All the Revolutionary Girl Utena analytical essays and blurbs I can find! In one place so that I can keep track of them and read them when I can! Which means there might be good takes, great takes or less than stellar takes, you decide!
Please feel free to submit and add thoughts!
If you're new to RGU: Given the nature and contents of the series, this blog will inherently discuss uncomfortable and mature subject matter, listed after the cut.
You can watch the series officially in sub or sub free on Nozomi's YouTube Channel (be wary of flashing lights and images):
Utena, Japanese
Utena, English Dub
š¹
Revolutionary Girl Utena is a fantastic show that covers some heavy topics, albeit pretty tactfully. If you want a more comprehensive list of what goes down, check out:
List of content for the show
List of content for the movie
But here's a short, non-exhaustive rundown of what the series and this blog is gonna contain:
Sexual / physical / emotional abuse
Toxic relationships
Incest
Manipulation / gaslighting
Unreality
Animal death
Flashing imagery / lights (if you're watching the series, but just in case there are any gifs or videos in the blog)
In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the main character Utena is a girl (it says so in the title), but very conspicuously uses the masculine first person pronoun å (boku) and dresses in (a variation of) the boys school uniform. Utena's gender, and gender in general, is a core theme of the work. And yet, I havenāt seen a single translation or analysis post where anyone considers using anything other than she/her for Utena when speaking of her in English. This made me wonder: how does oneās choice of pronouns in Japanese correspond to what oneās preferred pronouns would be in English?
There are 3 main differences between gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English
Japanese pronouns are used to refer to yourself (first-person), while English pronouns are used to refer to others (third-person)
The Japanese pronoun you use will differ based on context
Japanese pronouns signify more than just gender
Letās look at each of these differences in turn and how these differences might lead to a seeming incongruity between oneās Japanese pronoun choice and oneās English pronoun choice (such as the å (boku) vs she/her discrepancy with Utena).
Part 1: First-person vs third-person
While Japanese does technically have gendered third person pronouns ļ¼å½¼ć彼儳ļ¼ they are used infrequentlyĀ¹ and have much less cultural importance placed on them than English third person pronouns. Therefore, I would argue that the cultural equivalent of the gender-signifying third-person pronoun in English is the Japanese first-person pronoun. Much like English āpronouns in bioā, Japanese first-person pronoun choice is considered an expression of identity.
Japanese pronouns are used exclusively to refer to yourself, and therefore a speaker can change the pronoun theyāre using for themself on a whim, sometimes mid-conversation, without it being much of an incident. Meanwhile in English, Marquis Bey argues that āPronouns are like tiny vessels of verification that others are picking up what you are putting downā (2021). By having others use them and externally verify the internal truth of oneās gender, English pronouns, I believe, are seen as more truthful, less frivolous, than Japanese pronouns. They are seen as signifying an objective truth of the referentās gender; if not objective then at least socially agreed-upon, while Japanese pronouns only signify how the subject feels at this particular moment ā purely subjective.
Part 2: Context dependent pronoun use
Japanese speakers often donāt use just one pronoun. As you can see in the below chart, a young man using äæŗ (ore) among friends might use ē§ (watashi) or čŖå (jibun) when speaking to a teacher. This complicates the idea that these pronouns are gendered, because their gendering depends heavily on context. A man using ē§ (watashi) to a teacher is gender-conforming, a man using ē§ (watashi) while drinking with friends is gender-non-conforming. Again, this reinforces the relative instability of Japanese pronoun choice, and distances it from gender.
Part 3: Signifying more than gender
English pronouns signify little besides the gender of the antecedent. Because of this, pronouns in English have come to be a shorthand for expressing oneās own gender experience - they reflect an internal gendered truth. However, Japanese pronoun choice doesnāt reflect an āinternal truthā of gender. It can signify multiple aspects of your self - gender, sexuality, personality.
For example, å (boku) is used by gay men to communicate that they are bottoms, contrasted with the use of äæŗ (ore) by tops. å (boku) may also be used by softer, academic men and boys (in casual contexts - note that many men use å (boku) in more formal contexts) as a personality signifier - maybe to communicate something as simplistic as āIām not the kind of guy whoās into sports.ā äæŗ (ore) could be used by a butch lesbian who still strongly identifies as a woman, in order to signify sexuality and an assertive personality. ē§ (watashi) may be used by people of all genders to convey professionalism. The list goes on.
I believe this is whatās happening with Utena - she is signifying her rebellion against traditional feminine gender roles with her use of å (boku), but as part of this rebellion, she necessarily must still be a girl. Rather than saying āgirls donāt use boku, so Iām not a girlā, her pronoun choice is saying āyour conception of femininity is bullshit, girls can use boku tooā.
Through translation, gendered assumptions need to be made, sometimes about real people. Remember that he/they, she/her, they/them are purely English linguistic constructs, and donāt correspond directly to oneās gender, just as they donāt correspond directly to the Japanese pronouns one might use. Imagine a scenario where you are translating a news story about a Japanese genderqueer person. The most ethical way to determine what pronouns they would prefer would be to get in contact with them and ask them, right? But what if they donāt speak English? Are you going to have to teach them English, and the nuances of English pronoun choice, before you can translate the piece? That would be ridiculous! Itās simply not a viable optionĀ². So you must make a gendered assumption based on all the factors - their Japanese pronoun use (context dependent!), their clothing, the way they present their body, their speech patterns, etc.
If translation is about rewriting the text as if it were originally in the target language, you must also rewrite the gender of those people and characters in the translation. The question you must ask yourself is: How does their gender presentation, which has been tailored to a Japanese-language understanding of gender, correspond to an equivalent English-language understanding of gender? This is an incredibly fraught decision, but nonetheless a necessary one. Itās an unsatisfying dilemma, and one that poignantly exposes the fickle, unstable, culture-dependent nature of gender.
