Revolutionary Girl Utena

You'll never look at roses the same way again.

"Grant me the power to bring the world revolution!"

Revolutionary Girl Utena (Shoujo Kakumei Utena) is the Neon Genesis Evangelion of the Shoujo category... and not by accident. The show started airing in the spring of 1997 and flourished on Japanese airwaves with a time slot of 6 PM on TV-Tokyo every Wednesday until Christmas Eve of the same year. At Kobe Animation '97, it won the "Best TV Animation" award. A previous work by Chiho Saito, Kanon, possibly served as the inspiration for several of the themes and tropes in this story.

Utena consists of:

  • A five-volume manga: though chronologically the first version (serialization began in mid-to-late 1996), the manga and the anime were simultaneous projects.
  • A 39-episode anime series: considered the "core" canon.
    • A Sega Saturn game set in the middle of the anime's first arc, Four Days in Ohtori: Itsuka Kakumeisareru Monogatari.[1]
  • An original animated feature film, which is considered an alternate continuity to the original series (and is discussed in better detail below).
    • A single-volume manga based on the animated feature: this is considered to be yet another alternate continuity, as it diverges from the movie's story.
  • A pair of light novels—one focusing on Miki, the other on Saionji—published in 1998: perhaps the most obscure part of the Utena canon, these light novels make up another alternate continuity (though they bear the closest resemblance to the original manga).

On the day of her parents' funeral, seven-year-old Utena Tenjou meets a prince on a white horse. The prince gives Utena a signet ring, which he says will one day lead her back to him. Overwhelmed with emotion, young Utena decides that she too will become a prince. Seven years later, Utena has followed the trail of her prince to the exclusive Ohtori Academy... and one fateful day, she defends the honor of her best friend Wakaba from upperclassman Kyoichi Saionji. Saionji calls Utena to the dueling arena at the back of the school, where Utena's ring opens the door to a private arena. After a duel with Saionji, Utena becomes enmeshed in a fencing tournament with the members of the Ohtori Student Council. The goal of this tournament is to gain "The Power to Revolutionize the World"... as well as the hand of the mysterious Rose Bride Anthy Himemiya. At the young age of fourteen, Utena is forced to deal with a power she is not ready to control and a world she never dreamed of being a part of.

Utena makes both friends and enemies at Ohtori while participating in the duels, and she grows in skill with each win. As she and Anthy slowly become friends, Utena learns Anthy has a connection to "End of the World", the mysterious force behind the duels. The story is properly set in motion in the show's second arc (the Black Rose Saga), when acting school chairman Akio Ohtori takes an interest in Utena... and everything promptly goes to hell.

Utena lovingly includes, describes, averts, inverts and subverts a large number of anime tropes, the most notable of which are Stock Footage (Utena's Once an Episode Transformation Sequence) and Clip Show episodes (two of the three contain major plot twists essential to the story). The series is known for its striking visual design—influenced by Takurazuka, Noh theater plays, fairy tale imagery, and classic shoujo manga—pieced together by director Kunihiko Ikuhara. It's also known for the lush soundtrack by J. A. Seazer, which mixes classical orchestral themes with outre choral harmonies and surrealist rock.

The show features commentary on (and references to) existing works, including—but not limited to -- Neon Genesis Evangelion, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, the House of Borgia, Paradise Lost, William Shakespeare, Cicero, Ovid's Metamorphoses, multi-episode obscure visual references to Manet, and numerous nods to the existentialist German war novel Demian. Underneath these themes, Utena is fundamentally a coming-of-age story, exploring whether it's possible to stick to childish ideals in order to defeat an opponent who is practically the living embodiment of adulthood.

Utena is neither explicit nor gratuitous, although some viewers may find certain implications of the plot to be distasteful (as an example: incest is a major theme, and it is explored from numerous perspectives). The story's core is based on a friendship turning into a romance between two girls who never expected it; the canonicity of what you see on the screen is debatable, but the Word of God statements by director Ikuhara on the subject are not.

The 1999 movie Shoujo Kakumei Utena: Adolescence Mokushiroku[2] (The Adolescence of Utena or simply Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie in the States), by contrast, makes the romantic nature of Utena and Anthy's relationship plainly obvious. Most of the characters are dramatically changed in both appearance and characterization, and the storyline is just as drastically altered (it is not so much an adaptation of the series, as it is a complete recreation). The movie is well-known for its Gainax Ending... as well as its Gainax Beginning and Gainax Middle; it could be an allegory on Mahayana Buddhism, Jungian philosophy, gnostic belief, or it could just be about lesbians. The series is often regarded as the Shoujo equivalent of Evangelion; the movie would then be Shoujo's End of Evangelion equivalent (both the series and the movie were directed by Ikuhara, which explains why the movie is as mindbending as the series).

Both the series and the movie were originally made available in the United States via Central Park Media, though their DVDs are out of print. In 2011, Nozomi Entertainment rereleased the series across three DVD sets (using the show's remastered Region 2 DVD release as the video base) and the movie (with the third set). The entire manga series, as well as the manga based on the movie, were also released in the US by Viz Media (and are also out of print).

As a final note: Word of God says that all interpretations of Utena's symbolism are true (Ikuhara could be perpetrating an elaborate joke though).

