Revolutionary Girl Utena/Trivia

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• Revolutionary Girl Utena is the result of a What Could Have Been for the Sailor Moon SuperS movie. Kunihiko Ikuhara would have made the latter's Schoolgirl Lesbians as the primary characters, and some of his original ideas for the movie would eventually be repurposed for the Utena television series.
• Utena was aired on television in 1997, and Central Park Media began releasing the series on VHS in 1999. One year later marked the first DVD releases. When CPM was liquidated, the license was on the fence until 2011, when Nozomi Entertainment rescued and rereleased it.
• Acting in the Dark: Rachael Lillis, the English voice of Utena, has admitted that she has never met Sharon Becker, who voiced Anthy, despite being co-leads.
• Actor Allusion: Anthy's rabbit song in episode 7. The Japanese word for "rabbit" is "usagi", which was also the name of the main character in Sailor Moon, voiced by Juri's voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Movie is sometimes called "The End of Utena" after that other infamous Mind Screw.
  • Shiori is referred to as "the goat" by her haters.
  • Akio's '57 Corvette is known simply as the Akio Car.
    • Fans on Nico Nico Douga sometimes call it the "Yaranai-Car". If you don't get it, you're better off not asking.
  • The tower where Akio resides: The Cocktower.
  • The player character from the Utena Sega Saturn game: Mary Sue, or more affectionately, D-ko.
  • Saionji seems to be refered to as "Wakame" by Japanese fans. It's probably the hair.
  • In some circles, the manga version has the not-exactly-flattering nickname of "Utena Lite".
• God-Created Canon Foreigner: The Sega Saturn game was created by all the original TV series team, and so the two characters and the events in the game officially count as canon.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: TAJ Productions helped in the dubbing process, so many Central Park Media mainstays/later 4Kids! Entertainment voices pop up here.
  • Utena: Rachael Lillis.
  • Miki: Jimmy Zoppi.
  • Shiori: Lisa Ortiz.
  • Mitsuru: Ted Lewis.
  • Tatsuya: Frank Frankson.
  • Mikage: DAN GREEN! A sharp contrast from his usual endeavors, but still very well done.
  • Tokiko: Tara Jayne.
  • Ruka: Wayne Grayson.
  • Touga is Crispin Freeman in his second official big role (Zelgadis being his first).
  • Mamiya is Liam O'Brien in one of his earliest roles also.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: It started out this way, with literal tapes back before the show was licensed. Then when it was picked up, it turned out that Central Park Media had only bought the rights to the first 13 episodes, so fans continued doing this for the remaining episodes until the rest of the series was finally picked up years later. When CPM went out of business in 2009, the show fell into legal limbo, and fan distribution became the only way to see it outside Japan again; eventually, the Anime Network started airing the series online. And, as pointed out above, Right Stuf has begun rereleasing both the series and the movie in 2011.
• No Export for You: Subverted with the show and movie, as explained above. Played straight with the Sega Saturn game and the light novels, although fan translations do exist for those to one degree or another.
• Old Shame: Ikuhara wasn't fond of how the dub of the first episodes of Utena turned out to the point that he became much more involved in the English dub in later episodes as well as Adolescence of Utena.
• Shrug of God: Director Ikuhara is infamously unhelpful—and sometimes deliberately infuriating—when it comes to explaining things about the show and even more so regarding the movie. Don't expect much in the way of straight Word of God.
• What Could Have Been: The re-release booklet features art of a scrapped ending sequence that heavily featured Chu-Chu.