| While Revolutionary Girl Utena is heavily influenced by a number of sources from the shoujo classic Rose of Versailles to such non-anime sources as the Herman Hesse novel Demian, the end result is something original, unique, and also highly surreal. I had originally purchased the first DVD of this some years ago simply out of economic considerations. At $30 for about seven episodes, it was a rather good deal at a time I was trying to rapidly expand my anime DVD collection. I was immediately enchanted by the series and did my best to seek the rest of it out.
It is, I shall note, an extremely surreal series. Though the Ohtori Academy from a social and linguistic stand point seems to be a Japanese school, the visual design and almost every other element seems rather European in character. That isn’t so unusual in of itself however you also have such aspects as the huge hidden (and in the second and third seasons changing) dueling arena with a huge castle floating in the sky, the mysterious battles that occur there, strange girls practicing a shadow play that just always seems to relate to current events, or a student council that seems more concerned with secretive plots to “revolutionize the world” then with such mundane matters as say, preparing for the next student ball or something. As the series progresses, weird imagery, events, and the like strain the mind at times.
Though there is a central narrative that does have dramatic impact, part of this strangeness stems from the fact that this show is positively drowning in metaphor and symbolism. It seems like every time I view this show, I find a new detail that I didn’t previously notice before. Many of the more bizarre aspects of this series are simply artistic stand-ins for more mundane events or themes and also help heighten the drama of a show that is about something a bit more mundane and familiar: adolescence.
Despite all the weirdness going on and the talk about revolutionizing the world, Utena, at its core, is really about the transition between adolescence and adulthood along with the understanding, both good and bad, that such growth brings. All the while this growth is being filtered through the eyes of the young people growing up. Manipulative plots by secretive cabals of teens? Arrogant and/or idealistic adolescents who think they can gain the power to “revolutionize” the world if they simply have enough effort and skill? The characters in Utena may have more reason to believe they can accomplish goals more than the typical teen but a lot of their personal problems and goals don’t seem all that unusual when thought about in a broader context. Though throughout this all, there is a very epic, almost fairy talesque layer (this becomes particularly pronounced in the final story arc), that helps give the entire plot more gravity. |
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