Revolutionary Girl Utena/WMG

Plot

Revolutionary Girl Utena is Magick.

And most of the characters are either magicians or avatars. Akio's pursuit of the occult lead him to channel the spirit-archetype known as Dios, who embodied the First Prince, the first love of all young women, while Anthy was herself possessed by the spirit Rose Bride, She-Who-Married-Flowers-Instead-Of-A-Man, who embodied those who could not find emotional or sexual fulfillment, Dios' constant companion. The presence of two powerful spirits attracted the spirits of the Swords of Hate, the embodiment of the outrage of the death of innocence. At first, the Swords of Hate focused their rage on Akio-Dios, taking on the collective anger of overly-concerned fathers outraged at the strange boys who deflowered their virgin daughters.

Akio-Dios managed to defend themselves, eventually helping a young Utena into finding a reason to live. But as Akio grew older and strayed from Dios' ideal form as the youthful boy-prince, his bond with Akio grew weaker and they faced annihilation at blades of Hate. To save their beloved, Anthy-Rose Bride directed the Swords of Hate at them instead, drawing on the resentment of parents against unfulfilled children. Dios then lost all connection to Akio, causing him to be obsessed with reuniting with Dios. Seeing that the Rose Bride was Dios' constant companion, Akio used magick to bind Anthy to the Rose Bride, keeping her subservient to him through demeaning acts, abuse, and rituals. Dios came to rescue his companion, and Akio in turn bound him to earth. In revenge, Dios shattered Akio's magical weapon, the Sword of Dios, preventing Akio from channeling Dios. Akio also began deluding himself, believing Dios to be a true god and that he could force Dios' into bonding with him again.

Akio then spent the next following years gaining power and influence, ingratiating himself into the Ohtori school system. Using simple magick feats and trickery, Akio conned middle-school students into becoming Duelists, participants in his fairy tale-themed magickal rituals, the purpose of which was to reforge the Sword of Dios by passing it around, contained in the body of his sister, until it reached a strong mediums, that he might claim it once more and force Dios' power - the fabled "Power that brings the World Revolution" - onto himself. He also trained promising students in magick, that they might create rituals and dynamics of their own.

At first, Akio thought Utena to be his final "reward" upon bonding with Dios, a "princess" to his "prince", but Utena was inspired to be a prince instead of a princess. Her mixing of gender roles made her both available channels for both the Rose Bride as well as Dios, which did not at all deter Akio.

The first set of duels against the Student Councils introduced the players of the game as well as gauged their reactions towards magick. The second set of duels - against the Black Rose Society - had Akio manipulate his pupil Mikage into performing the Black Rose Rites with those close to Student Council members, forcing them to bond with the Swords of Hate. The third set revisited the first set, but with the aim of eliminating all other possible avatars of Dios' and the Rose Bride. Akio's schemes were going well, as even his eromenos lover and apprentice Touga (who had grown to be a magician powerful enough to challenge him) was defeated by Utena.

But in the final duel, Akio defeated himself when he shattered the illusion of the castle in the sky, which in turn undermined his own magicks. Anthy betrayed Utena under Akio's instructions, Akio taking the Sword of Dios to break the "seal" which held the "power of miracles." As a last act of defiance, Dios chose Utena as his host, which gave her the strength to move despite being wounded. Instead of escaping, Utena chose to reach out one final time to Anthy, breaking Akio's magickal and emotional hold over her. The Rose Bride was freed but weakened by the ordeal, and bonded with the nearest available avatar, Utena, who was both boy and girl, male and female, prince and princess. This caused the avatar "circuit" to be completed, spiriting the Dios Bride gestalt into the metaphysical realm. Anthy, befeft of Utena's presence but left with the knowledge of her sacrifice, chose to reject Akio, rendering him magickally impotent as he had depended so much on her as both a vessel and a fixture.

Characters

Chu-Chu is the personification of Anthy's soul

It is thought that Anthy's true feelings are shown in her pet monkey. Also on this tangent: Chu Chu is thought to be a pygmy marmoset.

