Utena - afterstories

Epilog. <- Previous

literal versus metaphorical afterstories
Utena’s fate
Anthy and Utena afterstory
Akio’s fate
Wakaba afterstory
Wakaba’s best friend

literal versus metaphorical afterstories

An allegory is a literal depiction with an abstract metaphorical meaning running through it. The literal part of the allegory of Utena is the story of Ohtori Academy, and no part of the story moves beyond its near environs (except the gag trip to India). The epilog shows us that the story of the Academy is not over: Akio and his projector are still there, and he has laid a plot to adjust the dueling rules and try again for the Power of Dios from a slightly different angle.

The difference between an allegory and a one-off metaphor is in the “running through it” part. An allegory is structural; it is a skeleton of meaning. Utena decorates its literal story with smaller metaphors to point to the big allegory inside.

In other words, the allegory has an implied continuation, with its literal and metaphorical aspects. The continuation includes everyone still at the Academy—everyone we meet except for those who have died, and Utena and Anthy who have left. (And in Utena, even those who have died may return for a visit.)

The departures of Utena and Anthy are part of the allegory and are decorated with smaller metaphors that I start into a little below. But the two do not have a story any more. At least, Utena does not ask us to foresee one. The series gives them metaphorical afterstories, but in the literal story all they do is vanish into memory. They become a photograph. Four different metaphorical identities for Utena imply that when she vanishes from the Academy, she is gone from Earth. See the opposed parallels of Christian and Buddhist transcendence: As Jesus, she already died on the cross and is resurrected into heaven. As Buddha, she dies and is not reincarnated. See Castor and Pollux: As Castor, she dies but is granted half of Pollux’s immortality, winding up half alive and half dead. See Hercules: As Hercules, her mortal part dies, and she becomes a god and is taken into Olympus. All agree that Utena has died by the end of the story, but the important part of her lives on.

There is more evidence. At the end of episode 22, older Tokiko visits Akio and tells him that for a plant to bear fruit, its flowers must die. All Ohtori Academy students are plants, and flowers stand for girls, including Anthy and Utena. After the two leave the Academy they are no longer girls but women; their flowers die and they bear fruit. Flowers are sex organs; bearing fruit ties in with pregnancies a little below. The metaphors are mixed, but the symbols that stand for them die, and the symbols that stand for their continued influence live on.

In later sections I try to make out aspects of a literal afterstory for Anthy and Utena, but it’s more natural to say that they do not have a literal afterstory. They vanish from the literal story and return to their origin as pure immortal symbols. We can think of Utena with her power of stories as Utena, a powerful story. But we don’t have to. The two must be metaphorically dead for their story to be immortal, that is, in stasis—see Black Rose arc - meaning. The dead can become immortal symbols, but the living can be symbols too. Metaphorical death need not be literal death.

Manichaeism. That said, the neatest interpretation is that, when mortally wounded Utena leaves her coffin, she trades physical life and metaphorical death for physical death and metaphorical life. The Black Rose says that the dead are more powerful than the living. Utena is to be dead to exercise her full power in the real world. She says that she and Anthy will shine together, and she is awakening and gaining access to truths, so it should be true. It can be read as: They turn into stars, or shining ideals. It is Manichaean transcendence to go with the Buddhist and Christian transcendence: Utena moves from material Akio’s evil world of darkness to imaginary Dios’s good world of light, where she and Anthy will shine together.

Shine together like stars, I can’t help but notice, in a field of black.

Saionji’s foreshadowing. Saionji sometimes has surprising insights. Utena’s disappearance is prefigured in episode 2 when Saionji tells Utena that those who do not follow the Student Council’s rules disappear from the Academy. By rejecting illusions, Utena is not following the most important rule. Wearing a nonstandard uniform was her first step.

Pregnancies. Utena becomes metaphorically pregnant in the Routine Date. She is disillusioned with Akio and becomes pregnant with a revolutionized world. See First Seduction - pregnancy for Akio’s unprotected sex, and Routine Date - on the way for specific evidence that that is when it happens. As I read it, when she vanishes from the Academy, she is nine months from giving birth to her new world. It’s fair to think that she is literally pregnant too, and will bear a child (if she has a literal afterstory). It is consistent with the parts of her story that we see.

