Revolutionary Girl Utena/YMMV: Difference between revisions

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* [[Adaptation Displacement]]:

** 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.

* [[Fan Wank]]: There's a small group of people who think ''every single thing {{spoiler|that Anthy}} does in the series'' is manipulative and for ulterior motives. {{spoiler|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}}. {{spoiler|While Anthy}} is very manipulative and much of her actions in the series are malicious, the above interpretation contains several logic bombs: 1.) If {{spoiler|Anthy}} wants a prince to save her from Ohtori, she could've {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|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 [[Epileptic Trees|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}}.

* [[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.

* [[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?

** 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.

** 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.

*** 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.

{{quote|Anthy: This tea is delicious.

*** 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.

**** 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 {{spoiler|Akio's death}} is supposed to come off as dramatic, [https://web.archive.org/web/20120726070234/http://bewareohmortalsouls.tumblr.com/post/19157571494/minty-arisato-u-ok-akio-i-would-kill-for-a some people found it extremely hilarious], as evidenced by Jesuotaku and Oancitizen's co-op review of it and the photoset linked here.

* [[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.

* [[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.

** [[Rescued from the Scrappy Heap]]: Many end up [[Jerkass Woobie|pitying Nanami too much]] to hate her anymore by episodes 31 and 32.

* [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]]:

** 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]]:

** 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.

* [[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]]:

** Oh, ''Anthy''.

** Oh, '''''Kanae'''''.

** Oh, ''everyone''.