• Alternately, Dios is the personification of Anthy's soul. at the end of the series, It is revealed that Utena's meeting with her prince was decidedly different from how she remembers it. Instead of a mature, rakish Akio praising her for her mourning, a younger, more childlike Prince, presumably Dios, shows her Anthy, who is far far worse off, and sadly relates Anthy's tale. It is this incident that moves Utena to go to Ohtori. Anthy, in an effort to save herself from the pain and sorrow of being asacrifice, astrally projected the most powerful and emotive part of herself as an idealized image of her brother. It is this being who Akio talks to in the first season recap episode. The latin name for a Yamato Nadeshiko flower provides support for this theory: It's called a Dianthus.
  • If you pay close attention in the scene where Utena and Dios meet for the first time, it becomes apparent that he gradually matures during the conversation. At first he looks close to child Utena's age but upon reaching Anthy, Dios appears to be in his teens.

Akio is Utena's prince.

He was corrupted into the main villain by the power of the black rose and is the actual End of the World. His car is a symbol of the Revoulution and gives power to him.

Anthy is the only one that's "real"

The entire show is about Anthy learning to rescue herself by way of massive delusions. Her brother represents her wish to be a child forever, Utena her idea of innocence and so forth. Which would go a long way towards explaining why everything got so weird at the end.

• Alternately, Anthy's fake, too; the entire school is someone's mindscape, with Anthy as "I, the Central Voice." At the end of the series, the person's issues are resolved, so (s)he can go out and deal with the real world again.

Miki has noticed time is broken.

(Proposed by a con panel): Time obviously is broken at Ohtori -- look at the Black Rose Saga for the most obvious example, but there's plenty of others. Miki's constant fiddling with the stopwatch is his attempt to figure out exactly what's happened to time.

Miki is timing the fansubs

Because every time he shown with that watch, it contains the exact length of the previously said phrase.

Dios and Akio are separate people, created by Anthy.

When Anthy created Dios, it was out of her idealized notion of humanity and nobility, who would always save people from harm. However, Dios couldn't save people from themselves because Anthy never imagined the possibility. When Dios couldn't save Anthy and she began to resent other people for being saved by him, he died, and the townspeople stabbed her thinking her a murderer. That's why Dios later only appears as a spirit- he's a ghost. As she continued to be stabbed by the million swords, Anthy hated and feared other people but secretly wished to return to the old ways- which is why Akio appeared and set up the duels. His abuse of her and their self-destructive relationship is her blaming herself for Dios's death and the fact that he never saved her.

Anthy and Akio grew up in British-colonized India.

The reason we never see their parents is because they perished in one of the many plagues or famines that hit the British Raj. The Power of Dios was simply a game they made up to escape the harsh reality, but people actually began depending on their story. Having overexerted himself, Akio could no longer fight as Dios. Anthy was blamed for his loss of power and was attacked by the townspeople for witchcraft.

Akio and Anthy are NOT Dios and his sister.

They're their reincarnations. It's an endless cycle. Whenever the Dios-incarnation reaches the later stages of adolescence, he becomes End of the World, and the sister-incarnation becomes the Rose Bride. The Dios that Utena met was a physical manifestation of humankind's belief in the ideals that the real Dios had created.

• The series was most likely the final loop, considering how it ends.

Spoilers for the final arc Dios was supposed to die in the tale of the rose, so he could be reincarnated

• In many myths there are gods and/heroes that die only to return of the dead, or reincarnate. This was common on spring rites. So maybe the life of Dios was one example, he appears on the world, rescues girls, make everything good, then dies, and the cycle starts again, but the last time everything got botched to hell, so the knew incarnation of Dios came corrupt as Akio.
• Also, it could be that in every reincarnation, the prince is different in some way, and Anthy got really scared because she didn't want to lose this version. And then everything went downhill.

Chu-Chu is the basis for stories of a Witch's familiar, and semi-immortal.

