Bring Your Own Bride
"If everything around you is dirty, won't you have to get dirty too? You've got no choice but to get dirty in order to get what you want."
Kozue's and Miki's father is remarrying, bringing their abandonment issues to the forefront. Kozue is completely disillusioned as to the morality of the world and works to convince Miki that he needs to become "impure" as well in order to survive.
"Miki's Nest Box (The Sunlit Garden - Arranged)" provides examples of:
- Beneath the Mask: Miki is caught between what he what he thinks is good and proper, and his deeper, more selfish wants. He plays the dutiful son even as he watches the childhood happiness he centers his life around — his "shining thing'' — grow increasingly distant and unreachable. Kozue and Akio offer him another chance to seize that "shining thing," which in the context of the Akio Car rides takes the form of an Imagine Spot where Anthy subtly submits to him.
- Downer Ending: Miki loses the duel once again, and it largely appears the sibling relationship between the Kaorus has reached a new low. Miki, waiting at the newly established birdhouse he set up with Kozue for the parents of the abandoned birds to return. Kozue, going off on her own as a "wild animal."
- The Faceless: Miki and Kozue's father appears on screen when he calls them, but his face is not visible.
- Fixing the Game: The shadow play centers on B-ko as novice gambler who previously claimed to hate gambling, but once she gets caught up in the moment, she bets away all her money without even considering that the game might be rigged. And the game is rigged. Miki is in a similar situation this episode — he can see that authority figures are misleading him and knows that what they are offering is risky, but the reward is too tempting for him to recognize that there was no way for him to succeed.
- For Your Own Good: The student council receives a letter from the End of the World instructing them to defeat Utena for their own sakes. Miki finds this suspicious. Even though he scolded Kozue for badmouthing their parents, deep down he shares her sentiment.Miki: Most adults who tell you to do something "for your own good" can't be trusted.
- Hanging by the Fingers: Early in the episode, Kozue clings to a very narrow ledge below an upper-floor window at school. Since she climbed out of the window to save a bird's nest full of chicks, she can only grab on by her fingers with one hand, and she slowly loses her purchase and then falls. Fortunately Miki and Utena manage to break her fall, and she makes it through with only a sprained ankle. The baby birds are not harmed either.
- Hidden Depths: Anthy's fondness for animals is well established at this point, but in this episode she is shown to know how to take care of baby birds even though she claims she never had baby birds before.
- Imagine Spot: During Miki's scene on Akio's car, he sees himself driving the car with Anthy by his side, and she's doing a rather suggestive pose, which represents Miki's "adult" thoughts he tries to refuse but ultimately cannot avoid.
- Inflating Body Gag: Chu-Chu spontaneously inflates while Miki and Anthy discuss how to care for the baby birds, and he drifts through the background of several shots before Utena grabs him by the tail and holds him like a balloon.
- Innocently Insensitive: Utena comes across as this when she tells Kozue and Miki how she wished she also had letters from her parents to read. While this is understandable as Utena lost her parents long ago, she doesn't seem to consider that the twins relationship with their parents may not be that good.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: This episode deals with Miki's complex about Kozue and Anthy. Miki loves Anthy, whom he sees as entirely virginal and passive because he sees her as basically the foil of his promiscuous sister, Kozue, whom he is sexually attracted to. Miki sees Anthy and Kozue as two sides of one woman, and by extension he sees neither as a full person in her own right. Interestingly, in Miki's Imagine Spot, he sees Anthy displaying traits he seems to despise on his sister.
- Neglected Garden: Anthy and Utena walk through an overgrown garden at the Kaoru siblings' house, and Utena wonders if it is the namesake for Miki's signature song, "The Sunlit Garden." There's nothing but time-worn patio furniture and unkempt grass now.Utena: It's all gone to seed.
Anthy: It's a memory, after all. - Not So Above It All: Miki doesn't want to become impure, yet he can't avoid his feelings about Anthy.
- Parent with New Paramour: Miki and Kozue's father is getting remarried. Miki is perfectly reasonable and pleasant while discussing the situation with his father one the phone, but afterwards stays up all night playing piano in the school music room. This also is the source of one of Revolutionary Girl Utena's greatest mysteries: How literally should one take the fact that Miki's future stepmother is apparently Anthy, dressed as the Rose Bride?
- Pet the Dog: Kozue putting herself at great risk on getting severely injured to save the bird nest.
- Piggyback Cute: Subverted. Miki carries Kozue home on his back due to the injury she sustained falling from the window ledge, but he's not happy about it and Kozue knows it. Miki grouses about her leaning into him, and in return, Kozue goes out of her way to needle him.
- Prelap: As Utena talks with Anthy about what she expected the namesake for "The Sunlit Garden" to be like, the audio switches to Anthy reporting on this moment to Akio at a later point. The audience can see Utena talking, looking fondly in Anthy's direction, but we can't hear her voice.
- Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: It's implied Miki feels this. He doesn't want to be a "dirty adult" and wants to remain "pure" but when he's on Akio's car with Kozue and Akio he's forced to face his feelings about Anthy, and his Imagine Spot where he is driving Akio's car with Anthy in a suggestive pose by his side serves as a metaphor for his conflicting thoughts on adulthood.
- Shout-Out: Two characters mention the coming-of-age story Daddy-Long-Legs this episode. It is popular in Japan and received two animated adaptations, including one in the World Masterpiece Theater franchise. Both characters are talking about Akio when they bring up Daddy-Long-Legs although only one of them realizes it, and Akio fits the bill for the comparison in all ways but one — sincerity.