Anthy becomes metaphorically pregnant in the final showdown when Utena opens the Rose Gate. Symbols pointing to Anthy’s coffin (sometimes physically pointing like the Student Council platform) say that it is her womb. See final showdown - Anthy’s coffin is her own womb. Utena’s white tear to open the Rose Gate is the prince’s semen, and Anthy is conceived in her own womb; we see her there in fetal position. It corresponds to her first conceiving the idea that she can be free. When she leaves the Academy (nine) months later, she is born from herself: Captured Anthy gives birth to free Anthy. Anthy’s pregnancy has to be seen as purely metaphorical.

I like to think that Utena’s revolutionized world and free Anthy are born at the same time. It’s logical. The two are twins.

Another reading of the double pregnancies seems nearly as good to me: You don’t have to grandly say that Utena gives birth to a new world. Her goal is specific to Anthy. You can say that Utena and Anthy are both pregnant with free Anthy. In that case, Utena is presumably not literally pregnant.

Utena’s fate

The Swords of Hatred are about to reach Utena, who lies unmoving.

Our last view of Utena has her lying on the end of the broken-off walkway to Anthy’s coffin after Anthy has fallen away. She was only playing at being a prince, she thinks. She has stopped moving, except for a slight turn of the head. The Swords of Hatred gather into a stinger and are about to reach her. The camera cuts away, and we see the Swords of Hatred destroying the dueling arena.

Utena has disappeared. She immediately starts to be forgotten.

The final showdown is at night. There is no evidence, but I think the correct time for Utena to disappear is midnight, when Cinderella’s gifts disappear. This version of Cinderella casts Akio as the fairy godmother, who gives Utena the gift of the power of miracles.

That is the point when Utena gives up her last drop of belief in the ideal of princes, and she becomes adult and graduates from the Academy and disappears from its world. The Swords of Hatred are frustrated in their target and turn to destroying everything else in sight instead. Utena’s power of miracles was active to the end and led her down the narrow path that keeps her alive—though we don’t know exactly how (see below). This is the ending if you have faith in the power of miracles. Anthy has strong reasons to want Utena to be alive. Besides love and admiration, Utena is her other half.

When Tokiko leaves the Academy, her hair turns brown for ordinariness. Is Utena’s hair brown after she disappears? I’m thinking not. Tokiko is ordinary because she is just like every woman caught in the web of the system of control. It’s the same for ordinary Wakaba. And that web is what Utena has just escaped. She is no longer special in the same way, but she is not ordinary. She is a victorious hero and an inspiration to Anthy and Wakaba.

Alternately, the Swords of Hatred are cheated of their target another way: Utena dies. When she stops moving, she is likely unconscious and may be dead. Maybe the small movement of her head occurs when her muscle tone falls to zero. Her power of miracles is used up—or her life is used up—as suggested by Akio finishing his pink drink. Or Anthy is correct that Utena leaves the Academy, but afterward Utena dies of her mortal injuries. Utena wants us to believe that she lives, but it doesn’t provide evidence. The photo at the end of the series is a hint only, it demonstrates nothing. Utena has risked her life over and over. To risk and never lose is no genuine sacrifice. It is poetically correct if, taking her greatest risk to achieve her greatest and most selfless miracle, she does not survive.

The final message “someday, we’ll shine together” refers to the shining thing. In the past, the shining thing has been an illusion: Miki believed he had found his Shining Thing in Anthy in episode 5, and it comes up again in episode 36. Both are explained at Utena’s memory - idealized Utena. Is the final message true, or another illusion? Graduating from the Academy implies seeing through the Academy’s illusions, but nobody can see through all illusions. On the other hand, they will shine together, a reference to teamwork. It’s not the same shining thing as the past illusory one, which was like a treasure that you find and keep safe. Shining together is the treasure of each other that both work toward.

