Spinning roses in a frame around the picture introduce a character, or a new aspect of them. Even the repeated footage of Utena arriving in the dueling arena with spinning roses serves to introduce Utena as duelist to the opponent—no opponent sees it twice. Only a few exceptions are hard to interpret that way.
Not all spinning roses are in frames. And not all superimposed rose images are spinning. I wrote up all of them, including the figurative rose of the episode 33 ferris wheel.
counting the roses the basic meaning spinning roses that obscure miracles spinning roses in frames - the prince story - Utena in duels - banana frame - Saionji’s backstab - previews - ending credits - red rose frames - pink rose frames - orange rose frames - brown rose frames - yellow rose frames - green rose frames - blue rose frames - white rose frames single spinning roses out of focus roses episode 13 rose episode 33 ferris wheel non-spinning roses
The numbers count events of roses appearing. The out-of-focus roses could be counted differently, depending on how you interpret the images; I counted seven. I did not count the opener, the title cards, the previews, or the rose frames for Utena at the start of duels. Roses that repeat in recaps don’t count either.
frames - spinning rose frames with the usual treatment
single - single spinning roses
non-spinning - non-spinning roses
special - obscuring roses, out of focus roses, rose frames with unusual treatment
real - spinning roses that are not superimposed, but are part of the scene: episode 13, episode 33
episode | total | frames | single | non-spinning | special | real | notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 8 | 8 | |||||
2 | 6 | 3 | 3 | Chu-Chu’s banana frame, obscuring roses | |||
3 | 3 | 3 | |||||
4 | 4 | 4 | snails, snake, octopus | ||||
5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | obscuring rose | ||
6 | 2 | 2 | |||||
7 | 3 | 3 | |||||
8 | 3 | 3 | |||||
9 | 7 | 2 | 5 | Saionji’s backstab has five | |||
10 | 3 | 2 | 1 | obscuring rose | |||
11 | 10 | 3 | 7 | seven out-of-focus roses | |||
12 | 3 | 3 | |||||
sum | 55 | 37 | 1 | 17 |
episode | total | frames | single | non-spinning | special | real | notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
13 | 1 | 1 | episode 13 rose | ||||
14 | 3 | 2 | 1 | obscuring rose | |||
15 | 2 | 2 | |||||
16 | none | cowbell episode | |||||
17 | 1 | 1 | |||||
18 | 4 | 4 | |||||
19 | 8 | 8 | |||||
20 | 1 | 1 | |||||
21 | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||||
22 | none | Mikage episodes | |||||
23 | none | ||||||
24 | none | ||||||
sum | 23 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
episode | total | frames | single | non-spinning | special | real | notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
25 | none | ||||||
26 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
27 | 6 | 3 | 3 | ||||
28 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Ruka episodes | |||
29 | none | ||||||
30 | 2 | 2 | |||||
31 | 9 | 5 | 4 | Nanami episodes | |||
32 | none | ||||||
33 | 1 | 1 | the ferris wheel | ||||
34 | none | ||||||
35 | 2 | 2 | |||||
36 | 3 | 2 | 1 | obscuring rose | |||
37 | 2 | 2 | |||||
38 | none | ||||||
39 | 2 | 2 | ending credits | ||||
sum | 34 | 14 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
The earliest spinning roses appear in the opening sequence.
Utena and Anthy are not spinning on their own, they are being spun. Akio is spinning them. Spinning is related to clocks and spirals. And spinning can represent confusion (think of spinning eyes) or powerlessness (“spinning out of control”).
The gleaming rose in the eyecatch also spins at first, as the title fades in. Then it stops.
The dueling arena is a rose. The stairs spiral around its stalk—it is a kind of spinning rose, although it doesn’t move.
Despite my wishes, real flowers do not spin. Spinning roses are in some way fake or illusionary.
The pinwheels are not roses, but I think they’re the next closest thing. The wind of Nanami’s fan spins the pinwheels, representing Nanami’s artificial power. I think the wind of Akio’s power—the patriarchy’s power—spins the roses. That power is just as artificial as Nanami’s. It exists only to the extent that people believe in it—other people. Your belief affects others, the belief of others affects you.
The pinwheels are mounted on a frame. When the spinning roses are on a frame, it makes them into a theatrical framing device to emphasize the character shown.
In three duels of the Student Council arc, spinning roses appear four times and cover up the appearance of the prince, or the moment of Utena’s victory. The obscuring roses show up a couple times in the other arcs. Miracles are illusions, and the obscuring roses spin counterclockwise—with one exception. The size-changing rose of episode 36 spins clockwise.
I interpret the obscuring roses in duels as meaning that Utena’s power of miracles is her own and, despite her beliefs, does not stem from Dios. Roses cover miraculous actions that she attributes to the prince, or in episode 5 to Miki, because she does not see that they are her own actions. We take Utena’s point of view, and what she does not see, we do not see. The prince is an illusion that Akio tricked her into, in part to awaken her power of miracles and in part to keep her under control. The power of miracles is an illusion; Utena attributes her own actions to the prince.
Other miracles are obscured as well. Nanami was looking away when the curry exploded in episode 8, swapping Utena and Anthy. When Juri throws her locket into the pond in episode 17, we hear it plop into the water and see the ripples, but we don’t see it happen. Then the locket mysteriously appears in Shiori’s room. When Utena drops her ring on the floor at the start of episode 37, we see her remove and drop it and hear it ping off the floor, but we don’t see it land. It’s the miracle of rejecting miracles. And we don’t see Utena vanish from the Academy at the end of the series.
In episode 1, Utena performs a miracle but is not yet playing prince.
