Revolutionary Girl Utena is an anime series about one very weird University and the students who attend it.
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers!
The story focuses on Utena, a fiery pink-haired girl who insists on wearing boys' clothes. She attends the Ohtori Academy, and seeks the prince who once visited her and gave her a ring. Utena rooms with a Indian-looking woman named Anthy, who in turn is in an abusive relationship with another member of the Academy. Utena fights to protect Anthy, and is pulled into a series of sword duels with the student council, all of whom fight for Anthy as the key to a coming revolution.
The series itself is highly unusual, to the point of being outright metaphysical. Its uses of color alternate between serene and striking, while the world feels angular and modern, from the faces of the characters to the design of the Academy. A rose motif runs rampant. The plot is relatively straightforward, but everyone's motives are obscure (initially, at least).
The 39-episode Revolutionary Girl Utena TV series was created by most of the production company that made Sailor Moon, after they completed Sailor Moon and wanted to make something a little different. Note that creator of Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi, was not responsible for Utena. An alternate-universe movie, named Adolescence Mokushiroku, exists also and can be seen as the end of the story initiated by the TV series.
Repeated motifs feature strongly and powerfully in Utena. Many scenes are reused -- exactly or almost so -- in several episodes. This may have been a practical consideration on the animators' part to reduce production costs, but it also lends a ritualistic sense to many of the repeated scenes -- such as the Student Council's ascent or Utena's entry to the dueling platform.
The series is divided into story arcs, in each of which Utena comes into conflict with a different power at Ohtori Academy. Particular motifs illustrate the style and methods of each rival: the Student Council's oath of revolution; the Black Rose cabal's psychologically torturous confessions; and Akio Ohtori's cruelly seductive uses of his car.
The dominant motif of the entire series is the rose, which fills the decor and landscape of the Academy as well as the ritual accoutrements of the Duellists. Another curious one is elevators, which seem to be used as places of transition or transformation -- the Council's elevator, Akio's, the Black Rose group's where the confessions take place, and the one installed in the duelling platform in the later episodes.
It should be noted that the series addresses sexual themes quite often, including Yuri and Yaoi (lesbian and gay) elements, as well as more than mere suggestions of incest. Sexual content is more overt in the motion picture than the TV series, which is much more subtle.
An influence by Gnosticism can also be found, with Ohtori Academy as the illusory world and Akio as the Demiurge.
By its plays on such archetypal figures as the Prince, the Princess or the Witch, and by the symbolist role carried out by such plot elements as coffins, thorns or castles, Utena can be seen as the quintessence of the Postmodernist Fairy tale.
IKEDA Riyoko's Rose of Versailles and Onisama e are established sources of inspiration for Utena, visually for the first and thematically for the second.
Another major inspiration, seen through the Student Council's Oath, is Hermann Hesse's Demian.Visual Motifs
Characters
Tenjou Utena
Himemiya Anthy
Arisugawa Juri
Kiryuu Touga
Kiryuu Nanami
Kaoru Miki
Saionji Kyouichi
Chuchu
Shinohara Wakaba
Kaoru Kozue
Ohtori Akio
Themes
Inspirations
