Shoujo Kakumei Utena

Years ago, a tragic incident befell a young princess when both her parents died. Devastated, it seemed nothing would calm this poor soul. However, a prince traveling through the area came to see the princess, hoping to cheer her up. After wiping her sorrowful tears, the prince gave her a ring carrying a rose emblem and told her as long as she holds onto the ring, they are destined to meet again. The event leaves a deep impression on the girl, Utena Tenjou, leading her to become a prince herself.

Years later, Utena attends Ootori Academy, recognized by the same rose emblem as her precious ring's. There, attracted by the scent of roses, she witnesses Anthy Himemiya tending the flowers, accompanied by the Student Council President Touga Kiryuu and Vice President Kyouichi Saionji, who seem to be arguing over Anthy. While Utena thinks nothing of the occurrence, the Student Council gathers to discuss an important matter.

Subsequently, a misunderstanding leads to Utena being dragged into the world of Duelists—those with rings similar to her own. The Duelists fight for the ownership of the Rose Bride, Anthy Himemiya, who is said to possess great power. Wanting to prove her capabilities as a prince, and enraged that Anthy is being wronged and objectified, Utena resolves to fight against the Duelists to save her from the cruel fate.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tenjou, Utena Main

Kawakami, Tomoko Japanese

Himemiya, Anthy Main

Fuchizaki, Yuriko Japanese

Arisugawa, Juri Supporting

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Kiryuu, Nanami Supporting

Shiratori, Yuri Japanese

Ootori, Akio Supporting

Kosugi, Juurouta Japanese

Kiryuu, Touga Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Mikage, Souji Supporting

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Chuchu Supporting

Koorogi, Satomi Japanese

Kaoru, Miki Supporting

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Saionji, Kyouichi Supporting

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Kobayashi, Noriko Producer

Kawasaki, Tomoko Producer

Ikeda, Shinichi Producer

Ikuhara, Kunihiko Director, Script, Storyboard, Theme Song Lyrics, Original Creator

Reviews

Apr 4, 2025

rozzingit

Recommended

I don't have any nostalgia goggles for Utena. I didn't watch it at a young age. It wasn't a formative experience for me. What I did have was two friends who loved it and sat down to watch it all with me in my 30s. And I can say that, despite its rough edges, Utena is absolutely masterful in the task of telling the story it set out to tell.

It's always important to meet a story where it is. Utena is a fairy tale. It's a metaphor. Plenty of what happens is clearly presented visually as one thing that we're not meant to take as ... a literal representation. The point isn't to worry about what exact details are true and what aren't, because the point of the story is the themes and emotions underneath.

Utena is, at its core, about two things: the place women hold in the world, and the cycles of abuse they suffer in. (To be fair: the male characters aren't safe from these cycles of abuse, either. But it's clear that Utena is centering its story on the way women tend to be uniquely impacted.)

Many of the characters are pretty bad people. Many of them are cruel or petty or destructive. Some may not be cruel, but they're too passive to make a difference when they need to.

The animation is all over the place. Sometimes it's pretty bad, and other times it can be breathtaking; they were clearly saving money in some parts to make sure to shine in the most impactful moments. The last few episodes are honestly breathtaking.

The show is also deeply silly in many ways. Embrace it.

I ended the show feeling like it holds something intensely similar to Evangelion (which was MY formative childhood anime). They bear no real resemblance in their plot, style, themes, etc. But there is something that connects them on a deep ~vibes~ sort of level. I think that Utena is worth ANYONE giving it a chance, but especially if you're hunting for something that will hit some similar strange part of you that Evangelion does.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 14, 2024

bergars

Mixed Feelings

Oh boy, it's one of those.

A thematic piece of characters with dubious morals, and gray zones of horrible acts. A drama that starts off as a “fight of the week” sort of thing, but slowly evolves, morphs, into a disturbing showcase of traumatic events. A story with no proper explanation, or a straight-to-the-point narrative. I have an idea of what just happened, but I could be legitimately wrong about everything. However, this isn't about a story, but about thematic depth.

Coming of age. School, love, friends, family, sister / brotherhood. Those are all fun things to explore, aren't they? Many slice of life anime ... touch upon those with care, with love, with enough to fill a heart to the brim. The anime was following the themes with a little more spice into it. Infidelity, unrequited love, toxic love. I was getting invested in the relationships, even with the superficial incest that was grinding my gears, until the shift right about episode 24.

Something changed in the writing team, maybe it was the plan from the beginning, but I could not expect those disturbing aspects to take center stage, with proper writing accompanying them. Incest, and the traumatic repercussions and causes. Rape, and the negative effects on one's psyche. True toxic love, and toxic relationships for those you love. Possession, victim blaming, gaslighting, suffering, loneliness, loss of purpose.

“Revolutionary Girl Utena” became a series about how truly messed up coming of age can be for a woman. The gender norms, sexuality, grooming, it didn't stop, and it never let go after grabbing the audience. I wanted to turn it off, to rest from the themes, only for the next, goofy combat to happen. The story was there, but it doesn't matter at some point.