Tropes used in Revolutionary Girl Utena include:
  • Abridged Series: In the form of Utena Internet Parody.
  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Almost every episode, the Council members ride in a fancy elevator to meet in a rose-decorated tower to discuss the upcoming worldwide revolution. Then they swordfight for a chance to control said revolution. That's about as absurdly powerful as you can get. Beautifully subverted when it turns out that Akio and Anthy created the Duels for for the sole purpose of benefiting Akio, and not even Utena really had a fighting chance to become the final Champion as long as Anthy remained the Rose Bride.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Anthy can power up the Sword of Dios/Utena's soul sword; included in said power-up is this property, although it's only demonstrated during Utena's duels with Touga. To put it into perspective, Utena's powered-up soul sword can easily split approaching cars without them losing velocity.
  • Accidental Marriage: Utena and Anthy, though it's more like an "engagement".
  • Action Girl: Utena, Juri, and most all of the female duelists.
  • Adaptation Distillation: The movie manga is arguably this for, well, the actual movie.
  • Adaptation Dye Job:
    • Utena started in the manga as a blonde, but was given pink hair in the anime and later manga volume covers and illustrations.
    • Anthy also originally had dark brown/black hair in the manga, but it was changed to violet in the anime and later colored illustrations. Other hair color changes included Juri going from being blonde to orange-haired, and Touga's hair changing from black (with red bangs) to red. Miki's hair also was originally brown in the first color illustration of him, but quickly changed to blue to fit with the anime.
  • Adorably Precocious Child: Mitsuru Tsuwabuki.
  • Age-Appropriate Angst: Played with. Though most of the cast are teenagers, reasons for angsting and levels of angst will vary depending on the personality and maturity levels of different characters. Then it's played straight with Akio and Anthy, who've lived for what's implied to be centuries and have universal problems proportional to their humongous ages.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Sadly lampshaded by Juri, who remarks that people would be much happier if they could simply change the objects of their affections.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: Towards a certain Mysterious Waif... Don't expect her to take everything lying down though. And Nanami would've fared better if she'd known that Anthy has faced far, far worse than any bullying her little group of schoolgirls could've come up with.
  • Alpha Bitch: Nanami for most of the series. Juri in the manga.
  • Alternate Continuity: The Movie.
  • And the Adventure Continues...: The anime ends with Anthy departing on a quest to find the missing Utena.
  • Animals Hate Her: Nanami.
  • Animation Bump: The Stock Footage is stock footage, yes, but it's all very well-animated.
  • Anti-Villain: Nearly every character that can be considered a villain at any point in the story is this except for Akio.
  • Anything That Moves: Touga (although he's mainly into girls) and especially Akio.
  • Arc Words: All over the place, to the point where the show occasionally throws in parodies of its own arc words for humorous effect.
    • "Revolutionize the world!" encompasses the entire series but each of the three (or four, depending on whether you consider the third and fourth arcs distinct) have their own arc words.
    • From the Student Council Saga: "If the egg's shell does not break, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick; the world is our egg. If the world's shell does not break, we will die without being born. Break the world's shell!"
    • From the Black Rose Saga: "Deeper... go deeper..." and "the way before you has been prepared."
    • From the Akio Saga: "The ends of the world, I will show... to you."
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Snails in her pencil box... A mongoose in her desk drawer... A giant octopus balloon in her closet! And now shaved ice for dinner?! You're making me sick!"
  • Artistic Age
  • Ascended Extra: Nanami, a major secondary character in the anime, only appears in a photo in the manga, where Juri more or less takes her place. By that association, because Juri has some of Nanami's traits in the manga, Shiori as an ascension in the anime also counts.
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: A good rule of thumb with this series is that if something, especially a relationship, seems a little fucked up at first glance odds are it's not only exactly as bad as you think it is, but worse.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Possibly Utena, in the end of the series and manga.
  • Author Avatar: Chu-Chu. This is Ikuni.
  • Autobots Rock Out: With Ominous Latin Chanting to boot. Try not to enjoy the Black Rose Saga songs.
  • Back for the Dead: Ruka.
  • Backstory: Everyone has one.
  • Badass:
    • Tsuwabuki, of all people. Sure, the main characters spend pretty much all their free time having sword fights to bring about the World Revolution (whatever the heck that means), but all they ever really do is try to knock something off each other’s shirts. Nine-year-old Tsuwabuki, on the other hand, gets jumped by three high-schoolers, and he takes them all. That kid has got spunk.
    • Hell, Utena herself. Even outside of the duels, she's a really tough chick both in personality and in physical ability. She can jump, she can punch, she's a demon on the basketball court, and she can beat trained duelists with broken swords, bamboo practice swords and a pitchfork. And let's not get started on the truly epic move she pulls in the last episode...
  • Bait and Switch Credits: The opening sequence shows Utena and Anthy in dark blue and red plate armor, respectively, riding flying horses in an implied battle against an unseen enemy. Needless to say, we never see anything like this in the series. This was a result of changes to the author's original storyline, though, rather than deliberate deception, not that someone watching the finished product has any way to tell the difference. Director Ikuhara later joked it was a scene he had thought up during his work on Sailor Moon and that it wouldn't make any sense there either.
  • Bastard Boyfriend: Sayonji, Touga and Akio are cold, and diffident to the Rose Bride, and to other women. This is, of course, played for epic Deconstruction.
  • The Beautiful Elite: Almost every major character (except, notably, Anthy) has a scene where they are being admired by a crowd of lovestruck onlookers (of both genders). This usually happens when they're first introduced.
  • Bifauxnen: Utena, particularly in the movie.
  • Big Bad: End of the World/Akio.
  • Big Brother Attraction: Deconstructed, most thoroughly with Nanami, who seems like a textbook case of this trope, obsessing over her brother and hating people who get his attention... until she actually confronts her feelings and it becomes clear that she doesn't actually know in what way she likes him, if at all.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Averted. Dios ignored Anthy when he was too busy saving the rest of the world. Then he became Akio and decided that he wouldn't mind having his sister stabbed by swords for all eternity.
    • Subverted with Touga, who outwardly indulges Nanami but ultimately sees her as a toy like he does with most girls.
    • Played with with Miki, who wants to have a relationship with Kozue, but no longer knows how he can do that.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: Between Utena and Anthy at the end of the movie.
  • Big No: Kanae at the moment of her defeat
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Chu-chu has them. And he's supposed to be cute.
  • Bishounen: Roughly the entire male cast.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Utena has disappeared and the entire campus will eventually forget about her. But the revolution did occur: Anthy is inspired to finally end her cycle of abuse, and go out into the world to find Utena again. And the rest of the Student Council seems to have, if not had their own revolution, at least resolved their issues.
  • Bloodless Carnage: There aren't any injuries that would be accompanied by noticeable blood until the final episodes, but none of them feature the puddles of blood that they should.
  • Blood Sisters: Utena vows to protect and support Anthy no matter what the cost, but being a Mind Screw show, just getting there is half the battle...
