Revolutionary Girl Utena/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement:
    • This wiki used to have this series listed as Anime First because Chiho Saito was the last member to join Be-PaPas — which may be true, but the manga was being published several months before the anime started airing, which is referenced by Saito-sensei in the early volumes. It's also worth noting that many tropes that are deconstructed in the anime series are played much straighter in the manga.
    • Many people have only seen the (very wildly alternate universe) film version, partly because it's easier to find on torrent sites and partly because it was the only version released in places like the UK (and, okay, it's known for its Fan Service as well). It's also been shown at some LGBT film festivals, giving it exposure outside the anime fandom.
    • The series was partly based on the novel Demian by Hermann Hesse, which most anime fans wouldn't know because it's never mentioned ANYWHERE EVER. Particularly, the egg speech is a direct reference... expect anything else which references the egg speech to be assumed to be referencing Utena.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Some fans view Akio as as much a victim of circumstances as Anthy. If applied in fanfiction, this usually results in him getting the Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
    • And let's not get started on Anthy, who can be seen as anything from the most pitiable character most deserving of love and acceptance to a Complete Monster who didn't get NEARLY what was deserved, or even a bit of both. And it's been said that Anthy in many ways is something of a mirror to the audience, and that how individuals see the character reflects their own viewpoint, which also happens in series. The fourth wall sure is flexible in Utena.
    • The different versions themselves have been claimed to be alternate interpretations of Utena, with the manga as Chiho Saito's vision, the movie as Kunihiko Ikuhara's vision, and the TV series as a compromise between the two; there's also the manga adaptation of the movie, which is Saito's own spin on it, and the light novels, which were written by someone else entirely. Characterisation varies wildly between all these versions, to the point where the differences between portrayals of any given character can be quite jarring.
    • And just to prove once again how flexible the fourth wall is in Utena, the Akio that wants to keep Anthy in the academy's world in the movie is Anthy's own Alternative Character Interpretation (of sorts) of the real guy that died ages ago. Something similar seems to be the case with Touga.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: When the series and film were relicensed by Right Stuf for a new DVD release in 2011, quite a few sighs of relief could be heard from fans who had not been able to purchase the old DVDs. And from those who had been able to purchase the series before, but found Central Park Media's releases to be sub-par, Right Stuf's relicensing of the series came with the announcement that they'll be using the remastered video from the Japanese rerelease of the series.
  • Awesome Music: Many of the duelling themes, plus a good chunk of the movie soundtrack.
  • Base Breaker: Anthy, Anthy, Anthy... see Alternative Character Interpretation above and Internet Backdraft below for the details. Also, depending on what part of the fandom you're looking at, Touga can be anything from an over-princified Draco in Leather Pants to a much-loathed Scrappy.
  • Complete Monster: Akio.
  • Crack Pairing: Miki/Juri has some vocal fan support. As far as crack pairings go, this is a somewhat reasonable one (the characters interact on a regular basis, move in the same social/extracurricular circles, and, of the Student Council members, seem to get along the best). What makes it crack is Juri's canonical lesbianism (at least in the series; she teases him in the movie and is straight in the manga).
  • Cry for the Devil: Akio is as much of a victim as anyone else in the series despite being the Big Bad. Though it's debatable whether Akio or Dios was the victim.
  • Ear Worm: The opening song "Rinbu Revolution", along with many BGM tracks (especially "Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku").
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Juri is one of the most popular characters by far.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Akio.
  • Fan Wank: There's a small group of people who think every single thing that Anthy does in the series is manipulative and for ulterior motives. Yes, even getting (re-)stabbed with a million swords in the last episode. Yes, even when Anthy disappears behind the coffin and reaches out for Utena's hand. All this is supposed to be an act to make Utena feel sorry for her so Anthy can have a prince to manipulate forever so the Rose Bride can finally leave Ohtori. While Anthy is very manipulative and much of her actions in the series are malicious, the above interpretation contains several logic bombs: 1.) If Anthy wants a prince to save her from Ohtori, she could've refused to betray Utena in the penultimate episode because Utena was already doing everything in her power to help Anthy get out of Ohtori. Anthy's actions make no sense unless you interpret Anthy as being hesitant about leaving. 2.) As the series points out, it's not a lack of a prince or any inherent magic which prevents the Rose Bride from leaving Ohtori; it's the Rose Bride's own personal choice to stay. Utena's feelings for Anthy, or Anthy's lack of a prince, have nothing to do with magically binding her to the duels.
