Revolutionary Girl Utena is a Japanese anime television series created by Be-Papas, a production group formed by director Kunihiko Ikuhara and members 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 teenage girl who becomes involved in a sword fighting competition to win the hand of Anthy Himemiya, a mysterious girl known as the "Rose Bride," who has the "power to revolutionize the world."
Kunihiko Ikuhara previously worked as a director on the anime adaptation of Sailor Moon at Toei Animation in the 1990s. After becoming frustrated with limited creative freedom while working on an adapted series, he left Toei Animation in 1996 to create an original project. Initially, Ikuhara planned Utena as a mainstream shōjo (girls' anime and manga) series to take advantage of the popularity of Sailor Moon. However, the tone of the series changed during production to become more experimental and surreal. The series is known for challenging traditional fairy tales and the magical girl genre of shōjo manga. It uses symbols and stories to explore themes such as gender, sexuality, and growing up. The visual and storytelling style includes dramatic, theatrical scenes inspired by the all-female Japanese theater group Takarazuka Revue and the experimental plays of Shūji Terayama. J. A. Seazer, a frequent collaborator of Terayama, wrote the songs for the series.
Revolutionary Girl Utena has received worldwide praise and many awards. It is recognized for its portrayal of LGBTQ+ themes and has influenced later animated works. A manga version of Utena, written and drawn by Chiho Saito, was released at the same time as the anime and appeared in the manga magazine Ciao starting in 1996. In 1999, Be-Papas made a film called Adolescence of Utena as a follow-up to the television series. The series has been released in various formats, including a remastered version supervised by Ikuhara in 2008. In North America, Utena was first distributed by Central Park Media in 1998. Since 2023, Crunchyroll has held the rights to the series after acquiring the company Right Stuf and its subsidiary Nozomi Entertainment, which obtained the license in 2010.
Plot
The anime Revolutionary Girl Utena is divided into three story parts: the "Student Council Saga" (episodes 1–12), the "Black Rose Saga" (episodes 13–24), and the "Apocalypse Saga" (episodes 25–39).
As a child, Utena Tenjou received a ring engraved with a rose from a traveling prince, who promised to meet her again someday. Inspired by this meeting, Utena decided she wanted to become a prince someday. Years later, as a teenager, Utena is a student at Ohtori Academy, a private school for boarding students. She becomes involved in a sword-fighting competition organized by the school's Student Council, whose members wear rings similar to hers. The duelists fight to win the hand of Anthy Himemiya, a student known as the "Rose Bride," who is said to have the ability to change the world. Utena wins her first duel and must protect Anthy from others who want the Rose Bride's power.
After winning against the Student Council, Utena faces Souji Mikage, a very smart student who uses his skills in persuasion and understanding people's thoughts to trick others into fighting. Mikage wants to kill Anthy and replace her with Mamiya Chida, a boy who is very sick. Utena defeats Mikage's fighters and Mikage himself. After Mikage's defeat, he disappears from the school, and others forget he ever existed. It turns out that Akio Ohtori, the school's chairman and Anthy's brother, used Mikage to help him try to gain the "power of eternity." Mamiya was actually Anthy in disguise, who helped Akio trick Mikage.
Akio meets each member of the Student Council and takes them to a place he calls "the end of the world." After these meetings, the Council members face Utena again in battles. Utena defeats them once more and is called to fight the prince from her past. She learns the prince was Akio, who plans to use her and Anthy to gain the power of eternity. Utena fights Akio to save Anthy, but Anthy, who helped Akio's plan, stabs Utena from behind. Akio tries to open a sealed gate to gain power but fails. Utena, seriously hurt, opens the gate and finds Anthy inside. Utena reaches out to her, and they briefly touch hands as the arena collapses around them.
Utena disappears from Ohtori Academy, and everyone except Akio and Anthy forgets her. Akio says Utena failed to start a revolution and plans to try again to gain the power of eternity. Anthy says Utena only left the school and promises to find her. Anthy vows to search for Utena and leaves Akio and the school.
Characters
The characters in Utena are mostly teenagers who experience personal and moral growth as they move from youth to adulthood, following the style of a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. The series writer, Yōji Enokido, said a major theme was how characters deal with growing up by trying to return to past parts of themselves they can no longer reclaim. The director, Kunihiko Ikuhara, explained that he created the characters using a rule he described as "never giving a character only one personality."