• He's not himself eternal, his body will eventually die, but his memories and personality will be passed to the next. Either as an actual new body, or a completely identical descendant. It really was him in Nanami's Egg, and the shadow play later about cuckoos hinted at his "species" being a form of brood parasite. He of course had Nanami raise the egg, rather then Anthy. Both so Anthy wouldn't be sad while he was gone, and so he'd have a little chance to mess with Nanami.

Setting

Everyone at Ohtori is dead.

Their souls are stuck in a spiritual purgatory, created by two gods with distinct multiple personality disorders. Note, the campus itself resembles a funeral plot. Also, in the Flash Back, Utena's parents' funeral in her memories had a third, unusually small, coffin. Her "hiding" in it? It was hers. This is further supported by The Movie, where at least one major character with whom Utena interacts is in fact dead and has been for years.

• Plus, it was highly implied that all of 'Ohtori's Princes' were dead before The Movie ever began.
• To expand upon the theory, the school is a limbo ruled by Akio & Anthy, two gods who fell for some unknown reason. Niether believes they can leave & Akio has been down there so long that he's lost most of his sanity. The Revolution is ascent to heaven or descent to hell, depending on who gains control of the gods' power. Utena made it to heaven with that power, and showed Anthy that she, too, could leave.
• Alternately, Akio is a deity who chose to fall, sacrificing his full powers for a realm where he is Demiurge. Ohtori is a pocket-dimension where Akio's power is absolute, and he's allowed to populate it with a certain number of souls: Students and teachers. According to his "deal," as in every good myth/fairytale, there's a loophole: There must be a way to win their freedom. Enter the Duels and Revolution; since Akio knows a human winner could unmake everything, Akio's rigged the deck. Anthy is a once-human priestess of Akio, then Dios, who serves as an anchor/bridge between Akio's world and the Earthly souls; perhaps Dios began the transformation into Akio and Anthy was targeted as a priestess of a hated god. Maybe Anthy wished for power herself, and her 'witch' personality is her original one: Serving as a 'sacrifice' made her capable of understanding, if resenting, the pain others undergo, making her capable of human feelings by the time she met Utena (instead of dulling her emotions, as in canon). Utena won, and though she didn't know enough to unmake Akio's demi-world, it was enough to crack the shell: Her effect on Anthy was another victory, and Anthy's departure means she's freeing herself of her once-worshiped idol. Without Anthy's presence, Akio's world will eventually crumble and its souls will be freed to go to their ultimate destinations.
  • Anthy was a priestess whose worship of/faith in Akio allowed him to build Ohtori? Then, if she's switched faiths to Utena...

The Movie's version of Ohtori is where Utena and Anthy went after the end of the series.

It is the next higher "level" of reality, what is beyond "the ends of the world". Anthy actually managed to get there before Utena, and has been busy setting things up, and they're much closer to the ideals what they'd like to be. Anthy is much more active and self-determined, and Utena's appearance and attitude is even closer to her "prince" persona. Meanwhile, much as Anthy said at the end of the series, Akio seems revealed as much less slick and more petty. This theory can be nicely dovetailed with either of the above.

• Additionally, it's not just Anthy and Utena - All the characters who appeared in both the Movie and the Anime are moving through their stages of Ascension, becoming less of whatever mask they wore in the Series and closer to being 'real people.' In example: Touga drops the manipulator facade after realizing that he was purely selfish before; Miki is consciously distancing himself from Kozue and not backing down, while Kozue is less manipulative and more outright (if no less unbalanced); Akio is not the god-like puppeteer but a flawed being whose own self-revulsion leads to that fall off the tower. While Utena and Anthy may have been the only ones to escape, it's possible that the others are being forced to face and dispel their own ideas about themselves, leading them along the road to being 'real.'
• Related to this, the movie's "scandalous tape"? It's the Utena TV series. "If you want to know why Anthy killed Akio, watch this tape!"

Utena has 'escaped' Ohtori before, and each Alternate Continuity is her trying to free everybody - the 'revolutions', to bring them back to the real world.

