Revolutionary Girl Utena

Kunihiko Ikuhara was a director at Toei Animation on the television anime series Sailor Moon in the 1990s, co-directing its second season Sailor Moon R with Junichi Sato and serving as sole director of both the animated film Sailor Moon R: The Movie and the series' third season Sailor Moon S.[19] Frustrated by the lack of creative control in producing a series adapted from an existing work, Ikuhara departed Toei following the conclusion of Sailor Moon S in 1995 to create an original series.[20] To this end, Ikuhara assembled Be-Papas, a group of creative professionals from the anime and manga industry. Its membership consisted of Ikuhara, manga artist Chiho Saito, animator and character designer Shinya Hasegawa, scriptwriter Yōji Enokido, and planner Yūichirō Oguro.[21]

Several of the members of Be-Papas had previously worked together: Hasegawa and Enokido had previously worked with Ikuhara on Sailor Moon, where Enokido wrote many of the episodes featuring Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune;[7] Hasegawa and Enokido had also both worked on the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.[10] Saito was an established manga artist who had not previously worked with the members of Be-Papas, or in anime; Ikuhara decided to base the visuals of the series on her artwork and recruited her to Be-Papas after seeing an illustration from her manga series Magnolia Waltz on the cover of a magazine.[10][22]

The Takarazuka Revue (pictured 1954), an all-female Japanese theater troupe, was a major influence on Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Initially, Ikuhara envisioned Utena as a mainstream shōjo (girls' anime and manga) series aimed at capitalizing on the commercial success of Sailor Moon; Saito characterized the earliest discussions on Utena as focused on creating a series "that people will like and [will] be profitable".[22] The earliest concepts for Utena deviated significantly from what became the final series: an initial pitch to project financers was titled Revolutionary Girl Utena Kiss, and focused on a group of female warriors called the "Neo Elegansar" who battled "the end of the world".[23][lower-alpha 3] Per Oguro, a basic series concept of "a romantic action show starring a pretty girl who wears boys' clothes" that had a "Takarazuka style" was eventually settled on.[3] A school setting was also determined in this early concept phase, though other concepts such as the duels and the "Rose Bride" would not be formulated until later in development.[3]

Although the concept for Utena originated from Ikuhara, the series as a whole was developed collectively by Be-Papas.[21] The group entered a six-month planning period after Saito joined Be-Papas,[22] which focused on fleshing out the story and setting, as well as determining how Saito's visual style could best be imported into anime.[3] Saito also began to contemporaneously write and illustrate a manga adaptation of Utena while contributing to the development of the anime series.[21]

Utena draws inspiration from several sources – Animage described the series as "influenced by [Ikuhara's] idiosyncrasies"[21] – including the Takarazuka Revue,[9] the artwork of Jun'ichi Nakahara,[25] Hermann Hesse's novel Demian,[8] and the experimental theater of Shūji Terayama.[25] Saito cited the manga series Kaze to Ki no Uta[26] and the 1973 film adaptation of The Three Musketeers[7] as among the influences that informed her contributions to Utena. Ikuhara has stated that although he "wouldn't be able to avoid it being said" that Utena was influenced by Princess Knight and The Rose of Versailles – two shōjo manga series famous for their cross-dressing, sword-fighting heroines – throughout the development of Utena, he was possessed of an "immense fear" that the series would be seen merely as a parody of those works.[9] Saito stated that she was hired to join the otherwise all-male Be-Papas in part because they were concerned that without a female perspective they would create a parody of shōjo manga, which was not their intention.[26]

Shortly after Saito's manga adaptation of Utena began serialization in 1996, negotiations for the broadcast of the Utena television anime were settled, and production began.[3] Be-Papas served as the primary production staff for Utena, with animation production completed by the animation studio J.C.Staff.[21]