Notes and References
Ā¹ Usually in Japanese, speakers use the personās name directly to address someone in second or third person
Ā² And has colonialist undertones as a solution if you ask me - āYou need to pick English pronouns! You ought to understand your gender through our language!ā
Bey, Marquisā 2021 Re: [No Subject]āOn Nonbinary Gender
would u be willing to share links to some of the genuinely good utena video essays mentioned briefly in the tags? š
so sorry im seeing this late but yes!!!!!!!!!!
here are my favs heheƧ
first off we have @stushixstushi s vids!!!!!. if you havent seen stushis utena videos... ur missin out on a treasure trove.
next up we have the main one everyone knows about and knows is good is noralities!! watch it if u havent its very good!
and finally we have hayley sulmatul's insanely long and detailed full utena recap+analysis (6 hours of amazing video!!!! link is in the youtube description bc she had to upload elsewhere bc of copyright issues </3) .. and i have to say im a bit biased i love this one bc i did help with it hehehehe....... so i fully recommend it!!!!!!!!!!!
now im sure theres more but these are the ones that replay in my head very often and are very good. my name isnt utenaposter for nothin guys i have the best utena opinions ever . go watch these if u want amazing video essays !!!!!
Unpopular Opinion: Anthy Himemiya Isn't Just a VictimāShe's Also a Coward (and That's the Point)
There's a lot of deserved sympathy for Anthy in the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. She's one of the most psychologically complex characters in animeāabused, objectified, manipulated, and turned into a symbol of subjugation under the guise of femininity. But the praise she receives as a tragic icon often avoids engaging with the full truth: Anthy is not just a victim. She is also a coward.
And that cowardice is part of the show's point.
She knows what Ohtori Academy is. She knows that the dueling system is hollow, that Akio is a fraud, and that Utena genuinely wants to help her. She's witnessed love, trust, self-sacrifice. She's seen what it means to break free. And still, she betrays Utenaānot because she's incapable of understanding, but because she chooses to retreat into her trauma.
"You remind me of Dios. But you can't be a prince, because you're a girl."
It's not just internalized misogyny. It's resignation. It's Anthy choosing to preserve the structure because the alternativeāthe unknown, the freedomāis more terrifying than the pain she already knows. It's easier to say, "all girls are like the Rose Bride," than to confront the possibility that not all girls have to be.
So no, Anthy is not some pure avatar of feminist resistance. She is someone who, when offered empathy and escape, rationalizes betrayal because it's safer than hope. And in that moment, she's not just hurtāshe's complicit.
The tragedy is not that she is hurt. The tragedy is that she accepts that hurt as the only possible reality... until the very end.
And maybe that's the most chilling part of Utena's message: that abusive structures survive not only because of those in power, but because the people hurt by them become convinced it's better not to try.
one of the interesting things about the student council arc is that utena's insistence that anthy is a Totally Normal Girl is, yes, her projecting her ideas about what anthy Should Be onto her and unintentionally molding anthy to fit that image, encouraged by some subtle manipulations from anthy herself (like the blatant lie about anthy Wanting More Friends), but, um, also......she's right! anthy is just a normal girl. she isn't magically beholden to obeying whoever is 'engaged' to her. she thinks of herself as the "Rose Bride" and a "doll without a heart" to cope with her situation and her abuse at akio's and the world's hands but she is in fact a human girl with wants and desires and emotions and the agency to make her own choices. yes her finding the strength to seek freedom from the system and her role in it is much more complicated than utena just telling her to tell touga she doesn't want to do it anymore, and it's good that utena got the shock to the system of losing a duel to re-evaluate how she's been approaching her relationship with anthy up to this point. but ultimately even in episode 11 when utena is arguably at her most wrong and arrogant in how she handles the situation with anthy, she is still unknowingly far more correct about anthy than touga could ever be. she really is just a normal girl named anthy himemiya.
and utena is able to recognize that even as she is in some ways very wrong about her and her situation because utena has not bought into the fundamental premise of the dueling system. touga laughs at utena when utena unintentionally 'orders' anthy to tell touga she hates being the rose bride because it's funny to him that utena doesn't get it, but it's precisely because she doesn't get it that she's able to see anthy's humanity when no one else does. utena's naivete is often the subject of derision by fans (and certainly by the other characters), and in many respects it is a character flaw that leads her astray and unintentionally hurts others. but it can also be a strength that allows her to reject false constructs that other characters take for granted as true and instead see through to the fundamental reality of anthy's situation in ways even anthy is not yet prepared to do. only a fool would think the rose bride is just a normal girl. but didn't you know? utena is a fool.
Utena Fansub Ep 15 release + Japanese vocab highlights
Last episode release I did a lot of textual analysis, because that was the most interesting part of the episode by far. This time, the episode was packed with interesting Japanese vocab, so I'll be focusing on that today!
If youāve been following me since before the Utena fansub project, youāll know that I sometimes post about what I call Trap Words in Japanese ā loanwords that a typical English speaker might read and think āoh, thats a katakana-ised version of Xā and be completely wrong about! For example, ć³ć³ć»ć³ć (konsento) is not āconsentā but āpower outlet/socketā (coming from a katakana conversion and then abbreviation of āconcentric plugā). This is a mini trap words post!
I lied in this line. He didnāt make milk and honey. He made ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć (mirukusÄki). What is mirukusÄki? A typical JāE dictionary would translate it asā¦ Milkshake. But what a Japanese person imagines when they hear ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć and what an English speaker imagines when they hear āmilkshakeā are COMPLETELY different.
I think of it like the word ć¢ćć” (anime). What does the Japanese word ć¢ćć” mean? It means ācartoonā. To a Japanese person, Tom and Jerry is ć¢ćć”. What does the English word āanimeā mean? It means a specific style and genre of specifically Japanese animation. To an English speaker, Tom and Jerry is not anime. ć¢ćć” and āanimeā are two different words with different meanings, despite sharing some history and sharing the same romanised form, because they are words in two different languages.
ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć (mirukusÄki) is a loanword from English which comes from āmilkshakeā, just like ć¢ćć” comes from āanimationā. But a ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć is not a milkshake. A ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć usually contains eggs like an eggnog, it usually does not contain ice cream but instead crushed ice (thus being much less viscous), itās seen as more of an after dinner nightcap type drink (similar to milk and honey!!) while the English āmilkshakeā is seen as a lunchtime drink usually accompanying fast food.
The Japanese wikipedia article for ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć mentions that there are two types. One is āfrench styleā which is the one Miki makes and the only thing that comes up if you put ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć into google images. The other is āamerican styleā and the reason it doesnāt come up on google images is because itās much more often referred to as ć·ć§ć¼ć (shÄki) which when said aloud sounds much closer to āshakeā than āsÄkiā. So the real translation for āmilkshakeā is ć·ć§ć¼ć. What does that mean for ćć«ćÆć»ć¼ć ? Well, itās its own thing! Itās a Japanese drink called mirukusÄki that happens to be confusingly named after the English āmilkshakeā.
Anyway. I decided to translate this as āmilk and honeyā because that was the most appropriate term I could think of that they might drink in bed, presumably to help them sleep. Also the consistency and colour of the drink in the show looks kind of like milk and honey.
Miki: Choo-Choo is so cute, isn't he? Utena: Itās not Choo-Choo, itās Chuchu. Choo-Choo makes him sound like a train.
This line was also a lie! Utena actually says āmouseā not ātrainā. ćć„ć¼ćć„ć¼ (chÅ«chÅ« ā note the long vowel Å«) is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mouse squeaking (which you may know from Pokemon ā Pikachuās name comes from the sound of a sparkle, pika, and the sound of a mouse, chÅ«). Utenaās actually pointing out that Chuchu is not quite a mouse, not quite a monkey.
The option most translators would opt for in this situation would be to translate directly and keep the āmouseā bit. But since this translation project prioritises natural language, I chose to make the comparison work with an English onomatopoeia. I want the audience to think āhuh that was weird, I guess it was hard to translate that lineā as LITTLE as possible!
Oh, fine. Sorry for worrying you. By the way, I had something I wanted to talk to you about. (note lack of green)
A more literal translation would be:
Oh fine. I worried you, didnāt I? Speaking of taking up your time, I had something I wanted to talk to you about.
čæ·ę (meiwaku) is the sticky part of this translation. The Japanese concept of čæ·ę is quite strange to most English speakers. Here are some examples of when you might experience čæ·ę:
When someoneās late and you need to wait for them.
When youāre going somewhere and someone sees you and pulls you aside into a conversation.
When you go to use a public toilet and the seat has piss on it.
Here are some examples that arenāt really čæ·ę, but itās polite to say that they are:
When you get hurt - apologise for causing čæ·ę to people who worried about you.
When someone does something nice for you - apologising for causing čæ·ę implies that they spent a lot of time for your benefit and you appreciate that.
I guess a good definition of čæ·ę would be āwhen someoneās actions cause someone else to lose time, money, or cause them to become upset.ā But we donāt have a word for that in English that sounds right in this kind of context! Thereās no word that can mean both āworrying someone due to a having a fallā and ātaking up their time on the way to classā. So although the teacher says āspeaking of čæ·ęā, I just had to skip that part because I couldnāt work it in. I couldnāt make the two concepts connected enough for it to sound natural.
Thank you to my amazing editor @dontbe-lasanya for their great work as always!
Make sure to follow the blog if you want to see more posts like this, or if you just want to follow along with the fansub releases! To see all episodes released so far, go here:
Iāve been dreading this episode since the beginning of this project. Most translations of the cowbell episode have two major problems that I knew were going to be really hard to overcome in my translation.
How on earth does Nanami not know that a COWbell is something that a COW wears?
Why does Nanami keep saying moo in regular conversation?
When I actually got into the translation though, it was so much more difficult than I had even anticipated! Not only were there two very large episode-spanning translation problems to solve, but there were also TONS of difficult individual lines. And on top of it all, a song to translate!
I was not happy at all with my first draft. I sent it to @dontbe-lasanya and went to bed. When I woke up and saw their edit, it was like magic. They had transformed my extremely rough script into a work of art! Iām so so happy with this episode now, and the majority of the credit for that has to go to Anya.
So anyway, how did we fix those two big problems?
How on earth does Nanami not know that a COWbell is something that a COW wears?
Obviously the Japanese word for cow is not ācowā. Itās ē (ushi). However, the Japanese word for cowbell is ć«ć¦ćć« (kauberu) ā itās a loanword; itās just ācowbellā turned into katakana. Thereās no obvious connection between the words for ācowbellā and ācowā in Japanese, unlike English. Also, ć«ć¦ćć« is not a very familiar word for most Japanese kids and teens (the target audience of Utena) and sounds foreign and therefore fancy (given the right context). On the other hand ācowbellā is a very familiar word in English, or even if it isnāt, ācowā and ābellā are. It also doesnāt sound fancy or foreign.
In Japanese, Nanami falls into some cringeworthy teenage social pitfalls in this episode. 1. The classic japanese kid thing of assuming katakana loanwords are cool or fancy. 2. The universal kid thing of pretending to know a word she doesnāt know to seem smart/cool. These things are like, a HUGE part of the conceit of the episode. IMO, itās crucially important to get these ideas across in the translation. To fail to do so (i.e. by translating ć«ć¦ćć« as ācowbellā) would be akin to cutting out the first 8 minutes of the episode.
