Revolutionary Girl Utena is a manga created by Be-Papas and adapted into anime by Kunihiko Ikuhara.
One of the main aspects of ikuhara's production of anime is the large variety of visual story telling and many symbolisms, which is a characteristic that can be seen in every single anime directed by him.
Utena is not different from this "formula". In fact, it is the anime with the most number of symbolisms and ideas, and because of that, the story can present itself in many different forms to people.
Many of Utena's ideas of production aren't even in the manga. One of the many things this anime focuses on is doing something you've never seen before. Something totally original. A lot of things in the anime are a bundle of ideas provided by the production to achieve a certain message or theme. There is so many things that can be taken out of this anime, it's incredible. Ikuhara said in one of his interviews about utena:
I want to examin what the value of "entertaining" is. A large staff is working on the show, so when we toss around ideas of what's entertaining, and we ask each other what's entertaining about thigs...it's often Hollywood movies we've seen, or anime we saw in our teens, or manga we've found entertaining in the past...when you hone that kind of "entertaining"...that comes from common language staff members A, B and C all know...you blink and the show's a parody, which ties to what i said before. You've created an imitation. I wanted to avoid that sort of imitation as much as possible.
It's important to understand that of ikuhara, because this ties directly into what the show proposes.
So now, i'll go deeper into Utena's characters and themes.
The coffin
The coffin represents a state of being in which can be described as a inertia. A point in which a person doesn't evolve neither degradates. The coffin represents a total stop in a person's mental capacity to become someone better.
Revolutionize the world
Break patterns, do things differently, live freely and focus on having fun.
As ikuhara said in his interview:
I think our generation, and probably the generation after ours, lacks imagination. So many kids commit suicide as kids, you know? I think they can't imagine an enjoyable future. To put it more cruelly, the sight of their parents ought to provide motivation for their future, basically, kids can't imagine being adults who have fun.
End of The world
The end of the world represents Akio. His character is a result of the End of the world, and the inability to try and revolutinize the world while being out of someone's own coffin.
The upside down castle
The castle represents the revolution of the world. It being upside down brings this idea. When you consider the place is a total illusion, Akio ultimatly shows that for him, revolution of the world shiny, beautiful is a total illusion.
All of the characters of Utena represent something different, represent a different idea.
Juri's disappointment with the idea of miracles and her resentfulness and sadness towards the one she loves
Miki's pursuit of something that can make him shine
Saionji's detrimental feelings towards anthy and the pursuit of something eternal
All of them serve to deliver a certain message, an idea that in some ways, ties itself to the message of the show.
But from all of the characters in the show, for me, 3 of them predominantely tie directly into the show's lesson to be taken. Utena, Anthy and Akio.
Utena is the main character of this anime, she's stubborn, ignorant, innocent. She presents herself to others everytime like this. She wants to be a prince, so she can find her prince some day.
So first, why did Utena become a prince?
When Utena was a child, her parents died. Obviously, this caused a lot of trauma, and because of that, Utena decided to live trapped in a coffin, for all eternity.
She, then, is approached by the Dios, a figure that also is a part of Akio. Akio shows Utena Anthy taking all of humanity's hatred. And Utena, moved by it, decides to become a prince and save Anthy.
After leaving the place, she almost doesn't remember anything exept the price and her ring which would lead her to him some day.
Utena as a kid, decides to be in her coffin forever. More subjectivly, she wants to be in a state of inertia forever.
When Dios comes and shows her something that gives her purpose, she decides do lay all of her being to this one hope. Hope to save anthy. She didn't leave her coffin at this point, she just used the saving of Anthy as something for her to rely on. For years later, she'd live based on this purpose. To become a prince, and evetually, she also realises the was living on the behalf of wanting to save Anthy for Utena's own sake.
Anthy, is the most important character to this anime. She is the indirect representation of us, of people who stay in their coffin and prefer to be in it rather than taking of changing everything to worse.
Anthy, in Dios' past is demonstraded to love Dios.
That shows why she gave all that she could to try to save Dios and free him of his duty as prince to all girls in the world, but because of that, she was depicted as a which, and according to Akio, recieved all of humanity's hatred.
Dios separated in two, after time, into Dios and Akio.
Dios died and Akio, for demonstration of power, started abusing his sister and demanding she'd do certain things for him, which i'll explain while going into Akio's character.