Ikuhara's ambitions for Utena shifted dramatically after the series commenced production. Believing that the series required "a unique individuality"[3] if it was to find an audience, he abandoned his previous goal of a mass-market hit in favor of more non-commercial aspirations.[8][27] To this end, he began to incorporate a variety of avant-garde elements into the series, such as theatrical-inspired layouts, a recurring shadow play segment that allegorically comments on the events of each episode, and the experimental choral music of composer J. A. Seazer.[3]

Enokido characterized the production of Utena as marked by "an agreeable sense of tension" between the members of Be-Papas.[7] As the direction of the series shifted away from its original commercial focus, production became what Oguro described as a "tug-of-war" between Saito and Ikuhara, as Saito advocated for the original romantic concept for the series over Ikuhara's new, more esoteric vision.[3] Ikuhara and Saito particularly quarreled over whether the series should depict the relationship between Utena and Anthy as a romance, and at one point during production did not speak to each other for a period of three months.[28] Saito was initially opposed, not out of an ideological opposition to depicting a same-sex romance, but because she believed the mainstream shōjo audience the series was ostensibly attempting to court would respond poorly to anything other than a male-female romance.[29] Ikuhara would conceal the extent to which he intended to present Utena and Anthy's relationship as a romance from Saito throughout production;[22] Saito ultimately expressed support for how the series presented the relationship between the characters.[28]

Key individuals involved in the production of Utena beyond the membership of Be-Papas included Shingo Kaneko and Tōru Takahashi, who served under Ikuhara as assistant directors. Kaneko described incorporating a "cinematic sensibility" for Utena that actively incorporated twists and tricks; Takahashi was initially recruited to the project as an animator by Hasegawa, as they were attending the same vocational school, but was made a director after he expressed his aspiration to do so to Ikuhara.[30] Hiroshi Nagahama was the conceptual designer for the series, designing the dueling area and the Ohtori Academy school buildings.[31] Nagahama compared the design process for Utena to creating a stage set, with a focus only on what is seen by the audience.[32] Background art was created by Shichirō Kobayashi, based on initial designs by Nagahama,[33] and Mamoru Hosoda and Takuya Igarashi were among the storyboard artists for the series.[34]

The series makes use of various stylistic flourishes, including the marking of character introductions and significant plot moments with a decorative frame.

Utena is characterized by a high degree of stylization that integrates surrealist and expressionist elements to communicate mood and convey allegorical meaning.[9][11] Enokido described a sense of "theatrical staging and presentation" as one of the core elements of Utena, while Ikuhara has stated that he wanted from the early stages of development for the series to be "operatic".[35] The series makes use of multiple stylistic flourishes, including the marking of character introductions and other significant plot moments with a decorative black frame anchored by spinning roses, which staff on the series referred to as an "attention mark".[11][36] Certain recurring segments such as Utena's entry to the dueling arena make use of long segments of animation and music that are identical (or nearly identical) from episode to episode,[11][37] as analogous to the recurring transformation scenes from Sailor Moon.[37] The duels are themselves heavily stylized, in a manner that scholar and critic Susan J. Napier notes is reminiscent of the ritualized performance style of Noh theater.[16][lower-alpha 4]

Narratively, the series has been described by critics as a deconstruction of fairy tale narratives and a subversion of the magical girl genre of shōjo manga.[38] Napier notes how the series uses the narrative and visual aesthetics of these categories, such as princes, castles, romance, beautiful boys, and beautiful girls, to "critique the illusions they offer".[39] Ikuhara has described directing certain early episodes of the series such as "On the Night of the Ball" specifically to be "uncomfortably stereotypical[ly] shōjo" to "strongly impress upon the audience that this was a 'shōjo manga anime'" and establish the tropes that the series intended to subvert.[8] In discussing his aspirations for Utena in regards to shōjo manga, Ikuhara stated that he wished to create the series as a soukatsu shite (総括して, 'summarization' or 'sum up'), an "anime that rounded up all the shōjo manga into one" and which expressed all of the broader themes of the genre in a single work.[9]