Translators will often translate katakana loanwords directly back into the original word, but that clearly doesnāt work here. Anya decided to go with almglocken as the translation for ć«ć¦ćć« because Miki is the first person to give the cowbell its name, and almglocken doubles as the orchestral term for a musical cowbell (plus the yodelling in the cutaway scenes really sells the German choice, which we only discovered after we had committed to it!). I love how that scene feels where Miki names the bell - it really feels like he and Juri call it an āalmglockenā and Nanami just goes along with it, not wanting to admit that she doesnāt know what almglocken means. She totally reads as a stupid kid who wants to be a part of European high fashion without actually knowing anything, which is exactly how she reads in the original Japanese script!
Why does Nanami keep saying moo in regular conversation?
First things first ā the sound a cow makes in Japanese is not āmooā. Itās ć¢ć¼ (mÅ/mou) which is prounounced almost exactly like the English word āmoreā in non-rhotic accents like my Australian accent. In an American accent it probably sounds like āmallā without the ending L sound.
So, cows say āmouā. But ćć (mou) is also a dictionary word in Japanese. It can mean āalreadyā as in āI already did thatā, but it can also be used as an interjection (similar, but not exactly the same, to how āalreadyā can also be used as an interjection as in āenough already!ā). ćć (mou) carries other nuances with it as well ā there is a cultural image that teenage mean-girl types (like gyaru) tend to use it a lot. I like translating it as āughā, which I did several times in this episode.
The writers are getting a lot out of the cow metaphor in this episode. Thereās the whole thing with Touga selling Nanami away as a metaphor for his manipulation of her (and women in general) in order for him to gain patriarchal power (he even eats her meat!!). But thereās also this equating of cow mooing with the word ćć which is associated with young girls. Whenever Nanami moos this episode, even right up until the end when she physically transforms into a cow, you could translate it as āughā if you didnāt want to preserve the cow sound meaning. Every moo fits into her sentences as a bitchy interjection.
This is a hard thing to get across in translation, so I used a combined approach. Sometimes I directly translated ćć as āughā, which morphed into āmm-ughā and then āmuuooā. Other times I compensated by using words with āoooā sounds in them and drawing out the sound (like āmoOOoveā.
Dona, dona, dona, donaaaa
As I mentioned in my post yesterday, while translating the song, I made particular pains to match the meter of the Japanese lyrics with the English lyrics.
One day on a clear lazy afternoon, on the road to the marketplace
A literal translation of the line would be something like this
One clear afternoon, on the road to the market
But Iām sure you can see how this doesnāt have nearly enough syllables, much less stress on the correct syllables. Because Japanese has less consecutive consonants, it tends to have words with more syllables, but shorter syllables than English. They donāt have words like ācrampā where 4 consonant sounds exist in one syllable ā usually thereās only 1 consonant per syllable. This means that if weāre matching beat-for-beat, English can fit more words in per bar, which means when translating literally, we end up with lyrics that are too short! Thatās why Iāve added āOne day on aā and ālazyā and extended āmarketā to āmarketplaceā. This came up constantly during the translation of the song, where I was consistently needing to create words that didnāt exist in the original to keep the meter similar.
A few little notes to finish
This scene where the girls in PE class are chanting ćć”ć¤ćļ¼(faito) while they run is hilarious to me because both other translations I have access to translated it as āFight! Fight! Fight! Fight!ā which is justā¦ not what theyāre saying. Obviously in English chanting āfight!ā makes it sound like youāre encouraging two people to physically fight. In Japanese, ćć”ć¤ć is a loanword and does come from the English word āfightā, but it only means āfightā in the sense of like, metaphorically fighting: overcoming mental barriers, pushing through, doing your best. Theyāre just chanting to get their motivation up. I translated it as āMove those feet! Move those feet!ā so that when Nanami brings up the rear I could switch it to āMoOOove those feet!ā
Translating it as āFight! Fight!ā is just completely unacceptable no matter what your translation goals are tbh. If you care about āpreserving aspects of Japanese cultureā in the translation, you should translate it as āFaito! Faito!ā or āFighto! Fighto!ā.
I want to note that Iām so happy with how the characters talk about fashion. They really sound like they know what theyāre talking about (thanks to Anya). So much of the time translations sound like they were written by someone who doesnāt have any knowledge about the field the characters are talking about, which makes the dialogue sound super forced even when the characters ARE supposed to know what theyāre talking about. To give another example, Anya flagged this before with how Touga talks about Mikiās piano playing. The standards are so low for this kind of thing that my limited knowledge of music helped me write a translation that sounded knowledgeable enough to be worth commenting on!
Also, Iām REALLY glad we went with ādykeā as the translation for ē·å„³ (otoko-onna) a few episodes ago. Nanami uses that word again this episode and Utenaās reaction really works with the slur.
Thank you so much again to @dontbe-lasanya. This episode wouldnāt have been possible without you!
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I know I've posted on here before about how funny it is that Wakaba hates Touga with the passion of a thousand suns, but not only is it funny, it's genuinely good for Wakaba's well-being.
Like, she's an unremarkable girl. Another fly in the swarm. She wants to be special, and she thinks the way to do that is by attaching herself to a prince and living happily ever after.
Keiko is the same way, and her episode comes directly after Wakaba's two-parter.
Utena and Saionji both hurt Wakaba by prioritizing Anthy- but hurting Wakaba isn't the goal. Touga, under different circumstances, could have hurt Wakaba much worse, very much on purpose.
