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Tokiko manipulates Mikage for Akio.
Tokiko says she fell in love with Mikage. Based on her lipstick when with him, I believe it; pink is Mikage’s color. Mamiya says Tokiko came to the Academy to meet Mikage. Mamiya is played by Anthy, but it fits and I don’t see a motive to lie. But Akio gets to Tokiko first and turns her into his agent to motivate and control Mikage. See Black Rose arc - Tokiko and Mamiya.
Compared to Utena. Mikage often sees Tokiko when he looks at Utena, and she is compared to Utena by her character design and costumes, and by reflected images. (And by Akio seducing her, like Utena, but that happens to pretty much everyone.) I’m pretty sure there is more to the comparison than I have figured out.
Tokiko and Mikage are both parallel to Utena, in different ways. I think there’s an underlying structure that I haven’t teased out. Do they correspond to different aspects of Utena? It’s hard to see that. It’s more that Tokiko and Mikage each has strengths that Utena does not. And Utena has goodness that they do not.
Leaving. Tokiko leaves to take up an ordinary life, and her hair turns brown for ordinariness. She is not at all like Utena in that respect; Utena earned a death flag when she defeated Touga in episode 12, and could never be ordinary again. An ordinary woman is of course under Akio’s control, and Tokiko returns to the Academy to meet him and cheat on her husband—and signs are that she has done it before. When coming to visit Akio she wears black lipstick tinted slightly red—she loves the patriarchy.
There are faint hints that might mean Tokiko is dead at the time of the main story. It’s ambiguous, though, and there is evidence against it too.
Hint 1: When we first meet older Tokiko, she is in the process of standing up. We see an orange sunset sky, and Tokiko rises from below the frame and unfolds herself as if she had been on the ground. I imagine she was kneeling to pay her respects at Mamiya’s grave. But to have her stand up as if from nowhere is curious. It’s as if she were rising from the dead herself. Does it mean that Mamiya’s grave does not exist, so it is not shown? If so, there is no real Mamiya and both versions of Mamiya are figments. Does it mean that Tokiko is dead herself? If so, then the real Mikage may have lived in an earlier era than we are shown—a real possibility. See when did Mikage live?.
Hint 2: The dead wear blue. When Mikage is dead, he wears blue because he is an illusion. Dios is dead, and his white uniform is trimmed with blue because he is fictional. When Tokiko passes by Utena at the bulletin board, she wears purple that is mostly blue because she is from an earlier era; she is an illusion. Now the hint proper: When older Tokiko visits Akio, she again wears purple that is mostly blue. It suggests that she may not be alive at that time.
Counter evidence: If she is dead when visiting Akio, it suggests that Akio chose to call up her story just for his own fun. Is that likely? Is there another theory for why she was called back from the dead? And there are other reasons to wear blue.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 8 March 2026
updated 26 June 2026