    • Don't forget the speculation that young Anthy rapes young Dios in flashblack, simply due to the fact that the two of them take shelter in a barn (as per the English double-entendre "rolling in the hay"). Supporters of this particular Tree insist that Anthy was waiting for the "perfect moment" to "taint" her brother and "claim him for herself", forgetting that this is the same Anthy who took thousands of stab wounds to keep him, and neglecting to explain at all why anyone (much less a small girl) would stop to rape their older brother when being chased by a sword-wielding mob.
  • Fan Hater: Utena sadly started to get the reputation of a good show having an absolutely irredeemable fandom as the 2010s went along. They come in two flavors, so pick your poison: the first group are the radical leftist feminists/SJWs who see Utena as a "girlboss" character fighting the evil patriarchy, while the other are the rabid Yuri Fans who make every single discussion of the show having to revolve around the idea of Anthy and Utena being together (which, while having some credibility, especially in the movie which has a stark-naked Anthy and Utena French kiss each other, really isn't the main draw of the show).
  • Faux Symbolism: Various weird visual cues, the most common being rotating stylized roses, which don't appear to have any particular meaning. Ikuhara doesn't help either: he gives vague, non sequitur comments like saying the Shadow Girls are aliens (which would explain the repeated flying saucer imagery in their performances...). On the other hand, the pointing fingers in episode 22 seem to stand for Ship Tease.
  • Freud Was Right: Lots. Take Akio's car for example. Or his tower, or his projector, or... let's just say Akio provides the majority of this.
  • Growing the Beard: The first arc is fairly generic and lighthearted, and despite common mentions of End of the World, it hardly feels like a massive shadow is looming in the background. In the Black Rose Saga, however, things get a lot more sinister and weird.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The scene in the movie where Anthy convinces Utena to let her sketch her in the nude actually came out the same year as Titanic, which had the same infamous scene ("Draw me like one of your French girls").
    • Apparently Akio's car is a corvette. Now what color is his corvette?
    • Touga's actor Takehito Koyasu also voiced Prince Hans in the Japanese dub of Frozen. Guess brutal deconstructions of Knight in Shining Armor princes are kind of his thing.
    • The preview of episode 17 features Juri's romantic attraction to Shiori sailing right over Utena's head. The English dub team would make the exact same mistake.
    • In episode 31, Akio tells Nanami that Ohtori campus rule 34 forbids students from sleeping in the quarters of other students, but she's welcome to stay at his place. Rule 34 you say...
  • Internet Backdraft: MULTIPLE.
    • Say that you do NOT necessarily think Utena is the most important, groundbreaking, perfect, complex and unique Shoujo series ever. Prepare to be slain by the Utena fandom.
    • Try bringing up the four different Utena canons: the TV series, the manga by Chiho Saitou, the Adolescence Mokushiroku movie and the manga based on The Movie. Within seconds, fans that support one of these medias will try to murder the fans who prefer the others. In particular, may God help you if you happen to prefer the first manga over the series; in fact, having a positive opinion of Saitou at all can get you slapped by those who think she's a homophobic so-and-so.
    • We also dare you to ever insinuate you don't ship Utena/Anthy. The Utena/Anthy rabid fans will tear you alive and accuse you of being an homophobe, regardless of your stance on LGBT rights on Real Life. On the other hand, referring to Utena as a yuri series can be controversial in itself, depending on which corner of the fandom you're looking at.
    • Speaking of LGBT matters, discussing the characters' sexual orientations can be a messy affair. (Is Utena straight, bisexual or lesbian? Is Touga straight or bi? Could Shiori ever reciprocate Juri's feelings for her? And so on.) Wherever you stand, blood is gonna fly.
    • Anthy Himemiya herself is the biggest Base Breaker in the fandom. There's no middle ground on a character as complex as she is, specially on her relationship with Akio and her stabbing Utena at the end. Is she a person who is broken beyond belief after a millennium of pain and abuse, or a Manipulative Bitch who played everyone as fools as either her revenge for said millennium of pain and abuse, or as her way to grasp power for herself and torture everyone (Akio included)? Either way, don't ask: the mere mention of Anthy can send everyone into hategasms or lovegasms.
    • Do not bring up a certain scene from episode 33 on Tumblr. You'll regret it.
    • If you say you like Mawaru Penguindrum better than Utena, you shall be marked for a painful death.
