Info
- Title:: Shoujo Kakumei Utena
- TitleEN:: Revolutionary Girl Utena
- Studio:: J.C.Staff
- Year:: 1997
- Format:: Series
- Episodes:: 39
Log
2015-03-XX
and gobbled it the fuck up
utena syndrome: when someone loves something so much they aspire to become that. i’m surprised there’s no literature on the phenomenon. pygmalion got its own effect why can’t utena?
also god damn the architecture is so good
2023-04-04 – 2023-06-10 chloe
Episode 1: The Rose Bride - 2023-04-04
god i forgot how much i love the presentation here…
also i do find it kinda funny that chloe and i just went from one anime where the plot is predicated on getting married because you won a contest to another.
Episode 2: For Whom the Rose Smiles
all the girls are gay for utena, and why wouldn’t they be?
then again, as chloe remarked during one of these episodes, nobody here is straight. everyone is at least a little bi.
Episode 3: On the Night of the Ball
featuring nanami: fakest bitch in the game.
Episode 4: The Sunlit Garden Prelude
oh no what if miki ends up being what i became…
“he sounds nice"
"that’s true… but does he want her for the right reasons?”
Episode 5: The Sunlit Garden Finale
wherein the virgin meets the chad and all of his insecurities get brought to light all at once.
i… i feel like i could’ve related once upon a time, and still might somewhat, even though i am happily engaged to someone who i don’t think could ever be stolen away.
(even if i wonder if she worries that someone else could come along to steal me away)
miki is i think a really interesting character because he’s definitely working through shit. he’s come to idealize his sister for reasons that might be inherent in himself yet he places onto her because he doesn’t really see much value in himself (maybe).
Episode 6: Take Care, Miss Nanami - 2023-04-11
can nanami be our problematic fave?
can we stan a girl who seduces a young boy in an attempt to make her big brother – her true love – jealous?
tsuwabuki really deserved better though…
(but i like how he didn’t really want to be her boyfriend either)
Episode 7: Unfulfilled Juri
hell yeah canon lesbian time.
though i can’t help but wonder if the trio’s power dynamic here is supposed to be similar to the one found in No Exit…
Episode 8: Curried High Trip
ok i feel like this might’ve been the first strictly goofers episode in the show so far…
like even episodes 3 and 6 had character exposition – even if that exposition was mostly about how much of a slimeball nanami is – but what did we really learn about anyone here? that sayonji has a sketchy diary? that nanami can’t help being trampled by wild animals?
i still found it funny though, so it doesn’t matter much in the end.
Episode 9: The Castle Said to Hold Eternity - 2023-04-23 ★
wow compulsory heterosexuality is such a trip.
it makes me think that if everyone accepted that they were just a little gay than a lot of their problems would be solved.
(…and incidentally, the problem in this one is solved by utena being just a little gay)
Episode 10: Nanami’s Precious One
wherein we discover nanami’s “tragic” backstory.
Episode 11: Gracefully Cruel; The One Who Picks Up the Flower
honestly? i think losing anthy is the right thing to happen to utena, and is the right way to develop her character here.
she is not immune to the mythos. she is not immune to wanting to have a damsel to save, and therein live out the narrative she wishes for herself.
Episode 12: For Friendship, Perhaps - 2023-04-30
wherein utena realizes she misses her wife and wants to get her back.
…except it’s more like she wants to get her “old self” back.
it’s hard to say if her motivation is truly rooted in wanting anthy for her own sake, or if she’s once again using anthy as a tool to fulfill her own needs.
but maybe both can be true
(and anyway she’s a way better partner to her than touga…)
Episode 13: Tracing a Path
leave it to utena to have a recap episode that just raises more questions.
Episode 14: The Boys of the Black Rose
new arc time! give it up for the boyyyyys
Episode 15: The Landscape Framed By Kozue - 2023-05-07
you know, i have to wonder how many people would admit to, if not wanting to fuck their sibling, at least being open to it.
Episode 16: Cowbell of Happiness
oh nice i was looking forward to this episode! …though i remembered it being later.
i feel like, as filler episodes go, this one doesn’t take itself too seriously at all, but it also takes nanami’s psyche and pushes it almost past the point of parody. truthfully somebody could sell her an invisible jacket if the box had the logo of a prestigious brand on it, and i’m sure the fans would love to see her wear that too.
(i was also excited to show this one to chloe, because the idea of being collared with a bell is relevant to her interests too)
Episode 17: Thorns of Death
oh to fall in love with someone who is fickle with her feelings.
oh to fall in love with someone who is just outright toxic, honestly.
though i think both episode 15 and here, when they’re in the elevator and pushed to move deeper and deeper into their feelings, they stop before the real juicy stuff comes out. i feel like, if they were pushed harder, they’d hit a real intense point of self-realization and maybe they’ll come to the conclusion that they should kiss this person who is monopolizing their thoughts. i think that if they all just kissed then a lot of these problems would just be solved.
meanwhile, utena is in an interesting situation because her character development has essentially plateaued since episode 12. she has her wife, she has her friends, she’s really just vibing now. and life is good for her except for every so often when she gets dragged into some other person’s baggage and is forced to duel about it.
this also means that, for the time being, she’s kind of the straight man character here.