The character designs were made by Chiho Saito, following directions from Ikuhara. These designs were later adapted for the anime by Shinya Hasegawa. Hasegawa said he was drawn to the project because of Saito's unique art style, which features characters with slender bodies, long limbs, pointed chins, and large eyes. He also noted that Saito's focus on dramatic body movements was different from the typical "anime-like" style in manga at the time, making it a challenge to adapt into animation.
The main character, Utena Tenjou, is a middle school-aged girl who wants to be like the prince she saw in her youth. She is brave, honest, and kind, though she can be naive and impulsive. Utena is known for her tomboyish behavior and for wearing a boys' school uniform. Ikuhara described her as having both the traits of a romance heroine and a romanticist hero, combining "the romance of a girl and the romance of a boy." The magazine Animage noted that actress Tomoko Kawakami played Utena in a way that was different from her usual roles, which often included loud, energetic characters. She was chosen partly because she did not read the character description before auditioning, allowing her to speak naturally, unlike other actresses who tried to sound more masculine. Kawakami aimed to show Utena's "friendly, good nature and how admirable she is to everyone" without overemphasizing her boyish traits.
After joining the dueling tournament at the school, Utena meets Anthy Himemiya, the mysterious "Rose Bride" at the center of the contests. As the Rose Bride, Anthy follows the personality of the tournament's current champion and appears to have no free will or identity of her own. At first, Anthy seems like a typical passive, shy character, but later she is shown to control the duels and the school with her brother, Akio Ohtori. In early planning, Ikuhara imagined Utena and Anthy as one character: a girl who wanted to be a prince but also wished to stay a princess. He later split them into two separate characters, with Anthy becoming a version of Utena who wants to "remain a princess." Ikuhara intentionally designed the story and visuals to suggest that Utena would save Anthy in the end, but the question of "what does she save Anthy from?" became the central mystery of the series.
Development
Robot wrestling, which began with Mazinger Z, inspired the creation of Gundam. Gundam is an anime aimed at fans who grew up watching robot-themed anime. The creator of Utena, Kunihiko Ikuhara, said he made Utena because he believed some viewers had become familiar with shows like Sailor Moon.
While working as an animator at Toei Animation, Ikuhara joined the team adapting Naoko Takeuchi’s 1991 shōjo manga series Sailor Moon into an anime. He worked as an episode director and later became the series director starting with the second season, Sailor Moon R. Dissatisfied with limited creative freedom while adapting an existing work, Ikuhara left Toei Animation in 1996 after completing Sailor Moon SuperS. He then formed Be-Papas, a team of five creative professionals from the anime and manga industry, including manga artist Chiho Saito, animator and character designer Shinya Hasegawa, writer Yōji Enokido, and planner Yūichirō Oguro.
Some team members had previously worked together. Hasegawa and Enokido had collaborated with Ikuhara on Sailor Moon, where Enokido wrote episodes featuring Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune and served as head writer for SuperS. They also worked on Neon Genesis Evangelion. Saito, a well-known manga artist, had no prior experience in anime before joining Be-Papas. Ikuhara chose to base the series’ visuals on her artwork after seeing an illustration from her manga series Magnolia Waltz in a magazine.
Ikuhara initially planned Utena as a mainstream shōjo series to follow the success of Sailor Moon. Saito described early discussions as focused on creating a series that would be popular and profitable. Early ideas for Utena were very different from the final version. An initial proposal called "Revolutionary Girl Utena Kiss" centered on female warriors fighting "the end of the world." Later, the team settled on a concept for a romantic action show featuring a girl who wears boys’ clothes, inspired by the Takarazuka Revue style. A school setting was chosen early, but details like duels and the "Rose Bride" were developed later.
Although Ikuhara created the idea for Utena, the series was developed by the entire Be-Papas team. After Saito joined, the group spent six months planning the story, setting, and how to adapt Saito’s visual style into anime. Saito also began writing and drawing a manga version of Utena while helping develop the anime.
Utena was influenced by several sources, including the Takarazuka Revue, the artwork of Jun'ichi Nakahara, Hermann Hesse’s novel Demian, and the experimental theater of Shūji Terayama. Saito cited the manga Kaze to Ki no Uta and the 1973 film The Three Musketeers as influences. Ikuhara acknowledged that while others might compare Utena to Princess Knight and The Rose of Versailles, two shōjo manga with cross-dressing heroines, he feared the series might be seen as a parody. Saito joined Be-Papas partly because the team wanted to ensure the series included a female perspective to avoid creating a parody of shōjo manga.
