[Translation] “The Duelist’s Qualification” by Oguro Yuuichirou

This is the first entry of a series of translations of staff commentaries and interviews of Mawaru Penguindrum and Shoujo Kakumei Utena I intend to post on this blog. Before people begin to throw eggs at me for including Utena stuff on a Mawaru Penguindrum blog, let me just say that a lot of thought and personal philosophy from the creators had gone into the making of Utena over 10 years ago, and Mawaru Penguindrum does feel to me like a reunion of these creators. While 10 years is neither long nor short in the span of one’s life, it is significant enough for gradual changes to modify one’s worldview one way or other, and it is interesting to ponder on the then and now.

Besides, ever since I came across this very comprehensive archive of Utena-related staff commentaries and interviews in Japanese that was begun in 2007, I have always wanted to translate some of them. Very likely some or all of them have already been translated by various individuals in the vast realm that is the Utena fandom… I confess that I have been living under a stone and I reckon that it would be quicker for me to translate them myself than to search for each of them by Google… (However, if you know where such translations can already be found, please feel free to let me know.)

The format of this series is simple: brief biography of the commentator, followed by the translation, and finally some personal comments.

Here we go:

OGURO Yuuichirou [小黒祐一郎], also nicknamed “Anime-sama,” was a member of Bepapas. He was involved as the planner of the Utena series. Among his later works, he wrote the script of Kemonozume under a pen-name.

The Duelist’s Qualification by Oguro Yuuichirou

~ From the liner notes of the DVD “Shoujo Kakumei Utena L’Apocalypse 2”

Let us suppose that a certain man has fallen in love at first sight with an idol he saw on TV. The possibility of him making the idol his lover is near zero, but it is not entirely zero. However, rare is the man who would strive with all efforts to make the idol his lover. Instead of making such effort, he buys her records, goes to her concerts and enters her fan club. In other words, he enjoys her as an “idol”. Such behaviour blurs his feeling of wanting to make her his lover. This world of ours is full of such blurriness. To say “no” to such blurriness and to strive for the object of your desire, you have no choice but to become a duelist and confront the world and all its cruelty in the face. Episode 7 (“Unfulfilled Juri”) is a story about “miracle”. Arisugawa Juri, who is a student council member highly regarded by all teachers, a national-level fencer and a beautiful young woman, had one weakness – “miracle”. It may seem contradictory that she believed requited love would be a “miracle,” and yet she denied that such miracle could possibly occur. If she truly believed that such love was unrequited for certain, then she might as well call it an impossibility instead of calling it a “miracle”. She called it “miracle” precisely because she wanted it to occur even though it was unlikely to occur. The reason why she wanted to deny it is because she knew the pain of not obtaining it. May we not say that Juri was the most duelist-like duelist in the sense that she continued to be a duelist fighting for this miraculous power called “the power to revolutionize the world” while knowing this pain? Juri challenged Utena to a duel because the latter said she could believe in miracles. Juri was probably jealous of Utena’s innocence and felt angry. Juri lost the duel even though she was technically the superior fencer. Just as Miki who lost the duel due to “the shining thing” which was his weakness, Juri was defeated by Utena who fought the duel without such mental distractions.

To say “no” to blurriness, and to be defeated by the very thing that one stood up to fight for while knowing full well the hurt it would bring – that is the duelist’s sad fate.

The original text in Japanese can be found here.

My comments are as follows:

1) Are you or are you not a duelist? That is the question I secretly ask myself whenever I meet new people. While duelists are instantly recognizable to each other by the rose ring in Utena, in real life you just know when you see a duelist by a certain aura around them that is the sum of many personal qualities – strength, knowledge, insight, beauty, quick wit, determined spirit, nobleness etc. It is like spotting a royal prince/princess in casual clothes in a crowd. And if you are a duelist yourself, you will probably find yourself crossing swords with the other duelists in an all-or-nothing competition over something abstract that will make or break your life… Duels in Utena have the benefit of finishing within the same day – before it gets dark because the kids have to get home before the curfew or something. Duels in real life, however, can drag on for over many years – from youth, to middle age, to old age…

If you have ever engaged in such a “duel” with a fellow “duelist” in real life and you look at the arena scenes, you would most likely say, yes, this is exactly what it feels like indeed…  

2) The great C. G. Jung once said that the greatest problem of mankind is not sex, not even food – but laziness. The blurriness mentioned above is really a product of laziness. Actually, when it comes the word “laziness,” or “sloth” – the good old Latin word accidie in the context of good old Catholicism is probably a better word. Accidie in this sense is not so much physical sluggishness; you can be as busy as a bee and still be guilty of accidie – which refers to intellectual and spiritual torpor, to indifference and to lethargy of the spirit. That is the Deadly Sin that will damn you for sure in this world, and perhaps in the next world too.