Opposed parallels. The ambiguity is certainly deliberate. Each ending is beautiful and compelling in its way, therefore it is right to have both. It ties into Utena’s multiple symbols for victory as leaving the Academy. In the Christian parallel, Utena dies like Jesus and is resurrected in heaven (represented by the world outside the evil Academy), which is good. Her disappearance corresponds to Jesus disappearing from his tomb after his death on the cross; she leaves her coffin. In the Buddhist parallel, Utena dies for a final time like the Buddha and ceases to exist, escaping the cycle of samsara, which is good. She vanishes, and we don’t see her again.

We see no evidence that Utena is alive, and Anthy offers none. It is a matter of faith with Anthy that Utena is in the real world, just as it is a matter of faith among Christians that Jesus was resurrected, and a matter of faith among Buddhists that the Buddha escaped samsara and does not exist. Utena pushes us toward Anthy’s view but refuses to offer evidence for it.

In the story, Anthy is an abuse victim and, to escape, needs faith that escape is possible. It’s realistic in an abstract way for a certain class of abuse victims. In the allegory, Anthy stands for all women who accept the patriarchal cultural values of the system of control. They can change their minds, but it is not easy. They need to see a better alternative and have faith that it is achievable.

Foreshadowing in episode 2. In the duel of episode 2, Saionji makes a speech about the goal of the duels: In protecting her target rose from Saionji’s strike, Utena cared more about the rose than about her life, and winning or losing are what count, not living or dying. To Saionji, it’s a Japanese warrior ethos, and to Utena it is the value system of a prince. The rose means Anthy. In the final showdown, she loses the duel but protects Anthy to win, and does not worry whether she will live or die.

Castor and Pollux. Utena and Anthy correspond to Castor and Pollux. In Utena’s version of the myth, mortal Castor dies and immortal Pollux gives up half his immortality so they can be together. When Anthy leaves the Academy seeking Utena, she seems to be giving up her immortality—but the myth says she gives up only half of it. In the myth, Castor and Pollux stay together and split their time equally between Olympus and Hades, spending half of their eternal lives dead. Utena and Anthy end up half alive and half dead: Anthy finds her and joins in Utena’s liminality. I take it to represent that Utena’s revolution is not complete, but must be carried on by the sequence of heroes. It can portray the historical and future waves of feminism. When Akio is ascendant, as he is after Utena vanishes and before Anthy leaves, Utena is quickly forgotten—she and Anthy are dead. When the next hero in the sequence arises, perhaps not long after Anthy leaves, she remembers her prince—Utena and Anthy are alive.

Why does Utena hint that Anthy takes ten years to find Utena? Maybe it means that they take ten years to shine together; see the next section. Another theory is that it is ten years before the next hero arises. They are dead until then.

Anthy and Utena afterstory

Utena breaks and reverses its fairy tale parallels toward the end of the story. It does not end with the happy-ending formula medetashi medetashi, or as we say in English “And they lived happily ever after.”

Suppose Utena survives and Anthy finds her. As complementary people, they should make a strong team: Anthy has insight and people skills, Utena has energy and optimism to accomplish things. Utena is pregnant when she disappears, but a strong team can cope, right? Well, it may be a symbolic and not a literal pregnancy.

Orphan Utena. When Utena enters the real world, she might become a biological adult as well as a metaphorical adult, when the stasis of the Academy no longer acts on her. But let’s suppose that Utena keeps her biological age of 14 when she becomes an “adult” in the outside world. She is an orphan. If she has a relative willing to take her in, then that is what will happen. That would be best. Otherwise she will most likely be placed in an orphanage. In Japan, relatively few children are placed in foster families, and it’s rare for another family to adopt a child. Japanese orphanages have a poor reputation, and a young teenager with a baby will be a difficult case. Utena is likely to have a rough time of it. Anthy is capable and might be able to help get her out.
Anthy leaving. The time between Utena disappearing and Anthy leaving is “a few months,” according to the chatter of rumors between students trying to remember Utena. According to my analysis of the Rose Gate, it is nine months. Either way, it seems psychologically realistic to me. Utena challenged the fundamentals of Anthy’s worldview, and Anthy will need time to come to terms with it. In fact, if she leaves in a few months then I would say that it is only because she is insightful. Like many abuse victims, she did not know that she was being abused until Utena helped her see it—abusers like Akio convey a “this is how it is” attitude. To recast your worldview and reinterpret what you thought you knew is emotionally and intellectually difficult, and it can’t be done in a hurry (absent a miracle). And having done it, to leave your past behind for an uncertain future takes courage, no matter how much badness you’ve come to see in that past.
Ten years. The two promise to meet in ten years in the poisoning conversation. The ten-year period comes up again in episode 39, where a character in the epilog mentions the ten-year reunion get-together. Is that really how long it will be? My feeling is that Anthy has the skills to find Utena quickly. But there is a wildcard: Time passes differently at the Academy. The small number of months before Anthy leaves may be years in the outside world—possibly ten years. Maybe Anthy finds her quickly on her timeline, but ten years have passed for Utena. Or, bearing in mind Castor and Pollux above, it is ten years before the next hero arises. That might be good for them as a couple. Utena’s level of experience and maturity would be closer to Anthy’s.

