is a Japanese anime television series created by Be-Papas, a production group formed by director Kunihiko Ikuhara and composed of himself, Chiho Saito, Shinya Hasegawa, Yōji Enokido and Yūichirō Oguro. The series was produced by J.C.Staff and originally aired on TV Tokyo from April to December 1997. Revolutionary Girl Utena follows Utena Tenjou, a teenaged girl who is drawn into a sword dueling tournament to win the hand of Anthy Himemiya, a mysterious girl known as the "Rose Bride" who possesses the "power to revolutionize the world".
Ikuhara was a director on the anime adaptation of Sailor Moon at Toei Animation in the 1990s; after growing frustrated by the lack of creative control in directing an adapted work, he departed the company in 1996 to create an original series. While he initially conceived of Utena as a mainstream Shōjo manga| (girls' anime and manga) series aimed at capitalizing on the commercial success of Sailor Moon, the direction of the series shifted dramatically during production towards an avant-garde and surrealist tone. The series has been described as a deconstruction and subversion of fairy tales and the magical girl genre of manga, making heavy use of allegory and symbolism to comment on themes of gender, sexuality, and coming-of-age. Its visual and narrative style is characterized by a sense of theatrical presentation and staging, drawing inspiration from the all-female Japanese theater troupe the Takarazuka Revue, as well as the experimental theater of Shūji Terayama, whose frequent collaborator J. A. Seazer created the songs featured in the series.
Revolutionary Girl Utena has been the subject of worldwide critical acclaim, and has received many accolades. It has been praised for its treatment of LGBT themes and subject material, and has influenced subsequent animated works. A manga adaptation of Utena written and illustrated by Saito was developed contemporaneously with the anime series, and was serialized in the manga magazine Ciao beginning in 1996. In 1999, Be-Papas produced the film Adolescence of Utena as a follow-up to the television anime series. The series has had several iterations of physical release, including a remaster overseen by Ikuhara in 2008. In North America, Utena was initially distributed by Central Park Media starting in 1998; the license for the series has been held by Crunchyroll since its 2023 acquisition of Right Stuf and its subsidiary Nozomi Entertainment, which acquired the license for Utena in 2010.
Plot
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Revolutionary Girl Utena is divided into three story arcs: the "Student Council Saga" (episodes 1–12), the "Black Rose Saga" (episodes 13–24), and the "Apocalypse Saga" (episodes 25–39).
As a child, Utena Tenjou was given a rose-engraved signet ring by a traveling prince, who promised her that they would one day meet again. Inspired by the encounter, Utena vowed to one day "become a prince" herself. Years later, a teenaged Utena is a student at Ohtori Academy, an exclusive boarding school. She finds herself drawn into a sword dueling tournament with the school's Student Council, whose members wear signet rings identical to her own. The duelists compete to win the hand of Anthy Himemiya, a mysterious student known as the "Rose Bride" who is said to possess the "power to revolutionize the world". Utena emerges victorious in her first duel; obliged to defend her position as the Rose Bride's fiancée, she remains in the tournament to protect Anthy from those who seek the power of the Rose Bride for themselves.
After dueling and achieving victory over the council, Utena is confronted by Souji Mikage, a student prodigy who uses his powers of persuasion and knowledge of psychology to manipulate others into becoming duelists. Mikage aims to kill Anthy to install Mamiya Chida, a terminally ill boy, as the Rose Bride. Utena defeats each of Mikage's duelists, and ultimately Mikage himself. Following his defeat, Mikage vanishes from Ohtori Academy, and the denizens of the school seemingly forget that he ever existed. It transpires that Akio Ohtori, the school's chairman and Anthy's brother, was using Mikage as part of a plot to obtain the "power of eternity". Mamiya was in truth a disguised Anthy, who assisted Akio in his manipulation of Mikage.
Akio appears before each of the Student Council members, and takes them to a place he refers to as "the end of the world". Following their encounters with Akio, each of the Council members face Utena in rematches. Utena defeats the Council members once more, and is called to the dueling arena to meet the prince from her past. She discovers that the prince was Akio, and that he intends to use her and Anthy to gain the power of eternity for himself. Utena duels Akio to free Anthy from his influence; Anthy, complicit in her brother's scheme, intervenes and stabs Utena through the back. Akio attempts and fails to open the sealed gate that holds the power; a gravely injured Utena pries the gate open, where she discovers Anthy inside. Utena reaches out to her, and they briefly join hands as the dueling arena crumbles around them.
Utena vanishes from Ohtori Academy, and all save for Akio and Anthy begin to forget her existence. Akio comments that Utena failed to bring about a revolution, and that he intends to begin a new attempt to attain the power of eternity; Anthy responds that Utena has merely left Ohtori Academy, and that she intends to do the same. Anthy solemnly vows to find Utena, and departs from Akio and the school.
Characters
thumb|upright=1.1|The primary cast of Revolutionary Girl Utena, illustrated by Shinya Hasegawa based on designs by Chiho Saito|alt=A collaged image of nine anime figures
Most of the characters in Utena are school-aged adolescents whose character arcs focus on their psychological and moral growth into adulthood, in the tradition of a bildungsroman or coming-of-age story. Series writer Yōji Enokido identified characters who reckon with the transition from youth to maturity by attempting to regress and "take back what they can't ever return" as a major theme for the series, and director Kunihiko Ikuhara stated that he developed the cast of Utena using the self-described rule to "never give a character only one personality".
The character designs for the series were created by Chiho Saito based on direction from Ikuhara,