Ootori Akio: Subconscious
Acting Dean of Students
"The Ends of the Earth"

-- " It is a pleasure to me, my dear Harry, to have the priviledge of being your host in a small way on this occasion. You have often been sorely weary of your life. You were striving, were you not, for escape? You have a longing to forsake this world and its reality and penetrate to a reality more native to you, to a world beyond time. Now I invite you to do so... I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself. I can throw open to you no picture gallery but your own soul... I help you to make your own world visible. That is all."-- "Steppenwolf", Hermann Hesse.

Tarot Card(s):
The Devil
The Chariot
Duel Rose: Lilac
Quote: "Allow me to show you the Ends of the Earth."
Name Meaning: The phoenix reborn at dawn

He who was once the Prince now dwells solidly in the heart of darkness, giving voice to the deepest depths of the self, to the forbidden fruits of sensuality and subterfuge. Yet, all the games one can play, even if one is master of the world, are empty without love and compassion... does he know this, the aching and beautiful once-upon-a-time Prince? Does his hatred for the world mask a deeper hatred of his failed self?

His Story:

Akio is what is left of the ruins of the Prince, Dios; they are the same being, but Akio is Lucifer to the angel that Dios was. Akio is a fallen, corrupted and broken man, worldly, seemingly wise, controlling, and a tempter with an almost hypnotic power that he exerts over all around him. His innocence lost, he slavishly devotes himself to 'revolutionizing the world'. He is the man behind the Ends of the Earth, who sends the letters (at the bidding of Himemiya?) which give the orders to the Student Council and Utena.

He is a beautiful and alluring man, very fashionable, in a position of great power over the school as its acting dean of students. He is engaged to Ootori Kanae, but this seems rather literally to be a marriage of convenience; he wants her power, but nothing to do with HER (in fact, he seduces her mother!).

Apparently, the Ootori clan who owned the school had no male heir; to continue their family name, Himemiya Akio became Ootori Akio upon his engagement to that clan's eldest daughter, a fairly routine transaction among families with no firstborn male heirs. Nonetheless, his engagement is a sham; he rarely interacts with Kanae, preferring Utena; Utena makes the mistake of letting herself believe he is her prince, and surrenders to his charms in a hotel outside of the school's borders. Touga and Saionji are also drawn into his web of hedonism, and Anshi suffers directly from his domination.

Akio covets Utena, and much of the series revolves around the unspoken tug of war between himself and his sister with Utena in the middle; veiled looks, obscure comments, and meaningful glances are exchanged constantly by Akio with his sister as he struggles to wrest control of Utena away. As the story progresses, tension mounts and the world becomes a series of harsh checks and balances, brother against sister, each making attempts to block the other's progress... with Utena the golden pawn between them. It could be said, in the end, that neither truly wins; Akio gains Utena's body for a time, but Anshi keeps her soul...

Akio infects a good deal of the cast with his blatant, wildly unfettered sensuality; his appearance blasts the story into a more 'adult' arena as he promises to reveal for the first time to each of the characters the real "Ends of the Earth."- that which is their ultimate limit, the point deepest in themselves that they dare not look; the logical end if they continue carrying on with current patterns of behavior. His job, which he fulfills with glee, is that of the serpent leading the innocent into their destruction. Yet he is also as bound as Anshi to his 'role', and seems to have no care to escape or change it.

Or so it would seem. But at the end, he shows himself pained, yearning for his lost innocence, for the power of Dios, the Prince whom he once was...to become the Prince, and take Utena as his Princess, to dwell within the Castle of Illusion together, forever, in glory...or, was that all just a lie after all, smooth words to a naive girl from a man who lusts ever more for power? Still, his bitter tears show that on some level he knows that he could have chosen another way...

In essence Akio has blinded himself to life, choosing to retreat into the safety of the ritualistic Duellist's Code of his construction. Ironic that a 'unfettered hedonist' would cling to an archaic set of rules as the foundation of his universe... He seeks the revolution of the world without realizing that it occurred literally under his nose, and is left gaping in Anshi's wake when, at the end, she finally turns her back on his lack of vision.

Could such a man as Ootori Akio, though, TRULY submit to such an end?