  • Iron Woobie: Utena. She gets hit with a lot of manipulation and betrayal over the course of the series, but still manages to rise up again every time.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Mikage cruelly used the Black Rose Duelists (many of them were very troubled kids who desperately needed outlets and support: he listened to them, and then manipulated their feelings to recruit 'em), but his past was really heartbreaking.
    • Nanami qualifies big time by episodes 31 and 32. She's such a terrible, obsessive, yet ultimately pitiful little bitch.
    • Shiori, what with her whole inferiority complex driving her to lash out at those around her because she thinks no one could possibly genuinely like her. Then being humiliated by Ruka, the first person to make her feel, for once, good about herself.
    • Really, nearly everyone can fit here to one degree or another, barring Akio and those characters who are already The Woobie. 90% of the cast is violently off their rocker. Good luck holding it against them.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Name one major character who is not (example: Touga; there's Touga/Utena, Touga/Saionji, Touga/Nanami, Touga/Akio, Touga/Miki, Touga/Juri... Touga/Anthy is a bit of a stretch, but it still exists).
  • Magnificent Bastard: Akio, also a Manipulative Bastard. Touga aspires to be like him. Ruka tries to be one for altruistic reasons. Saionji tries as well... and fails miserably.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Those who think Anthy is nothing but a Damsel in Distress forget her convoluted machinations and deep resentment of humans in general. Those who think Anthy is nothing but a Wicked Witch forget that fear and anger is likely going to be the typical reaction of a person stabbed by a million swords and faced with eternal torture. Both of these viewpoints are also represented in-universe as well by different characters, indicating that they knew full well how people were probably going to react to her.
  • Narm:
    • The Series
      • "I understand. Your only choice is to revolutionize the world." World revolution is an answer to all problems! Dislike your fiance's sister? Are jealous of your brother's growing friendship with another girl? Worry not, for the world revolution will help you!
      • Kozue and Anthy's car scene in one episode is kind of funny since out of nowhere Kozue appears to start seducing Anthy, inappropriately right during Miki's and Utena's duel.
      • The sheer number of times Akio and other guys get random Shirtless Scenes for no reason at all.
        • That one's actually so narmy that it was hilariously lampooned in the OP of the Sega videogame: Akio and Toga take off their shirts in extremely hammy ways, then a mortified-looking Saionji sighs and opens his own.
      • Nanami once says about Anthy "This girl scares me." And Anthy says "I do? Thanks so much! ^_^"
      • The sheer number of times someone gets slapped, particularly Anthy.
      • After the infamous Cantarella scene in episode 37, in which Anthy and Utena both claim to have poisoned the other, they partake in their treats anyway.

Anthy: This tea is delicious.
Utena: So is this cookie.

      • Utena punching Mikage and calling him a son of a bitch. It wasn't supposed to be a funny scene, but listening to the dub, I can't stop hearing Misty from Pokemon when she says it, since Rachael Lillis voiced both girls.
        • Because of the rather stiff and careful (almost rhythmic) delivery the actors were directed to use, there are lots of moments of narm in the dub. Too many to count to the point that they occur in pretty much every other scene. Watching the series with the dub is actually quite a surreal experience, and arguably magnifies the show's unique bizarre qualities.
    • The Movie
      • Utena out of nowhere turning into a car is both this and Narm Charm.
      • Shiori-car's appearance in the movie, where she says, in so many words, "You think you'll get away because Utena's a car? Well I'm a car too! Mwahahaha!"
        • Add the fact that the seats of Shiori-car are pink and frilly.
      • Akio scooting across the bonnet of a car on his butt. Twice. With a sparkly sound effect the second time round. It's actually pretty hilarious.
        • It was hilarious for Akio's voice actor (Mitsuhiro Oikawa) as well. At one point, Ikuhara reminisced in an interview about how many takes it involved for Oikawa to actually make the "Toh!" sound genuine instead of silly.
      • While Akio's death is supposed to come off as dramatic, some people found it extremely hilarious, as evidenced by Jesuotaku and Oancitizen's co-op review of it and the photoset linked here.
  • Narm Charm: The opening for the Utena Sega Saturn game. Some may want some Brain Bleach for it though.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: The Monty Python-esque "Nanami Cow" segment in The Movie.
    • A lot of the shadow plays in the series.
    • Nanami's Egg episode... the whole thing.