Episode 18: Mitsuru’s Growing Pains - 2023-05-13
i don’t know if it’s fair to say that nanami groomed him – rather, it’s kinda like he went and groomed himself.
Episode 19: Song of a Fallen Kingdom
wow that dude just went from zero to toxic instantly.
honestly this is probably also what purity route is about.
Episode 20: Wakaba Flourishing
the romance of taking care of a deadbeat.
wakaba also has the cutest pair of sheep mugs and i want to have those for chloe and i…
(though chloe already has a sheep mug, so she can drink from her sheep mug and i can drink from my cat mug and we both can be happy~)
Episode 21: Troublesome Insects - 2023-05-21
Episode 22: Nemuro Memorial Hall
this is as good a way of wrapping up the arc as any. though for chloe, this raised the question of, once all this is done and over with, will reality warp to make none of this ever happen?
or, did we spend the whole time watching something that then became immediately retconned?
my take is that it’s hard to assume that what goes on in this academy can ever be considered to be fully representational of real reality anyway
Episode 23: Qualifications of a Duelist
Episode 24: The Secret Nanami Diary
tsuwabuki is a sweet shota, strange obsessions aside.
though i can’t believe all three of them have now seen tsuwabuki’s cock and balls.
if only we all could be so lucky
Episode 25: Their Eternal Apocalypse
and now we’re onto the car arc
i will say that them moving to pulling the sword out of utena herself seems thematically important in that it’s one fewer way in that she’s outright using anthy to obtain power. rather, drawing her power becomes a cooperative experience between the two of them… which is very yuri.
Episode 26: Miki’s Nest Box (The Sunlit Garden Arrange)
oh no miki don’t be a heel.
Episode 27: Nanami’s Egg - 2023-05-28
you know, the cowbell episode was a good exploration of nanami in that it showed the extent that she would go if presented with something she believes will make her superior to others.
in this episode, she finds an egg in her bed and assumes that she must’ve laid it in her sleep.
maybe you can treat this as an allegory for menstruation, but really i think they just wanted to play with how easily nanami gets trapped inside her own mind and then tries to warp reality around what she just decided must be true.
Episode 28: Whispers in the Dark
(juri part 1)
Episode 29: Azure Paler Than the Sky
wherein we go through a whole lot of emotions over someone we just met… and then he’s gone
Episode 30: The Barefoot Girl
akio foot fetishist confirmed
or, milf hunter confirmed?
Episode 31: Her Tragedy
specifically, nanami’s tragedy of realizing that she and her brother aren’t related by blood, making her incest not as hot as it would otherwise be.
Episode 32: Romance of the Dancing Girls - 2023-06-04
Episode 33: The Prince Who Runs Through the Night
a sorta recap episode, wherein utena has a crisis about what she’s gonna eat tomorrow
chloe interpreted this as implying that utena doesn’t know how to function without a partner… which might be true, and might be relatable too, even.
Episode 34: The Rose Signet ★
answering the question of what was the eternal thing that utena saw, once upon a time?
and maybe theater kids are just like this no matter where you go…
Episode 35: The Lowe That Blossomed in Wintertime
Episode 36: And the Doors of Night Open
Episode 37: The One to Revolutionize the World - 2023-06-10
wherein she starts to lose her strength, her nobility…
“In the end, girls are all like Rose Brides.”
(though the pacing is becoming more disjointed, which is unsettling)
Episode 38: The End of the World
wherein it’s revealed that the alien was dr. wily all along.
also wherein akio tells her that, yes, she was groomed, but she’s kind of to blame for that happening.
and maybe my brain is diseased but a lot of these themes make perfect sense to me, who used to wish for romance that could be easily narrativized and slotted into archetypes in order to make them feel like more than their reality. the fantasy is beautiful! – its heights stronger, its pains more intense…
(though then again, it’s hard to know if what akio reveals to her as “reality” is merely another rebranded form of fantasy as well…)
Episode 39: Someday We Will Shine Together
i can’t help but wonder if him hacking at the gate while utena shudders is a metaphor for…
…
with this ending, i’m starting to wonder if revolution is impossible to access within the systems set up from the start. it really seems to be that way: it’s not that heterosexuality reigns supreme, but that within the idyllic confines of the garden it’s the only thing that can reign supreme. other forms of attraction can be played at, but that’s the thing: they can only be realized through play. yet ohtori academy isn’t the whole world. anthy seems to realize this by the end, and she knows that she just might be able to get what she wants too, but it requires abandoning the world of play and fantasy.
incidentally, the movie also comes to a similar conclusion, albeit much more directly in its approach.
also i just realized that car engines operate in terms of revolutions per minute i hate this
…
still, i think i can appreciate what this ending is going for.
it feels much more classically tragic, and when anthy slipped from utena’s grasp – even though it was inevitable – i still cried a little…
it’s a painful ending, but beautiful in its pain too.