Episode 2. The first obscuring roses. They are white and cover the work of the prince. The first appears when Utena calls down ghostly Dios from the castle. Dios seems to merge with her, but we can’t see it. What is happening behind the rose? Afterward, Utena miraculously floats into a standing position as if weightless. The second rose covers Utena slicing Saionji’s target rose. The frame freezes with Saionji’s sword up, and when movement restarts, Saionji has swung his sword down and it has been sliced through, along with his rose. Utena won with a direct strike versus Saionji’s downward stroke, the same pattern as Touga’s practice duel wins against Saionji. But Touga cannot cut through a sword, not even in episode 12 when he has the sword of Dios—the sword of Dios does not give Touga the power of miracles.
The obscured events are the cause of Utena’s victory, and they are miracles, or perhaps two aspects of one miracle.
Episode 5. A blue spinning rose for Miki covers the moment that Utena slices Miki’s target rose. It’s blue because Miki brought about his own defeat—he allowed himself to be distracted by Anthy. Or at least that’s how Utena sees it. I think Anthy intervenes (which as usual she does perfectly) because she prefers Utena, so in a sense it was Utena’s doing after all.
In episode 7 there is no spinning rose. The miracle is obscured because Juri’s target rose is off the top of the frame when it is caught by the falling sword. I suppose that Utena does not see the prince’s hand in it—though she doesn’t see her own either.
Episode 10. A white spinning rose covers the moment that Utena slices Nanami’s target rose.
In episode 11 there is no miracle, even though Utena calls down the prince. The miracle was forestalled by Touga’s trickery. Nothing needs to be obscured.
In episode 12 Utena does not call on the prince. The duel is parallel to the duel of episode 1, when Utena miraculously won without calling on the prince. In both, Utena defeats a stronger weapon with the stub of a sword—the miracle is her own, not the prince’s. There’s no spinning rose.
Episode 14. An obscuring rose appears once in the Black Rose. It’s not in a duel, it’s when Mamiya stabs the black rose into Kanae’s heart. A spinning purple-outlined black rose obscures the event. The purple is for corruption; taking a person over to send them into a duel is about as corrupt as you can get. I thought of two interpretations, and this is the one I think is right.
The black rose is a dybbuk. See duel symbols - dybbuk.
Mamiya is taking action, and we see from Mamiya’s point of view. Mamiya is played by Anthy, and Anthy has her own power of miracles. The black rose is miraculous and not at all realistic, and stabbing somebody with it is an evil miracle. Anthy has miraculous skill at manipulating others, in the same way that Utena has miraculous skill at rescuing others. Just as Utena’s illusionary miracles are hidden by illusion so that she cannot see them as her own real actions, Anthy’s are hidden from her. The black rose controls its victim, and that is what Anthy does. The rose obscures the moment of Anthy’s success.
In other Black Rose episodes, we don’t see the moment the black rose is... installed.
Stabbing with a black rose is similar to destroying a regular dueling target rose. A black rose brings its victim under control. Scattering a target rose makes the loser of the duel into the wife and the winner into the husband, who has control over the wife. See duel symbols - bells. Descending in the confession elevator is effectively a duel with Mikage. Mikage loses one confession (Tatsuya) before his final showdown with Utena. Utena loses one duel (episode 11) before her final showdown with Akio.
Episode 36. This rose is like the ones in the Student Council arc. It’s Utena’s duel victory with Anthy over Touga and Saionji. A white spinning rose covers the moment of victory. Unlike other spinning roses, this one changes size: It starts out small and grows. Unlike other obscuring roses, it spins clockwise for truth. Maybe the increasing size represents Utena’s increasing power of miracles, and the clockwise spin means it is is now strong enough, after the last duel before the final showdown.
I think the rose frames symbolize that the patriarchy controls the framing of events—it provides the mental framework of our thoughts and feelings about social roles. More literally, the frames emphasize and set off their contents as theatrical or artistic.
I group the spinning rose frames by color. A picture of every spinning rose would be too much. The colors are in rainbow order, with white at the end. Roses in frames spin in opposite directions—two clockwise, two counterclockwise. They are at the same time revealing and deceptive. The one in the upper right spins counterclockwise, and horizontally or vertically adjacent roses spin in opposite directions. I haven’t found any exception.
The children’s cartoon original version of the prince story has special treatment of its spinning roses toward the end—the colors fade from one to the next. As little Utena watches the prince ride away, there are white roses for the prince. As the scene changes to the imaginary prince Utena, the white spinning roses fade to pink for Utena. Then when the title card appears, the roses fade to red. Title cards in other episodes are simply cut to; the card with its red spinning roses appears suddenly.
The sequence establishes a color continuum from white through red. Utena herself is pink, halfway between. As Akio corrupts her in the main story, she transitions bit by bit from pure white (an ignorant and innocent prince) to red (a knowledgeable and guilty and sexual ordinary girl or princess). It’s super-subtle foreshadowing.
It says that Utena is half white and half red. See the big idea - half one and half the other for more.
There are other spinning rose color fades: Episode 1, Touga and Saionji appear in the same frame, and the camera moves from Touga to Saionji. The roses fade from red to green. It’s parallel because Touga is Saionji’s prince. Episode 11, four out of focus spinning roses in the corner fade from white to pink as Touga misleads Utena into believing that he is her prince. Utena accepts Touga as her prince, and gets a parallel color fade.
In most duels of the Student Council and Black Rose arcs, Utena gets a pink spinning rose frame after she arrives at the arena and Anthy has transformed her. It is the introduction of Utena as prince. The first time is in episode 2, because Utena is not yet a prince in episode 1 (that is, she is not yet playing prince). She gets the spinning roses in all other duels except those against Touga in episodes 11 and 12, and Mikage in episode 23. I take it that bosses Touga and Mikage need no introduction to Utena as duelist. In the Apocalypse Saga Utena and Anthy are together, and we get the rose Anthy introduction instead, with a different frame of non-spinning roses.
