Heh, I'm guessing the rose symbolism in Utena was meant to be according to European symbolism as filtered through Japanese knowledge.
I'm a bit leery of attributing set cultural reasons for the style of manga (actually ended up writing the entire thesis about it, which was not originally my intent!)... I don't know... mostly I looked at it from a bit of a removed angle because I was writing about the scholarship. I think a lot of what we may think of as obscure symbolism isn't very obscure at all to them, much like a rose meaning love or something here.
Sigh. I wish I had more statistics on readership and etc. I wonder if anyone's writing articles or books on manga/anime in the US?
(no subject)
Sun, Jun. 20th, 2004 10:34 pm (UTC)I'm a bit leery of attributing set cultural reasons for the style of manga (actually ended up writing the entire thesis about it, which was not originally my intent!)... I don't know... mostly I looked at it from a bit of a removed angle because I was writing about the scholarship. I think a lot of what we may think of as obscure symbolism isn't very obscure at all to them, much like a rose meaning love or something here.
Sigh. I wish I had more statistics on readership and etc. I wonder if anyone's writing articles or books on manga/anime in the US?