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mikogalateaThis one's from around 4 years ago, a time when Lexi and I were both more than a bit frustrated with how most of the Utena fandom saw the Juri/Shiori relationship.
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It's kind of ironic that people are more willing to see Touga/Saionji as mutually toxic than Juri/Shiori, considering that the former relationship is actually much more lopsided in a sense -- because while I can confidently point to instances where Juri has caused damage to Shiori (even when it's unintentional) I can't think of a time when Saionji has ever actually hurt Touga; there's only really the back-slashing incident in ep 9, but even that was something Touga did on purpose to bring about Saionji's downfall.
Even when I take every creator statement I've ever seen from Be-PaPas into account, I still don't see anything Saionji did wrong with Touga. The closest thing there is that can be taken from Word of God is the fact that he didn't know about Touga's trauma, but that's still not his fault because he had no way of knowing, plus Enokido's notes give me the distinct impression that Touga deliberately ensured that Saionji didn't know what happened to him.
Don't take this the wrong way; I'm not excusing Saionji's own awful attitudes and behaviour towards other characters, and I do think he doesn't help his own case much with regards to his relationship with Touga. All I'm trying to say is that he's done little to nothing wrong to his childhood friend, and that the problems in their relationship are mostly Touga's fault due to him being a lying, manipulative douche.
Contrast with Juri/Shiori; yes, Shiori's petty malice is wrong and she's the one who does more active harm, but Juri also has some poor attitudes that don't exactly help either of them, and their relationship is full of shoddy communication that they both bear some blame for. It's more clearly a two-way street, though I wouldn't say it’s an even 50/50, contrary to what some people seem to think of me; rather, I think it's more like 60/40, with Shiori being more at fault but Juri also contributing a great deal. That's a marked difference from the Touga/Saionji trouble being at least 90% Touga’s fault.
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Juri/Shiori and Touga/Saionji are both pairings I like a lot, to boot.
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It's kind of ironic that people are more willing to see Touga/Saionji as mutually toxic than Juri/Shiori, considering that the former relationship is actually much more lopsided in a sense -- because while I can confidently point to instances where Juri has caused damage to Shiori (even when it's unintentional) I can't think of a time when Saionji has ever actually hurt Touga; there's only really the back-slashing incident in ep 9, but even that was something Touga did on purpose to bring about Saionji's downfall.
Even when I take every creator statement I've ever seen from Be-PaPas into account, I still don't see anything Saionji did wrong with Touga. The closest thing there is that can be taken from Word of God is the fact that he didn't know about Touga's trauma, but that's still not his fault because he had no way of knowing, plus Enokido's notes give me the distinct impression that Touga deliberately ensured that Saionji didn't know what happened to him.
Don't take this the wrong way; I'm not excusing Saionji's own awful attitudes and behaviour towards other characters, and I do think he doesn't help his own case much with regards to his relationship with Touga. All I'm trying to say is that he's done little to nothing wrong to his childhood friend, and that the problems in their relationship are mostly Touga's fault due to him being a lying, manipulative douche.
Contrast with Juri/Shiori; yes, Shiori's petty malice is wrong and she's the one who does more active harm, but Juri also has some poor attitudes that don't exactly help either of them, and their relationship is full of shoddy communication that they both bear some blame for. It's more clearly a two-way street, though I wouldn't say it’s an even 50/50, contrary to what some people seem to think of me; rather, I think it's more like 60/40, with Shiori being more at fault but Juri also contributing a great deal. That's a marked difference from the Touga/Saionji trouble being at least 90% Touga’s fault.
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Juri/Shiori and Touga/Saionji are both pairings I like a lot, to boot.