I think they have work to do before they can “shine together”. In episode 25, Utena lays out its ideal of teamwork and helping each other. The two do successfully help each other sometimes, especially at the end where they help each other leave the Academy. But that is a miracle! Their communication is consistently weak, even in the suicide conversation. They come under massive pressure from Akio that causes them to mistrust each other: They aren’t allowed opportunities to help each other. Before they can be a strong team, they have to learn how, and they have barely started to.

This can be part of Utena’s allegory too! The show denies the trope of happily-ever-after. Relationships are complicated and take work.

Anthy leaves the Academy to find her prince, Utena. Utena has given up on the ideal of princes. They’ll have to work that out: Anthy is free from Akio, but not free from his influence. Anthy believes Akio’s propaganda and likes her stereotypical feminine role. That won’t bother Utena, because Utena is oblivious to the existence of sex roles. Anthy could choose to subordinate herself to prince Utena, “an Akio who’s nice to me,” and Utena might not notice, the same way she took the top bunk without a thought. That would undermine Utena’s message, and yet it is a risk inherent in Utena’s ending. The end of the story does not end the story.

Utena is impulsive and easy to manipulate. Anthy is insightful and skilled at manipulating people. Besides the risk that Anthy might fall under Utena’s control, there’s the reverse risk that Anthy might keep Utena under her control. For Anthy it would be a simple matter of understanding Utena’s impulses and making her own suggestions with the right timing and wording. It’s second nature to Anthy; she might do it without realizing it. The relationship will not balance itself automatically.

I think that tolerance is one of the traits that Anthy and Utena are opposite in. Anthy seems not bothered at all by Utena’s naivety and impulsiveness (I imagine it’s nothing beside Anthy’s day-to-day torment). Utena does not tolerate things she finds bad—Anthy’s Rose Bride role until episode 23, even sometimes Wakaba’s clinginess. In particular, Utena does not like Anthy’s cold vengeance. There is no reason to expect that Anthy will forget her joy in vengeance just because she is beyond the reach of its original cause. Anthy is the one with insight and will more often know what to do, but Utena will rightly reject some of her courses of action as manipulative or harmful.

Speaking of Anthy’s harmful actions: Utena will forgive Anthy any harm to herself. “Yeah, so you ran me through with a sword and I barely lived. No biggie.” Will she forgive Anthy’s past harm to others? Anthy poisoned Kanae (and I think she enjoyed it). Anthy probably participated in the murder of Utena’s parents. If Anthy mentions things like that, Utena may struggle to accept it. If Anthy keeps it secret, then their relationship is fragile because it is based on a lie. Of course, Anthy may not remember it. She has forgotten meeting Utena long ago, after all.

Is Utena in danger of being corrupted when she believes she failed to save Anthy, like Dios was in the origin myth, after his failure to save all girls? I think yes, but not for the same reason. Dios’s goal was to turn all girls into princesses and, as The Tale of the Rose puts it, “kiss” them. Saving them was a way to do that. When he became corrupted, he kept the same goal and changed his method from saving to deceiving. In Utena’s case, she abandons her desire to be a prince, and believes she failed to save Anthy. She won’t be corrupted the same way Dios was, but she will surely be in a fragile mental state where she could easily go wrong, with no Wakaba to flail away at helping her until she is helped. Corrupt Anthy might find her and—for practical reasons—teach her the convenience of doing wrong. Utena already has some experience of it. I doubt it, though. Symbols say that Anthy turns good when she leaves Akio.

