Mikage Seminar
From UtenaWiki
In the second arc of the Shoujo Kakumei Utena TV series, the Mikage Seminar, or Black Rose Society, is a group of students recruited by Mikage Souji who become Black Rose duelists. While the Mikage Seminar is not a secret society -- various characters from outside the circle have heard of it -- its official role in academy business is unclear. In reality, the seminar is a front for Mikage's efforts to kill the Rose Bride and win the power of revolution.
Seminar inductees ride to the basement of Nemuro Memorial Hall with Mikage, opening their psyches to him in the confessional-style elevator. At the bottom, Mikage tells them that they "have no choice but to revolutionize the world" and that "the path before them is now prepared." With Chida Mamiya (really Himemiya Anthy in disguise), Mikage outfits them with a black rose and a tarnished Rose Seal taken from the body of one of the hundred dead duelists who burned to death in the fire Professor Nemuro set long ago. Thus inducted, the new seminar member is consumed by his or her anger or jealousy, pulls a sword from the chest of a Student Council member, and challenges Tenjou Utena to a duel in an attempt to kill the Rose Bride. After they are defeated, they seem to forget joining the Mikage Seminar and everything that happened afterwards, though many evidence an emotional catharsis. Mikage acknowledges defeat by ceremonially incinerating the body of a dead duelist.
Among those who join the Mikage Seminar are Ohtori Kanae, Kaoru Kozue, Takatsuki Shiori, Tsuwabuki Mitsuru, Shinohara Wakaba, and Sonoda Keiko. Mikage also duels on his own behalf. Kaoru Miki rejects an invitation to join the Mikage Seminar, and the Seminar rejects the application of Kazami Tatsuya.
The Mikage Seminar evidently evaporates with its namesake; after the Black Rose Saga, the Seminar is never mentioned again.
The University of Georgia's official Japanese animation club, UGAnime, holds a weekly "Mikage Seminar" to discuss that week's anime showing in ways that are informed by literary, sociological, anthropological, and psychological fields.