  • Book Ends: The very last episode features a montage of "everyday" scenes paralleling events that happened to Utena and the other characters throughout the last year. As Anthy points out, the ending is not as bittersweet as it initially appears: the character dynamics that Utena changed are things that can't be undone.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: More or less literally: the asparagus sandwich may never be the same.
  • Break the Cutie: Everything's Better with Princesses? I don't think so. Weaklings in Utena either stay weak and get into severe trouble, or they try to seize power in incredibly unscrupulous ways.
  • Break the Haughty: Everyone's haughty to some degree, but no matter how it seems from the outside, Akio does not live a happy life.
  • Brick Joke:
    • One of the shadow plays features a scientist and her robot, which every now and then mutters some nonsense about catching monkeys. A few episodes later, there's an entirely unrelated skit with talking animals, and it ends when a robot appears out of nowhere and kidnaps the monkey.
    • In the first episode, Utena asks Saionji why there's an upside-down floating castle in the middle of the forest. He says, "It's a kind of mirage. Think of it as a trick of the light." Thirty-seven episodes later, Akio turns off the planetarium projector.
  • Bright Castle
  • Brilliant but Lazy: Deconstructed and played with in Miki and Mikage. Neither are completely lazy, but they do not reach their full potential in the series.
  • Broken Bird: An overt example is Juri. She's the reason Ruka comes back for the dead. A more unconventional example is Anthy. Kozue and Shiori can also be argued.
  • Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Wakaba and Saionji take on this role in her Black Rose episode. It goes horribly wrong, of course.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: No! Don't be repulsed! The incest is for Deconstruction! Not Fetish Fuel! Miki and Kozue, Nanami and Touga, Anthy and Akio. The first is implied and the second never gets explicit. Akio and Anthy, on the other hand...
  • Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: They're all over the place, especially in the movie.
  • Butt Monkey: Nanami and Saionji, throughout the filler episodes.
  • Casanova: Touga, Akio.
  • Catch Phrase: Goes with the stock footage.
  • Chalk Outline: The arena during the Black Rose Saga becomes filled with red silhouettes of dead bodies. Rather creepily, whenever a Black Rose duelist is defeated, they collapse perfectly into one of the silhouettes.
    • Remember where Mikage gets his Black Rose Seals...?
  • Character Development: Everyone gets some over the course of the series.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: You don't want to know what it did to Dios and Anthy...
  • Cinderella: Subverted, of course. At first, Keiko seems to follow this tale straight to the point of parody, Nanami being a sorta "evil stepmother". But then her attitude to her "prince" appears to be much more "rose-bridish" than "cinderella-esque". And as she gets close to Touga at last, she switches roles with Nanami, starting to humiliate her. To crown the subversion, she ends up beaten and "princeless".
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Nanami, Kozue, Shiori, and tragically Anthy. Each person is Deconstructed.
  • Clip Show: Episodes 13 and 33 summarize the first and third arcs, respectively, while surrounding the clips with intrigue, surrealism, and plot twists. Episode 24 is a humorous version, and compiles all of Nanami's Butt Monkey moments as diary entries written by Tsuwabuki.
  • Clothing Damage: During the second duel with Touga. Also happens in Utena's duel with Saionji in the movie.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Anthy sometimes appears to be one, mostly near the beginning of the series.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each major character has a color associated with them. Each color, in turn, represents the biggest emotional problems they face. Similarly, Utena's white rose when she faces Black Rose Duelists is a classic case of White Hat Black Hat.
  • Conspicuously Light Patch: Utena's locker in the Black Rose Saga.
  • Continuity Nod: The shadow play girls talk about a monkey-catching robot in episode 22. It makes later appearances in episodes 24 and 31.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: The series really toys with this trope. There's the deity Dios, a literal prince on a white horse, who occasionally comes down from the heavens to give Utena his strength. The antagonist is Akio ("Morning Star", as in, Satan), who clearly defines himself as Dios' evil counterpart. It turns out they were once the same person, who was worshiped as a god in a medieval society, but unable to listen to everyone's prayers and fulfill his duties as a deity. His sister Anthy took the blame and was symbolically crucified as a Jesus-figure, still to this day feeling the pain of her punishment, but absolving the people of their sins.
  • Custom Uniform: Utena claims to wear a uniform approved for boys at her school, not that any boy we ever see has clothes that vaguely resemble hers.
  • Damsel in Distress: Subverted. Anthy is introduced as one, but it is eventually shown that there's more to her than it first seems. Different characters shoved her between the different stereotypes until it finally occurred to Utena that her personality didn't have to be so flat. Meanwhile, Utena is in constant danger of becoming one herself, and everyone else has deep psychological problems which they must either be saved from or save themselves from. Failure in either is is what Akio counts on to keep them in the Duels.
  • Dances and Balls
  • Dark Mistress: Kanae. Poor, poor Kanae.
  • Dead All Along: Mikage and Mamiya; Touga in the movie.
  • Deconstruction: Many tropes are subverted.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: Name one episode where no subversion occurs!
  • Depraved Bisexual: Akio. It could be argued, however, that he is not bisexual, but is simply a depraved creep who will seduce Anything That Moves as long as it will help his cause.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Everyone will suffer. Only some will survive, and Akio is not among them.
  • Discretion Shot: We are mercifully spared seeing Nanami wearing a nose ring.
  • Disposable Fiancé: Kanae is either a hilarious invocation or an inhumanly cruel straight example of the trope, depending on how you watch the show.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Done several times throughout the series, though a particularly notable example is the filler episode "Nanami's Egg", a metaphor for the onset of puberty.
  • Domestic Abuse: Saionji and Akio are particularly abusive to Anthy. The Movie features a particularly disturbing scene of incestuous rape involving Touga and his adoptive father.
    • The case with Akio is more complex than it seems at the first glance. It's not physically abusive (in the conventional sense, at least), and emotionally, the two torment each other bitterly, even as they share shallow expressions of affection. Akio is in the position of power, but on the other hand, he's utterly dependent on Anthy, and she knows it. It's a crazy, messed up relationship of passive aggression and emotional cruelty. It's Anthy who ultimately desires to break the chain of abuse, and Akio who tries to cling to it, however; Utena is the impetus for Anthy finally breaking free and leaving Akio behind.
  • Downer Ending: Inverted. Most of the Black Rose episodes end with the Black Rose duelist happier off and with some Character Development for their trouble. Wakaba's ends with her coming to see Saionji has left as she mutters an "I'm home" to herself.
  • The Dragon: The Student Council, and later Mikage.
  • Dramatic Irony: Akio's plan to open the Rose Gate hinges on Anthy taking the Swords of Hate in his place so he can gain world revolution. Let's just say he's doing it wrong.
  • Driven to Suicide: Seems to be the case with Akio in the movie and the movie manga. Anthy also attempts this in the series.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Akio in The Movie.
  • Dude, She's Like, in a Coma: Kozue to Miki, when he's fallen asleep at the piano. Subverted in the movie, where Anthy is pretending to be asleep.
    • Miki does this to Utena in the manga.
  • Duels Decide Everything: But like everything else, it's brutally subverted.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Yes like whoa.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: The ultimate goal of all the Duelists is to literally gain the power to "bring the world revolution". How and why is an entirely different matter, but the Student Council motto sums it well enough.