Think about it -she escaped from the Ohtoriverse once before, and returns again to free the people she met there after becoming accidentally trapped there by the rose ring given to her -the manga was the first time she went through the Ohtori rollercoaster trying to save everyone and rescued Anthy from Akio. Through Anthy being a 'witch', the anime is Utena and Anthy going back to rescuse everyone else from Ohtori and Akio. Either that, or the Shadow Girls are the witches who brought Utena and Anthy to the 'anime' version of Ohtori. However, due to imperfections in the spell cast, Utena, nor Anthy can remember what happened, nor the reason why they are there, (possibly because Akio interferes with them re-entering) - and this version of Ohtori has disintergrated somewhat from what they saw - thus leading to Utena only rescuing Anthy again before returning to the real world. The movie is another attempt to free everyone trapped by Akio - and Utena and Anthy remember some of why they are there - and this time Utena and Anthy succeed, leading everyone out from Akio as a car, or something. Ohtori is considered a timebubble or alternate universe created by Akio to imprison his sister, and perhaps people he didn't like - and where the same events play out over and over again, with varations. The differences can be explained by Akio slowly losing control over his alternate universe after losing Anthy - the movie headtrip is caused by him being outdone by Utena twice in keeping Anthy and him slowly going into petty vengance...

Utena takes place After the End.

We never see anything of the world outside Ohtori. No one ever leaves. And in the movie, Utena and Anthy find themselves in a deserted wasteland after escaping. Isn't it obvious?

Plausible crossovers

Impossible crossovers

Utena is a Shaping Duel

The show actuly takes place in Exalted's Wyld and is one long shaping conflict between fair folk. The Student council are the nobles, people with faces the commoners, and the faceless are simply fantasies created from the Wyld. The ending scene is Utena's animating force proving that her character is more important than Akio's entire world. Utena has Sword shadowing Staff. (or maybe Ring, she mostly uses Sword shaping, she does basically systematically destroy the social order of the school though, hence Staff) Touga has Sword shadowing Cup. (The episode where he convinces her that he is a better prince, is a magnificent Ravishment). Nanami goes from a Staff commoner to a Staff shadowing Sword noble. Anthy is a Ring commoner. Akio is a master of both the Staff and the Ring, (but he kind of walks into Utena's Sword shaping, and lets her set her Character up as the Hero). The way Utena gets dragged into fighting for Anthy is a Burden, at first imposed using Staff shaping but it is reinforced with Ring shaping soon enough.

The series is either an alternate universe iteration of a Green Lantern origin story, a Future Imperfect retelling of one, or a Black Mercy hallucination

Granted, this troper has only read the manga, but c'mon! A dying person passing on his ring of power to a successor and telling them they have the ability to overcome great fear a noble heart? "One of strength and nobility is always a prince"? And Anthy, Akio and Dios are inhuman beings who oversee the world? Hell, Dios even turns into a ring when he's killed, never mind the fact that Anthy is viewed as a tool by all the mortals around her.

Plus, every strategy to take the Power to Revolutionize the World from Utena involves vast amounts of emotional manipulation, almost as if that's the real way to win a duel; demoralize your opponent to the point that they lose all faith in their own abilities.

The coffins that the rest of the student council are shoved into when they attempt to flee the Castle in the manga!finale speak for themselves: "The name of this coffin is 'Presumption'. It's his flaw. It holds him back." The other coffins are 'Obstinacy' and 'Immaturity' - and what do all three faults have as their driving force in these characters? Fear. Touga doesn't get a coffin because, quote, "You're not trying to run away... so you don't need one," implying that the others are "protected" by their "sturdy coffins" only because they lack the courage to break out. This means that the thing that sets Utena apart from the other people searching for the 'power of miracles' is her valour. (This troper freely admits that her only reason for posting this WMG is to justify her Utena/Anthy/Hal Jordan OT3)

Ohtori Academy was created by Suzumiya Haruhi

If there's one thing that Ohtori Academy never is, it's boring.

