Revolutionary Girl Utena

Original Title: 少女革命ウテナ
Romanized: Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

One day, as a young orphaned girl mourned her parents, a prince appeared, comforting her and telling her to always maintain her inner strength and nobility. He gave her a rose crest ring, telling her that it would someday lead her to him. Of course, this fairy tale is a little different--that girl, Utena Tenjou, was so impressed that she decided to become a prince herself. And become a prince she does--she comes to her high school, Ohtori Academy, in a boy's uniform, plays basketball with the best of them, and is admired by the girls and envied by the guys.

Other than that, though, Utena is leading a pretty normal life... until she meets Anthy Himemiya. Though she only intended to give Anthy a hand, Utena becomes involved with the members of the Student Council as they duel over who will posses the Rose Bride--Anthy Himemiya--and with her, the Power to revolutionize the world... whatever that may be.

Quick Review

Rating: 4 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-07-29

Don't let the colorful, heavily shoujo-styled initial episodes fool you; Revolutionary Girl Utena is more like Sailor Moon meets Serial Experiments Lain. It offers a unique combination of symbolic coming-of-age fairy tale, layered psychological study, and religious allegory that eventually goes dark and strange places throughout its run. Constructed of a fantastic facade of heavily symbolic storybook visuals, the repetitive storytelling style of a classic fable, increasingly involved and dark character studies, and grand, evocative music, all grounded with a foundation of mundane humanity, the series is a feast for the eyes, mind, and heart. Add in a talented voice cast in both languages, and so long as you can stomach the shoujo overdose and overlook a few startlingly stupid episodes early on, you've got one heck of a series.

Revolutionary Girl Utena is far too idiosyncratic to appeal to everyone, but its storybook style and endless layers of symbolism will prove engrossing for fans of cerebral shoujo and allegorical fables alike.

US DVD Review

The DVDs are horribly inconsistent, something USM has taken inordinately long to remedy. There are apparently plans to (finally) release a complete re-done set sometime in 2006.

The first season is crammed onto two discs produced much earlier than the other two four-disc-per-season chunks. While they are among the best of USM's early DVDs (I assume as a result of Software Sculptors' involvement in them), the video quality suffers noticeably and they are not up to the same standards as USM's newer releases, or the rest of the series.

The second two seasons (Black Rose and Apocalypse Sagas, respectively) are roughly standard for more recent USM TV releases, and with 13 episodes spread out over four discs the video quality is quite good. Each of the three seasons is available as box set, with the first season, Rose Collection, including the movie as well (which does not fit anywhere with the TV series--it's a retelling).

As for those first discs, unlike most early USM DVDs the subtitles don't seem like a complete afterthought, although the video was clearly produced by sticking both dubbed VHS volumes back to back (including the English credits repeated in the middle of the disc, and again at the end). It was also, I believe, the first of USM's DVDs to include a basic list of the Japanese cast on the Jacket (a big step up from nothing at all), and the first to use a transparent case so you can read the back of the insert through it.

The subtitles are notably uneven. On the negative end, since the video track comes straight from the dubbed tapes all the songs in the story have hardcoded subtitles; the subtitles on the opening and end themes are hardcoded a few times, and the rest are picked up by the subtitle track, if it's on. On the positive side, the subtitle track during the story is remarkably good; multiple colors are used well, and they're courteous enough to move the subtitles to the top of the frame on occasions when the action is taking place down at the bottom.

Extras are more or less limited to clips of the different duel songs throughout the series.

Content Guide

There is very little explicit material of any sort, but the series has heavy undertones of mature themes and sexuality. USM calls it 13-up, which is certainly appropriate (if anything a little lenient) for the later parts.

Violence: 2 - Some very serious swordfights and frightening moments, but largely bloodless.

Nudity: 1 - Very little.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - There is nothing explicit, but later parts develop heavy mature themes and sexual undercurrents.

Language: 1 - Nothing significant.

Notes and Trivia

In addition to the 3-season TV series, there is also a 5-volume 1996-7 manga series by Chiho Saito (available in English from VIZ); a 1999 movie adaptation, Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Adolescence of Utena (the original subtitle title was "Adolescence Apocalypse"); and a single-volume manga adaptation of the film (also by Chiho Saito) published the same year.

Interestingly, the manga version was essentially a simultaneous production with the TV series; though the concept was developed for TV, each was written more or less independently. The movie, similarly, is a more or less standalone retelling of the TV Series, although it is notorious for making no sense to those unfamiliar with the series and not much more for those who are.

Other spin-offs include a Sega Saturn game and an all-female stage production (though not by the famed Takarazuka troupe, who would have seemed a perfect fit, and indeed did a stage adaptation of The Rose of Versailles).

Availability

Available in the US from US Manga Corps on hybrid DVD, currently as three box sets: The first, Rose Collection, contains the first 13 episodes on two discs plus the movie, while the second two, Black Rose Saga and Apocalypse Saga, each contain 13 episodes spread across four discs. The DVDs were all originally available individually but are no longer sold that way. Was previously available on subtitled and dubbed VHS, 3 or 4 episodes to a volume, now out of print.

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