Opposite people can make a strong team, but they can also have more friction. They will not shine together until “someday” because it will take them that long to learn how.

Akio’s fate

Akio achieves cooperation by control—he doesn’t cooperate with others, he arranges for them to cooperate with him. Occasionally he murders or physically attacks people (through scapegoat Anthy, so that it’s “not his doing”). Usually, he deludes people into doing his will. Utena cooperates with Akio’s plot to control her through marriage almost to its end. It seems like a good idea to her at the time, because Akio makes it easy for her to see it that way. Anthy cooperates with Akio’s control over her because she believes in it and sees no alternative.

Anthy and Utena achieve cooperation by helping each other. Even after Akio has deluded them into distrusting each other, they still help each other—by their own lights. Finally they help each other escape the Academy, which means seeing through Akio’s illusion of control.

Anthy is the only person who understands Akio and cooperates with mutual trust and acceptance. Touga does not understand Akio well, and tries to compete with him. And Anthy is highly skilled at the jobs Akio gives her. Akio will be substantially weaker without his trusted helper. But he will continue his quest for the power of miracles—we see him setting up for the next plot.

Specialness lasts only a short time. Anthy and Utena both have specialness conferred by Akio, so when they leave the Academy, they lose it and become ordinary. No more sports superskills for Utena. It’s likely to trouble her at first. Or maybe not; after her severe injury she’ll need a long recovery, and she might attribute it to that.

The further implication: Akio will lose his specialness. He seeks control over society, and in Utena’s view he will lose it piece by piece. Utena took a bite from his power, and Wakaba will take another bite. Those who come after will continue until Akio’s power is eaten up. It may take a long time from our point of view. From Akio’s point of view, it will happen after a short time.

The world resists change in Utena. That’s part of what episode 34 is about; Akio had to reinforce his corruption of Utena to make it stick. In the same way that Utena resists corruption, Akio will resist loss of power. But further heroes will come along to reinforce Utena’s revolution.

Wakaba afterstory

In the runout of the final episode, we hear that Wakaba has gotten together with her favorite. (The subtitles say “man of her dreams”, but the Japanese does not specify the sex. In episode 1 she referred to Utena as her boyfriend; that did specify the sex.) We see her looking out the window as Utena used to do, Tatsuya at a little distance watching her. Her self-declared best friend arrives and jumps on her back the way Wakaba used to jump on Utena. Her friend wants a birthday present, calling back to episode 10 and episode 30. Wakaba has become special and moved into the role that Utena used to fill in the school. The suggestion is that Wakaba will have her own desperate adventure and end up taking the next bite out of Akio’s power: She will be the next hero in the sequence. In episode 20, Saionji compared Wakaba to Joan of Arc, a hero whose history parallels Utena’s story; the silly comparison will become true. Progress is slow but it does not stop. Utena starts the process: See the Enlightenment era.

There is foreshadowing in episode 1 already, though it can’t be interpreted until much later. The very first scene after the prince story has Utena going to school before Wakaba—going ahead of her, just as Utena does when she disappears from the Academy at the end. Wakaba jumps on Utena’s back, and in the next episode, rides on Utena’s back. In retrospect, you could not ask for clearer symbols. In Wakaba’s letter to Saionji, she calls herself a fool, as Utena does in heading to the dueling forest at the end of episode 37—both are fools for love. Wakaba relishes fiction and is associated with unrealistic fantasy, which makes it possible for her to gain the unrealistic and fantastic power of miracles.