Saito later said, "The project changed completely without my knowledge. Maybe the revolution had already happened in Mr. Ikuhara’s mind, and that’s why it turned out this way. […] I wasn’t tricked, but I watched in amazement as he pushed forward without looking back."
After Saito’s manga adaptation of Utena began in 1996, talks about broadcasting the anime were finalized, and production started. Be-Papas led the production, with J.C.Staff in Tokyo handling the animation.
Ikuhara’s goals for Utena changed during production. He believed the series needed a unique identity to attract viewers, so he shifted from aiming for mass popularity to pursuing more artistic goals. He added unconventional elements, such as theatrical layouts, a recurring shadow play that comments on each episode, and experimental music by J. A. Seazer.
Enokido described the production as having a "tense but cooperative" atmosphere among Be-Papas members. As the series moved away from its original commercial focus, a conflict arose between Saito and Ikuhara. Saito supported the original romantic concept for the series, while Ikuhara introduced more complex themes. They disagreed about whether to portray the relationship between Utena and Anthy as a romance. At one point, they stopped speaking to each other for three months. Saito initially opposed depicting a same-sex romance because she thought the target audience might not accept it. Ikuhara kept his plans for the relationship secret from Saito during production. Eventually, Saito supported how the series portrayed the relationship.
Other key individuals involved in Utena’s production included Shingo Kaneko and Tōru Takahashi, who worked as assistant directors under Ikuhara. Kaneko focused on creating a cinematic style with creative visual tricks. Takahashi was hired as an animator by Hasegawa and later became a director. Hiroshi Nagahama designed the dueling area and Ohtori Academy buildings, comparing the process to creating a stage set. Background art was created by Shichirō Kobayashi, based on Nagahama’s designs, while Mamoru Hosoda and Takuya Igarashi contributed to storyboarding.
Utena is known for its highly stylized visuals, combining surreal and expressive elements to convey mood and symbolic meaning. Enokido described the series as having a strong "theatrical feel," and Ikuhara aimed for an "operatic" style from the start. The series uses unique visual techniques, such as marking important moments with decorative black frames surrounded by spinning roses, which staff called an "attention-grabbing" design.
Releases
Revolutionary Girl Utena was first shown on TV Tokyo every week from April 2 to December 24, 1997. The series has two seasons: the first season includes episodes 1 to 24, and the second season includes episodes 25 to 39. It was originally made on 16 mm film. In Japan, the series was released physically in several formats, including VHS and LaserDisc starting in 1997, and DVD starting in 1999. A revised version of the series, supervised by Ikuhara, was released as two boxed DVD sets in 2008 and 2009, and as two boxed Blu-Ray sets in 2013. A special limited edition Blu-Ray boxed set containing the full series was released in 2017 to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary.
In North America, Enoki Films USA managed the rights to distribute Utena. The company created a sample version for potential distributors, adapting the series for Western audiences by giving characters English names and renaming it Ursula's Kiss. Central Park Media first acquired the North American distribution rights and released both English dubbed and subtitled versions of the series, keeping the original title and character names. Central Park Media released the first 13 episodes on VHS starting in 1998 but did not release the full series until its DVD release in 2002 due to licensing problems. After Central Park Media went bankrupt in 2009, the North American rights were taken over by Right Stuf, which released the series on DVD in 2011, the remastered version on Blu-Ray in 2017, and its own 20th anniversary boxed set in 2018. In June 2011, Utena’s voice actress, Tomoko Kawakami, passed away from ovarian cancer. Right Stuf honored her by dedicating the Apocalypse Saga DVD release to her. Right Stuf and its subsidiaries were later acquired by Crunchyroll in 2023.
Outside of North America, Utena is licensed by Anime Limited in the United Kingdom and Hanabee in Australia. International broadcast and streaming rights have been obtained by different channels and streaming services over time, including FUNimation Channel in 2007, Anime Network in 2009, Neon Alley in 2013, Funimation in 2020, and Crunchyroll in 2021.
Related media
Chiho Saito wrote and drew a manga version of Revolutionary Girl Utena, which was published in the shōjo manga collection Ciao starting in 1996. She also created a one-shot titled The Rose Seal in Ciao, showing Utena before she moved to Ohtori Academy. Additionally, Saito made a manga version of the film Adolescence of Utena for Bessatsu Shōjo Comic Special. An English version of the manga was published by Viz Media, which also included the Utena manga in its magazine Animerica Extra.
