Even if you’ve never heard of Revolutionary Girl Utena (Ikuhara, 1997), you’ll absolutely know something that’s referenced it, if not taken direct influence from it. From Steven Universe (Sugar, 2013-2019), The Owl House (Terrace, 2020-present) and She-Ra and The Princesses of Power (Stevenson, 2018-2020), to Pokémon (Yuyama and Tomiyasu, 1997–Present), Scott Pilgrim (O’Malley, 2004-2010) and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Faust, 2010-2020), it has had undeniable reach within animation. With strong queer protagonists and exploration of fairytale tropes, it is no wonder it still stands up to critique 27 years later. Many recent animations, like the ones above, pay direct homage to it: in Steven Universe, Steven’s sword lessons with Pearl in the episode ‘Steven the Sword Fighter’ mirror the titular character Utena’s swordfighting exactly, and in episode 7 of The Owl House, is shown reading an Utena comic.
What is Revolutionary Girl Utena?:
Revolutionary Girl Utena tells the story of Utena Tenjou, a teen girl who believes she was rescued by a prince as child and was inspired by him to become a prince herself and save princesses. She discovers that the ring he gave her makes her eligible for a sword duelling tournament at her school, where she accidentally wins the hand of Anthy Himemiya, a quiet classmate known as the “Rose Bride” who possesses the “power to revolutionize the world”. It is tonally very surrealist and the story’s direction and meaning relies heavily on metaphor and symbolism. It’s not always clear whether what the audience or the characters perceive to be happening is reality and when repeated, scenes often vary to show the unreliability of the characters’ memory. Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, the same director who worked on Sailor Moon R (Ikuhara, 1993-1994), Revolutionary Girl Utena uses many shōjo tropes prevalent in his earlier works and others of the genre in order to critique them. Shōjo is a genre of Manga and Anime aimed at girls, often focusing on personal and romantic relationships. Campanelli (2019) points out shōjo works’ tendency to fetishise (and therefore sexualise) its underage protagonist as the ideal ‘Magical Girl’ while punishing and trying to fix tomboys and lesbians. While Ikuhara apparently wasn’t able to make the romance between Anthy and Utena as obvious as he wanted due to disagreements with the Manga author, Chiho Saito, there are still clear discussions of lesbianism in the show and Ikuhara has discussed in several interviews his inclusion of “lesbian elements”. It is a ‘queering’ of the genre, as described by Bailey (2020). The show concerns itself with how fairytale ideas of princes and princesses enforce gender roles, and how its main characters might overcome or fail to live up to them. There are many characters whose gender representation would make an incredibly interesting analysis – Touga and Akio, princes who secretly fail to uphold their nobility, Anthy, the damsel-in-distress and simultaneously a witch and the popular girl Nanami who desperately wants to be a princess. However, this post will focus on analysing discourse, mostly textual, surrounding Utena’s gender, sexuality and interaction with fairytale ideas of princes and princesses. There is also a film version (Adolescence of Utena, Ikuhara, 1999)), but the characterisation and plot here are different, so I’ll only be referring to the anime series.
“Despite appearances, I’m a totally normal girl!”
This quote comes from episode 3 – ‘On the Night of the Ball’. Across the show, quotes like this make it clear that Utena is definitely a girl, and her defiance of gender roles is simply because she likes it, not because she’s unhappy being perceived as a girl. Of course, her idea of what a “normal girl” is shifts within the series as she encounters new people, but she always considers herself one. This idea is carried across to her design; she always chooses to dress in her school’s boy uniform, but keeps her very feminine long, pink hair. A final note on her character design is how it subverts the typical shōjo transformation scene; in the archetypal Sailor Moon scenes, the characters magic themselves into bodices and skirts with bows, to match their thigh thigh-high boots and gloves. In other words, they are hyper-feminised. Revolutionary Girl Utena obviously mimics this scene, but instead of becoming more feminine, her outfits become even more masculine. She gets shoulder braces with chains and a shirt with cufflinks added under her men’s blazer. As Zulkifli and Haris (2021) suggest, androgynous characters can be a great way to avoid reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes.
Most of the other characters’ reactions to Utena’s defiance of gender roles are also quite refreshing; unlike the tendency to try to ‘fix’ tomboys that Campanelli (2019) highlights in shōjo, Utena is generally seen as very attractive and liked by both genders. For example, the following scene from Episode 1:
| Episode 1: 00:05:13-00:06:10 (Extract 1) | |
| Crowd of girls: Go, Utena-sama!!
Boy: Sheesh, skunked again…
Girl: Oh, Utena-sama, use my towel, too! Utena: Sure, sure, wait your turn.
Boy: Say, Tenjou, if you’d just join our basketball team, Boy: the local playoffs would be a sure thing! Utena: Now look! I’m a girl, you know. Utena: I don’t like playing basketball with a bunch of stinking, sweaty boys. |
Utena wins a game of basketball on the boys’ team, being cheered on by a crowd of girls.