Because if all those desperate voicemails he gets are any indication, girls like Kozue- who knows full well this is just a sex thing and is as cool with it as she is with all the other sexual power plays in her life- are the exception, not the rule. Touga puts on a princely act for a reason, he likes girls with hope. Girls who want to be The One, the princess to his prince. Idealists, romantics, whatever you want to call them. Girls like Keiko. Girls like Wakaba.
something very fun i noticed upon my past rewatch of rgu that i never had before is the fact that when anthy stabs utena she never actually pierces her, and instead the sword passes by her side as it would in a stage play. now of course diegetically this moment is regardless meant to be understood imo as an actual injury, i dont think it changes anything on that front. anthy is trying to spare her what she thinks is the far greater pain in an impossible feat i dont think its any kind of fake out. anthys dress is especially present and billowing as she lies over her which i think in that moment is even a stand in for that blood we do not see and meant to accentuate the severity of that injury (and interestingly also like in fiction we lose this symbol as utena manages to Get Up anyways). but its an additional level to the way the world operates on rules of performance and plays that i really really love and nicely fixes utenas refusal to give up in that moment as further refusal to engage in akios game regardless of personal cost and i think it just makes her escape from his narrative all the more satisfying.
the way utena held onto wakaba and anthy's hands, trying her best to not let go (even though utena was barely holding onto anthy's hand, i'm sure she never wished to let anthy slip away from her grasp). both shots were lit with soft lighting ā¶ to highlight the importance of the person utena was holding onto and their bonds to utena.
the fact that she reached out to them with her left hand, the hand on which she wore her rose crest ring (the ring being clearly visible in both shots) ā¶ utena believed that she could only save wakaba and anthy by being a prince/playing the role of a prince.
utena caught wakaba's right hand with her left hand; wakaba wasn't holding back. meanwhile, anthy reached out to utena's left hand with her left hand as well. i think the difference in how each pair held hands may lie within the ideals between the pairs in their respective circumstances. with regard to wakaba, she harboured lots of pent-up emotions and thoughts about how unfairly the (ohtori) world treated the people it regarded as "special" and "ordinary," such as utena and herself. wakaba was clouded with feelings of inferiority and wanted to be special, to put it simply. utena didn't understand/wasn't aware of these dichotomous mechanisms/systems at play, at this point at least. these conflicting ideals, as in, awareness versus ignorance, were represented in the way they held hands; the hero/chosen one with her firm grasp on the motionless hand of the underdog/forgettable one.
with regard to anthy, the moment utena cracked open her coffin was the first time the both of them saw each other as they truly were. utena believed in a world beyond eternal pain and suffering anthy had to endure and wanted to share that view with her, wanted anthy to see and experience such a world, to save her from this needless perdition for good. eventually, anthy took the chance on the possibility, given how unyielding utena was in trying to reach her despite being stabbed by anthy herself; anthy hesitantly reached out to utena. both utena and anthy wanted to believe in a world where suffering is transient when they reached out to one another through the coffin opening, and not an eternally all-consuming pain as their fates in ohtori. they shared similar hopes in that moment.
utena reached out to both wakaba and anthy with kindness and love:
in the duel with wakaba, she never drew out the sword of dios or fought her. utena de-escalated the duel carefully by taking hold of wakaba's sword (the sword pulled out of saionji) and cutting off the black rose. despite not understanding the sequence of events that had them facing each other off in the dueling arena, wakaba was one of utena's closest friends and utena would save her. it's a little interesting to note that the audience (and utena, too i believe) didn't get a glimpse of wakaba's face during utena's speech as above. in addition, the focus on their interlocked hands when utena mentioned about not understanding the situation and saving wakaba is also interesting (even though the interlocked hands were due to them struggling against each other). it's possible what utena said at that moment may have reached her heart even while being under the control of the black rose. perhaps the speech may have made wakaba realise that she was indeed special. this "specialness" was emphasised by utena not letting wakaba fall into the outline of one of the bodies like the other black rose duelists; because she mattered to utena. "to not be chosen is to die" but in a way, she was chosen by utena here beyond the presented choice between her or anthy. utena chose wakaba and anthy.
in episode 39, akio used the sword pulled out of utena to break through the rose gate. utena was injured and incapacitated by anthy's stab, while anthy was relentlessly impaled with millions of swords embodying humanity's hatred. akio's futile attempts eventually broke the sword and he gave up on the pursuit. so long as he had anthy, he could try again, as in, try again to gain the power to "revolutionise the world" instead of freeing his little sister. utena tried opening the rose gate with her bare hands; dragging her injured body there, clinging onto the thorny vines of the roses on the gate, pushing through the large stone doors. she only wanted to stop the swords from hurting anthy, to help her. utena's love and care for anthy finally unlocked the rose gate into anthy's coffin. utena steadfastly held out her hand to anthy despite anthy's protests. utena's efforts moved anthy to tears, and she reached out to her. in episode 38, utena chose anthy over akio, and all the way back to episode 11, utena chose anthy over the power to revolutionise the world. utena had always chosen anthy against all odds and choices.
the aftermath:
wakaba wasn't holding back possibly due to being under the control of the black rose while anthy's hand eventually slipped away from utena's hold.
nevertheless, utena's efforts matter, very much so, because wakaba will always be on utena's side no matter what happens and anthy will find utena no matter where she is.
Have finished Wakaba Flourishing recently and tbh Saionji in this episode is somehow... disturbing. Particularly because he seems genuinelly well meaning and yet he still gives Wakaba scars without even trying. He harms her by his male priveledge alone.
I've been rewatching Utena for the first time in. Gosh. well over 15 years. I think the last time I truly watched this series beginning to end was, at the latest, 2006. But my partner has never seen it. We're in the final 5 episodes, and I had to watch ahead to check for content warnings and the art/animation direction for the Apocalypse arc is so subtle and sinister.
Up until this point, Utena when she's in her dueling garb has been fairly unchanged except for the added flourishes to her uniform.
Just the added epaulette and tassels, the bit of ruffle at the bottom of her uniform coat.
But once she hits the Apocalypse arc, once she begins using the gondola to the arena and Anthy is pulling her sword from Utena, there is the most subtle change: she starts having lipstick on during the duels.