• Tell that to Wakaba.
  • Wakaba is Haruhi.
    • Then Utena is the oft sought after gender flipped Kyon?

Akio became the Obsidian Lord

After Anthy left him, Akio started the HiME Festival (which is essentially a duelling tournament) as a method of creating a new Rose Bride, using the same method of tempting the winner with whatever they desire in return for their servitude.

• Following on from this, Tate and Shiho are reincarnations of Touga and Nanami.

Miki's stopwatch was a gift from Jack Harkness.

Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch.

• But wasn't the stopwatch Ianto's?

The story of the Rose Bride and Ohtori Academy were created by Drosselmeyer.

It's got all the trademarks of his stories: quirky heroine stuck between two identities, a Broken Bird princess as a possible villain, a prince with Chronic Hero Syndrome who turns into a White-Haired Pretty Boy, and the key to everyone's suffering being Dramatic Irony. In fact, he probably wrote it to outdo the Prince and the Raven; he Tutu's power for understanding feelings through dance with the duels (so Utena would be confused and not always know her enemies' motivations), made it so true love couldn't turn the Prince back to a good guy, and made the princess opposing the main character less sympathetic so nobody would want to save her, keeping everything in the Vicious Cycle. The power to bring world revolution was actually the power to leave the spell keeping everyone in Ohtori. Utena found it by defying her role and keeping true to her ideals, and Anthy followed her by rejecting Akio and refusing to stay as the Rose Bride. (Alternatively, the power is hope.)

Ohtori Academy has another sister school in Japan

It's called Ouran Academy

• Oh Crap. If Kanae is somehow related to Kyouya, Akio is doomed.

Ohtori is in Hyrule.

Breaking this down:

1) The Triforce shines, is eternal, can create miracles, and has the power to bring world revolution. Therefore, Akio, Anthy, and Utena are all Triforce holders; Akio has Power, Anthy has Wisdom, and Utena has Courage. Akio (Ganondorf) needs the powers of both Anthy (Zelda) and Utena (Link) to achieve world revolution. That power is behind the Rose Gate (the Sacred Realm/Door of Time), but he can't open it on his own, instead needing someone virtuous wielding the Master Sword (The Sword of Dios). Utena and Anthy had met as children, where Utena pledged to save Anthy, but she wasn't capable of doing this until she was older. Anthy also shapeshifted into a male (Sheik) and had powers like disappearing or giving extra power to the Sword of Dios.

2) In the first arc, Utena has to beat seven duels, analogous to freeing the seven sages (alternatively, the duelists are the Shrine Maidens). The duel names can also be seen as having something to do with the sages (Amitie/Friendship, symbolized by Green; Saria and Link were friends). The colors of several duelists' roses also correspond to the sages' medallions (Nanami's yellow rose to the Light Medallion, Juri's orange rose to the Spirit Medallion, etc.). Either the Black Rose duelists or the duelists themselves can be seen as bosses.

3) There are three alternate instances of Utena- the manga, the anime, and the movie- that can be seen as different worlds or continuities. Since the movie is such a Mind Screw, it may as well be Termina; Utena also went there looking for a friend she lost (Touga), she and Anthy were nearly crushed by a large object holding a beautiful world inside of it (the castle, in place of the moon), and it is at least somewhat linked to the anime world (Ocarina of Time) by the Shadow Girls acknowledging both exist. Several characters either change or don't exist at all between the versions, just like in the games.

Symbolism

Utena As Religious Allegory.