The Utena manga and anime have different stories. This happened because Saito started working on the manga before the anime was made. She used ideas from the anime scripts but had to make decisions about parts of the story that the anime would later change. The production of the manga was described as being influenced by Saito’s confusion about what to include and vague answers from the anime director, Ikuhara. Saito had five different editors during the manga’s 1.5-year publication.
A sequel to the Utena manga, Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution, was announced in 2017 to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary. Saito wrote and drew this three-chapter story, which showed the main characters’ lives after leaving Ohtori Academy. It was published in the Josei manga collection Flowers from July 2017 to March 2018.
J.A. Seazer was a popular idol in Japan during the late 1960s. His music still carried the energy of the student movement. Seazer’s songs were used in the Utena anime. Shinkichi Mitsumune composed the anime’s music and arranged Seazer’s songs. Each episode usually includes two of Seazer’s songs: one that repeats when Utena enters the dueling arena, called Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku, and another unique to each episode that plays during the duel. These songs act like a Greek chorus, using lyrics about religion, science, and other topics to reflect the duelists’ motivations. The Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus performed the songs, with Ikuhara and Mitsumune playing instruments on some tracks.
Seazer originally created these songs for his theater group, Engeki Jikken-Shitsu: Banyu Inryoku. Ikuhara was inspired by Seazer and another theater group, where Seazer was a co-director. After the group’s founder died, Seazer started Banyu Inryoku. Ikuhara wanted to work with Seazer, calling it a dream come true, but the anime’s producers were hesitant because Seazer’s music was very experimental. Seazer agreed to participate partly because he liked Sailor Moon.
Toshiro Yabuki composed the anime’s opening theme, Rondo-Revolution, and Masami Okui wrote and sang it. Ikuhara told Okui to imagine writing a song for the story’s final scene, even though he had not yet decided what the ending would be. He gave Okui phrases like “sunlit garden,” “revolutionize,” and “change the world” to use in the lyrics. The anime had two ending themes: episodes 1–24 used “Truth” by Luca Yumi, and episodes 25–38 used “Virtual Star Embryology” by Maki Kamiya. The final episode used a scat version of Rondo-Revolution by Okui.
After the anime ended, Be-Papas announced a movie sequel called Adolescence of Utena, which was released in Japan in 1999. The film’s place in the Utena story is unclear, with some seeing it as a standalone story and others as a direct follow-up.
Several musical versions of Utena were made. The first was Comedie Musicale Utena: La Fillette Révolutionnaire in 1997, directed by Yūji Mitsuya and performed by an all-female cast. Later versions included Revolutionary Girl Utena Hell Rebirth Apocalypse in 1999 and Revolutionary Girl Utena: Choros Imaginary Living Body in 2000.
In 2017, a 2.5D musical version of Utena was planned to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary. The first musical, Revolutionary Girl Utena: Bud of the White Rose, was performed in 2018 and adapted the Student Council Saga. A second musical, Revolutionary Girl Utena: Blooming Rose of Deepest Black, was staged in 2019 and adapted the Black Rose Saga. The same cast and director returned for both shows.
Ikuhara said the early stage adaptations of Utena looked “extremely cheesy” when the anime’s visual style was used literally in theater. He supervised the 2018 and 2019 musicals, having previously refused offers to make a 2.5D version. He agreed after a producer convinced him it would help introduce the series to younger audiences.
Two light novels, Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Aoi no Futaki and Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Midori no Omoi, were written by Ichirō Ōkouchi and illustrated by Chiho Saito. They were published by Shogakukan in 1997 and 1998. A video game, Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Itsuka Kakumeisareru Monogatari, was made by Sega for the Sega Saturn in 1998. The game is a visual novel with dating sim elements, featuring a new character who transfers to Ohtori Academy. The anime’s voice actors also performed in the game.
Themes and analysis
Utena's wish to "become a prince" does not mean she wants to be royalty or change her gender. Instead, it shows her desire to show traits like courage, kindness, and strength that are linked to the idea of being a prince. The idea of being a prince represents a set of values connected to heroism, not Utena's gender. The story contrasts the idea of a prince with that of a princess, shown through Anthy, who is described as passive, helpless, and treated as an object.
While the simple idea of prince and princess roles might suggest Utena is a story about female empowerment, critic Napier says the series is not simply about women gaining power. Napier and others argue the story uses the prince/princess contrast to explore how traditional gender roles limit both men and women. It also shows how people who suffer from these roles may unknowingly enforce them on others. The story suggests that being a prince is just as limiting as being a princess, as both ideas come from the same system of restrictions. This idea becomes clear at the story's end, when Utena loses her final duel against Akio. Even though Utena fails to "save" Anthy, her actions make Anthy question the rules she follows as a princess and lead her to leave Ohtori Academy, a place where the prince/princess roles no longer matter.