Anthy does as well. It's such a subtle thing that no one brings attention to. When you know what Akio is doing to her, when you know what's coming for her in the end, this subtle change is so glaring and blatant. On a first blind watch, you may not even notice it. Or if you do (like my partner did), you may not even question it.
One other subtle thing is Dios. In all the duels before when he appears, he's this featureless, faceless image.
(Literally, the final frame I can get of him coming down. This is as much as we see.)
But once she meets Akio properly, once he starts grooming her, there's the slightest change. I never really caught it before until this watch, and I know my partner didn't catch it at all.
They're such quick, subtle changes as Utena falls further and further into Akio's hands. I'm glad I'm rewatching this after so long, noticing new things to appreciate in its production.
I know for folks who have watched this series more often than I have, these are likely obvious things that have been spoken about repeatedly. But man. It really hit me this watch through.
the parallel to the sunlit garden in RGU is the swords of hate. sunlit garden memories keep you trapped in a pleasurable past, associated with clinging on to childhood; swords of hate memories are formative traumas that trap you just as much in a specific moment. Touga isnāt the only character in the show who doesnāt seem to have a sunlit garden; I think Juri, Anthy, and Akio also qualify.
Ā if you look at like, Saionji or Miki, they have aĀ ābefore timeā and anĀ āafter timeā; in the sunlit garden, everything was good, but then it all got ruined, and now I have to recapture something I had in the past. Utenaās deal is something bad happened, but then I had a golden memory which I must hold on to to maintain myself. on the other hand, the characters who get swallowed up by the bad things that happen to them, the swords of hate, try to give up on the game, on miracles, princes, and sunlit gardens. if you look at their backstories, we pretty much only seeĀ āwhere it all went wrongā and never anything before. Juri exclusively thinks about Shiori breaking her heart; we have no idea what Juri even likes about her in the first place. in the Anthy and Dios flashback, you get a sense that Anthy truly loves him, but we donāt see why there either. itās been eclipsed by the sacrifice she made for him. that forms the basis of their relationship now, not any actual feelings. we get to see some of Tougaās backstory in the movie but yeah, only Nanami seems to hold on to positive childhood memories.
with these characters, thereās a sense of hypocrisy somehow. they act like theyāre beyond the things that drive the other characters, but all of them still operate on the basis of the system. Juri may say she doesnāt believe in miracles but sheās still fighting in a dueling game that promises her that power. Touga, Akio, and Anthy are revealed to still be hung up on the prince. notably, Juri resigns in episode 29, while Anthy literally stabs Utena as a figure come to save her. Touga and Akio seem stuck spinning their wheels, pursuing power until it backfires on them. truly a girlās revolution.
when I was first seriously trying to understand RGU, I struggled the most with how to understand Anthy. I was seeing a lot of people frame her as the mastermind behind all the manipulations in the show, yet somehow, this didn't feel right to me. on the other end, I would see people who defended Anthy's innocence in the events of the story, either by selective reading or blaming Akio as the cause of everything. I also couldn't quite accept this view, though I did feel it was important that Anthy not be condemned. through a lot of time and thinking, I have come to my own conclusions about Anthy, her powers, and her role in the narrative.
in an interview, lead writer Enokido describes Anthy as a personification of when reality enters a drama. going further, he states that because he and the other writers do not know everything about reality, they cannot know everything about Anthy, either:
Enokido: Because even us creators canāt understand Anthyās inner thoughts (*note: naimen = inner feelings, interiority, true self). We created her while in search of that.
ā. You canāt understand anything?
Enokido: Thatās right. After all, there are things about ārealityā that neither I nor Ikuhara can understand. Like you know how in this world we live in, there are things we think are absurd or things we canāt confirm.
from these statements, it's clear that Anthy was designed as a character it is impossible to fully grasp.
Ikuhara echoed Enokido's description of Anthy as reality in this interview, going on to call her "a rare sort of character." there are many reasons why she could be considered unique, but I want to focus here on other things Ikuhara said about Anthy in this interview:
Ikuhara: As for whether Anthy's character herself is venemous, I don't know the answer, and while I depict her in ways that make you suspect she is, I plan to never show you whether that's out of ill will or not.
the ambiguity of Anthy's character is very important. she always has plausible deniablity; her worst deeds are implied from a clinical distance. further, Ikuhara brings up the question of intentions. even when it's unambiguous that Anthy is doing something (for instance, helping Akio to poison Kanae in episode 32), there's usually not much indication of what Anthy is feeling or thinking. it's like she's not even there.
I've always been struck by this little scene from the beginning of episode 23, when Anthy is employed at being Mamiya. she's totally alone here. if Anthy is doing Akio's bidding with full consciousness, then why do we get this scene? but on the other hand, can I say that Anthy doesn't know what's going on? of all the characters in the show, she has the best idea of what's really going on in the social system. again, contradiction and cognitive dissonance.
Anthy is magic, not of this world. can I, as a normal human being, imagine what it would be like to one second be there, and then the next to vanish out of my clothes? it's impossible.
then the question becomes, what is the nature of Anthy's magic? she is called a witch for her crime of taking the prince away from the world. that was her last free act: I would argue that Anthy's magic as a witch is not actually something that she uses as a free agent. this was first put into words for me by Alice on the Imagine Me & Utena podcast (I believe it was their focus episode on Anthy)--after listening to others debate on if Anthy truly has bad intentions or not, Alice asked, does Anthy use magic, or does magic work through her?
similarly, in his episode commentary for episode 23, Ikuhara wrote:
Peopleās happiness or unhappiness shouldnāt be determined by struggles over the device called āthe Rose Bride.ā
I find the term "device" to be an interesting one. from a meta perspective, Anthy is a device for the writers: she is used within the narrative to acheive the story's aims. she is a device for Akio: a thing to be used. in a parodoxical way, Anthy's disempowerment is her power, and her passivity allows the world to take shape around her.
