I understand that. Could still check out which trade schools are available; look up the gender ratio for that trade to see how Dudes™ the vibe is likely to be, and avoid any trade that has a residential service aspect.
Assuming you're in the US because I don't know about elsewhere, you could check if there are any union trade schools in your area?
Sometimes they'll pay for your schooling and you'll have a paying job as an apprentice right off the bat. In my area, depending on the trade, they don't care too much about resumes or work history.
As long as you're able to do a short interview, perform the job, pass a drug test, and pass your classes, you're set. It can be hard work, but definitely something to look into.
I played it all, definitely not libertarian cringe. I really enjoyed the story, although it's not Marxist Theory: The Soulslike or anything.
It... doesn't run great on Switch. Crashed multiple times, glitched in a frustrating way during one of the first boss fights, just felt kinda janky at points, had to restart it when it slowed down too much to play. But if that doesn't sound like it'd bother you too much, definitely go for it. I enjoyed it a lot once I embraced the jank.
"Actually, Judas? Not so great when it comes to deals. Not so great. Thirty pieces, folks. Thirty pieces of silver! Not gold, not good. Gave 'em Jesus, didn't get enough. I would've gotten gold. A lotta gold. Probably more."
started the show completely cheering for utena to become a prince and by the end i was able to understand that "women does the shitty thing a man does" is not actually a worthy goal
I sort of did the same thing, despite now feeling like I should've known better. It forced me to think "if I can turn my brain off for media, in what other areas am I just passively accepting liberal feminist perspectives before being led into a similarly jarring conclusion?"
utena's mixture of obtuse and opaque symbolism with some blindingly obvious stuff
That's really the perfect way to put it. And then it blends that approach at times to lead you deeper, like the butterfly/chrysalis/caterpillar/leaf shadowboxes (probably not the most opaque imagery, but it's the example that comes to mind); by the time it gets to Mikage's backstory there's just a hand on the screen pointing to them. I feel like it'd be a really frustrating show to watch if you were committed to a "the curtains are fucking blue" approach alone.
Coming to it much later in life, watching Utena helped me understand my own experience of girlhood. With that late bloomer/second adolescence that queer people of a certain age can experience, my chronology of becoming an adult feels like it's all over the place. But as I was watching, I could integrate my experiences—from some of my earliest memories to things that happened to me just a few years ago—by superimposing them onto the characters into a somewhat coherent narrative. I guess that's just a drawn out way of describing catharsis, but...
I can't know for sure, having only just seen it, and I can't really articulate it yet, but I do feel different already. I'll need to ruminate on it for a while.
I cried a lot at the end, and I've been tearing up off and on thinking about it for hours after finishing. I don't know what I was expecting, but I didn't expect to be so viscerally affected by it.
Wow, they really were... I'm definitely gonna be rewatching Utena... a lot.
Edit: Thank you for Utena posting so hard, this is one of my favorite shows now, and I never would have started it without seeing your recommendations.
"I want to have fuck."
I understand that. Could still check out which trade schools are available; look up the gender ratio for that trade to see how Dudes™ the vibe is likely to be, and avoid any trade that has a residential service aspect.