Touga: If it cannot crack its eggshell, a chick will die without being born. We are the chick. This world is our egg. If we cannot crack the world's shell, we will die without being born. Smash the world's shell!
All: FOR THE SAKE OF REVOLUTIONIZING THE WORLD!

    • This could be one of the interpretations for the ending of the movie.
  • Elaborate University High: It is sometimes difficult to tell where Ohtori Academy ends and the town it inhabits begins.
  • Elevator School: Ohtori covers elementary through high school.
  • Emotionless Girl: Anthy, although the trope is twisted and subverted in every possible way the way. After all, this is Revolutionary Girl Utena.
  • Even the Girls Want Her:
    • Utena's got a legion of fangirls at Ohtori, and Wakaba goes so far as to call Utena her "boyfriend".
    • Juri seems to have this effect on female fans.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Akio's Super Seduction Skills lets him seduce most of the major cast... unless it really is just a ride in his car.
    • Just a ride in his car? Oh, come on. It's Akio.
  • Everyone Is Bi: Most everyone is canonically or hinted at being bisexual, although lip service is paid to heterosexuality as being the norm ("I'm a totally normal girl who wants a totally normal guy!"). Hilariously lampshaded when Touga, who is sleeping with Akio, tells Nanami, his sister, that only boy/girl romance is normal. And proceeds to make out with her.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Subverted hard. Since when is being a helpless waif better!? When the alternative means being stabbed by a million swords, that's when! And what's worse then that? When the princess in question is so psychologically traumatized and resentful of the experience that she'd rather be tortured for all eternity than re-enter the outside world!
  • Evil Laugh: Saionji does this a few times. His English voice actor makes it rather crazy.
  • Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Utena. Anthy, and to a lesser extent Juri, are implied to have the potential.
  • Extreme Doormat: Anthy. Subverted when we find out that her emotionless personality is just a cover for her collusion with her brother, double subverted when she actually is an Extreme Doormat to him, though she passive-aggressively rebels every step of the way. In any case, she's far from emotionless to the point where some fans consider her worse than Akio. She theoretically can rebel against her destiny as a fallen princess/Wicked Witch, but has to choose between eternal torture and returning to the outside world which brought about her torture into the first place.
  • Face Heel Turn: Look at all the entries on this page, then guess who...
  • The Faceless: The shadow-play girls, and the few parents shown; also affects some "faced" characters when they appear in flashbacks.
  • Fairy Tale Motifs: First appears to be played straight, and then subverted down to its core.
  • Fallen Angel: Akio, depending on how literally you chose to interpret his backstory. Metaphorically speaking, he's definitely one. His name even roughly translates as "Lucifer".
  • Fallen Hero: Series Metatropes: What makes a prince? And what causes said princes to fall? Just ask Dios... turned Akio!
  • Fan Disservice: A lot of the sexuality takes on this aspect when you think about the other aspects of it, and it's pretty much a given that almost every sex scene in the series and movie has something twisted behind it, most notably the ones between Akio and Anthy and Touga and his father in the movie.
    • For a show with a fair amount of Fan Service, the only bona fide nudity ends up being rather disturbing.
  • Fan Service: Played straight with all female characters due to uniforms and attractive body structure. Played straight with all the guys due to many bishonen performing dramatic and meaningful shirtless poses. Then there's the Akio Car, not to mention the movie ending...
  • Feminist Fantasy: Right up there with Miyazaki movies in the anime department.
  • Filler:
    • Pretty much any episode that prominently features Nanami without actually having her duel. Could be subverted because even the fillers can be analyzed. "Tsuwabuki's Secret Diary", on the other hand, can be skipped.
    • Arguably, the entire Black Rose Saga is this, as it has very little to do with the main plot and ultimately only serves to foreshadow the darkness of Akio's and Anthy's characters, which later scenes do anyway.
  • Five-Man Band: Deconstructed. The Student Council are broken versions of their roles: their ability to serve these roles are clouded by their own desires. However, they do teach Utena how to be the Prince: she learns each role from the counselor, and then rises to defeat them. Probably not coincidentally, each character's hair color matches the Sailor Fuku color of the respective 5MB in Sailor Moon.
    • The Hero: Utena and Akio and Dios: the conflict over who is the true prince is the core of the plot.
    • The Lancer: Touga, a natural leader and prince candidate, distracted by his physical desire.
    • The Big Guy: Saionji, a serious kendoka, distracted by his desire for controlling the spirit.
    • The Smart Guy: Miki, a child prodigy, distracted by his desire for a shining emotion.
    • The Chick: Juri, the female member with a deep knowledge of other's hearts, distracted by her desire for a rational world.
    • Sixth Ranger: Nanami, who starts off so far out of the plot, it's funny, distracted by her own little world, but still she manages to be the first one to figure out the plot, even after being turned into a cow.
  • Flower Motifs: Roses, everywhere! Of every color! In your architecture! In your teacups! In your jam!
  • Foot Focus: The movie has several very clear instances. The anime has a few as well.
  • Forgotten First Meeting: Utena met Anthy for the first time right after her parents died.
  • Freaky Friday Flip: Don't eat Anthy's curry.
  • Friendly Enemies: Miki to Utena. As the series moves towards its close, eventually most of the other Student Councilors follow suit.
  • Gainax Ending: To the movie.
  • Gambit Pileup: Played with. Though all of the characters have their own agendas and minibosses Touga and Mikage would like to imagine themselves as Manipulative Bastards, only Akio's machinations truly drive the force of the whole story.
  • Gender Bender: "Mamiya" is really Anthy in disguise... sort of.
  • Genki Girl: Wakaba.
  • Genre Busting: It's a complex, metaphorical coming of age story seen through the lens of Buddhism, Gnosticism and Jungian philosophy. It also uses deconstructionist theory to tackle issues such as gender roles, the incest taboo and binary principle. It also a complex look at the dark side of tropes and imagery associated with European fairy tales, such as the prince, the princess and the wicked witch. It also is a surrealist dramedy observing the complicated interpersonal relationships between the students. It also is about lesbians. But we just like to say it's a Shojo, and back away slowly. Pretty impressive for a TV series that states "From the Director of Sailor Moon!" on its American DVD release.
  • Geodesic Cast: Each Duelist has their own Black Duelist counterpart. Even Akio, though she isn't shown drawing his soul sword. Hmmm....
  • The Ghost: "End of the World", at least at first.
  • Giant Poofy Sleeves: The female student uniforms of Ohtori Academy.
  • Girl A: Nanami's Girl Posse consists of Aiko (I), Yuuko (U) and Keiko (K). Of course the usual deconstruction sets in here when Keiko's desires are explored in the second arc, as is her jealousy of Nanami.
    • The Shadow Play Girls are similarly named A-Ko through C-Ko in the television series, with D-Ko through F-Ko added in the movie.
  • Girl in a Box: The coffin scene.

Scenes.

  • Girl Posse: Nanami's three-girl clique.
  • Gnosticism: Mentions of the Gnostic god Abraxas make the influence explicit, but the overall tone of the series reflects perennial Gnostic themes.
  • A God I Am Not: Anthy.
  • Grand Finale: Should go down in history...
  • Gratuitous English: From time to time. The first ending theme as well:

Missing truth and forever
 Kissing love and true your heart

    • And the opening theme:

Take my revolution

  • Gratuitous French:
    • The Eyecatches and soundtrack CDs translate the title as Utena: La Fillette Révolutionnaire.
    • The first clipshow episode gives Utena's seven duels up to that point French names: amitié, choix, raison, amour, adoration, conviction and soi.
  • Greek Chorus: The shadow-play girls, with an assist from Utena during the second arc.
  • Grey and Grey Morality: Even the bad guys have their reasons, vague as they may seem. The fact that everybody lives for the most part also tends to dull the seemingly malevolent natures of Touga, Nanami and Saionji later on in the show. The only actual villains are Mikage and Akio, and even then, they're just a darker shade of grey (albeit a very dark shade in the latter case). However, no character in the series truly is entirely pure despite how they may seem.
  • Half-Identical Twins: Miki and Kozue.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Utena herself gets this from way too many people. Her usual response: Shut UP, Hannibal.
  • Hard Light: Akio's planetarium projector can project it, if episode 38's duel is anything to go by.
  • Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Utena states in the second episode that she is still a normal girl and only wants a normal boy, despite the ambiguous relationship she shares with Anthy. Again, in the last arc, Utena lamely denies that her feelings for Anthy are similar to Juri's feelings for Shiori.
    • In the second episode, the only person Utena has eyes for is the dream-like prince who saved her from her Despair Event Horizon. Everyone else, female or male, is only peripheral to her. By the last arc, Utena loves Anthy, but isn't sure if she wants to continue fighting for a girl who is less than what she imagined her to be. Juri throughout most of the series loved and defended Shiori no matter how badly Shiori treated her, and the above quote refers to when Utena tells Juri that she doesn't want to become a Love Martyr like Juri once was.
    • However, Utena and Anthy's relationship in the anime can be interpreted in different ways. In the movie, it's more straightforward.
  • Heel Face Turn:
    • Touga in the manga.
    • It's implied that neither Miki nor Juri have much interest in the End of the World since, after their personal problems are resolved, they stop being antagonistic to Utena (and in Miki's case, they're overtly friendly). Even Saionji is not really evil, just an easily manipulable jerk. Only Akio and Touga in the anime remain villainous until the end, though Touga has his reasons...
  • Heroic Sacrifice: A battered, exhausted, and freshly-stabbed Utena saves Anthy's soul by opening the Rose Gate with her bare hands, but ends up getting the stabbing from the Million Swords in Anthy's place; Utena's willingness to do everything possible to help her friend is ultimately the key to helping Anthy break free of her relationship with Akio and leave Ohtori.
  • Hot for Student: Do you really wanna know how many students Akio sleeps with? Does anybody really know?
  • Human Resources: The Black Rose Circle's plot is apparently powered by the corpses of the 100 boys who died in a fire at Nemuro Memorial Hall.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: They're called Duels (even the ones without an actual duel in them).
  • If It's You It's Okay: Touga is implied to be a variation on this trope: it seems he likes girls for meaningless sex, and guys for emotional affairs (Utena and Nanami being an exception to that rule), although Akio is the only guy he's really implied to sleep with. One could also make a case that this trope summarizes Saijonji's feelings for Touga, but just the same, it's possible to argue that it's purely platonic.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Saionji, Wakaba.
  • I Kiss Your Foot: ...So I Can Sinisterly Manipulate You Into Submitting To My Every Whim!
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: What the medieval townspeople do to Anthy in flashback Up to Eleven.
  • Implausible Fencing Powers: Utena tends to do this during the duels, particularly with the Soul of Dios powering her up.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Everybody, but especially the Rose Bride outfit. Utena's is famous for its visuals. Averted somewhat with Utena herself, as she has a perfectly reasonable outfit underneath the jacket: a tank top and bicycle shorts. It's just the jacket that makes cosplay very hard.
  • Improbable Age: Utena's supposed to be 14?
  • Intertwined Fingers: Utena and Anthy do this quite a bit. Used at the end of the series for dramatic effect. It's the final frame of the anime.
  • In the Back
  • In the Name of the Moon: Played straight several times with Utena as part of her Knight in Shining Armor persona.
  • It Got Worse: A million swords.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: This is Akio we're talking about!
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Akio has many of those moments.
    • The moment where he's first implied to be sleeping with Anthy is a defining one. As is the part where Anthy is revealed to be a witch, with Akio as her 'jailor'.
    • In his debut episode, if you really pay attention to The Stinger, the fact that he set his incredibly self-conscious girlfriend up to be Mind Raped for the purpose of testing Utena.
  • Knife-Throwing Act: One of the Student Council meetings had Touga and Miki doing this with Touga as the knife-thrower.
  • Knife Outline: Touga on Miki. During a student council meeting.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: Deconstructed, gender-reversed, subverted six ways from Sunday, corrupted, and maybe, depending on your point of view, played straight to boot.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Utena. By the last arc, Utena loses faith in her own goodness because she realizes that she only became a prince in order to find something to live for after her parents died. She loves Anthy, but is not sure whether she wants to continue fighting for a less than pure girl who sleeps with her brother. In the end though, Utena realizes that no matter what Anthy does, she'll always get the short end of the stick as long as she stays in Ohtori. She can manipulate as many students as she wants, but at the end of the day, she'll still be the Rose Bride openly stepped on by every Duelist she comes across, and the only one in the world who is perpetually impaled by a swarm of animated swords.
  • Lady and Knight: A big theme. Also what Anthy and Utena are to each other.
  • Ladykiller in Love: Touga, but it depends on whether you think he's really in love with Utena or not.
  • Lethal Chef: Anthy, who cooks up not poison, but explosives with magical side effects. Unless she's making shaved ice, which is safe. Subverted with Akio, whose magnificent cooking skills only belie his Big Bad status. In the comic, it's Chu-Chu's fault.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: The Black Rose Saga is pretty much comprised of the supporting cast bucking up and trying to kill the Rose Bride. Many a jaw dropped when this included Tsuwabuki and even Wakaba.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Miki and Juri's friendship has some hints of this; Fanon and fan fiction have been known to take this in non-platonic directions.
  • Literal Metaphor: "Utena is the vehicle through which Anthy escapes from Ohtori." And then the movie came along...
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Akio, Touga and Saionji.
  • Loophole Abuse: Ain't no rule a girl can't wear a boy's uniform! Despite, you know, it not being the boy's uniform either... this is given more detail in the manga, where the exact rule Utena is manipulating states that a student must wear a uniform from the school's designer. It may not be the usual boy's uniform, but it's by the same designer, all right.
  • Love Dodecahedron: *Deep breath*:
    • Utena idolizes Dios and loves Anthy, but gets tempted by Touga and sleeps with Akio, who is engaged to Kanae and sleeping with Kanae's mother.
    • Anthy mourns Dios, has love/hate feelings towards Utena, sleeps with Akio, and is pursued by Saionji and Miki.
    • Saionji, who may-or-may-not return Wakaba's feelings, also may-or-may-not love Touga. Touga may-or-may-not love Saionji back, but seduces hordes of schoolgirls anyways and attracts both Keiko and Nanami. Also, Touga sleeps with Akio.
    • Wakaba's friend Tatsuya loves her, and Wakaba may-or-may-not love him back, in addition to her love for Saionji. Also, Wakaba may-or-may-not love Utena in more than a platonic way.
    • Tsuwabuki loves Nanami, but Nanami has feelings for Touga, who has no problem with kissing her.
    • Tsuwabuki's friend Mari is jealous of the attention that Tsuwabuki pays to Nanami and Tsuwabuki may-or-may-not like Mari back. Interestingly, Nanami seems to be jealous of Tsuwabuki's friendship with Mari, in spite of being in love with Touga.
    • Kozue fools around with lots of boys, sleeps with Touga (and quite likely Akio as well... at the very least, she goes on a date with him and rides in his car) and kisses Anthy at one point, but actually loves Miki; meanwhile, Miki himself is implied to be molested by his piano teacher.
    • Mikage once loved Tokiko, who was seduced by Akio, and now loves Mamiya, who is Anthy in disguise (kind of).
    • Meanwhile, Juri, Shiori and Ruka have their own love triangle all to themselves, but Juri also has lots of subtext with Utena, and Juri may-or-may-not love Miki in the movie, and Akio manipulates the emotions of all of the above to keep them in the Duels.
      • In summary: Akio sleeps with everyone.
      • The true love (or lack thereof) and ambition of each character is usually shown very clearly.
  • Love Redeems: Anthy to a huge extent, and Touga to a lesser extent, though whether or not they make full Heel Face Turns is up for debate.