Contemporaneous with the development of the anime series, Chiho Saito wrote and illustrated a manga adaptation of Revolutionary Girl Utena, which was serialized in the manga magazine Ciao beginning in 1996.[66] Saito also published a one-shot in Ciao titled The Rose Seal which depicts Utena before to her transfer to Ohtori Academy,[36] as well as a manga adaptation of the film Adolescence of Utena in Bessatsu Shōjo Comic Special.[67] An English-language translation of the manga has been published by Viz Media,[68] which also serialized the Utena manga in its manga magazine Animerica Extra.[69]

Unlike the majority of manga series that are adapted either into or from an anime, the plots of the Utena manga and anime deviate significantly from each other.[70] These differences in plot, such as the manga's increased focus on the relationship between Utena and Touga,[66] were in part a function of the fact that Saito began to write and illustrate the manga before the anime series went into production.[70] She attempted to incorporate as much material as possible from the scripts Enokido had completed,[71] but was frequently required to use her own judgement in rendering aspects of the story that the anime would ultimately depict in an entirely different manner.[70] Animerica described the production of the manga adaptation as "one that got its inspiration largely through [Saito's] own confusion about what exactly she was supposed to show, and Ikuhara's own vague answers to her questions."[70] Saito changed editors five times during the manga's year-and-a-half long serialization as a result of the confusion around its production.[22]

A sequel to the Utena manga series, Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution, was announced in 2017 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the series.[72] Written and illustrated by Saito, the three-chapter series depicts the lives of the primary cast following their departure from Ohtori Academy, and was serialized in the manga magazine Flowers from July 2017 to March 2018.[73][74][75]

Shinkichi Mitsumune composed the score for Utena, and the songs in the series are Mitsumune's rearrangements of songs by composer J. A. Seazer.[7] Each episode typically features two songs that play as incidental music: "Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku" (transl. "Absolute Destiny Apocalypse"), which appears as a recurring theme as Utena enters the dueling arena, and a song unique to each episode that plays during the duel itself. The duel songs function similarly to a Greek chorus, commenting on the motivations of the duelists through allegorical lyrics that feature references to religious, scientific, and arcane subjects.[76] The songs are performed by a choir; Ikuhara and Mitsumune participate on some choruses.[36]

Seazer originally produced the songs featured in the series as part of his experimental theater company Engeki Jikken-Shitsu: Banyu Inryoku (lit. 'Experimental Laboratory of Theatre: Universal Gravitation').[7] Ikuhara was significantly influenced by Seazer and Tenjō Sajiki, an experimental theater company established by dramatist Shūji Terayama where Seazer served as co-director and composer; following Terayama's death, Seazer founded Banyu Inryoku as its successor.[15] Ikuhara had long sought to work with Seazer, describing the experience as "fulfill[ing] the dream I had from my teenage years",[24] but noted that the financers for Utena were strongly opposed to using Seazer's music, owing to its highly avant-garde style.[9] Seazer agreed to participate in Utena in part because he was a fan of Sailor Moon.[3]

The series' theme song is "Rondo-Revolution", written and performed by Masami Okui, and composed and arranged by Toshiro Yabuki.[77] Ikuhara told Okui to "think of this as a song that will play during the story’s last scene" when writing "Rondo-Revolution", though at the time he had not yet decided what the last scene would be beyond a vague concept of two people parting from each other.[78] Ikuhara sent several key phrases to Okui use as lyrics, including "sunlit garden", "revolutionize", "lose everything", "strip down to nothing at all", and "change the world".[78] The series uses two ending themes: episodes 1 to 24 use "Truth", performed by Luca Yumi with lyrics by Shoko Fujibayashi;[77] episodes 25 to 38 use "Virtual Star Embryology", performed by Maki Kamiya with lyrics by Seazer.[66] The final episode uses a scat version of "Rondo-Revolution" performed by Okui as its ending theme.[79]