• Episode 2. Chu-Chu is introduced in a frame of spinning bananas, two of them peeled for eating. Anthy introduces Chu-Chu as her friend, and the yellow color may point to her envy over Utena’s ability to have friends. Bananas are also a male symbol, as Mari’s reaction to Mitsuru’s banana tells us in episode 18. Well, they are long but curved (like Utena’s cheek hair), so they are androgynous symbols. They are outlined in brown, the color of ordinariness: To be gendermixed is nothing unusual. The gendermixed bananas say that Chu-Chu is both male and female. See Chu-Chu’s arc - Chu-Chu’s sex.
The banana peels that Chu-Chu throws for Nanami to slip on must be yellow partly because that is Nanami’s color. Do the bananas mean that Anthy already has plans for Nanami? Do they hint that Nanami is gendermixed too? At the end of episode 8 Chu-Chu, looking like Saionji, eats a banana. And Saionji is the woman of Saionji and Touga.
• Episode 9. Saionji attacks Utena from behind. It comes with a particularly elaborate sequence of spinning roses that mark it as an important scene. The color of the roses is close to Utena’s pink, but darker and shifted toward red. You could call it light red or dark pink. The spinning roses of this silhouette image run for about 10 seconds, but are interrupted four times by other spinning roses in frames. The four interrupting images are:
1. Little Utena in the coffin, lying on pink roses, with pink spinning roses. Moments ago, the same image without spinning roses came up while Saionji said “This time I was supposed to be the one to save her from the coffin.”
2. Young Saionji in the church, with blue-green roses for illusions created by manipulation.
3. Young Touga in the church, lifting little Utena’s hair, with white roses for the prince. Saionji sees Touga as a prince rescuing Utena.
4. Touga releasing Utena’s hair, with roses that are close to white but are tinged with yellow-green for envy and control.
Saionji believes that Touga saved little Utena, and he wants to save Anthy from this coffin. The rose colors suggest that Akio intended him to draw that conclusion. It’s the other side of the grateful princess trope—the princess falls in love with her rescuer, and they live happily ever after, so the rescuer must love her too.
• Episode 11. The silhouette image flashes on the screen again when Wakaba sarcastically names Touga the Student Council prince to Utena. Utena seems to take it seriously. In the table of counts, I count this as a spinning rose frame. It’s not special like its original.
Previews are in a red rose frame. The roses are smaller and spin more slowly than in other rose frames (except the ending credits, below). I think it symbolizes that the patriarchy, though it still frames events and retains influence, does not control the future.
• Episode 39. The ending credit sequence of the final episode, with the abstract story of Anthy walking to find her prince Utena, and the last images of the photo, are in a red rose frame. As in previews, the roses are smaller and spin more slowly, which surely symbolizes the patriarchy’s reduced power, either in general or over Anthy in particular. It has less power over her, it can’t bring forth such large roses and the wind of its power can’t spin them as fast. Nevertheless, the system of control still provides the frame of Anthy’s worldview. It is compared to the frame around the photo.
I see it as like a title card, not part of the story proper but a bit of meta-story to tell us about it. And it’s the introduction of free Anthy.
This rose frame appears twice, with a short gap between. I count it as two events in the table of rose counts.
Red has complex meanings, but all are related to Eve’s red apple.
• Prince story. It opens with red spinning roses for the graves of Utena’s parents. It could be the red of knowledge, or it could be the red of blood because Akio likely had her parents murdered.
• Title cards. I think they have the red of knowledge.
• Previews. Ditto. The spinning roses of previews are smaller; see previews above.
• Episode 5. Anthy appears in roses when Touga tells Miki that only the one engaged to her can order her around. She gets the upward pan. The roses are red for Miki’s apparent desire to eat of the apple and learn the knowledge of good and evil, which I take to be love and power. It is the first time Anthy has been in the rose frame, but Anthy is not being introduced. What is being introduced is the idea that men control women through marriage.
• Episode 8. The body-swapped Utena as Anthy has just offered to fight Nanami’s minions.
• Episode 12. Anthy greets Utena, who is on her way to school wearing the girls’ uniform. Anthy gets the admiring upward pan. I think Utena is realizing how much she admires Anthy. But Anthy is on a blue background for illusion; she is not what she appears to Utena to be.
• Episode 18. Mitsuru, sitting alone in his room, remembers events from earlier in the episode. He remembers two events with yellow roses, listed below. Then he remembers Anthy telling Utena, “there are various adult things about us” in a red rose frame. The red means that he interprets it as Anthy intended: The adult things are related to sex.
• Episode 28. Ruka and Shiori arrive at school together, looking happy. After Ruka appears in a white rose frame (listed below), Shiori appears in a red rose frame.
Pink is for Utena.
• Prince story. Little Utena imagines herself a prince.
• Episode 1. Utena is proudly framed as a beautiful picture, then the teacher steps in front of her and breaks the glass with her switch.
• Episode 1. Utena catches sight of Anthy for the first time (that she remembers). Anthy gets the full introduction, with the admiring vertical pan. I think Utena already admires her (see other notes - stuffing the closet on Utena’s stuffed toys), but in any case she surely does before long. The pink roses may only mean that we are seeing Utena’s point of view, or may mean that Anthy and Utena are aspects of the same thing. But I think they mean that Utena will possess Anthy as the Rose Bride under the rules of the dueling system. See the episode 5 duel below, where Anthy appears in pink roses again.
