Shadow Play Analysis


Episode 12: "Perhaps for Friendship's Sake"

"Why Be Normal?"

A-ko: I wonder, I wonder, do you know what I wonder?
B-Ko: To study normally, to get a normal job,
B-Ko: to fall in love normally, to get married normally,
B-Ko: to make a normal family... that kind of normal doesn't concern us.
A-ko: Up until now, we've done a lot and we're tired.
A-ko&B-Ko: So then, shall we return to our normal selves?
A-ko&B-Ko: I wonder, I wonder, do you know what I wonder?

This shadow play is best put by Wakaba: "This normal is not what's normal for Utena!" Utena, in her depression after being beaten by Touga, decides that she is not capable of being a prince and decides she must be "normal" instead. Of course, Utena isn't very happy like this!

The shadow girls themselves are pretty eccentric, and they admit it. Though "what everyone else does" is normal for everyone else, it would be weird for Utena to wear a normal school uniform, just as it would be weird for the shadow girls to stop doing their bizarre plays.

This play started the weird rumor that the shadow girls are space aliens. Heh... I don't think so. Their plays are never literal. But this play is pretty straight-forward.


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