Wonder Egg Priority & Utena — The Prince’s Dream — 4. A Dream of Romance
According to the OED, one of the definitions of “romance” is “A medieval tale dealing with a hero of chivalry, of the kind common in the Romance languages”. Or in other words, the story of a prince.
In short, “romantic” is something that comes from the other […] it’s a world which a prince will appear from and return into. While “romance” is something like venturing into the trackless wilderness […]
Through the stages of the story [Utena] becomes the first woman to discover “the end of the world”. I tried to think of a story where, because she is the first to venture into the world, she is also the first to know that despair. […]
It’s a world where, the further you try to reach, the further you are driven away.
The romantic is something which “comes to you”, but for the romance, if you take a passive role you will not obtain it. To obtain it you must necessarily involve yourself with society […] with reality.
But when wishing for a romance, I think everyone begins with a dream. As you try to reach that dream, you become aware of more and more problems and begin to understand the big picture. That is the psychology of someone who has reached “the end of the world” […]
— Ikuhara
Ikuhara defines the idea of the “romantic” as the intrusion of another world into the passive protagonist’s life. This idea is common in shoujo manga, as well as in Murakami’s novels and in all sorts of anime that feature generic male protagonists. In fairytale logic, the princess is static. She does not escape, she is freed. Unlike Utena’s prince who rides off into the sunset, the princess does not go anywhere. She cannot “venture into the world”.
The ‘Alice in Wonderland’-like opening setup of WEP features the dreamscape intruding into Ai’s world in this way. She is given the egg rather than taking it, and pressured into breaking it open by an aggressive toilet roll. However, in episode 1 she is given the choice to become passive observer, but instead hurls herself bodily into the world.
More complicated than the “romantic” is Ikuhara’s “romance”, and how it necessitates engagement with reality. For example, I’ve outlined how Africa and other ‘uncolonized’ places seem like quite the “romance” from the white perspective, but serve merely as dreamscapes for playing hero. However, at least in Ikuhara’s terms, every such dreamscape has a limit: “The End of the World”. That end is where the dream meets reality, and is shattered. Each hero of romance sets out to explore their world, eventually testing its limits, deviating further and further from the norms of society, and running up against them.
The dreamscape of WEP forms the setting of such a romance. The end goal pursued by the princes is hatching enough girls to bring their loved ones back to life. They wilfully venture deeper into this world by buying eggs with their own money and breaking them open. As such, according to Ikuhara, they will eventually reach the End of the dreamscape. We can guess at what this might involve: the inability to bring Koito back, the failure to defeat the Wonder Killers and the See-no-evils, or some revelations about the princes or princesses which will undermine the fairytale narrative.
As those who watched Utena will know, the metaphor that Ikuhara uses to communicate this is to Smash the world’s shell. After seeing the End of the World, the hero must reject it and reject the logic of the dreamspace. Only then can the chick be born, and liberation be found.