• Episode 1. The duel. Anthy approaches to distribute the target roses. The pink may point out that Anthy and Utena are complementary and fit together into one whole. We see her from Utena’s point of view. At a minimum, Utena recognizes something about her. Utena is given a white target rose because she becomes a prince during the duel.
• Episode 2. Utena arrives at school by herself. Starstruck fangirls greet her.
• Episode 3. Anthy and Utena arrive at the dance party together, wearing the dresses they were sent. The fangirls praise Utena, but Anthy is included in the frame. Anthy and Utena are aspects of the same thing and fit together into one whole. It makes some sense to include Anthy with Utena. Alternately, Anthy is included because she is nearby, and introducing only Utena amounts to ignoring Anthy. It’s like when a waiter in a restaurant turns to the man of a couple for all questions.
• Episode 3. Utena has thrown off the dress and transformed into a prince.
• Episode 5 duel. Anthy appears in pink roses as Miki talks about taking her for himself. Miki admires Anthy, so she gets the upward pan. I think it’s the introduction of Anthy as Utena’s property—which is not how Utena sees Anthy, but how Miki has been talked into seeing her.
• Episode 6. Utena appears, dressed for baseball. It’s the introduction of baseball-Utena.
• Episode 8. The body-swapped Anthy as Utena, after Wakaba has jumped on her back. It’s the introduction of Anthy as Utena. Shortly after, Utena as Anthy gets a red rose frame (listed above). Both get the admiring upward pan, and a little later as Nanami’s minions sell photos, we see that both are in fact admired.
• Episode 8. The body-swapped Utena as Anthy when she returns the exchange diary to Saionji, with ill will. She’s being cruel, and there’s no admiring upward pan. Still, she’s fighting against injustice... in a way.
• Episode 9. After Utena looks up toward the castle in the sky, which is not visible because she is not in the arena, Touga arrives and gives her a can of cold drink. Then he grabs her by the waist and draws her close. Utena looks up at him, blushing, with pink spinning roses. At this moment, Touga is her prince: Immediately after, Touga appears in white spinning roses (see below). We are being introduced to princess Utena.
• Episode 12. Utena in multiple views that show off how attractive she is considered to be, concluding with the admiring upward pan. It’s the introduction of girls’-uniform Utena. Her fangirls are excited and public opinion seems positive.
• Episode 14. Utena visits Akio for the first time, with Anthy. Akio is introduced with pink roses as he sits on the white sofa. Seconds later, Kanae is introduced, and she gets pink spinning roses too. Maybe they are, respectively, pink for Utena’s attraction and pink for homosexuality.
• Episode 19. Wakaba is feeding lunch to Utena when Tatsuya appears with a letter addressed to Utena. After a sequence of brown and white rose frames, the camera shows the three in silhouette with pink roses for Utena. See brown rose frames below for the full sequence.
• Episode 19. Later, Wakaba denies that Tatsuya is her prince. Another sequence of rose colors ends with pink for Utena. Tatsuya and Wakaba are independently playing that they love Utena. The pink color is dimmer because their pretense is breaking down, or maybe because the dimmer pink looks purple and their pretense has become visibly corrupt.
• Episode 27. Nanami is walking to school and worrying about the egg in her pocket. Even though it’s a magical pocket that doesn’t bulge with the big egg in it. Utena’s soccer ball hits her in the face. Utena runs forward in pink spinning roses, and gets the admiring upward pan as if she were being introduced for the first time.
• Episode 31. Shortly after Akio jokes to Nanami about forming a harem (it gets a purple single spinning rose), Utena says to Anthy that it’s as though Akio is forming a harem. Anthy provokes her, answering that he doesn’t discriminate between girls. See Anthy-Utena scenes - playing a role. When the movie camera comes up, Utena remembers Akio kissing her in the last episode, in a pink rose frame. A little later, Nanami too has a memory appear in a yellow rose frame.
• Episode 36. In the gondola with Touga, riding to the dueling arena, Touga grabs Utena in his arms, rather like in episode 9 (though we only see their feet). She gets pink spinning roses. Like episode 9, she objects. Unlike episode 9, Touga does not get white spinning roses. I think Utena remembers him fondly, but has long since given up on seeing him as her prince. But see the white spinning roses for Touga and Saionji a little later in the episode, which may say otherwise.
Orange is Juri’s color and stands for miracles and one-sided love (usually both at the same time).
• Episode 1. Juri’s introduction in the Student Council meeting.
• Episode 7. Juri, just after defeating the unnamed boy. We are seeing from Shiori’s point of view. I think it is the introduction of Juri as Shiori’s love. Shiori does not realize her love, and she supposes that Juri loves the unnamed boy, so it is unrealized falsely one-sided love. It’s immediately followed by Shiori in orange roses, next below.
• Episode 7. Shiori as she offers an orange rose to Juri. This time we must be taking Juri’s point of view; it is the introduction of Shiori as Juri’s one-sided love.
• Episode 17. Shiori after watching Juri at the fencing club, when she meets Anthy and Utena. It is Utena’s introduction to Shiori. There is no admiring upward pan; I suppose Utena has not formed an opinion yet.
Brown is Wakaba’s color and means ordinariness. Visually, brown can be seen as dark orange.
• Episode 19. Wakaba in the arms of her imaginary prince gets brown roses. The scene comes with a descending shot from a fantasy castle to deep underground, comparing it to Mikage’s underground lair, and with a rising stage curtain like the prince story. The light is similar to sunbeams for the prince, but it is dark underground and the prince himself is in darkness. Only Wakaba is lit, hinting that Wakaba is a prince.