Anthy became the Rose Bride through the trauma of the Swords of Hate. they left her empty. in episode 38, she says, "I thought I was just the Rose Bride, just a doll with no heart." the emotional core of the story is the search for her true self, Utena's desire to reach the heart that Anthy had forgotten she once had. however, Anthy plays her role as the Rose Bride to the end, even after she has shown her true face to Utena.
how exactly do Anthy's powers as the Rose Bride work? as a device, a mechanism, I believe that the Rose Bride simply responds to the social environment of Ohtori, with the final aim of bringing about the "End of the World." this is getting kind of esoteric, so I will use an example from the show to illustrate: a reading of Miki's early interactions with Anthy.
did Anthy go and play piano at the end of episode four in order to manipulate Miki to duel in the next episode? or is she simply manifesting what is in his heart? watching how Anthy interacts with others carefully, she operates as a projector screen, becoming whatever someone is fixated on. further, the way that they view her can radically affect the way she is portrayed from episode to episode. while Anthy becomes a demure angel for Miki, she is a two-faced schemer in Juri episodes.
the process doesn't stop here. next, the Rose Bride brings reality crashing down on characters' heads.
during Miki's first duel with Utena, Anthy suddenly cries out in support of Utena. this action seems wildly out of character for her supposed role in the duels. again, I believe Anthy does this because of a truth buried within Miki himself. the falsity of his pursuit of the shining thing is what Anthy exposes, revealing that the object of his affections might not be what it seems. as the Rose Bride, Anthy repeatedly destroys other characters' self-images, their worlds.
of course, Akio does appear to be pulling the strings behind Anthy's machinations throughout the narrative. perhaps this is because Akio is the End of the World, a harbringer of the death of the self. however, Akio seems incapable of riding out the process himself, staying stuck within the system, its enforcer and slave. and although he subjugates Anthy, he is tormented by the fact that she is beyond his grasp no matter what he does.
Anthy must have gotten some satisfaction out of Akio's torment, but she is more tormented than he could ever imagine. in a way, I feel as though Anthy is somewhat prideful of her position as Rose Bride; she feels that it is unchangable, a fact of life, and her adjustment to it is what allows her to keep surviving. thus, accepting things without complaint is wise. Utena is the one who challenges that, threatening Anthy with change, which can be terrifying even when what you know is endless suffering.
Anthy stabbing Utena is one of the only times that she acts out of her true feelings and her role as the Rose Bride in unison. here, I don't want to parse out all of the complex interpersonal reasons Anthy the person had to stab Utena, but instead point out that it continues to fit with the Rose Bride's purpose: she brings reality to Utena. this was always going to be the ending to her desire to be a prince, cemented when Utena takes the swords for Anthy.
the true sickness of Anthy's passivity is on display with her acceptance of the Swords of Hate. although the Rose Bride is the greatest instrument of power in Ohtori, it does nothing for Anthy herself; it comes at the cost of her sacrifice. that it is why it is difficult to frame Anthy as a mastermind. it was never going to be as easy as Anthy just making different choices, since sacrifice is demanded by the swords. she was only getting out of her position by someone taking her place, so she resigned herself. that resignation made her the subaltern base of Ohtori, able to take any form within it but her own. she must exit to be a real person.
Ikuhara and Saito on shoujo and how it informed RGU, from episode 38 commentary
KI: The thing is when I was making it, the thing that bothered me most was, when you make something like this, the most well-known anime thatāre similar to this is, in Japan, Mr. Osamu Tezukaās Ribon no Kishi [Princess Knight] and Rose of Versailles. I think these two are the ones that come to mind. They both have a girl dressing as a boy and using swords. I figured I wouldnāt be able to avoid it being said that it was taken from Ribon no Kishi or Rose of Versailles. What was bothering me the most at the time was it being called a parody. I had this immense fear about that. I kept thinking that it mustnāt be called a parody.Ā
The thing was, the more I kept thinking about it and the more I kept concentrating on the story, the more it ended up being like a parody. How do I explain thisā¦ for example, in Rose of Versailles, they used the French Revolution that actually happened as a factor. Itās not about whether or not we used a factor from reality in Utena. Itās that in a genre like shoujo mangaā¦ in Japan thereās a manga genre known as shoujo manga. I donāt know if Americans would know, but shoujo manga is a story where a girl is the main character. How do I explain this partā¦ when you make something where the plot is about a girl that fights like a boy and with a sword, in Japan everyone would say, āItās like Rose of Versailles.ā Or āItās like Ribon no Kishi.ā Thereās no doubt thatās what theyād say.Ā
I was really struggling with that. I kept thinking that I have to make it so no one would be able to call it a parody, but I got a lot of requests from the people around me. āWhy donāt you make it more like Rose of Versailles?ā or āWhy donāt you make it more like Ribon no Kishi?ā I was told that numerous times. I had to keep telling them, āNo, I donāt want to do that.ā A lot of people around me never understood that. Theyād just say there are other storylines I could do. It doesnāt have to be like Rose of Versailles. Just make it more normal, is what they said. But in my mind if I made this anime a normal anime, itād become a parody. I had this enormous negative reaction to it being a parody. Iām often told that there are a lot of parts where expressionism is used. I think the reason why it ended up being like that is because I strongly felt that I wanted to avoid it being called a parody.
CS [during the planetarium discussion between Utena and Akio]: But the visuals totally look like a parody to meā¦
KI (laughing): Yes, the visuals are a parody. I figured thereās no way around that.
CS: So on the surface itās supposed to look like a parody. The visuals may remind you of something like Rose of Versailles, but what you actually intended was that if you paid attention, youād realize itās nothing like it, right?
