A little bit of courage is the real magic @courageistherealmagic - Tumblr Blog

Character so fine she hauls you out of an art slump

the word utena itself means "calyx," the part of a flowering plant which protects the bud and supports the blooming petals. i had heard this before in a fun fan fact kind of way but heard it from Hiroshi Nagahama-san, rgu's art director, whom i had the privilege of hearing speak at otakon years back.

he also mentioned something i had not heard; he said the show's english title is not terribly accurate to the intent of the creators, but a poor translation problem on their part. he said a better translation is Utena: Girls' Revolution.

i get chills thinking about this distinction. he elaborated that the title wasn't referring to utena tenjou herself, or at least not Just to utena; nor any singular character for that matter. there's no Revolutionary Girl. its about the revolution of and for and by girls. and "utena"...the Support.

anyway tldr you could say the title as Support Girls' Revolution and that makes me crazy

somedaywithyou

so glad folks enjoyed* this! ^_^

a little quote from Enokido Youji's rgu script notes i was reading today (you can read the rest of them here):

"The 4th Arc, the “Apocalypse Arc”, starts from episode 34. From here on out, the story will be progressing towards something (alt trans: an end point) that we’ve decided on from the very beginning. The Girls’ Revolution. [...] By the way, a revolution is when the oppressed destroy the system that oppresses them. A girls’ revolution then, because it is referencing girls, is a story about girls becoming free of what oppresses them. The “prince” that appears throughout the work is, in fact, created as something that oppresses girls."

#revolutionary girl utena

sloppystyle

Happy Send Me On My Way Sunday

thunderbottle

he’s on his way

microsff

Every morning, the queen asked her magic mirror to show her the most beautiful person in the world.

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The mirror would show her, and she'd be amazed.

nullen-void

The first time, she says "To me," and the mirror dutifully shows her her reflection. And she is pleased.

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.

It is a different person each time, and they are all beautiful.