• Episode 19. After Wakaba recognizes Tatsuya, she sees him in white roses (below). Tatsuya looks back at her and sees her in brown roses. Does it mean he sees her as ordinary? Or as distinctively Wakaba? Or could it be a weak form of one-sided love for the dark orange? Anyway, Wakaba sees Tatsuya in white roses again, then the camera steps back and we see the trio in pink roses for Utena. At this point the pink is ambiguous, but the next set of roses explains it. It’s a more elaborate sequence than usual, so this must be an important scene. But I haven’t understood everything.
• Episode 19. Later, Utena says that Tatsuya is Wakaba’s prince. She denies it unconvincingly, and again sees Tatsuya in white roses, and Tatsuya sees her in brown roses. Again, the camera steps back and we see the two of them in pink roses for Utena. This makes it clear that the pink is because both are playing that Utena is their prince.
Yellow is Nanami’s color and means jealousy.
• Episode 3. Nanami tells off her minions harassing Anthy, who she no doubt set to do it in the first place. It is part of her plot to humiliate Anthy. We’re looking upward at her because she’s high-class and we’re below her. This is surely not Anthy’s view of Nanami; it is the audience’s, or it is Nanami’s view of herself.
• Episode 4. Nanami’s snail, snake, and live octopus are each introduced with yellow roses in Nanami’s imagination. The snail gets a second introduction outside her imagination when Nanami brings it out. Each is an aspect of Akio. The snail is a symbol of unchanging generations because of its self-similar spiral shell. The snake is the serpent in Eden, for Akio the devil. The octopus stands for vengeance, which Akio taught to Anthy.
• Episode 6. Nanami carrying Mitsuru during the kangaroo attack. I think we’re being introduced to a new side of Nanami.
• Episode 10. Young Touga at his birthday party kisses little Nanami on the eye, kissing away her tears. It’s part of the formation of her brother complex.
• Episode 10. Nanami in the dueling arena, wearing her yellow uniform for the first time. It’s right after the regular view of Utena in the spinning roses, at the start of the duel. We’re being introduced to duelist Nanami.
• Episode 18. Mitsuru is sitting in his room alone. He thinks back to earlier in the episode, when Nanami declined the lunch he offered and walked off with Mikage. The spinning roses are yellow, but tinted a bit toward orange. It seems to point to romantic jealousy, not only jealousy of (what he sees as) Nanami’s adulthood. It fits with his behavior; he says he just likes being with her. He doesn’t know how to name his feelings.
• Episode 18. A moment later, Mitsuru remembers Utena saying that adulthood comes from experience of “certain things”. These roses are pure yellow for envy. After that, he remembers Anthy’s answer; she gets red roses (listed above).
• Episode 18. Finally, after the duel Mitsuru meets Nanami walking to school. She sees him in a yellow rose frame, with the same slight orange tint as when Mitsuru saw her in roses earlier in the episode. Anthy insists that a losing Black Rose duelist returns to themself without change, but it’s not so. Mitsuru has become more confident in himself, and calls her “Nanami-sempai” rather than his usual “Nanami-san”—he acknowledges his younger age. Nanami shows a blush of attraction. They share what they both feel is a one-sided attraction.
• Episode 27. The initial dream of little Nanami digging up an egg in a playground sandbox has yellow spinning roses. They aren’t strictly in a frame—the scene is shown in a diamond-shaped opening, with black in every corner. I figure that the frame is black and does not show on the black background, but it’s there anyway.
• Episode 27. When she wakes up from the dream, Nanami discovers the egg in her bed. It’s in yellow spinning roses in the standard frame.
• Episode 31. Nanami looks at photos of her with Touga. A yellow rose frame encloses three quick shots of photos.
• Episode 31. Touga has arrived at Akio’s tower, saying he’ll bring Nanami home. When she says to Touga “you are still you” (echoing Mikage speaking to the departing Tokiko), she remembers herself as a little girl trying to give the kitten to Touga on his birthday, when the parents intervened. The memory is in a yellow rose frame. She continues that she can’t forget the past, and her memory of Touga kissing her tears away (echoing Dios kissing away Utena’s tears in the prince story of episode 34) comes up in a yellow roses too.
Green is for control, either control of others or control by others. Green is Saionji’s color. But the spinning roses are in fact blue-green rather than green.
• Episode 1. Utena recognizes Touga and knows his name, but does not know Saionji. Wakaba tells her his name. After this we see Anthy, but Wakaba dismisses Anthy and she does not get spinning roses. Anthy is not admired.
• Episode 20. Saionji returns to the Academy. He walks into the great dome in a callback to Utena’s introduction in episode 1. He gets the admiring upward pan. He remains in spinning roses through two shots of his smiling face as he waves to his fans. In the second and final one, the roses are lighter have shifted color to blue-green. It’s partly visual, to contrast with his dark green hair, but it must be meaningful too.
Blue is for the illusions.
• Episode 1. Miki’s introduction in the Student Council meeting.
• Episode 2. Miki and Juri, playing Old Maid in the Student Council. Blue is Miki’s color, and the roses are presumably his. Juri does not get a separate introduction here. These roses appear without the upward panning shot; Miki does not get the full introduction treatment himself. Touga did get the upward pan full intro, so the Student Council characters present are placed in an order of importance: Powerful male Touga, lesser male Miki, female Juri in the background.
• Episode 26. Utena is in the S-shaped bed, talking with Anthy. Anthy says that Akio is more like a father, and Utena starts to think of parents. She remembers Kozue rejecting her mother earlier in the episode. Miki and Kozue appear briefly in blue spinning roses, facing each other. Kozue holds the letter from their mother. Following is the Student Council scene where Miki accurately rejects a letter from End of the World because it is the manipulation of a selfish adult. These roses are hard to interpret as an introduction; they are more like emphasis.