• The series is an allegory for Maharayana Buddhism. Utena is the bodhisattva figure who leads Anthy to enlightenment, and at the end of the series, both have left for the greater reality outside, while the rest of the cast remain trapped in their own karmic cycles. The Movie ramps this up a notch by having Utena transform into an actual "great vehicle", which is the literal meaning of "Mahayana". Akio represents Mara, the Buddhist enemy figure, and parallels can be drawn for the rest of the cast.
  • Alternately, Utena is a Gnostic allegory. This is supported by its focus on the dichotomy of light and darkness, as well as its usage of colors and drives for characters, whch has ties to Aleister Crowley's gnostic-influenced Thelema doctrine. In this view, Ohtori Academy is the world of illusion, and Akio is the Demiurge, manipulating all within it. (Other commentators suggest that Anthy is the Demiurge, instead.) A direct reference the the show's Gnostic underpinnings is found in the Student Council's oath, more commonly known as "the chick speech", which is a variation of a passage from Herman Hesse's Gnostic-themed novel Demian -- "The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas." -- and ties directly into more overt Gnostic themes within the show. (And to eliminate the possibility that it's a coincidence, the music played under those recitations is called "Legend of the God Named Abraxas".)
    • Alternatively, it is based on the progression of the Tree of Life in the Jewish Kabbalah. Many students have hair/rose colors that match interpretations of particular Sephirot. If we go by the Zohar, Utena may be Keter, (her rose, and in the manga, her hair, is white) "compassion", while Anthy could be both an aspect of Malkuth (the Kingdom, represented by a veiled (glasses wearing) Bride, and Tifareth, "love" (her hair is purple).
    • Another possible hint for the Gnostic connections would be the ending of the movie. In which the school is shown to really be a ruin, with straw dolls of the students. The dolls representing the false physical shells that the Demiurge has forced their spirits into.
      • Alternatively alternatively, all of the above are true, intentionally or otherwise. Different religions from different parts of the world simply express similar philosophical/psychological truths in different ways.

The different hair and rose colors each mean something.

(Proposed by the same con panel as the above): White is perfection/enlightenment/the Prince. Black/purple is corruption and decay, and brown is the mundane. The other colors represent various ways of trying to achieve perfection: red is power (both physical strength and social manipulation), blue is hope and the intellect, orange is the miraculous, yellow is childishness (both in the sense of innocence and in the sense of immaturity), and this troper can't remember whether they said green was eternity or loyalty. Pink is red, but closer to white than plain red is. The student council's hair colors are the most obvious examples, but it also holds in a lot of other places -- the roses that occasionally appear in the corner of the screen, for example. A random sampling of other examples:

• Anthy acquires a red dress when she enters the dueling arena, symbolizing the power she has there.
• Anthy's purple hair is tied to her nature as a witch.
• Akio's car, which appears whenever he's manipulating someone, is red.
• The elementary school boy who stalks Nanami is also yellow-haired.
• Ruka's hair is two-toned, both lighter and darker than Miki's and Kozue's shades; this represents his more mature outlook on life (darker blue) and lack of confusion about his goal or methods (lighter blue); rather than chase a 'Shining Thing' or obsess over what he's lost/never had, he pursues his goal with clear-headed planning. It could be argued that, since he achieved his goal, he - like Utena - is proof of at least one path to Enlightenment proving true. In both cases, the core is Selflessness, which dovetails nicely with a number of religions and philosophies.

The rose colors represent the Seven Deadly Sins.

For instance: Saionji, the green rose, is Envy. Nanami, the yellow rose, is Greed. Touga and Akio are surrounded by red roses a lot, and Akio also uses purple roses, linking them to Lust and Pride.

Receiving A Sword From Someone Is An Allegory For Sex.

This has kind of been rattling around in my brain for a while, but if you think about the way the receipt of a sword from someone else's body is represented (especially in the movie, where it's much more grope-y), it seems an awful lot like sex (I guess in reverse, though, since it's removing, rather than penetrating). The "bride" can have her sword removed by anyone who is her current owner, since one of the main duties of a bride (historically) was to sexually serve her husband. When it came to the Black Rose Saga, that sex became by conquest and theft (basically, those relinquishing their swords were being raped by an enraged black rose duelist). In the final saga, once everyone had connected with their love, they could remove the swords by consent rather than having to take them by force.

• This Troper and her SO have in fact, used the phrase "To pull someone's sword" to mean engaging in less than consensual sex with them.