Shortly after the conclusion of the Utena anime television series, Be-Papas announced plans to release a feature film follow-up to the series.[79] The film, titled Adolescence of Utena, was released in theaters in Japan on August 14, 1999.[67] The film occupies an ambiguous place in the broader Utena canon, and has been alternately interpreted as a stand-alone adaptation that exists in its own continuity, and as a sequel that is contiguous with the events of the anime series.[67][80]

Several musical adaptations of Utena have been produced, beginning with Comedie Musicale Utena: La Fillette Révolutionnaire in December 1997. The musical was directed by Yūji Mitsuya, staged at the Hakuhinkan Theater in Tokyo, and featured an all-female Takarazuka-inspired cast.[81] This was followed by Revolutionary Girl Utena Hell Rebirth Apocalypse: Advent of the Nirvanic Beauty in 1999 by director Ei Takatori, and Revolutionary Girl Utena: Choros Imaginary Living Body in 2000, which starred AKB48 member Mayu Watari as Utena.[82]

A series of 2.5D musical adaptations were announced in 2017 as part of a commemoration project to mark the 20th anniversary of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime.[83] The first musical, Revolutionary Girl Utena: Bud of the White Rose, was staged in 2018 and adapts the Student Council Saga from the original anime.[84] A sequel adapting the Black Rose Saga, Revolutionary Girl Utena: Blooming Rose of Deepest Black, was staged in 2019, with the cast and director of Bud of the White Rose reprising their roles.[85]

Ikuhara has discussed the early stage adaptations of Utena in ambivalent terms, stating that "it looks extremely cheesy" when the theatrical visuals of Utena are rendered as literal theater.[79] He served as a supervisor on the 2018 and 2019 musicals,[84] noting that he had previously refused multiple offers to adapt Utena into a 2.5D musical, but relented after a producer convinced him that it would be a good way to introduce the series to a younger generation.[86]

Two light novels written by Ichirō Ōkouchi with illustrations by Chiho Saito, titled Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Aoi no Futaki (少女革命ウテナ – 蒼の双樹, lit. 'Revolutionary Girl Utena: Twin Saplings') and Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Midori no Omoi (少女革命ウテナ – 翠の思い, lit. 'Revolutionary Girl Utena: Verdant Hopes'), were published by Shogakukan in 1997 and 1998, respectively.[87][88] A video game, Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Itsuka Kakumeisareru Monogatari (少女革命ウテナ いつか革命される物語, lit. 'Revolutionary Girl Utena: Story of the Someday Revolution'), was developed and published by Sega for the Sega Saturn in 1998.[89] A visual novel with dating sim elements, the game tells an original story about the player character (voiced by Kaoru Fujino), a transfer student at Ohtori Academy. The voice cast of the anime series reprise their roles for the game.[90]

Utena's desire to "become a prince" does not refer to a literal desire to become royalty or change her gender, but rather to her desire to exhibit qualities of courage, compassion, and strength that represent an ideal of princeliness.[91][92] "Being a prince" thus constitutes a body of ideas connoting a sense of heroic agency, rather than a reflection of Utena's gender identity or presentation.[91][93] The series contrasts the notion of the "prince" to that of the "princess", represented by the passive, helpless, and objectified Anthy.[91]

Although the simple juxtaposition of prince and princess archetypes could suggest that Utena is a straightforward "feminist fairy tale",[94] Napier argues that the series "is not simply a work of female empowerment".[95] Napier and other critics argue that Utena uses the prince/princess dichotomy to examine how gender roles restrict the development of both women and men, how the victims of this system come to enforce these restrictions on other victims, and ultimately suggests that being a "prince" is as limiting as being a "princess", as both originate from the same restrictive system.[95][96][97] This expression reaches its apex at the climax of the series, when Utena loses her final duel against Akio; though Utena ostensibly fails in her princely attempt to "save" Anthy, her actions cause Anthy to "question the rules governing her own performance as princess", and provokes her departure from Ohtori to a world where "the categories of prince and princess have been deconstructed and do not matter".[98]