White is for the prince, or somebody’s prince, real or imagined.
• Prince story. Little Utena watches the prince ride away.
• Episode 1. We see Touga, with Saionji partially visible behind him. Utena recognizes Touga, and Wakaba does not have to give his name. For the episode, we are to take it that Utena believes Touga is her prince. For the series as a whole, Touga is Saionji’s prince—that’s the primary meaning, which can’t be guessed from episode 1.
• Episode 1. Utena and Wakaba are on the grass talking about Utena’s ring. The school crest comes up on the screen with white roses. The crest matches the ring, and it is the prince’s symbol.
• Episode 2. Touga, playing Old Maid in the Student Council. It is the introduction of Touga as Student Council president.
• Episode 7. The unnamed boy who Shiori later seduces. Shiori imagines that he is Juri’s prince. It’s followed quickly by Juri in orange roses; see above.
• Episode 9. Touga grabs Utena by the waist, and her face appears in pink spinning roses (see above). Immediately after, as he says “Wasn’t your prince somebody like me?” he appears in white spinning roses. Utena pulls away from him, but the message is sent. We have been introduced to Utena’s prince Touga.
• Episode 11. Touga has been spying on Utena, Wakaba, and Anthy from a distance. When he approaches, Utena sees him and he gets white roses. Utena keeps watching as his fangirls rush in and divert him. She’s emotionally convinced, and she has forgotten her earlier judgment that playboy Touga could not be her prince.
• Episode 11. Shortly after, Wakaba sarcastically dubs Touga the prince of the Student Council, and Utena is struck. From episode 9, she remembers Saionji’s backstab (above) and Touga taking her by the waist (a couple items up from here), both with spinning roses. She expresses only a wisp of doubt. She is becoming intellectually convinced.
• Episode 12. Utena remembers Anthy leaving the dorm room after Touga won her in the duel of the previous episode. See meaningful images - Anthy leaving for picture and interpretation. Inserted into it is a close-up of Chu-Chu (also in the frame with white roses) bowing with respect for Utena. Both are on a brown background for the ordinariness Utena has decided to (try to) embrace.
• Episode 19. Tatsuya, when Wakaba remembers who he is. She remembers him as her onion prince. He is to Wakaba as Dios is to Utena: Poorly remembered from childhood though important at the time, and not really her prince. Shortly, Tatsuya also sees Wakaba in roses—brown roses. Then Wakaba again sees Tatsuya in white roses.
• Episode 19. Another sequence of rose colors, including white when Wakaba looks at Tatsuya. The explanation is at brown roses.
• Episode 28. After Ruka beats Juri at fencing (saying that Juri has not improved, though Utena said in episode 17—long after Ruka first left—that she had), as he takes off his fencing mask he gets white spinning roses with the admiring upward pan. It is his introduction. He acts as a prince, taking power over others. He becomes Shiori’s prince for a time. The direct reading is that he is Juri’s prince, even though Juri loves Shiori. She rides in Akio’s car with him. Juri was thinking about Ruka, not Shiori, at the start of the episode.
• Episode 28. Ruka and Shiori arrive at school together, suggesting that they spent the night together. They look happy, but Shiori’s eyes are closed and she does not see that Ruka’s white uniform is tinted purple. I don’t know whether the white rose frame is from Shiori’s point of view, or from the point of view of the students who conclude that Shiori works fast. Then Shiori appears in a red rose frame (listed above).
• Episode 36. Anthy asks Utena, “where were you last night?” Utena sees Touga and Saionji approaching, in white spinning roses, and gives a non-answer. This is where Touga challenges Utena for another duel. He’s certainly trying to act as Utena’s prince (and he has the sword of a prince), but the roses sure look like they’re from Utena’s point of view.
Single spinning roses are not introductions. They must give us some information about the event or characters they appear with. Some I think I can interpret, but I don’t know what they mean in general. Yet. The single rose spins clockwise for truth or reality, and counterclockwise for illusion.
Nanami’s single spinning roses are a lighter shade than her yellow rose frames. They’re pastel yellow rather than the bright yellow of her uniform.
• Episode 5. When Miki and Kozue collide outside the music room, they get a single blue rose spinning counterclockwise. I’m guessing that it does not refer to the family color of blue, but to some illusion one or both of them has about the situation.
The twins are in conflict in the scene. Could the rose be a target rose, as in a duel? It’s in the correct place in the frame for it, at the upper left of the screen’s “chest” as it faces us. Below I interpret a rose in the upper right as pointing to a believed truth (however partial a truth it may be), but this is a blue rose for illusion. I don’t think that interpretation works here.
• Episode 15. The image repeats in the Black Rose arc’s Miki and Kozue episode, though the characters are in the music room rather than the hallway. The twins are in conflict again. A second blue rose in the same screen position comes up when Miki puts Kozue to bed after the duel. This time the twins don’t seem to be in conflict; they seem closer than usual. But the rose spins counterclockwise, and blue-green light is shining for manipulative illusion. See kisses - episode 15.
• Episode 21. Keiko gets a single white spinning rose in the upper left when she sees Touga walking in the rain without an umbrella. It’s white because Touga is her prince. In the next shot, of Touga walking away, he gets a single white spinning rose in the upper right. Both spin clockwise.
