I believe Nobuyuki is referring to
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!? I have no recollection of that extra scene. I must’ve skipped it after all. I’ll chalk that up to some of FUNi’s old DVDs having inadequate chapter-skip points. Instead of having another one at the end of the credits so you can skip straight to the preview (or in this case, an extra scene), sometimes they would just skip straight to the start of the next episode. Fortunately, I haven’t encountered this problem on their newer releases.
Anyway, back to topic. EoE is certainly not without it’s share of mindfuckery, but I’ve always walked away from my viewings of it feeling like, at least subconsciously, I understood what was going on and its meaning. I’ve even come to the point where I even feel an unexplainable empowerment after it’s over, as opposed to the deep rage/confusion/disappointment I felt immediately after my first viewing. There is still one part, however, that never fails to leave me utterly confused and arriving at a different conclusion each time. Yes, I’m talking about the sandbox scene. Seriously, wtf… At first it seems to be a relatively shallow and obvious metaphor, but upon closer analysis it opens a pandora’s box of infinite and conflicting symbolism/metaphors that just defies all attempts at neatly labeling it.
I feel the same way. I understood parts of it, but it was just that immediately following my initial viewing I was mulling it over and trying to wrap my head around certain aspects of it. That sandbox scene was the biggest “What does it mean!?” contender for me too. That part confused the crap outta me, even after browsing theory’s on EvaGeeks. I don’t quite have that same “WTF” reaction to anything in EoE anymore, but I did that one time, so I opted to mention it anyways.
Also, that last sentence of yours would probably be an apt description of the Utena movie as well. I’ve read several wildly different theories on it, and its not easy to pin down one particular meaning for… well, almost anything in that movie.
