Once upon a time many years ago there was a little princess and she was very sad for her mother and father had died. Before the princess appeared a traveling prince riding upon a white horse. He had a regal bearing and a kind smile. The prince wrapped the princess in a rosescented embrace and gently wiped the tears from her eyes. Little one he said Growing up alone in such deep sorrow never lose that strength or nobility even when you are a young lady. I give you this to remember this day We will meet again. This ring will lead you to me one day. Perhaps the ring the prince gave her was an engagement ring This was all well and good but so impressed was she by him that the princess vowed to become a prince herself some day. But was that really such a good idea? Many years later Utena has grown into a young lady and she has not let go of her nobility dressing in a princely boys uniform as she enters middle school at Ohtori Academy. Her style of dress and noble disposition have earned her the mixed attention of her peers and the ire of the teaching staff. One day after heroically saving a demure classmate named Anthy from her abusive boyfriend that boy notices the ring on her finger and challenges her to a duel for her new friends honor. It turns out she wins more than just Anthys honor though Shes won her engagement which is something every member of the student council is eager to obtain. As an outsider in this conflict Utena will have to find out why they want her why they disregard her feelings and why they keep calling her The Rose Bride And shell have to do so before the end of the world comes for her. Ive stated in previous reviews that JC Staff is generally really good at taking shoestring budgets and making anime that are at the very least decent lookingOokamisan being the exception that proves the rule. Revolutionary Girl Utena is the pinnacle of their abilities. The animation is low budget and limited by the technology of the nineties but the majority of it is still smooth and fastpaced making for some absolutely stunning visuals. There are clunkier moments particularly in the first story arc but the staticky frames never feel wasted thanks to the brilliant use of framing and drop dead gorgeous imagery thats always on display. Because of this it looks a lot more expensive than it actually was. Unfortunately some of the most impressive looking shots are reused and recycled over and over again and while its easy to excuse the epic stairclimbing scenes for this as theyre primarily used in the same basic context of magical girl transformation scenes its a lot harder to get over seeing the same exact fight animations in every single action scene. Thats only one minor hiccup though The actual character animation is intricate and while I wouldnt exactly call a lot of it graceful you do often get the impression that every single piece of movement from the cast Be it facial expressions or even subtle body language is completely deliberate and carries its own distinct meaning. The CGI And yes theres CGI in a 1997 show is rare but flawless with the giant upsidedown castle in the sky being the perfect example.. But even amongst all of that visual wonder Utena is at its best with its character designs. The characters are highly distinctive memorable and instantly recognizable even when it concerns the side and supporting characters. The ones who are tied most directly to the trial of the Rose Bride Those being Utena Anthy and the entire student council Are color coded with each characters hair matching a different color of the rainbow and with each color representing an important aspect of that characters personality and story arc in accordance with the teachings of a certain religionand no Im not going to tell you which one. Their designs have become iconic and deservedly so. The music has also become iconic and once again its not very difficult to see why. In its downtime Utena plays with all the musicbox type tunes that youd expect from a shoujo serie Theres a lot of light strings like violins and harps and a lot of piano and organbased tracks as well. Its nice for what it is but it would be kind of boring if that were all there was to Utenas score. Thankfully when the action scenes start thats when this shit kicks into high gear. This is just my personal preference but a Greek chorus is always a welcome addition to a story and Utena goes the extra mile of adding a rock operatype edge to it making these songs both meaningful AND headbangingly awesome at the same time. Their job is to get your blood pumping and they do their job so well that at some points they can actually lead to disappointment over how quickly and easily a lot of Utenas duels end. The opening Rainbow RevolutionOr Rinbu in some texts but it makes more sense in context the other way is easily one of my favorites in terms of both its song and its video. The song is fast and powerful has a great beat and is catchy as all hell. The video keeps great pace with it showcasing the absolute best of the series animation and metaphorical imagery all while giving every single one of the main characters their chance to shine. The ending themes are also perfectly fine and serviceable but I admit I skip them almost every single time they play. Im not saying theyre bad Far from it theyre beautiful But unlike the opening theyre just not good enough to hold up against my desire to see what happens next in the story. As for the English dub Hoo boy that English dub. Well youre going to hear the gospel from both sides of this argument with fans claiming that they grew up with it and that its important to them and its many many MANY haters saying its poorly acted melodramatic tripe. Well Im going to have to settle on both sides of the debate on this one. Much like Higurashi and for somewhat similar reasons I love the English dub of Utena BECAUSE of how awful it is. Let me try to explain this through example The worst performer in this dub by far is Leah Applebaum who plays Nanami the proverbial buttmonkey of the series and little sister to one of its main characters. Her only other claim to fame in the voice acting world is a single episode of Pokemon and with this performance thats probably a good thing. Her delivery is loud over the top and hammy and she overacts like its about to go out of style. She constantly emphasizes every other syllable she says like a first time stage performer whos trying way too hard And failing miserably To use iambic pentameter. Its annoying its ballcrushingly terrible and its my favorite performance in the entire dub. Like for realsies. As heavily allegorical and fantastic as Revolutionary Girl Utena is it never feels like a normal story and its characters never really feel like real people aside from Utena herself. It feels from beginning to end like a stage play and I mean that in the best possible way. Its melodramatic down to its very core and because of this the unnatural acting from most of the cast actually serves to express their emotions even more strongly. Nanami as my chosen poster child is one of the most melodramatic and annoying characters in the cast so Applebaums performance Which would make me wish death upon her in any other anime Is an oddly perfect fit. The same could be said about every character really. If an actors performance sounds disingenuous and dead inside its because the character is disingenuous and dead inside. If a performance sounds stiff and stilted thats probably because the character is hiding a lot of emotional turmoil behind a facade of pride and strength. Rachael Lillis plays the