• Episode 27. Nanami fears telling her minions about the egg. What if she was the only one who didn’t know about laying eggs? In the blue scene where she imagines telling them, there is a yellow counterclockwise spinning rose in the upper right. It’s only for that one shot; there is no rose in the rest of the scene, where they ridicule her. It’s the only one of the imaginary blue scenes with a spinning rose, and the only one where Nanami imagines revealing her secret. I suppose it is in the upper right because she imagines telling them honestly. But the rose spins counterclockwise for illusion; she is wrong.
• Episode 27. Nanami has abandoned her egg in the woods, and now she’s dining with Touga. The room is red. They are at opposite ends of a long table. When Touga tells her that they can have enjoyable times like this because she is not the kind of girl who lays eggs, two roses appear. (I’m calling them two single roses.) Touga on the left gets a pink rose in the upper left spinning clockwise, and Nanami on the right gets a yellow rose in the upper right spinning counterclockwise. Touga’s pink rose is pale red, not Utena’s color of hot pink; it’s similar to his shock of pink hair, but lighter. Touga on the left is presenting an illusion, though he’s sincere in saying that Nanami is not the kind to lay eggs, and Nanami on the right is reacting dishonestly. Right and left are confusing me here.
• Episode 28. At the start of the episode, Juri sits alone on a bench and ponders feelings she has never been able to express. When she looks at the empty space on the bench next to her, an orange clockwise spinning rose appears in the upper right. It’s presumably the bench where she used to sit with Ruka in old days. I suppose she is not thinking of her one-sided love for Shiori, but of Ruka’s presumed one-sided love for her. In any case, the scene compares the two.
• Episode 28. Ruka’s sword falls from his locker (I imagine that Anthy arranged it), and he ends up seducing Shiori. Immediately after, we see Akio’s tower moving from left to right across the screen, in front of a magenta ocean. There is a large white rose spinning clockwise in the lower right. Shiori’s feelings are real, and she takes Ruka as her prince. Immediately after, we see the two arrive at school in a white rose frame (listed above).
• Episode 30. When Mrs. Ohtori arrives to visit Akio, the camera first points to him, with a red spinning rose in the upper right. Then it shows Mrs. Ohtori with a white spinning rose in the upper left. Both roses spin clockwise for truth. I discuss the scene at Mrs. Ohtori’s arc. As the colors and maybe the positions suggest, Akio straightforwardly intends to seduce her, while Mrs. Ohtori has something underhanded in mind but fails because he is her prince.
• Episode 31. Nanami gets a red rose in the upper right while watching Touga in the shower. She still imagines that she loves Touga, though we know from the name of episode 10’s duel that she only adores him. (In English we might say “love” for both, but they are different feelings.)
• Episode 31. Later in the episode, having been fed misleading evidence, Nanami concludes that she and Touga are not related by blood. It is part of a plot; I expect that Touga or Anthy arranged for Nanami’s minions to get the blood type book. Touga visits her, says she looks unwell, and holds his forehead to hers as if checking for fever. He gets a red spinning rose in the upper left. Seconds later he offers her a goodnight kiss, and gets a second red rose in the same location. The roses spin counterclockwise because he’s presenting an illusion. I suppose the roses are on the left because he is presenting the illusion of being unrelated, a potential marriage partner without inbreeding risk. Why does he do that? It is ultimately Akio’s plot to control Nanami, but I don’t understand how Akio arranged for Touga to go along with it. Well, episode 35 is similar; how did Akio arrange for Utena to fall from Touga’s horse?
• Episode 31. Akio brings Nanami into his tower, and announces that she’ll live there. He “jokes” that he wants to form a harem. He gets a purple rose in the upper left, spinning clockwise for truth. I think the rose is in the left for his illusion that he is making a joke, and above because the “joke” is true. Next the scene shifts to Utena and Anthy and the movie set, and Utena gets a pink rose frame.
• Episode 35. When Touga tells Akio that Utena was not happy with the gift of earrings, he gets a red counterclockwise spinning rose in the upper right. Upper right: He is honestly and directly reporting events; Utena said they we not appropriate. Counterclockwise: But he suffers an illusion. After the Second Seduction, that the earrings were part of the setup for, she is girlish and likes them.
• Episode 35. Immediately after, Akio answers. He gets a purple counterclockwise spinning rose in the lower left. He’s manipulating Touga.
• Episode 37. It’s the poisoning conversation. Anthy implies that she poisoned Utena’s cookie, and Utena hesitates before answering. There is no rose. Utena answers that she poisoned Anthy’s tea, and as Anthy hesitates, a red rose spins clockwise in the upper right. The rose vanishes when Anthy answers. The hesitations result from failing to understand each other. The rose’s position and spin direction seem to imply sincerity. The scene displays a mix of sincerity and pretending; see the summary of the poisoning conversation. My interpretation is with the next rose, below.
• Episode 37. Shortly after, there’s a mysterious panning shot showing the room as empty. Utena promises they will be together in ten years, something that Anthy can’t believe. The shot gets a red rose spinning clockwise in the upper right. Both roses cover blank spaces: The first goes with lack of speech—they are missing each other mentally—and the second with lack of people—they are missing each other physically.
Both roses are red, Anthy’s color. It’s possible to read them as Anthy’s roses. But their timing has them emphasize things that Utena says. I think the two roses are for both of them; both are trying to preserve what they can of what they see as the remnants of their relationship.
• Episode 11. Touga meets Utena in the greenhouse to finish convincing her that he is her prince. He offers fake evidence that he is her prince—the one who met her in the church when she was small. Out-of-focus spinning roses appear in various corners, partly out of frame. The evidence is presumably from Anthy; Touga and Anthy have been collaborating on Touga’s plot, or that is to say, Anthy has been controlling Touga somewhat the way she controls Mikage by playing Mamiya.