  • Love Triangle: Juri-Shiori-Ruka and Utena-Anthy-Akio are the main ones. Then they're the smaller canon ones, and the smaller non-canon ones, etc... The Juri-Shiori-Ruka one is a particularly messy one for being about a non-titular character. None end well, though that observation is extremely debatable.
  • Loving a Shadow: Everyone but Akio. Let's see... there's Miki-to-Kozue, Juri-to-Shiori, Shiori-to-Ruka, Saionji-to-Touga, Nanami-to-Touga, Touga-to-Utena, Utena-to-Dios, Utena-to-Anthy, Saionji-to-Anthy, Miki-to-Anthy, Mikage-to-Anthy, and finally Utena-to-Akio and Anthy-to-Akio for a time. Had fun reading that? Fortunately, all of the relationships are Deconstructed and have well-developed backstories to keep them from being repetitive. Not to mention that no two of them evolve the same way. Utena/Anthy is especially unique.
  • Madonna-Whore Complex: Deconstructed. "Women who cannot become princesses have no choice but to become witches."
  • Magical Girl: Hugely defied. The defining trait of all Super Sentai Magical Girl series is that altruism and unconditional love will always save the world, but the biggest prince in the story ends up as the series' Big Bad, and all of Utena's strength and purity can't even save one Damsel in Distress if said Damsel in Distress won't break away from centuries of habits to save herself. Also, Utena is more of a Magical Warrior than a conventional Magical Girl.
  • Malevolent Architecture: In the movie, the castle. It's actually all on wheels which constantly move and try to crush whatever is going through them.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Akio, also a Magnificent Bastard. Touga aspires to be like him, Ruka tries to be like him for moral reasons, and Mikage believes himself to be one and succeeds for the entire second arc.
  • Man of Wealth and Taste: Akio.
  • Memento MacGuffin: The Rose Signets, Juri's locket.
  • Mental World: The arena takes on aspects of this during the Black Rose Saga: it becomes filled with school desks and atop each one are identical copies of some item important to Utena's opponent.
  • Mind Control Eyes: Black Rose duelists.
  • Mind Rape: With everyone. Even Akio suffers.
  • Mind Screw: Everything in the series can qualify if you think about it.
    • The movie. It is called End of Utena.
    • Let's just say that the series becomes more and more of a Mind Screw with each arc. It starts pretty normal, starts losing it in the Black Rose Saga, and becomes a metaphor/symbolism storm in the final arc... and the movie is a mental trainwreck, plain and simple.
  • Monochromatic Eyes
  • Mood Whiplash: The filler episode with the boxing kangaroo is followed by an episode where an Ensemble Darkhorse agonizes over her sexuality. This is followed by a Freaky Friday episode, which is followed by a flashback where eight-year-old Utena hides in a coffin and begs to die.
  • More Than Mind Control: The Black Rose Saga, and Akio does everything in his power to keep doing this to Anthy.
  • Mrs. Robinson: Arguably, this is just Akio's Anything That Moves at work, but he and his mother-in-law-to-be definitely get it on. Poor Kanae.
  • The Musical: A one-off musical was made.
  • My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Played with. Fighting ability varies depending on the user's motivation, but having superior sword skills definitely still helps.
  • Mysterious Waif: Definitely Anthy, nobody else will ever be as complex.
  • Never Grew Up: Ohtori Academy is apparently a twisted version of Neverland. Akio, Mikage and (possibly) Anthy chose to stay, and the metaphor for "growing up" is "graduating".
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Nanami.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Chu-Chu.
  • The Nondescript: Played for drama with Wakaba, who is notable because she's pretty much the only "normal" person in the main cast. Over time, this causes her to feel very unhappy with herself, and she becomes desperate to break out of that role and become someone "special".
  • Nonuniform Uniform: Utena wears the boys' uniform instead of the girls', much to the chagrin of her teacher after Utena justifies this with a loophole from the school rulebook. To further this trope, Utena's boys uniform does not look like the others: where the standard boys uniform is a light-green jacket and pants, Utena's jacket is dark blue with red shorts. In the manga, her uniform originally consisted of a pink jacket and shorts.
  • Noodle Incident: What, indeed, were Tsuwabuki's strategies for winning Nanami's heart? Especially Plan 24...
  • Noodle People
  • Not Blood Siblings: Nanami is crushed after finding out she and her brother Touga are both adopted and not blood related after all. This is then subverted when it turns out that Touga was just playing with her head: while they are adopted, they were adopted from the same family and thus actually are blood siblings. For the record: this is the Double Subversion of the inversion of a trope: a prime example of how Mind Screwy this show is.
    • Even further subverted in that Nanami never finds out the truth (or if she does, it's never shown onscreen).
  • Not Just a Tournament: The winner of the Rose Duelists' tournaments will hand over the godlike power of Dios to Akio, then be promptly disposed of.
  • Oddly Visible Eyebrows
  • The Ojou: Nanami.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Voices chanting "aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah" in the "Nectar Knife" song is beyond creepy.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: "Idea of Memory" and "Legend: The God's Name Is Abraxas".
  • One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In the episode "Nanami's Egg", Nanami and Touga have a conversation where she asks him if he would prefer a boy or a girl. Nanami talks about a kid (which she thinks will get hatched from an egg she got... It Makes Sense in Context); Touga thinks she's talking about boyfriends and girlfriends, so when she says she would like a girl, Touga ends up thinking she's a lesbian.
  • "On the Next Episode of..." Catchphrase: "The absolute destiny, apocalypse."
  • Ontological Mystery: In a loose sense.
  • Orphan's Plot Trinket: Utena's ring.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Mikage may be one. Touga, and possibly Akio, in the movie.
  • Out-of-Clothes Experience: Anthy is in the nude as she takes the swords of hatred.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: To understand Utena, here's a hint: the Shadow Girl plays are like simpler, almost childish versions of the darker events and emotions hidden in each episode. They exist as the series' Greek Chorus.
  • Palette Swap:
    • The first ending credits sequence gives Utena a pink version of Anthy's dress, which she actually wears in episode 38. The third arc gives a blue dress to Kozue and a purple dress to Shiori.
    • Akio and Anthy wield a black version of the Sword of Dios/Utena's soul sword during the endgame.
  • Parental Abandonment: Utena herself, the Kiryuu siblings and the Kaoru siblings. The parents that are not dead or absent are simply not mentioned.
    • And then there's Kanae's mother, who, even though she's one of the only parents to appear, manages to show in one short scene that she's arguably abandoned her daughter in a way more heartbreaking than the rest of the casts' families put together.
  • Personality Blood Types: Discussed by Nanami and her Girl Posse, and later by Nanami and Utena.
  • Person of Holding: Anthy initially, but Utena and the other duelists also become this.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: A few, like Anthy's dress for the duels, and the dress Utena wears in the introduction.
  • The Pornomancer: Akio, and to a lesser extent Touga.
  • Post Modernism: You think a story like Utena could have been written any earlier?
  • Primal Scene: Nanami walks in on Akio and Anthy.
  • Pun-Based Title: The Freaky Friday Flip episode is titled in Japanese as "Curry-naru High Trip"; the "curry-naru" ("karē-naru") is a play on "karei-naru" ("magnificent").
  • Rape as Backstory: Touga in The Movie.
  • Rape as Drama: The true nature of Anthy and Akio's relationship goes from squicky Fan Disservice to flat-out heinous when, at the end of episode 25, Akio rapes Anthy when she hesitates to "come to him" as she usually does. It is later heavily implied that he has used force on her during their nighttime meetings more than once.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Both Akio and Anthy. Mikage, meanwhile, is merely older than he looks.
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Both in the fandom and Deconstructed in the series. Some people hate Anthy because she's a weak, outwardly emotionless doll who claims to have no opinions outside of the Victor's whims. Others hate Anthy because they think she's too powerful and manipulative and evil. And some just hate her because she gets to sleep with Akio, and they don't. Interestingly, all the kinds of Anthy-haters in the fandom are present in the story: Saionji hates her because he thinks she's not obedient enough (well, he loves her too, but beats her often enough to make ya wonder). Juri and Kanae feel threatened both by her Extreme Doormat persona and the fear that she might be more sinister, and several of the Black Rose Duelists envy her for "being loved" and "stealing their love interests". Then there's Akio, who needs to keep "his woman" under his control in order to keep playing the Big Bad of the show... Ikuhara really knows how society views feminine archetypes, and those views are reflected even in the Utena fandom.
    • It's not just the haters, it's her fans too. Some fans, like the characters Miki or Utena (at first), see her as a classic Damsel in Distress archetype for them to rescue/defend on the forums in order to boost their own egos. However, it should be noted that people who view Anthy as such are much rarer than the Anthy-Is-Satan-Fan because the series does eventually make clear that Anthy is most definitely not an emotionless doll.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered quite satisfyingly from Anthy to Akio in the finale.