  • Older Than They Think: Utena makes heavy use of tropes and visual elements from classic shoujo series such as Rose of Versailles, most of which were not familiar to American audiences before the popularity of this series.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • Mrs. Ohtori, and how! Despite having around a minute and a half total screentime, we're told everything we need to know about her in that time. There's even a fanlisting for her that analyzes her appearance.
    • Ruka Tsuchiya.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Shiori Takatsuki gets this a lot. While even her fans would agree that she is a heavily flawed person, her haters often make her out to be a Complete Monster, some even calling her worse than Akio. The fanbase, especially Juri and Ruka fans, often ignore that Shiori isn't just a monster who torments Juri For the Evulz, and that Juri contributes just as much to their broken relationship as she does. In fact, Shiori actually tries to make amends when she returns, only for Juri to refuse to listen out of bitterness. She also gets called a monster for what she did as a Black Rose Duelist (ignoring that she was no different than Kozue and Wakaba) and some even say she deserved being humiliated by Ruka.
  • The Scrappy: Shiori is easily one of the most hated characters in the fandom, to the point where even members of staff disliked her. Nanami is also rather unpopular in her own right. Ironically, they're two of Ikuhara's personal favourites.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped:
    • Strictly defined gender roles are crap. Those who believe they can do something should not let societal norms stop you. Also, you don't have to be imprisoned by your family; if they bring you down, and you can't help them, well, better save yourself.
    • Abuse isn't always apparent or easy to identify. Also you often can't rescue someone from an abusive relationship... they have to do it themselves.
    • Don't hate on women, and double if you're a woman yourself. Because a woman who hates other women will never be able to love herself.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks:
    • Akio's... makeover for the movie was not well received, to say the least. There's some Fridge Brilliance in his more pathetic portrayal, but try telling that to the rabid Akio fans...
    • Movie!Anthy's redesign has also gotten some flack, including accusations of whitewashing due to the changes in her hair and skintone (though she's still clearly not white or Japanese; her slightly paler skin is an unfortunate side effect of the altered color palette, and her straight hair contrasts with movie!Utena's wavy hair as an indication of their subtle role reversal).
    • Though the issues surrounding her skin might lie more on the fact that a clearly darker skinned character—in the series—being lightened quite a few shades more to fit a type of palette insinuates the fact that dark skin couldn't fit the color scheme of the movie and for many, finding dark skinned women characters shown in a positive light in media is already difficult is as, making the flack pretty understandable.
    • The movie itself gets this too. While there are plenty of legitimate criticisms, a lot of reasons for Utena fans hating it can be summed up as "it's not a carbon copy of the series."
  • Unfortunate Implications: The dark-skinned girl is the resident Butt Monkey and is usually in a subservient position to the other characters. Not only that but she is also sought after almost as an object by the members of the Student Council. Similarly, most of the male characters act towards the female characters in ways that would never, ever be acceptable or appropriate in real life. Of course, knowing Ikuhara and his love of Deconstruction, this was entirely deliberate.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • Anthy hits this hard in America, where a dark-skinned person being treated as property by light-skinned people brings up some uncomfortable cultural memories that Japan doesn't have (and where dark skin color typically indicates that someone is Indian, for whom these aren't stereotypes, especially not in Japan).
    • Chigusa's backstory involving her rage at Masaomi choosing the girly Koto over her, and her subsequent hatred of passive, feminine girls, from the video game makes more sense when one considers how strict Japanese gender roles are (especially since her story took place in the past, when they were even stricter). Her dominant personality and masculine interests are seen as "undesirable" and something to pressure girls out of in Japan, and her height, which of course she can't help, would be seen as extremely intimidating. Chigusa was not just lashing out that a guy chose another girl over her, but lashing out because it seemed everything about her being undesirable was confirmed.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Yes, Miki is a guy, regardless of his incredibly feminine voice.
  • Villain Decay: In spite of most of its members being manipulative and abusive, the Student Council become more benign and even sympathetic as the series progresses. Though they're still all pretty Royally Screwed-Up.
    • Meta example: series-Akio versus movie-Akio. The former is an inscrutable and seemingly invincible Magnificent Bastard. The latter falls out a window after trying to rape a seemingly asleep Anthy.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The movie in general is gorgeous, but this trope is why everyone remembers the dancing scene (besides the yuri).
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Both the series and the film, but especially the film.
  • The Woobie:
    • Oh, Anthy.
    • Oh, Kanae.
    • Wakaba's Black Rose duel Just... Wakaba's duel.
    • Oh, everyone.
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