Revolutionary Girl Utena
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Revolutionary Girl Utena (Japanese: 少女革命ウテナ, Hepburn: Shōjo Kakumei Utena)[a] is a Japanese anime television series created by Be-Papas, a production group formed by director Kunihiko Ikuhara 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 drawn into 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 at Toei Animation on the television anime series Sailor Moon in the 1990s; after growing frustrated by the lack of creative control in directing an adapted work, he departed the company in 1995 to create an original series. While he initially conceived of Utena as a mainstream shōjo (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 shōjo 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.
The title character of the series is Utena Tenjou, a middle school-aged girl who seeks to emulate the noble disposition of the prince she encountered in her youth. She is courageous, forthright, and kind, if somewhat naïve and impulsive. Utena is distinguished by her tomboyish demeanor and manner of dress, particularly her insistence on wearing a boys' school uniform.[13] Ikuhara has characterized Utena as embodying the traits of both a romance heroine and a romanticist hero, describing her in this regard as someone "who has at the same time both the romance of a girl and the romance of a boy."[3] Utena is voiced by Tomoko Kawakami in Japanese; the magazine Animage noted the role as playing against type for the actress, having made a career voicing "boisterous gyaru-type characters".[14] She secured the role in part because she did not read the character description before auditioning and thus spoke naturally, contrasting other actresses who put on a masculine voice.[14] Kawakami stated that she wished to communicate Utena's "friendly, good nature and how admirable she is to everyone, while not overdoing the boyishness" in her performance.[15]
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][c] Per Oguro, a basic series concept of "a romantic[d] 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]
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.[2][13][16][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" in order 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]
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] As a bishōjo, Kotani argues that Utena "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]
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 on 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"[38] typical of those genres.[105]
Utena is a popular, passionate and intelligent girl who is looked up to by a number of her fellow pupils, at first appearing to be the total opposite of her friend and fellow protagonist Anthy Himemiya. Despite this, Utena is introverted and she has her own faults, as all at Ohtori do; she has a short temper and can be extremely impulsive as she is quick to assume others' intentions and feelings, which causes no shortage of problems among individuals as complex as Ohtori's students.
Revolutionary Girl Utena is a title most anime fans are familiar with. Released in 1997, on TV Tokyo, the show is one of the most influential of the mahou shoujo, or magical girl genre. It is frequently listed as an anime classic of the 90s, alongside series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, and Sailor Moon. However, despite being a critical darling, Revolutionary Girl Utena remains a criminally underwatched masterpiece, at least in the West.
Utena Tenjou's parents died when she was a little girl. At that time, a prince appeared to her and gave her a signet ring with a rose crest. He told Utena to keep the ring and promised that they would meet again someday. Utena was so impressed by him that she decided to become a prince herself! Utena is all grown up now. She studies at the Ohtori Academy and wears her own version of the boys' uniform. She still looks forward to finding her prince, but in the meantime, it's up to Utena to save damsels in distress and cross swords with Ohtori Academy's top duelists. When Utena unwittingly wins the "Rose Bride" in one such duel, she finds herself in the middle of something else... something that just may lead her to her prince.
Despite her popularity, Utena has little aspiration beyond being a mediocre student. But things get weird when she meets a mysterious classmate named Anthy Himemiya, who, though always politely smiling, seems emotionally vacant. Anthy is apparently the girlfriend of Kyouichi Saionji, a student council member and captain of the kendo club, who regularly abuses her.
Flip Flappers tells the story of two girls, the energetic Papika and the morose Cocona. While pondering over her future, Cocona is dragged into an alternate reality called Pure Illusion by Papika and meets the organization known as Flip Flap. From there, both girls are tasked with fighting monsters and retrieving fragments that are said to grant wishes.
Both Utena and Flip Flappers feature surreal settings that metaphorically represent the inner psych of the main characters. For Utena, this is demonstrated in not only the school setting, but also a castle that appears whenever Utena has a duel, both of which represent how Utena and Anthy are taught by various people to aspire to unrealistic expectations and stifling roles as girls. In Flip Flappers, Pure Illusion lives up to its name by taking the form of different dream worlds that try to trap Cocona and Papika. For the former, some of these dream worlds are a tempting lure to invite an indecisive Cocona into avoiding her problems.
Inspired by ballet and fairy tales, Princess Tutu is the story of Ahiru, a young girl who magically turns into a duck whenever she gets embarrassed and falls in love with a mysterious, lonely boy named Mytho. As a result of her desire to help Mytho, Ahiru receives a magical pendant that allows her to transform into the mythical ballerina Princess Tutu. When she learns that Mytho is missing pieces of his heart, she resolves to collect them to save him and help him remember his true self. 59ce067264