By all means, stay in this cozy coffin of yours and continue to play prince. But I have to go now. She isn't gone at all, she's merely vanished from your world.

  • Recap Episode: Surprisingly relevant to the story.
  • Red String of Fate: Shiori steals the boy she thinks Juri likes. The actual string appears in flashbacks to these events.
  • Refusal of the Call: Utena tries to lose her second duel on purpose. It proves too difficult.
  • Ret-Gone: Sort of. When Utena defeats Nemuro, it appears that Nemuro wasn't erased from history, but all signs of the plot he carried on after his death were.
  • Rich Bitch: Nanami.
  • Rose-Haired Girl: Utena.
  • Royally Screwed-Up[context?]
  • Rule of Cool: Allegedly the reason the director threw in 90% of the stuff that drives fans nuts trying to understand it.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Omnipresent in the show, but especially in the flashbacks and the Tale of the Rose. This trope goes Up to Eleven in the movie.
  • Running Gag: In episode 16, whenever someone says the word "cowbell" or points out what wears cowbells, a silhouette of a cow mooing or a still of a farm with yodeling playing over is shown.
  • Sadistic Choice: Really, can you blame how Anthy turned out when her choice is between angry mobs with fire and freaking magic swords?
  • Samaritan Syndrome: Deconstructed and inverted in the most horrific fashion. Ever heard of Shooting The Shaggy Dog? No wonder Dios becomes Akio.
  • Samus Is a Girl: In the movie, Saionji initially thinks Utena is a boy.
  • Save the Princess: But is that really such a good idea?
  • Say My Name: Utena and Anthy in their last duel with Touga.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Anthy, which serves to underline when she's being complicit with her brother's manipulative plans. Also when she's pissed with him: once, he even snaps at her with something almost approaching fear when she does this to him (along with a seemingly innocuous goodnight wish that really clashed with the scene).
  • Scenery Porn: Seriously, just look at the movie.
  • Schoolgirl Lesbians: Juri; possibly Anthy and Utena in the series, though it's canon in the movie. Tons of girls also fawn over Utena and in one episode (and only one episode), Anthy.
  • School Play: The Shadow Girls' rendition of the Tale of the Rose.
  • Sex as Rite-of-Passage: The concept more than the usual trope, and arguably half the point of the show is to tear it down.
  • Sexophone: Akio Car. Very yes.
  • Shadow Archetype:
    • Utena/Mikage (the name is a clue); Nanami/Utena; Akio/Dios; Akio/Utena; Anthy/Nanami. Just about every character has one.
    • In the movie, it's not totally implausible to see Shiori as Utena's "shadow".
  • Shaggy Dog Story: Maybe not to everyone, but definitely Akio.
  • Shapeshifting:
    • Anthy, as the finale of the Black Rose Saga demonstrates.
    • Arguably, Shiori in the movie.
  • Sharp-Dressed Students: The student council wear pristine military-style uniforms, all decorated with their trademark colors. Utena's regular outfit also gives off this feel.
  • Shirtless Scene: The later arcs are chock-full of this kind of scene. Two words: Akio Car.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The Myth of the Rose Bride was wrong on several different levels. Can you guess how many lives Akio must've ruined since then?
  • Shotacon: Touga and his father in the movie. When Touga flirts with Miki in the music room. Miki understood fully, as his Imagine Spot provides. Yeeaaaah.
  • Shower of Angst: Juri indulges in this.
  • Shut UP, Hannibal: Utena several times per arc.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Miki and Kozue.
  • Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids: No character is innocent. Even Utena herself is far from ideal. And yet... do they have to be?
  • Single-Stroke Battle: Some Duels.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The series plants itself in the middle of the spectrum, refuses to budge, and lets the characters and plot (and audience) fight over it to whatever extremes they please.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Inverted with the Black Rose duelists, discounting Mikage himself; all but one are female, with the Elementary school boy Mitsuru being the only male to be lured into the duels (Tatsuya, another boy, was lured in, but rejected).
  • Snot Bubble: An exaggerated version by Chu-Chu.
  • Spikes of Villainy: Game antagonist Chigusa's shoulders in her dueling uniform, and the pommel of her sword.
  • Spoiler Ending: The first ending shows Utena with the Prince, in a pink version of Anthy's Rose Bride dress. Utena wears the dress when Akio draws a sword from her in episode 38.
  • Start of Darkness: How does one completely corrupt the strongest and purest Prince in the world? Hint: Just ask Dios... turned Akio.
  • Stepford Smiler: Anthy.
  • Stock Footage: Utena climbing to the arena (and several of her signature moves), Akio's highway scenes, and many others... it may hard to believe, but Utenas budget wasn't that much higher than Evangelions.
    • Of course, it wouldn't be Utena if it didn't subvert even this. The story about the little girl who lost her parents and met a prince that opens several episodes is repeated enough that most viewers will have memorized it... except it is eventually revealed to be only partially truthful.
  • Suck My Rose: Everywhere.
  • Surprise Creepy: To the point that the first company to license the show marketed the first batch of episodes as a bog-standard Magical Girl series... they wisely changed their approach from the second arc on.
  • Swiss Army Tears
  • Sympathy for the Devil: Anthy arguably displays this towards Akio. To be fair though, it may just be a case of misguided loyalty, and it's not entirely clear how much say she has in the matter.
  • Take My Hand: The ending.
  • Take Our Word for It: Steadily less of the action of the fights are actually shown during the third arc.
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Utena despite having pink hair and being shorter than most of the cast. Juri is a more direct example: granted, she doesn't have dark hair, but neither does Utena.
  • Tech Marches On: Akio's omnipresent car includes a car phone. Back in 1996, this luxury helped emphasize how rich and important he is. Now... not so much.
  • Teen Genius: Miki, also Mikage.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: The car chase scene in the movie.
  • Theme Naming:
    • In French, but the themes overall are more complex than usual.
    • Lots of references to flowers and botany are made. "Utena" (萼) means "calyx", which is the part of the flower that protects the petals. This is a role that Utena attempts to fill, with doubtful success at the end of the series. "Ánthos" (Anthy) is Greek for "flower".