The sequence is: 1. Touga and Utena are translated out of the greenhouse into a detail-free abstract space where they stand in columns of light like spotlights. Nothing is spoken yet. A fuzzy white rose spins clockwise in the lower right corner. We watch from Utena’s point of view, and she accepts Touga as her prince. 2. We see Utena only. Utena says “as I thought.” A fuzzy pink rose for Utena spins clockwise in the upper left. 3. We see Touga only. A fuzzy white rose spins counterclockwise in the upper right corner. 4. We see Utena again. She says “you really are my prince.” A fuzzy pink rose spins clockwise in the upper left. The camera is closer to Utena, and more of the rose is offscreen. 5. We see Touga. He nods, agreeing. A fuzzy white rose spins counterclockwise in the upper right. 6. We see both. Touga says, you were crying back then. Fuzzy white roses appear in the four corners, two spinning in each direction. The camera has moved back, but they are mostly off the screen. The white roses fade to pink as Touga speaks. 7. Close-up on Utena’s face, with a fuzzy pink rose spinning clockwise in the upper left. She remembers crying. The camera pans right until the rose is entirely out of view.
That’s the end of the spinning rose sequence. Next is a fragment of the prince story, with no added roses. Utena asks, was it really you? Touga offers to provide evidence, and leans in as if to kiss her. The “evidence” is purely emotional and proves nothing, but Utena is convinced.
Touga lies by implication to Utena, but he does not speak any lie. He says “you were crying back then” but never says that he was there. (The subtitles are misleading on that point.) He nods to agree with Utena that he is her prince, and that’s no lie either. Akio uses the same technique of lying while saying nothing untrue in the challenge of truth in the final showdown. In both cases, Utena reacts with honesty.
To Utena, Touga is her prince. The prince relationship is a belief or a feeling, and whether Touga is the same person as her childhood prince does not matter. She accepts him as her prince, so he is her prince.
I take it that the empty space and spotlights portray Utena’s attention. Anthy is there—she’s standing right next to Utena—but Utena is aware only of Touga and herself. The light is white but grades into blue for illusion and black for Akio and his evil. Utena’s light has more blue, and Touga’s has a bit of green because he is manipulating Utena. The spinning roses are white when she is attending to Touga, and pink when she thinks back to her own memories.
When a single pink rose is on the screen for Utena, it is in the upper left. Left means illusion; she is being fooled. Touga’s single rose is on the right, at first below, and then above. The meaning works out correctly if above means that Utena believes him, and below means that she is uncertain. She believes her own memories, of course. When there are four spinning roses, the color fade calls back to the prince story’s spinning roses. Utena takes Touga as her prince—therefore he is.
The out-of-focus roses are notionally closer to the camera than in-focus roses. When the camera is closer to Utena, parallax moves the roses toward the edge of the frame. They are positioned left and right, top and bottom, but always in front, closer to the audience. I don’t know what that means.
Utena’s pink roses all spin clockwise. She is honest. Touga’s first white rose spins clockwise. He says nothing yet, so maybe it means that his presence is real. After that his roses spin counterclockwise, because he is presenting an illusion.
After the recap sequences, Akio holds up a pink rose for Utena. Finished looking at it, he drops it on the floor and walks away. As black roses drift into the air, presumably representing the ascending souls of the dead duelist boys, Utena’s rose lifts and hangs in the air, spinning on the axis of its stem. Everything else fades away around it. See Akio plans to kill Utena - the recap episode 13 for a brief interpretation.
The amusement park ferris wheel in episode 33 is many things: It is a colorful amusement park ride representing childhood, a romantic symbol for couples who ride it, a ring (especially an engagement ring), a target, and a symbol of Utena’s virginity. And it is a rose that spins.
During the prince story part of the episode, the wheel spins slowly clockwise, in the direction of reality, for the reality of sex. After that it stops in place. In this image, it has stopped. I suppose the park has closed—childhood is over. If so, it stands for the result of events as expected or perceived by Utena: Sex will make her an adult.
• Episode 21 begins with a flashback that features a superimposed rose that behaves differently than any earlier roses. The flashback is about 1:15 long. It is marked off by coming into focus at the beginning and going out of focus at the end. The flashback begins with Yuuko, Aiko, and Keiko meeting Nanami at the school entrance ceremony, and continues until they agree with each other to serve Nanami. The yellow rose for jealousy is small and does not spin. It stays in the lower left corner without change throughout the flashback. It remains sharp and in-focus as the scene focus shifts at the beginning and end.
The rose binds the flashback together. It does not reappear later in the episode when Keiko thinks back to the time.
One interpretation is that the characters share the same motivation. Nanami’s minions are jealous of Nanami, whose primary trait is jealousy. And their ultimate target Touga is jealous of Akio. The rose position in the lower left should follow similar rules as the out of focus roses above: It is below for dishonesty or underhandedness, and left for accepting or propagating illusions.
• Episode 26. Miki is riding in Akio’s car. Kozue releases the red tie from her uniform to cover his eyes like a blindfold. A blue rose appears in the lower right as we follow Miki’s imagination: He imagines driving as Anthy reclines in the other seat, watching him in admiration. The blue rose marks off Miki’s imaginary scene. It is an illusion, but the rose appears on the right side of the screen.
In the duel, Anthy rides in the driver’s seat with Kozue in the other seat. In the shadow play, the gambler bets on black, but the game turns up red. Miki lost trust in adults, but bets on Akio (black) to control Anthy. Akio does control her, but only to his own ends. In the dueling game, Anthy (red) turns up in the driver’s seat—in control of Miki’s desires, apparently manipulating Kozue to draw Miki’s attention, as she did long ago in the episode 5 duel.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 2 October 2023
updated 8 January 2025