This is an artistic representation of womanhood in its early stages, and how people decide to use it for themselves, or for others. The psychological bonds they can achieve, be it positive or negative. It was a brutal watch, one behind some okay animation, but excellent direction. Visual symbols, the art of the edit, of coverage, and the uses of sound design. It didn't dabble on the usual, visual cocktail that's any other shoujo anime. This one let the silence happen, it let scenes land on their mangled legs, and let us watch as people's egos get demolished in front of us.

I truly just wish it wasn't presented in such a convoluted narrative, with events happening as “one offs”. Episode 23 or 24 didn't just mark the series as a turning point, but as the beginning of the absolute confusion. Powers or situations that occur only once, story beats that don't play out until the very end, and surrealist instances where the meaning feels much more thematic than a tying the story together.

It's a mesh of ideas, ones that work amazingly well if it weren't trying to tell a story in the middle of everything. I don't know if the writers wanted to create discussion about it, but it feels like it was done artificially. They had all the resources to tell a coherent narrative, and they chose not to. I'd wish they went one way, coherent, or thematic, instead of this clash between both that doesn't perfectly land with me.

The combat wasn't particularly interesting. But then, the characters were so well-written that I tolerated all that. Every episode that focused on the psychological landed so much better than the “oh my god, a fight scene”. Should've been cut, but I don't know how. They didn't have much time per episode for a proper fight scene, so why frame the story entirely on those? It's a question for another day.

7/10. Amazing, psychological story about women, and their relationship with life at their coming of age. Brutal, disturbing, but incredibly important for what it tries to say. I just wish they polished, or cut down on the action aspects, to allow a greater story to be told, or the themes to come in at full force, instead of their constant interruptions.

Extra: What in god's name was that cow episode? Up there with the worst episodes I've ever seen, please skip that one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 4, 2025

AgentBishop

Not Recommended

Funny

my first review got removed by a certain mod because "it was offending to fanbois who liked this anime"!

here is a filtered, less offending,more pathetic version of my original review:
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

"a masterpiece that inspired generations of strong female characters, a philosophical giant in anime industry that challenged gender norms and….”
we all have seen these titles, i knew this is a bad anime just by this title, usually a good feminist anime becomes target of criticism of feminists, ironically because of its realism but here the praise was so high that i already could smell something’s up
My suspicion turned out to be true in the ... first episode

the episode starts and gives this “a prince wants to save princess” bullshit and then it introduces Utena, she wears boys uniform (kind of!) and she outperforms the entire male basketball players all by herself and wins a dual against an asshole swordsman with a black woman as her slave? with a real sword while she had a wooden sword
If you ever saw anything like this i want you to know, it is a bad and propagandist feminist work, the reason is simple, if the main girl is the strongest person in the movie then the real social dynamic between genders and “female oppression” couldn’t possibly exist in that world, how can there be a patriarchy and people “looking down” on women when the strongest people are women?!! This simple argument destroys this anime and any feminist work that follows this formula
Think about it, she says she wants to be a prince but she is stronger than the prince! why would you get inspiration from someone weaker than yourself and pretend they are the stronger person?

a example of a good feministic work is "anne shirley” in anime and “Zootopia” in Disney

we have a couple of nothing burgers episodes which a bunch of randos who challenge Uretha To a duel to get the black girl as a trophy! there is also themes of incest, well not literally but the obsession of the red dude’s sister with him was pretty weird

Anyway, she ends up fighting the prince she was longing for (the red dude) and loses because she was scared of hurting the prince, after that for some fucking reason she starts dressing like a normal girl, her friend says what’s this, this isn’t normal, Utena says it is normal, her friend says NO, BAKA,it isn’t normal for you. all the time that this was happening, i was wondering, why does this conversation exist? What? so the symbolism make sense even at the cost of plot and decent dialogue?
the rose bride is a whore in this story, she clings to those who win the fight, the moment Utena lost she abandoned her, but symbolically she is good, this contradiction happens because of incompetence
So she ended up realizing she wants that black girl and challenges the red dude and plot armor kicks in and she wins

Again literally nothing burger episodes till episode 33 and Utena is fucking black people! LOL you can’t make this stuff up, did i mention the dude she had sex with was engaged at the time and the hero knew about it? (btw i guess another taboo is broken in 1997, sex outside marriage and outside of your race) and in episode 35 we see the black dude kissing a child (so pedo taboo is broken too)

and finally we are at episode 38, the black dude was the real prince all along, he snaps his finger and Utena turns into a princess, he tells her you don’t need to fight anymore and i'll do your fightings for you, it’s time to be happy forever and ever like in the prince and princess story as if that makes any fucking sense, Utena refuses and says what about the black girl!, he tells her who cares about her and they fight, i don’t spoil it too much but let’s just say the ending was max retardation

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 34 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Alicia3000 - May 2, 2009	65 replies	by TeeDeeHeeHee »» Apr 4, 10:12 AM
	Poll: Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 33 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Alicia3000 - May 2, 2009	147 replies	by TeeDeeHeeHee »» Apr 4, 10:11 AM
	Poll: Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 31 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Alicia3000 - May 2, 2009	68 replies	by TeeDeeHeeHee »» Apr 3, 1:37 PM
	Poll: Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 28 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Alicia3000 - Apr 26, 2009	53 replies	by TeeDeeHeeHee »» Apr 1, 1:48 PM
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