Anthy is a hollow person, she doesn't demonstrate sadness while being with others and she doesn't show anger, or any meaningful emotions, really. We don't know her true personality exept for the last parte of Utena's anime. She's scared of change, she tries not to do things differently from what she is instructed, she is on a coffin. And she is on it for so long that she doesn't want to possibly change into something worse.
Like Utena and Anthy, Akio too, lives in a coffin. But Akio is different. He chose to be in this coffin.
Akio, originally was Dios. In one of the most important dialogues of the anime, Akio mentions his name can mean "Lucifer" and he describes Lucifer as an Angel who chose to be separated from God.
It's important to focus on this dialogue, because Dios in spanish means God. And knowing Dios and Akio were once the same, you could say Akio chose to separate from Dios.
Why is that important?
Akio also wants to revolutionize the world, but his approach is different. In one of the dialogues of the show, towards the end, he says to Utena:
Seeing you is like seeing me in the past. I was like you, once. I though persistence had merit. That it was the best way to change the world. But just that alone can't change anything. Without power, you're doomed to...live life dependente on another. I've taken enough risks to change the world.
Akio is the part of Dios that believes the only way of revolutionizing the world is by having power, control, manipulating people.
Akio and Utena have the same objective, but both of them present different ideologies to it
Akio tries to bring his ideals to the other characters in the show, essentially by doing s*x with them. His main objective, is to use other people's swords (which symbolize someone's soul.) To try and revolutionize the world
He tries to make Utena feminine again, which would mean Utena would return to her coffin.
But, for Akio, the coffin is a good thing. He doesn't see it as something bad.
That's why he tries to make other people have the same ideals as him. He makes people grow out of their "imaturity", their "foolishness" and become "adults".
On one of the last episodes, Utena is almost falling into the ideology of Akio. She is becoming more and more feminine.
But, right before Utena finally falls to Akio's ideal, she sees what he does to Anthy.
This is a turning point in Utena's story. The next day, Anthy, like always, disguises her true feelings. She says she wants to keep like that forever. That is completely the turning point for Utena.
Utena, now, is returning to her own self. And for the first time she is truly getting out of her coffin.
There's an amazing scene with miki, nanami, juri and Utena talking. They make Utena decide on opposing Akio, finally.
That is the scene Utena realizes that it's possible leaving her coffin, that the people around her can help this. And she can revolutionize the world.
Akio continues to try and patronize Utena, but this time, Utena ultimatly goes against him
When Utena is almost winning the battle the upside down castle falls, meaning Utena could be falling into the same mistake as Akio did.
Due to that, Anthy ultimately gets scared of changing into something worse, and returns to Akio's side by stabbing Utena.
The most important parte comes when Akio uses Utena's sword to try and break the Rose seal, which is the seal that keeps the revolution of the world.
It doesn't work. Instead of being angry, or sad, or anything like this, Akio instead is undifferent. He will keep trying the same things to revolutionize the world. And we're supposed to understand that i doesn't matter if he keeps doing it the same way, it'll never work.
Anthy, then, is showed recieving all of humanity's hatred. Utena sees that and goes to the rose seal. Utena, stabbed, tries to break it. She can't. But one of the things she is able to do is save anthy.
Utena becomes the vehicle for Anthy. She ultimatly stretches her hand to anthy in her coffin. Utena is not able to revolutionize the world at this time, because she didn't realize that the way someone has to revolutionize the world is by the person itself.
Utena saved Anthy from her coffin, and Anthy finally gets the confidence to save herself and revolutionize the world.
That's what RGU talks about. It's necessary to break out of our coffins so we can grow up. That's the most essential part. We need imagination, will, foolishness, innocence.
But what i'd like to tell viewers, though i don't know how well i'll do it, is "if you do this, maybe you can have fun imagining the future." "If you live like this, i think you can have a fun life." To spin it nicely, that's precisely why Utena's ignorant and foolish. To our sensibilities, that comes across as foolish...i want to help people sense that the truly silly things here...are our own sensibilities, for regarding that as foolish.
-Kunihiko Ikuhara
This is one of my favorite anime of all time, and one of my favorite pieces of media. I love every single thing about it, and even though i didn't mention, for example, the black rose arc, i do believe it's extremely important to the message and themes of the show as a whole.
I hope you enjoyed my analysis on Utena
Thank you
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