After, the girls stand round Utena, passing her their towels and water
Cuts to a corridor where one of the basketball players is walking after Utena |
The honorific ‘-sama’, used by the crowd of girls indicates a high level of respect, or possibly a crush (Utena’s best friend, Wakaba, calls Saionji, her crush, “Saionji-sama” in the same episode). Additionally, the lack of address that the boy uses to talk to her also indicates that he treats her quite casually – most characters refer to each other with the honorific ‘-san’, if they aren’t particularly close (e.g., Anthy calls Touga’s sister “Nanami-san”). Gendered terms for Utena are used quite interchangeably: Wakaba, often calls her her “boyfriend” and “future husband” and Touga calls her “Utena-kun”, an honorific normally used for teen boys and men. However, the same characters will just as often refer to her as a girl or princess. Anyone who does critique Utena for her gender non-conformity is treated as an antagonist or a joke – the best example of this is the reoccurring ‘bit’ with her teacher.
| Episode 1: 00:04:30-00:05:10 (Extract 2) |
| Teacher: Tenjou Utena-san.
Teacher: Do you plan to keep on wearing those strange clothes this semester? Utena: Strange? Teacher: Strange. Utena: All the boys are dressed like I am. Teacher: You are a girl! Teacher: So why do you keep on wearing a boy’s uniform? Utena: There’s no rule here that says a girl can’t wear a boy’s uniform. Utena: No problem then! Utena: So, in that case… Teacher: You little… You’re going to keep evading me this semester, too, aren’t you… |
This character only appears to complain about Utena’s outfit, and for other characters to roll their eyes at. Although she uses demeaning adjectives like “little” and “strange”, she’s the one that ends up being ridiculed, not Utena. It’s clear in this scene that Utena considers it a waste of time, saying there’s “no problem”. Here, the teacher is the one being made fun of for calling out Utena’s non-conformity, not Utena herself. It’s also very obvious from the design of the scene that the teacher is meant to be laughed at.
Princes, Princesses and Sexuality
Part of what makes Revolutionary Girl Utena’s gender representation so interesting is its exploration of gendered social pressure, and the impact it has on each female character. Unlike the tendency in 90s and early 2000s cartoons to write strong female characters into post-feminist worlds that Blush (2021) identifies, Revolutionary Girl Utena delves into the power dynamics between its male and female characters i.e. princes and princesses.
Focusing on Utena, the question is whether the pressure of older men and her own fairytale ideas of gender will inevitably lead her to become a princess. The repeated opening scene of her meeting the prince as a child calls her “the princess” four times within a minute long scene. In this way, the show conflates girlhood with becoming a princess. Male characters wanting to position themselves as Utena’s prince also often describe her as a princess; in episode 11, Touga describes her as “a lonely princess…no one can see her but me”. The insinuation here is that her attempting to be a prince is a façade that he sees through to her ‘true’ princess form. Episode 38 makes it clear what the dynamic between prince and princess is designed to be:
| Episode 38: 00:04:33-00:06:12 (Extract 3) |
| Akio: I always dream of the castle.
Utena: The castle? Akio: Yes. The castle where the Prince and the princess will live… Akio: …happily for ever and ever and ever after. Akio: The Prince is me. And the princess is you. Utena: Himemiya! Akio: You needn’t be alarmed. Anthy is right over there. Akio: That ring would have led you here sooner or later. Akio: You truly have done well, coming all this distance without losing your noble heart. Akio: My judgement was sound. Akio: You’re beautiful. Akio: Bearing your noble heart all the way here… Akio: You are my true princess. Akio: Swords no longer suit you. Akio: I shall keep this sword. And from this day forward, I will protect you. Utena: And what happens then? Akio: You’ll be happy. You’ll receive eternity and we will love each other forever. Akio: And the princess will live forever and ever with the Prince in the castle. |
Despite the fact that Utena has duelled every other character and defeated them, by becoming a princess, swords no longer “suit” her.
The role of the princess is submission and the prince to own and look after her, as suggested in the possessive adjective ‘my’ in “my true princess”, and the use of the verbs “keep” and “protect”. There is no such thing as royalty within the world of Revolutionary Girl Utena; everyone is part of a typical high school structure, whether a student, student council member or the chairman of the whole academy. Princes and princesses are as much a fantasy element to them as it is to us, and therefore the lesson and presentation here is that preoccupation with fairytale ideas of gender and sexuality can be dangerous. Even for Utena, the least conforming character of the series, we can see how the pressure to become a princess strips her of both autonomy and power. In representing its female characters as both subject to patriarchal powers but still strong, the show avoids the shallow, overpowered female stereotype that many newer Marvel films are critiqued for portraying. The explicit use of language to highlight the power dynamic between male and female characters makes the underlying themes of sexuality often present in shōjo incredibly obvious. A final example of this comes from Anthy in Episode 37:
| Episode 37: 00:07:07-00:07:33 (Extract 4) |
| Utena: I seem really feminine tonight. Akio-san said that.