  • There Are No Therapists: Holy cow...
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Utena with Anthy, Utena with Nanami, arguably.
  • To the Batpole: Goes with the Stock Footage.
  • Tournament Arc: The whole series. But don't you dare try calling it cliche!
  • Tragic Hero: Utena, Anthy, Dios, Ruka, Juri and Mikage can all be argued.
  • Transformation Sequence: Changes slightly between the first and second arcs; the third arc has a completely new one.
  • Travel Cool: With Akio and his car, it's played way too straight in the series, yet subverted in the movie where he has lost his key and takes a taxi.
  • Triumphant Reprise: The very end of the show, when Baiser slams into "Rose & Release", which is Okui Masami scatting to the tune of the opening theme. After everything that has happened, it is incredibly joyous.
  • Troubled but Cute: Saionji. Kozue is a rare female example.
  • Twincest: No! Don't be repulsed! The Twincest is for Deconstruction! Not for Fetish Fuel! Also only really present in the movie.
  • Two-Teacher School: Akio's the only authority figure who really matters.
  • Umbrella of Togetherness: Between Keiko and Touga in episode 21. Obviously, Nanami will have none of it and expels her from all extracurricular organizations and has the rest of the Girl Posse ostracize her, which drives Keiko over the edge and causes her to become a Black Rose duelist.
  • Victim Falls For Rapist:
    • Subverted: when it is revealed that Akio and Anthy are involved in an abusive, incestuous relationship, it is also implied or assumed that Anthy loves Akio as more than a brother. But in both the TV series and the movie, Anthy chooses the outside world and Utena and feels no remorse for leaving Akio behind.
    • Played confusingly in the movie's manga, where Anthy sees it as this, but Akio's guilt drives him to suicide; even so, she still ultimately lets go of him, declaring that he's "only in [her] mind".
  • Villainous Breakdown: Averted somewhat in that instead of going Ax Crazy upon losing his second duel against Utena, Touga simply sits down in a chair. And stays there. For thirteen episodes.
    • Real Life Writes the Plot. His voice actor temporarily left to work on other series. Plus, it made his re-entry into the third arc all the more dramatic.
  • Villainous Incest: Take a good guess who.
  • Villains Out Shopping: Happens with the student council members in the filler episodes, and to the point of eeriness with Akio near the end of the series.
  • Voices Are Mental: In the Freaky Friday Flip episode.
  • Wham! Episode:
    • For the first part of the series, you can almost convince yourself that the whole show is going to be interesting, but mostly fun and lighthearted. Then during episode 9, we have a flashback to Utena more or less trying to kill herself when she was eight, the Upside-Down Castle nearly coming down and taking Anthy with it, and Saionji attempting to kill Utena and Anthy both. And then you can't.
    • Episode 33, a Clip Show episode, which by its nature lulls the viewer into a false sense of boredom. And then Akio has sex with Utena, and you've missed it if you blinked.
    • Episode 34, in which the Shadow Girls interact with the main cast for the first time and casually reveal the entire real plot thus far. And it's horrifying.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?:
    • Surreal shows are full of dramatic flourishes and objects suddenly appearing in thin air. Touga, Saionji and Akio are particularly found of this kind of Fan Service, and Utena loves dramatic poses to show her powerful, princely nature.
    • In episode 21, Keiko hands out party invitations by whipping them like throwing stars.
    • Virtually every Nanami episode will have this to some extent.
  • What the Hell, Townspeople?: Sure, townspeople! Go ahead and stab your Messiah with a million swords just because he worked himself sick trying to help you ungrateful bastards! What, he's hidden away? No worries! Just stab his sister with the million swords instead! Arguably, that means us. Think about that.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Chigusa Sanjouin, though it's more of an extremely pale blue.
  • White Prince: Series Metatrope: the Prince is the term given to the Utena Knight in Shining Armor equivalent. He always has to save the day; he has to be perfect. If not...
  • Wicked Witch: Series Metatrope: Anthy is implied to be either a Wicked Witch or a Damsel in Distress.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Utena. And Dios before he became Akio.
  • Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: The bamboo training sword Utena uses to win her first rose duel.
  • Word Salad Lyrics: The soundtrack has a bit of a problem with this.

Astrologic eras, primeval oceans, erosion, deposits
 Three billion years, birth of life, geologic eras
Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian
Stromatolite, bacteria, collenia
Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous

  • World of Symbolism: Rule of Symbolism is really the only unbreakable rule in this story.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Ruka sees himself as Prince Charming in a series that has an ambiguous relationship with the concept.
  • Xanatos Roulette: Avoided. The Myth of the Prince and Rose Bride is shown to have existed in a time where swords were the main weapons, implying that Akio has been trying for centuries to achieve his goals and is not just relying on some one-shot, throwaway gamble.
  • X Meets Y: Twin Peaks meets Sailor Moon.
  • Yandere: Nanami towards Touga, Anthy towards Akio, Kozue, Shiori etc.
  • Yaoi Guys: Mikage and Mamiya, though it gets complicated. Akio and Touga (and maybe Saionji as well) get into it later on, but most interactions like that aren't exactly lovey-dovey.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Other than Wakaba (reddish-brown hair), Keiko, Tokiko (both have brown hair) and Tatsuya (dark brown hair), all of the characters that are majorly involved at some point have outrageously colorful hair:
    • Utena, Souji: Pink.
    • Anthy: Purple.
    • Akio, Mamiya, Dios: Lavender.
    • Touga: Red.
    • Saionji: Green.
    • Juri: Orange.
    • Nanami: Canary yellow.
    • Miki: Light blue.
    • Ruka: Dark blue.
    • Kozue: Indigo.
    • Shiori: Raspberry.
    • Kanae: Pale green.
    • Mitsuru: Dark yellow.
    • Chigusa (from the Sega Saturn game): Teal.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Shiori in the movie. Nanami's duelist uniform also features it.
  1. ↑ A Story That Will One Day Be Revolutionized.
  2. ↑ Literally, "The Apocalypse of Adolescence".
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