少女革命ウテナ
I discovered a driving need to understand the classic 1997 anime Revolutionary Girl Utena, and these pages are the result, or as Lemony Snicket would say, the unfortunate result. Spoilers are a matter of course; this is an after-the-fact analysis. There is a lot to it. Call it Involutionary Series Utena.
It took me weeks to feel that I could grasp the main storyline with Utena, Anthy and Akio. Most of it is written up by now. The many contributing stories are important but don’t interest me as much. I expect to cover them at a lower level of detail. I’ve rewritten finished pages as I learned more, and will do it again when I discover how much I missed or misunderstood. Utena is designed to make you wrong the first time.
Click to expand small screenshots, like the ones here. Large images are already at their original size.
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• Introduction <- most people can read this and then just stop • The big idea <- dropping the major conclusions from orbit • Glossary of the few jargon terms I made up. • Topic index for certain topics that are scattered through other analysis. • Episode titles, many with analysis. • Credit sequences - opening - first ending - second ending. • Character arcs - Aiko - Akio - Anthy - Chu-Chu - Dios - Juri - Kanae - Keiko - Mikage - Mrs. Ohtori - Nanami - nerd boys - Ruka - Saionji - shadow girls - Shiori - Touga - Utena - Yuuko. • Story arcs - Student Council - Black Rose (in progress) - Apocalypse. • The final showdown - the epilog (in progress). • Afterstories can be extrapolated for some characters. • The power of miracles. • The web of characters and paired character comparisons. • Duels - symbols - combat - handedness - swords - songs - Touga-Saionji. • Shadow plays, analysis for every episode. |
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Utena and Anthy, the ups and downs of their relationship.
• Overview of Anthy and Utena’s relationship. |
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Utena and Akio, the downs and downs of their relationship.
• An overview of their relationship across the series. |
Other important stuff.
• Akio and Anthy, their complex relationship.
• The prince story, its versions and their consistent unreliability.
• Celestial bodies projected in the window behind Utena and Anthy’s bed.
• Akio’s plot to take Ohtori. We can guess much of what we do not see.
• Doing away with Kanae. Anthy feeds her a poisoned apple.
• Sparkling transfers, a multi-way comparison and part of a complex of symbols.
Little things that don’t much matter, or that I haven’t worked out thoroughly.
• A cinematography gag in episode 31.
• Breaking the Kaoru family, because what could be more fun?
• Nanami and Touga issues.
• Chess queen in the greenhouse, an unexpected and probably unintended symbol.
• Utena as Musashi, another unintended reference.
• Mysterious light in the music room in episode 5 is just a visual quirk.
• Shoulders and epaulets, an idea that turned out to be false.
• Reality Star Adultery, a parody of “Virtual Star Embryology”.
• Loosely connected poems - Emily Dickinson - Heinrich Heine - Percy Shelley.
• Suzumiya Haruhi sings “God Knows”.
• My favorite character.
Last but most of all, jokes.
• Terrible early AI-generated pictures, plus a couple that are less bad.
• Funny pictures that caught my eye.
• Who knows what evil? - Et in Arcadia ego - As you wish.
• Who should watch Utena? A simple test.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
First posted 14 November 2021. Since then I have written more every day without fail. Still at it after three years!
4 November cookies is reworked with sharper interpretations
25 October Manichaeism is started
15 October rule following - just a couple paragraphs, but important
6 October Anthy works with Touga
15 September frames
9 September specialness
7 September Nanami is Leda
