Adolescence
of Utena: WTF?
I explain
everything.
First things first: if you have time, watch this movie four or five times before trying to make sense of anything in it (that’s what I did). If you have more time, watch the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime at least once. Also, pay attention while you’re watching. If you’re reading this, you probably already know this stuff is not light entertainment.
On to the explanations.
The
rules of the game in a nutshell:
1. The school where the movie takes place, Ootori Academy, is a place that the main characters can’t leave.
2. The reason for this is the promise of the Castle of Eternity (the upside down castle), inside which you can get anything in your wildest dreams.
3. people called duelists, identified by a Rose Seal ring, fight each other for access to the Castle of Eternity (embodied by Himemiya Anthy[purple]). Only the ultimate winner will get the Castle.
4. to qualify as a duelist, a person must desire something (or specifically, some situation) to the point of obsession.
5. therefore, characters can’t leave Ootori Academy because it would mean giving up the chance to have their wishes granted.
The
Characters and their Neuroses:
(each of them has their own signature colour, so they’re easy to keep straight even if you don’t remember their names.)
- Utena (pink) had a crush on Touga, who befriended her after her parents died; she is unable to let go after he drowns while trying to rescue Jury.
- Jury (orange) feels responsible for the breakup of her friendship with Shiori (maroon) because of the drowning incident; Shiori had been dating Touga but was jealous that he died saving Jury.
- Shiori, while not technically a duelist, is prevented from leaving by her jealousy and egotism.
- Touga (red): yes, he’s dead. Notice that Miki, who didn’t know him while he was alive, can’t see him. He claims his hang-up is that his father sold him to a pedophile; presumably he wants it never to have happened.
- Saionji (green) has a stalker-like crush on Himemiya.
- Miki (blue) would like to please his twin sister, except that she basically wants to go back in time to when they were kids.
But, at base, the whole story centers on Himemiya Anthy.
The first piece of explanation we get says that Himemiya (purple) is a witch who was blamed for killing her brother, the Prince(white); but in fact, though Himemiya is a witch, she was using her powers to maintain the prince’s human form, when he is actually “the lord of the flies”.
In the second clip, we first see the Prince comment that his car won’t run because he lost the key, and then he’s placing drugs in a drink.
In the third clip, the prince’s body is unearthed from the little rose garden where Utena got her rose seal at the beginning of the movie (coincidence? Um, no.). Shiori immediately accuses Himemiya of his murder.
The fourth clip occurs mostly off the edge of the screen and is pretty confusing. What’s happening is this: The Prince approaches Anthy, whom he thinks is drugged unconscious; he notices that she’s really awake. He asks if she’s always faked being asleep – this isn’t the first time he’s done this. Anthy tells him that as her prince, he can do anything he wants with her. He recoils in horror. He rummages around, trying to find his car keys, then stabs Anthy in the chest and flings himself off the balcony. End of clip.
The other thing you have to know is that in the world of Utena, there are no platonic relationships, and all sibling bonds involve incest somewhere (this is much clearer in the TV series) So first of all, the Prince is drugging his sister Anthy and molesting her. When he finds out she was letting him do this, he kills her and himself – apparently incestuous rape is OK, but consensual incest is beyond the pale …
Anyway, the “lord of the flies” reference is saying that the Prince was never as noble as everyone thought he was, and when Anthy’s magic – ie her keeping him in the dark – ran out, and his true nature was revealed. To himself most of all. After he dies, Anthy buries him in the garden to conceal his less than admirable demise. We’ll get to the car references in a moment.
Anthy is trapped in the duel game by her desire for a prince, which will be whoever becomes the top duelist. Which brings us to Utena. Now, Utena joins the duelists without fully understanding what’s going on, and is motivated mostly by concern for Anthy. This, of course, makes her prime Prince material.
However, by the time Anthy announces Utena as the winning duelist, Utena has had an important epiphany. This is the scene with the elevator (which is a cameo from the TV series). As the elevator descends, the occupant delves deeper into her psyche. Utena talks with Touga’s ghost and realizes that “there never was a live prince” – that is, that the thing she’s been obsessing over is not only impossible but also probably not as desirable as moving on with her life. Thus, when Anthy proclaims Utena as the new Prince, Utena doesn’t want the power of the Castle of Eternity, but wants to return to the outside world along with Anthy. (Notice how Anthy reacts: as if she hadn’t even realized that that was an option). Utena is promptly swallowed up by a carwash that appears out of nowhere …
… and turns into a pink car. Cars, in this movie, represent the power to leave Ootori Academy (and the prince can’t even find his keys, poor thing). The prince points out an interesting corollary: that a car that isn’t used eventually rusts. In other words, the longer you spend in the Academy, the harder it is to leave. Good thing Utena wrapped things up so fast. Anthy finds Utena’s Rose Seal transformed into the relevant key, and drives off in Utena. On to the endgame!
