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Shiori and Juri love each other. Shiori learns of Juri’s love in episode 17. Shiori’s vision is corrupt (see her character design), and she sees Juri as looking down on her and making fun of her. In reaction, Shiori has miserable self-confidence and maliciously tries to bring emotional hurt to Juri. In that situation, neither Shiori herself, nor Juri, is able to notice Shiori’s love.
Juri is upper class, and Shiori is not. Juri is admired and highly capable, and Shiori is not. Juri is tall and elegant and beautiful, and Shiori is ordinary height and merely good-looking. Shiori is in her 10th year of school, a year behind Juri (see character ages). All these differences place Juri above Shiori socially—and Juri does not care, but Shiori does, and misinterprets it.
Shiori speaks to Juri with the polite deference that Japanese culture asks of a younger person addressing an older. She speaks calmly and politely as she does her best to make Juri suffer. She succeeds, though generally not in the way she intended to.
Shiori is similar to Wakaba in a way. From episode 1, we learn that Wakaba sees herself as ordinary and Utena as special. Episode 20 adds that she sees Saionji and Anthy as special. Wakaba is not corrupt like Shiori, but Anthy manipulates her into resenting Utena and Anthy for their specialness—resents them for acting superior, as she sees it—so that she fights a duel.
Shiori is key to Juri’s arc and appears in Juri’s episodes.
Episode 7. Juri’s point of view. We see Shiori in flashback, trying to hurt Juri by seducing the boy (who inconveniently but meaningfully does not have a name) she thinks Juri likes. It does hurt Juri, but not for the reason Shiori expects. Shiori says (in episode 17) that she thought she wanted the boy for her own sake, and Juri likely drew the same conclusion.
Motivation: Shiori faces right when kissing him, meaning that she did want him for her own sake. Shiori misunderstood herself in the same direction that she misunderstands Juri.
In the episode credits, the unnamed boy is called “boy”.
Episode 17. Shiori and Juri. We get Shiori’s point of view. She returns to the Academy and immediately sets about trying to hurt Juri more. She looks dismayed when Juri says she never loved the unnamed boy. Mikage and Mamiya speak of Juri as a rose whose thorns they want (see the episode title), and Shiori as a poisonous parasite of the rose. (Poison is a traditional women’s weapon, because it is not violent.) Juri is more severely hurt than in episode 7 and throws her locket away, but Anthy delivers the lost locket to Shiori, who finds her picture inside and learns of Juri’s secret love. Shiori has complicated feelings about that and can’t decipher them; her elevator confession is the only one with falsehoods—no one deliberately lies in the elevator, but Shiori cannot find the truth. The outcome of the duel leaves the relationship between Juri and Shiori unchanged, or perhaps slightly improved.
Does Shiori forget Juri’s secret after the duel? It’s not clear, but I expect so.
Episodes 28-29. Shiori and Ruka and Juri. Ruka seduces Shiori with hardly any effort. Shiori faces left when with Ruka, and the couple is shown walking to the left, meaning that her desire is false. I reason that Shiori knows something of the history of Ruka and Juri, and as in episode 7 believes that going with Ruka will hurt Juri. She is right, but not for the reason she expects, also as in episode 7. From Ruka’s point of view, it is part of his plot related to Juri, and after losing the duel he coldly dumps Shiori, who is crushed, presumably because she thinks Juri is not hurt (wrong again). See car rides - episode 28, Ruka and Shiori.
Juri wants to be Shiori’s prince and protect her. Shiori is Juri’s motivation to go along with Ruka in episode 29.
Motivation: Shiori faces and walks left. When Ruka dumps her, he asks what she wants him to believe, and she can’t give a complete answer but trails off uncertainly. We know that Shiori doesn’t understand herself. It’s possible to put all the blame on Ruka and his manipulation, but is that Utena-like? Interactions between two bad characters tend to be bad on both sides (compare, for example, Mrs. Ohtori, or watch Touga try to influence Akio).
Epilog. Shiori appears briefly in the final episode. She has joined the fencing club and seems pleased with her turn for a practice bout with Juri. She speaks and moves with self-confidence that she did not have before. See Juri’s arc - the duel for why.
I think Akio intervened in the lives of all the Student Council members, when they were children, in hope of inducing in them the Power of Dios. His intervention in Juri’s life must have been to pair her up with Shiori. He likely had Anthy do the work. Anthy either corrupted Shiori’s vision with lies (see the poisonous parasite remark above in episode 17), or else searched for a suitable girl of the right age with corrupt vision and found Shiori. Then she set up Shiori and Juri as childhood playmates, and the “loving the childhood friend” trope played out.
I doubt that either Akio or Anthy knew at the time how the intervention would work out. Signs are that Akio messes up many children’s lives with few relative successes like Juri, who becomes a powerful defender of the patriarchy.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 30 June 2024
updated 5 July 2025