly revenge by Anthy, especially since Anthy's 'familiar' Chu-Chu is always involved somehow in the periphery, or is returning to Anthy after the misadventure is over.

For some reason most Utena fans seem to overlook this and it's always bothered me, as to me it hints at the vindictive side of her passive/agressive nature much earlier on then most other plot points do.

Matt from 129.97.79.144 at Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:18:48 +0000:
Maybe Nanami's not ignorant so much as naive; or maybe her ignorance is on some level deliberate or a sham. Note the whole brother thing: she wants to be Touga's partner, and that point is driven home again and again in the show, but she shows absolutely no indication (before seeing it in practice with Akio and Anthy) of understanding what that means or why it's forbidden. Her fantasies about him are all Platonic and weirdly abstract, and I don't think it's just because of censorship in the show's production. She didn't know enough about blood type genetics to know that Touga's blood type proves he can't be the biological child of their parents. Granted that particular point is a bit arcane (lots of people know about sex without knowing about that) but I think it could be the writers' way of letting us know that Nanami knows very little about the whole birds and bees thing in general. Also, I don't think it can be any coincidence that she woke up with the egg on the very morning she was scheduled for what was described as a special "girls-only health and hygeine class" - we are supposed to be thinking about Nanami's lack of sex education at that point; and the fact she took the egg thing seriously at all suggests fundamental cluelessness. It looks to me like about all Nanami will admit to knowing about sex is that men and women can do something dirty with their crotches that nice people don't think about. That'd be enough to recognize and be shocked by what Akio and Anthy were doing.

Two other comparisons worth making are Nanami with Jury and Nanami with Tsuwabuki. The show set up Nanami in comparison with Jury in episodes 16 and 27, and each time Nanami ended up looking childish and Jury ended up looking like the mature woman. Jury's the one who showed up at Nanami's party and made her look cheap; Jury's the one who laid an egg the size of a bowling ball; Jury (in Nanami's imagination - the reality may be quite different) is the adult that Nanami wants to be, who knows about and has done "certain things" (Utena's words from Episode 18) Nanami hasn't.

That brings us to Tsuwabuki... between him and Nanami the relationship is flipped in the other direction. He's the child looking up to her as the adult. He wants to learn about and do the "certain things" that make an adult. Maybe part of the reason Nanami can't handle that in a non-hurtful way is because she's a child herself. Indeed, I think Tsuwabuki may be more mature than her even if neither of them give him credit for it. She fainted when she saw him naked but I bet if he saw her naked, he'd look carefully to memorize every detail - he at least is aware of and wants to end his own ignorance.

Uh, I'm not a Nanami fan. Maybe you noticed. But I'm not really a Himemiya Anthy fan either. Who are my favourite characters in the series? Maybe Jury. And the Onion Prince.

New comments are disabled, pending transition to new site code.