this is two years late, but iirc, a big part of his story was understanding that the progression from childhood to adulthood is unstoppable. kozue was able to move on from “the sunlit garden”/her childhood with miki relatively well; she messed around with guys and was sexually promiscuous (for better or worse since shes like 13-14). miki however couldn’t let go of the past and still struggles to do so. here though, now his whole issue is his transition into “adulthood” or the start to. kozue and akio attempt to facilitate this with his burgeoning crush on anthy, and any lingering hope he has of returning to “the sunlit garden”, hoping that his desire for anthy was strong enough to thwart utena. and of course it wasnt. miki letting go of his obsession with the past brought the siblings together but also showed that he has very little drive or reason behind him now to be a duelist, something kozue calls him a coward for (ive always thought of this to be out of impulsive anger, though)
![[Utena Tenjou vs Miki Kaoru ] *](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