The first thing Anthy and Utena encounter is Shiori, transformed into a black car with frilly pink seat covers ^_^. Shiori is determined to stop our heroines, on the theory that no one has the right to do better than her at anything. Unfortunately, this attitude is exactly what is holding her back and she doesn’t get very far before she crashes into a wall. Next up are a whole swarm of anonymous black cars. These may represent the other students, under the thrall of the Castle of Eternity; whatever they are, they batter Utena to a wreck before she and Anthy are rescued by Jury, Miki and Saionji.
Unlike Shiori, these three recognize what they have to do to leave the academy, but they aren’t ready to do so yet. However, Utena has inspired them to try harder (or possibly opened their eyes to the situation). In view of Utena’s beat-up state, they offer Anthy a choice: at the fork ahead, she can either go back into the Academy or continue on to the outside world. Anthy is determined not to give up. She presses the gas pedal and Utena transforms again into an even cooler car.
Then the Castle of Eternity itself, equipped with giant tires, makes an appearance to block the heroines’ way (a great visual gag, by the way). The Prince’s ghost tries to convince Anthy to stay in the Academy. “It’s easy to have your heart’s desire,” he says. “All you have to do is become a living corpse.” I think he means you have to stop trying to move forward in life … but he did stab her in the chest and all … anyway, Anthy is by this point sick and tired of living corpses, Princes, duels and so on. With a final effort of will, Anthy and Utena leap forward shouting “grant us the power to revolutionize the world!”, a Japanese euphemism for “screw you, you incestuous-rapist-zombie creep”. They ride off into the sunset, explaining that they were able to escape because they each “killed their Prince”, or let go of their wish to return to the past.
And there you have it. Some folks say that the whole thing is some deep allegory for adolescence and growing up. I can see how that works, but I just like to read it as pure fantasy and enjoy the ride ^_^.
And now for some minor matters.
The radio girls: are revealed at the end to be straw puppets named “Anthy” and “Utena”. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that even though they’re supposed to be broadcasting to the whole school, they’re really talking about what’s going on in the characters’ heads (a capricious passing rain, the scenes of Anthy and her Prince). That is, they are manifestations of the characters’ psychological interaction with the Academy, not real people in themselves.
The school architecture: No comment. Unless it represents the characters’ chaotic mental state.
The “scandalous video”: If you’ve seen the TV series, you know this already. The cow in the yellow jacket is Nanami (yellow), who appears as a duelist in the series. Her problem is that she’s in love with her brother Touga in all the wrong ways; remember what I said about sibling relationships in this world? Nanami is mostly comic relief and has numerous animal related mishaps, including turning into a cow and being chased by the trio of elephants that also appear here (oddly, their voices recall a trio of human admirers that Nanami has in the series). The grey mouse/monkey looking thing is Chuu-Chuu, Anthy’s companion in the series and another comic relief character. The red alligator thing doesn’t appear in the series.
References to the TV series:
This movie can be thought of as the punch line to the huge joke that is Revolutionary Girl Utena.
- The TV opening theme plays during the encounter with the monster truck castle near the end.
- The song during Utena’s carwash transformation (zettai unmei mookushiroku) is the same as for Utena’s duelist transformation in the series.
- The line at the end “grant (us) the power to revolutionize the world” is the line Utena uses in the series when she pulls the magic sword out of Anthy’s chest (man, I’d be a little weird too if I had to keep a sword in my torso). The phrase makes more sense in the context of the series, where there’s often talk of “revolutionizing the world”.
- The descending elevator, as already mentioned, appears in one story arc as the place where characters reveal their deepest, darkest secrets.
- All the named characters are reprising their roles from the series.
- Nanami and Chuu-Chuu make cameos, as discussed above.
- The shadow girls appear in the series as a very cryptic chorus commenting on each episode. Their signature line is “Kashira, kashira, gozonji kashira?” which is glossed as “have you heard, have you heard, captain have you heard?” Actually it’s closer to “I wonder, I wonder, I wonder if you know”. (in one arc it changes to “gozai, gozai” – “Extra! Extra!”)
©
Andrea Vollenwyder 2005