Wakaba leans over Utena, holding a lunchbox in her hands but in effect pressing Utena down.
Episode 11, lunch
Wakaba glomps Utena, ending up between Utena’s legs.
Episode 11, glomp
Wakaba and Utena roll downhill, drawing the attention of two passing students.
Episode 11, rolling
Anthy—but actually Utena—is on top of a horizontal bar.
Episode 8, Utena as Anthy
Wakaba has four arms.
Episode 12, frustrated

Wakaba is gendermixed, like Utena. It’s understated and easy to overlook. The scene in episode 11 with these pictures shows Wakaba as the boy and Utena as the girl in their relationship—even as Wakaba girlishly brings a lunch she made for Utena. See Utena’s arc - mutual attraction makes Utena girlish for Utena’s wide-eyed expression in the first two images. They roll downhill together, symbolic sex with Wakaba between Utena’s legs; the image is as suggestive as it can be. Even Utena’s hand positions reflect her sexual interests. In another example, Utena in episode 8 and Wakaba in episode 12 ignore that they are wearing short skirts. I would have to double-check to be sure, but I think they and victim Anthy are the only characters in the series who let us see under their skirts without an obscuring object in the way, and even Utena has the horizontal bar. (Anthy is an exploited woman who is made available for others to exploit. She is naked sometimes, and see comparisons - commando.) For yet another example (a less clear one), see comparisons - Wakaba feeds Utena.

Did Utena empower Wakaba to become special as Dios empowered Utena, or block Wakaba from becoming special until Utena was gone because heroes are fermions? I think both.

I figure that Utena’s victory led to a surge of utenizing hormone (ultimately under control of the utenomic nervous system) and triggered the release of a new egg of the world.

If the rest of Wakaba’s story is parallel to Utena’s, as its beginning is, then Utena (not Saionji or Tatsuya) will be Wakaba’s vaguely-remembered prince. Memory of Utena is fading from the Academy. Utena tearing Wakaba’s love letter from the bulletin board could correspond to Dios rescuing little Utena from her coffin in the prince story. Utena kissing Wakaba on the forehead in episode 12 corresponds to Dios kissing little Utena’s tears away; that is why Utena gets a skirt shadow then. Wakaba will escape the Academy only after she is disillusioned and realizes that Utena does not live up to Wakaba’s unrealistic ideal. In Utena’s allegory, it means that each step in the gradual revolution at first reveres the heroes of the previous step, but then comes to see them as insufficient. It suggests that both admiration and disillusionment are necessary for the next turn of the slow wheel of progress: One provides the impulse to start, the other the impulse to finish.

We know that Wakaba’s story won’t be exactly parallel. When Utena looks out the window (episode 1, episode 30), she thinks wistfully of her prince. When Wakaba looks out the window in episode 39, she only says the weather is nice. Wakaba’s comparison to Joan of Arc also suggests that her story may end differently than Utena’s. Every turn of the wheel is different.

Each hero presumably saves one person—or rather, helps one person decide to escape. I like the theory that Wakaba saves Tatsuya, a boy. To be rid of Akio, everyone must be saved, men as well as women.

Wakaba’s best friend

We see the head and shoulders of Wakaba’s self-described best friend, who has jumped on Wakaba’s back. She looks overexcited.

Wakaba’s clingy “best friend” presumably has a Class S relationship with Wakaba, similar to Wakaba’s with Utena. After all, Wakaba still has her S-shaped hair. We can guess that the friend will be the next hero in the sequence to follow after Wakaba.

Her hair provides a bit of visual evidence to support the idea. Her hair is divided into soft spikes in a way that is not usual in Utena, suggesting that she is special. I think the light green streaks are streaky reflections, but if so they are curiously discontinuous, not like the usual hair reflections in the series. Alternately, the light green might mean she has two-tone hair, a little like Touga and Ruka. There are only a few frames of animation, and it’s not clear. Either way, it marks her as special. And don’t miss the hair curling around her cheeks, like Utena.

Her dark green hair should imply that she has big control issues to work through, of one kind or another. I’m not certain, but I think it points to control of others (rather than control by others). Jumping on Wakaba and demanding a birthday present is a controlling action. And the birthday present ties her to the story of Nanami and Touga and the kitten, which is related to control, and to the three birthday candles of episode 30 which is about Akio bringing Utena under control.

We don’t see her eyes. She has no inkling what’s coming her way, but she sure looks excited about it. Compare the background fangirls behind my favorite character.

Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 19 July 2022, made of parts originally written for other pages
updated 2 February 2025