Critic Mari Kotani says Utena is an example of a "sentō bishōjo," a character type created by Tamaki Saitō. Kotani explains that Utena’s design appeals to readers who enjoy seeing girls in romantic or sexual ways. However, Utena’s crossdressing and active role as a hero complicate any attempts to see her as an object. Kotani also says the story combines elements of shōnen (focused on action) and shōjo (focused on romance) through Utena’s character, which helps reveal how sexuality is shown in girls’ manga.
Themes of growing up and personal change are common in Ikuhara’s work, often showing teenagers who want to change but are tied to their pasts in ways they don’t realize. This focus on growth connects Utena to the bildungsroman genre, which tells stories about personal development. The Student Council’s repeated phrase "crack the world's shell" is based on a line from Hermann Hesse’s 1919 novel Demian, a key example of the bildungsroman genre. In Ikuhara’s stories, characters often search for a tool that seems to solve their problems, like the "end of the world" in Utena. This tool is later shown to be either fake or powerless, symbolizing how characters are limited by larger systems of control.
The series does not clearly define what the "end of the world" means, but Ikuhara has described it as a feeling of despair that comes with growing up and learning about the real world. This idea is contrasted with the "power to revolutionize the world" and the "power of eternity," which Ikuhara describes as the ability to imagine the future and create a happy future, respectively. Enokido notes that characters in Utena seek their own version of "eternity," which represents a desire to relive the past, but also shows the danger of letting emotions control people.
Utena shows multiple gay and lesbian relationships, all of which are treated as normal and accepted in the story. Ikuhara wanted the series to show diversity in this way, using these relationships to support the story’s message of personal freedom. The series’ portrayal of sexuality is linked to how it challenges typical fairy tale and magical girl stories, which often push characters toward traditional ideas of heterosexual love and marriage.
Napier says that while Utena’s depiction of same-sex relationships might show that such relationships can help people feel free, the relationship between Utena and Anthy can also be seen as a symbol of the need to bring together different parts of oneself. Utena’s desire to "save" Anthy gives her a limited view that is only fixed when she understands Anthy’s situation in a more feminine, empathetic way. Anthy’s traditional, passive behavior improves when she gains more confidence and assertiveness. Napier also says that while Akio’s relationship with Anthy is harmful, Utena’s attempts to "save" Anthy are overly protective. Only when Anthy chooses to leave Ohtori Academy does she start to develop a more balanced personality.
Reception and influence
The story Revolutionary Girl Utena explores how two women discover who they are. However, Utena is not a simple story about growing up or finding a place in society. It is also not a straightforward tale of events that lead to an end-of-the-world scenario. Instead, Utena examines how the past influences people, looks at issues like corruption and relationships, and explores the idea of change and rebellion.
The series has been widely praised and honored for its creativity. In 1997, Utena won the Animation Kobe award for "Best Television." In 2017, a national survey by Japanese broadcaster NHK ranked Utena 30th among the 100 greatest anime to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the anime medium. Utena was named one of the ten "best anime ever" by Anime Insider and ranked fourth on Paste magazine's list of the best anime of all time. Anime News Network placed Adolescence of Utena eighth on its list of the 100 greatest anime films. A writer named Mike Toole described the series as "the most important anime of the 1990s."
The series is especially praised for how it portrays themes related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identities. In 2020, the creator of Utena, Ikuhara, noted that many anime address same-sex relationships on the surface, but Utena stands out for its focus on freedom and diversity, which has helped it remain popular. Critics and creators have said Utena influenced later works, including Revue Starlight, Princess Tutu, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Steven Universe, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. The series also helped increase interest in the music of J. A. Seazer.
Anime and manga scholar Susan J. Napier points out that Japanese critics often compare Utena to the 1996 anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, as both explore themes of growing up and end-of-the-world scenarios. Fans sometimes call Adolescence of Utena "The End of Utena," a reference to the 1997 film The End of Evangelion. Napier says Evangelion focuses on a "severe end-of-the-world" where the world itself is at risk, while Utena presents a "dramatic and complex end-of-the-world" filled with intense emotions, unclear identities, and extreme experiences. Critic Mari Kotani agrees that Utena is often compared to Evangelion, but she believes it is more closely related to early shōjo manga, specifically works by Jun'ichi Nakahara and Macoto Takahashi published in Soleil magazine.