main role as Utena Tenjou and at times she can be a little flat and wooden in her delivery particularly in the first story arc. Then again its kind of to be expected when you realize that shes playing the only downtoearth character in a cavalcade of looney toons basket cases and sociopaths. Besides whenever shes called upon to do so her nuanced emotions are firmly delivered. While most of the underwhelming performances do get better as the series progresses there are only two performances in the dub that are genuinely unequivocally good But one of thems just a recurring side characterplayed by Lisa Ortiz and the others Crispin Freaking Freeman who really needs no introduction or fanfare to accompany his name. Overall the original Japanese track is objectively better in pretty much every way so its the version I have to recommend But to those of us who appreciate it the charm of the English dub is a hard thing to replicate. So When you ask people whove seen Revolutionary Girl Utena to tell you whether you should watch it or not youre going to get answers that tend to fall into one of two categories. The first category and by far the more common one will be Its weird and batshit crazy stay the hell away from it. The other category will tell you Its one of the most important anime ever made and its a far more rewarding experience than most people realize. I fall more into the second category but I can totally understand the sentiment of the first one This show IS batshit crazy and hard to understand especially for the people who made the mistake of watching the movie first. To understand why Utena is the way it is you have to understand where it came from. The original concept was conceived by a fiveperson group who called themselves BEPAPAS and they aimed to turn their idea into both a manga series and a televised anime series. They handed directorial responsibility of the series over to one of their members named Kunihiko Ikuhara whose previous experience had consisted of several episodes of Sailor moon. Fearing that Utena would be his first and last major project he jampacked it with as much symbolism subtext and allegorical ideas as he possibly could somehow successfully weaving all of his brainchildren into one mostly cohesive and gleefully mindaltering story. Deciphering that story is no small task either and I daresay that even after multiple viewings Ive only managed to scratch the surface of it And I wouldnt have even gotten that far if not for the writings of people like Hope Chapman and Ryan Haeker. In its 39 episode run Revolutionary Girl Utena runs the gamut of such complicated topics as heaven and hell abuse psychosexuality incest selfrealization gender roles homosexuality And much much more. These concepts are explored through the bevy of likeable yet heavily flawed characters their often unsettling backstories and their true motivations that often extend far beyond the desire to see the end of the world. Most of these concepts are explored by the titular character Utena as she either struggles with them in her own mind or encounters them in other people. Shes an astoundingly well written and progressive character a deliberately normal human being whos as virtuous and benevolent as any hero should be but at the same time deals with the same very real teenage insecurities that fictional characters so rarely exhibit. She walks a fine line between feminine and masculine ideals even as she finds herself caught between the extremist male stereotype and the extremist female stereotype towards the end of the series. Shes constantly tempted to conform to other peoples ideals and while she thinks shes the only duelist whos truly fighting for Anthys best interests she may actually be forcing her own ideals onto the rose Bride. But deciphering this series is NOT as easy as a simple character study. It requires extensive knowledge of different philosophies religions and psychological theories none of which youre given any help with identifying. The easiest parts come when huge clues are dropped in episodes and by characters that are entirely unrelated to the subject youre trying to understand. For example and a bit of a spoiler theres a plot point towards the end where the main antagonist takes several characters for rides in his car after which they come out acting more confidant more selfassured and more threatening. So whats going on here exactly? Is his car so awesome that riding in it is a life changing experience? Well to understand this you have to jump back several episodes to a story where a very young boy is asking people what it means to be grown up. Hes told by many people that being grown up means doing grown up things and later in the episode its stated that giving blood is proof of adulthood as you have to be 16 to do it. Well do you know what you have to be 18 to do in Japan? Drive a car. The fact that he drives means he does adult things and the fact that they ride with him And this is also heavily implied by their body language Means that hes either doing adult things with them or convincing them to do adult things with each other showing them the end of the world Or the end of their youth. Im talking about sex if you havent figured that out yet. Hes corrupting a bunch of middle schoolers with his sexuality and its such a well thought out metaphor that all it takes is the subtle visual of his car driving past the word Stop to tell you that sometimes its not all that consensual. And thats one of the EASIER parts to figure out. This series is a Rubiks Hypercube one that lends itself to what may be hundreds of possible interpretations and I have literally fallen asleep while reading a few of them. Its a certified ratking of complicated symbolism extended metaphors and mindfucks aplenty but luckily there IS still a highly enjoyable story on the surface. Otherwise Id just say fuck it. Revolutionary Girl Utena is available from Nozomi Entertainment who rescued the series from obscurity after several years of the individual Central Park Media DVDs being out of print. They rereleased the series back in 2011 in a much more attractive format set in three beautiful artsy black boxes. Theyre not exactly cheap but if youre patient you can occasionally find a pretty decent sale on them. At the time of this writing you can get all three sets on Amazon for around 110 dollars together. Theyre well worth the money too as theyve been cleaned up with many visual mistakes from the original printing corrected and if thats not enough it also comes with three revealing booklets a disk of extras and the movie Adolescence of Utena. It doesnt include any of the CD soundtracks but theyre all ridiculously easy to find at affordable prices. Now that Ive reached the wrapup youre probably expecting me to say that this series is a masterpiece and that it deserves nothing less than a perfect score. Well no it really doesnt. Remember in my Wolfs Rain review where I said that its biggest flaw was its lack of accessibility? Utena has that same problem tenfold plus the issue of recycled animation. I love this series and consider it one of my favorites of all time and I highly recommend that everybody view it at least once but I cant in good conscience say that any anime of any genre should require you to study in order to fully enjoy it. For those of us who have tried to interpret it and those of us who plan to continue trying to interpret it its nothing short of a bottomless treasure chest. For everyone else its still a pretty cool story with outstanding visuals and music. I give Revolutionary Girl Utena an 8/10.