Utena: What does it mean to be feminine? Anthy: Girls…girls are all like the Rose Bride in the end. |
She believes that like the Rose Bride, all girls are victim to men’s desires due to their relationships with them, even Utena. Of course, she can actually be freed from her fate as the Rose Bride, but she doesn’t believe that anyone would and therefore views girls, or princesses, as eternal victims.
“Generally, shônen manga (manga for boys) tend to linger on war, while shôjo manga (manga for girls) cope with love and romance. Part of the success of Revolutionary Girl Utena lies in its blurring of the boundaries between these two worlds—via its girl prince. This may explain why Utena so deftly exposes the structure of sexuality implicit in manga for girls.” (Kotani, 2006, p.167)
The ‘girl prince’ is the show’s ultimate subversion of this dynamic. Despite her struggles with men to try to become her prince along the way, she maintains her role as both magical girl and the prince saviour. By using her magical girl powers (“the power to revolutionise the world”) to duel men, she becomes Anthy’s prince and ultimately her own. Akio, in Extract 3, tries to persuade her that becoming a princess and falling in love with a prince is the right thing, repeating the adjective/adverb “happy” and “happily”, as well as the temporal phrase “forever and ever (and ever)” in order to highlight its fairytale reference. In contrast, to become a true prince unlike him, she has to earn Anthy’s trust and love, as well as empowering her. In the aptly name episode ‘the Love that Blossomed in Winter’, the only way to access “the power to revolutionise the world” (a.k.a. to subvert Utena and Anthy’s gender roles as princesses/brides) is explained.
| Episode 35: 00:02:33-00:03:13 (Extract 5) |
| Dios: The only one who can save her is a Prince she believes in.
Dios: I can’t become her Prince. Utena: Then I’ll become a Prince! Dios: If you can retain that nobility even when you grow up, Dios: you may indeed be able to save her from her eternal suffering. Dios: But you will surely forget all about this night. Dios: And even if you do remember, you’re a girl. Dios: Soon you’ll become a lady. Utena: I will! I’ll become a Prince no matter what! |
In a subversion of the fairytale prince and princess roles, the passive male character, Dios, cannot “become her Prince”, so the girl chooses to “retain” her masculine traits of “nobility” and assertiveness to fill the role instead. Of course, as Dios point out she’s still a girl, but a girl who decides to undergo the revolutionary act of becoming a prince too. That is the secret of the show’s hinted ‘revolution’ and what makes for such interesting gender representation. The characters’ world is revolutionised by Utena’s role as the girl prince; her overcoming the patriarchal pressure to conform is what canonically frees her and the woman she loves.
Why Does This Matter?
Revolutionary Girl Utena has been and continues to be hugely influential to animation internationally but is somehow rarely mentioned. From the use of typically gendered honorifics and character design to textual discussions of queerness and androgyny, the show uses language very purposefully to create a dichotomy of normative and non-conforming gender representation. With its exploration of patriarchy’s effects on young women and men, it’s a show almost entirely dedicated to gender. Analysing the representation of its main character allows us to see how ‘revolutionary’ its writing was for the genre. Watching newer shows such as Steven Universe and She-ra and the Princesses of Power, it’s clear how the ‘Magical Girl’ genre has been shaped by the subversive gender representation in Revolutionary Girl Utena and I hope that the move away from harmful gender stereotypes that it inspired is something we continue to see in animation.
References and Further Reading
Bailey, C. E. (2020). Prince charming by day, superheroine by night?: Subversive sexualities and gender fluidity in ‘Revolutionary Girl Utena’ and ‘Sailor Moon’. Colloquy, 24, 207–222. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.588807596575706
Blush, S. (2021). Bending the Elementary: Queering Gender and Sexuality in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Beyond [B.A., Vassar College]. https://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/senior_capstone/1090
Campanelli, C. (2019). Gender Nonconformity and Lesbianism in the Magical Girl Genre. https://soar.suny.edu/handle/20.500.12648/13233
Faust, L. (Executive Producer). (2010-2020). My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic [TV Series]. Allspark Animation.
Ikuhara, K. (Director). (1997). Revolutionary Girl Utena [TV Series]. TV Tokyo Network.
Ikuhara, K. (Director). (1993-1994). Sailor Moon R [TV Series]. TV Asahi.
Ikuhara, K. (Director). (1999). Adolescence of Utena [TV Series]. Toei Company.
O’Malley, B. L. (2004-2010). Scott Pilgrim. Portland: Oni Press.
Sugar, R. (Executive Producer). (2013-2019). Steven Universe [TV Series]. Cartoon Network Studios.
Stevenson, N. D. (Executive Producer). (2018-2020). She-ra and the Princesses of Power [TV Series]. Dreamworks Animation.
Terrace, D. (Executive Producer). (2020-present). The Owl House [TV Series]. Disney Television Animation Company.
Yuyama, K., & Tomiyasu, D. (Directors). (1997– Present). Pokémon [TV Series]. TV Tokyo Network.
Zulkifli, N. N., & Haris, N. ‘Anira. (2021). Brave (2012) vs Puteri (2014): The Representation of Androgyny Characters. International Journal of Advanced Research in Education and Society, 3(4), Article 4.