In considering depictions of gender in Utena, critic Mari Kotani cites the character of Utena as an example of a sentô bishōjo (lit. 'battling beauty'), a character archetype originated by psychologist and critic Tamaki Saitō.[99] Kotani argues that Utena is a bishōjo as her character design "satisfies the lustful eyes of the male voyeur who reads manga for eroticized images of girls", but that any efforts to objectify Utena are complicated by her crossdressing and role as an active protagonist. She argues that the success of Utena lies in its blending of elements of shōnen (through its focus on combat) and shōjo (through its focus on romance) vis-à-vis the character of Utena, and how this blending "deftly exposes the structure of sexuality implicit in manga for girls".[100]

The Student Council's mantra is a modified passage from Hermann Hesse's 1919 bildungsroman novel Demian.

Adolescence and its attendant struggles of personal growth and development are a common theme in Ikuhara's works, with a frequent focus on teenaged characters who seek personal change yet are bound to their pasts in ways they are not consciously aware of.[97] This focus on the transition from adolescence implicates Utena in the bildungsroman genre;[6] the Student Council's repeated mantra in which they entreat each other to "crack the world's shell" is a modified passage from Hermann Hesse's 1919 novel Demian, a major work of the bildungsroman genre.[8][101] Typically, characters in Ikuhara's works seek a MacGuffin-like device that purports to solve their struggles by accelerating the process of change; in Utena, this is represented as the "end of the world".[102][lower-alpha 5] The device is ultimately revealed to be either unreal or lacking the power that is ascribed to it, but serves to symbolically represent how the characters are constrained by broader systems of power and coercion.[102]

The actual meaning of the "end of the world" is never strictly defined by the series itself, though Ikuhara has discussed the concept in terms of adolescent psychology, connoting the sense of despair one feels upon reaching adulthood and becoming aware of social realities that disillusion an idealized child-like conception of the world.[25] The "end of the world" is contrasted against the "power to revolutionize the world" and the "power of eternity", also defined only in vague terms within the series,[103] though Ikuhara has described "revolution" in the context of the series as connoting "the power to imagine the future", and "eternity" as "the power to create an enjoyable future".[8] Enokido has noted how each of the characters in Utena seek their own version of "eternity", which he describes as representing the "desire to vicariously re-experience times past", but which ultimately symbolizes the danger of humans being "ruled by sentimentality".[3]

Utena depicts multiple gay and lesbian couplings, all of which are treated as legitimate and normal within the world of the series itself.[91] Ikuhara has stated that he wished for the series to have "a sense of diversity" in this regard, and that the series' normalized depiction of same-sex couples serves to reinforce the core series message of freedom of the self.[104] The series' depiction of sexuality has been considered in relation to its subversion of fairy tale and magical girl tropes, as the trials Utena faces often occur in the context of efforts to pressure her into the "heroic heterosexuality and monogamy"[105] typical of those genres.[106]

Napier argues that although Utena's depiction of same-sex couplings can be interpreted as indicating that "homoerotic relationships can be part of liberation", the relationship between Utena and Anthy can also be interpreted as a metaphor for "the need for integration of two sides of the self".[107] Utena's chivalrous desire to "save" Anthy gives her a blinkered perspective that is only resolved through an archetypically feminine understanding of and empathy for Anthy's situation; Anthy's regressive domesticity is ameliorated after she gains "a dose of masculine assertiveness".[107] Napier notes that while Akio's relationship with Anthy is clearly toxic, the series depicts Utena's overt effort to "save" Anthy as itself cloying and overwhelming, and that it is only when Anthy makes the choice herself to leave Ohtori Academy that she begins on the path to develop "a more integrated personality".[107]

• Revolutionary Girl Utena — J.C.Staff official Utena page (in Japanese)
• Revolutionary Girl Utena — King Records official Utena page (in Japanese)
• Revolutionary Girl Utena — 2018 stage musical official website (in Japanese)

• Revolutionary Girl Utena at IMDb
• Revolutionary Girl Utena (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Revolutionary Girl Utena (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Empty Movement, a comprehensive fan website