KI: Itās not that I was intending it. In the beginning I was trying to avoid it. I was trying to avoid the visuals looking like parody too. I told Ms. Saito this and she talked about this earlier, but I told her not to give it a sci-fi look. āDonāt make it look like itās sci-fi,ā and ādonāt make it look like a fantasy genre.ā The reason why I kept badgering her about that is becauseā¦ how do I say this?ā¦ I think itās because I realized you canāt draw something youāve never seen before. How do I explain this? Something youāve never seen isā¦ what do you call it? Hmm, I donāt know how to explain this.
CS: Are you saying, in your mind?
KI: In my mindā¦
CS: Because thereāre a lot of authors and manga artists who write fantasy and science fiction all the time, even in the anime industry.
KI: Yes, there are.
CS: So are you saying it was different for you?
KI: For me it was different.
CS: Was creating an entirely fictitious world kind ofā¦
KI: Itās not that. In the beginning I was planning to do it all in a fictitious world.
CS: Yes! that was the initial concept.
KI: Was it? ā
CS: It was when you first explained it.
KI: Right, right, right. But as I was doing it, I realized it wasnāt the same as what I envisioned, soā¦
CS (seriously): You wanted to make it yours, didnāt you? The anime, I meanā¦
KI: No, not exactlyā¦ thatās not exactly what it wasā¦
CS: I had the impression that you were forcibly trying to make Utena your own while you were making it. (laughs)
KI: Well, yeah, thatās true ā no, thatās not what it was! Iām fluffing this up a bit, but I wanted to make it into an anime that rounded up all the shoujo manga into one [āsoukatsu shiteā]. Can you translate āsoukatsuā into English?
INTERVIEWER: Collecting it all into one?
KI: Yes, like it was all included. And thenā¦ how do I explain this?
CS: So youā¦ go ahead.
KI: A shoujo manga is a story where a girl is the main character. I wanted to define the meaning of shoujo manga. Do you understand? Can you translate that into English? (laughs)
CS: You wanted to define a girlās dreams and admiration and such?
KI [over various black-on-red scenes of Anthy and swords]: I wanted to round up all the animated stories made with girls as the main characters up till then into one story. Meaning, make it a story where all those themes were included. I wanted to express everything that they were trying to express in all those shoujo manga and animations that had a girl as the main character, in this one story. That was the type of anime I was trying to make. I had this radical turning point inside my head. Now that the channels had turned in my head, I thought that I could allow the visuals to be parodies. Or rather, the visuals must be parodies. If this was going to be a round-up of everything up until now, the visuals should be parodies. Thatās why it suddenly went the Rose of Versailles sort of route.
CS: I see.
KI: Up until that point I had a huge adverse reaction towards Rose of Versailles. I was absolutely against that idea. The reason why is because at the timeā¦ how do I say thisā¦ I was thinking of doing a story that was more sci-fi or fantasy, but that didnāt sit with me too well. As I was doing it I realized what I actually wanted was to do a project where I could compile the shoujo manga or animations with a girl as a main character into one. What theyāre trying to express in animations where a girl is the main character is, and this is my personal opinion, Iām not just talking about Ribon no Kishi and Rose of Versailles ā there are tons of other animations where a girl is the main character ā how do I say this? ā the core of the basic theme is generally self-revelation.
CS: (Surprised, agreeing noise.)
KI: A story where a girl is the main character is about self-revelation. By putting the theme of self-revelation at the core and by wondering why you have to have this self-revelationā¦ how do I say thisā¦ I think the meaning of your relationship to the world is always made apparent, per se?
CS: (Surprised, agreeing noise.)
KI: They express that indirectly, by using ālove,ā for example, as a theme. In this series, love I guess also plays a big part, but, how do I say this, I thought I should express that in a more grandiose scale. No, rather, thatās what I wanted to do.
CS: I see. I never knew there was such a significant meaning behind it.
KI: Why, yes, itās a significant piece. I started to ā
CS: I had no idea you meant to compile all of shoujo culture when you made this.
KI: I didnāt know that at the start either! (laughter) While in the making I was like, āThatās it! I got it!ā At this point in the story itās obvious I had complete certainty.
CS: Definitely.
INTERVIEWER: At what point were you like, āI got it!ā?
KI: That wasā¦ I thought that was when the first film was done. I had no idea during the planning stage. I started to think that when we were making it, which was around the time the film was almost finished. The thing is, it took a while until the first film was made. It took almost a year from planning to until the first film was made. We kept bickering and arguing during that time, but when the first film was made ā Iām referring to when the film for the first episode was made ā I thought, this is it.
CS: Thereāre a lot of people who donāt like Utena, andā¦
KI: Bold people like that exist? (laughter)
CS: And I think the reason why they donāt like it is because ā
KI: Thereās not a lot! Itās only a few! There are only a few people who are like that!
CS: ā I think itās that theyāre immersed in the Japanese shoujo culture. But in Utena thereās this feeling of rejecting that. I think by watching this anime they can sense Mr. Ikuharaās intentions that he wanted to compile all of that.
KI: Thatās exactly it.
CS: I think their dislike comes from them not wanting it to be summed up into one.
KI: Iām sure thatās true.
CS: āThis is what we like! Donāt burst our bubble! Donāt try to sum it up like that!ā is maybe how theyāre feeling.
KI: Yes, exactly. There are parts in this anime where nuances like that are expressed.
CS: Yes, and thereās also this message saying, āThatās not a place where you should be putting yourself, so hurry up and have a self-revelation and get the hell out of there!ā at the end. (laughter) So some girls were like, āItās none of your business!ā Remember they used to have this adverse reaction to it? There were quite a few of them! People who do accept itā¦ hmā¦ I wonder! There are a lot of anime fans, of course, and devout fans who really liked this anime, but I think if normal people watched this theyād have a better understanding of it.
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