Princesses and Patriarchy: What is Revolutionary Girl Utena ABOUT?

So my take on the ending is this: The coffins represent the self destructive patterns each of the characters are stuck in that keep them from moving on and 'growing up' When Utena comes out of the coffin as a child, she's not literally leaving the coffin behind, she's found a new one, which is trying to be a prince. This isn't healthy both because it's not sustainable to go through life trying to save everyone, (even dios couldn't do it) and because trying to climb to the top of an oppressive system (prince/princess/witch) isn't the way to free yourself of it. Anthy's coffin is her abusive relationship with Akio. She stays because after everything she's done, all the people she's manipulated and hurt for his sake, she believes that she is too awful a person for anyone but Akio to truly love her. Utena proves her wrong when she forces herself off the ground and to the gates after anthy stabbed her in the back, unlocks the power to revolutionize the world, and uses it to open Anthy's coffin because she doesn't want her to hurt anymore. Like what an ACT OF LOVE am I right? So seeing this anthy realizes a better life is possible, and the moment she reaches back to take utena's hand is the moment she makes the decision to leave Akio, thereby saving herself. And the arena is an illusion Anthy herself created to serve Akio's purposes, so of course when she decides to leave the whole thing crumbles to dust and she falls away. But that doesn't matter because Anthy never needed Utena to pull her out, to 'save' her. All she needed was for Utena to show her love, and she found the strength to save herself.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who really loves this show, but honestly has no idea what was happening in most of it or what it meant.

Utena: *goes through the weird old gate in the forest* Utena: why do I hear boss music

I honestly could chat for HOURS on Utena as a life long fan. You did an excellent job summarizing the meaning.

I don't think there really is a literal outside the metaphorical in Utena - what literally happens is the metaphor. Like, literally, the coffin falls out of the sky, and metaphorically, it's a symbol of how Utena can reach out to help Anthy but cannot save her, because Anthy has to make the choice to heal and leave and save herself. The coffin is the most literal you're going to get. For me it helped to read ladyloveandjustice's tumblr episode analyses after watching the episodes, bc she dives deep into the metaphor, including the individual duel song lyrics.

Omg The Nanami episodes. The key to understanding wtf they're about is to read them as metaphor and spoilers for the underlying truths of the story. E.g. Nanami let's herself turn into a cow because she is too naive? to understand the context/reality of the cowbell. This parallels Utenas seduction by Akio (The earrings she receives straight up look like the cowbell from the Nanami episode).

I always wondered about akios car, and I read an interview with the studio, and the quote "a car is something that satisfies childish desires in the adult world" really struck me. I kind of thought that Akio represented the darkness of the adult world, but he represents an adult who turned out wrong. his endless desire to find something eternal or to gain a power to control the world is inherently childish. all of the characters in the show are liberated when they stop chasing that... they can grow up and move forward. akio wants to "revolutionize the world" which if u think about it literally, he wants to start it over and replay time forever. through his literal device that projects illusion and his sex appeal, he can control and manipulate everyone around him. since dios is god and akio is devil, he may represent the dangers of growing up if done carelessly and very fucked up lmao

Anthy: displays clear magic and actually swaps bodies with Utena Utena: I have absolutely no questions. Seems perfectly normal.

I always interpreted the whole witch thing as anthy becoming a "witch" by aging and "dios" becoming akio because he was attracted to her and he was basically trying to convince her her abuse was her fault.

-the duels are designed to choose and groom a prince that can produce a sword that could open the gate which grants the power of revolution -Anthy sealed away Dios’ power so that he couldn’t kill himself saving everyone and in turn the world punished her, hence the swords. The literal meaning of the swords doesn’t exist and is irrelevant, they are just there to symbolize the hatred of the world. -Akio is what was left after all of this happened. He is now a resenting pathetic edge lord douchebag who believes he must regain his power and control/manipulate humanity, but since he has no real power of his own now he abuses Anthy so that she’ll stay with him and he can mooch off of her power instead, and also he probably resents her for sealing away his power. -In the end Utens rejects the system and the system rejects her in turn (the author’s words, not mine), and Anthy willingly escapes it after being moved by Utena’s unwavering will to help her. -The coffins aren’t just despair, they can also be interpreted as any kind of mental block and also sometimes the way the system boxes us. For more info on this go watch the other Ikuhara anime you didn’t mention: Mawaru Penguindrum -the castle in the sky was just another projection from Akio’s planetarium.

Really sharp take on this show; took me a lot longer of thinking back on it to come to this level of understanding myself. The one thing I'd say that I have a bit of a different take on is that Utena's final victory isn't 'becoming a prince' per se--because in reality, 'there is no prince'. 'Rescuing' people in an ultimately self-serving way, like a fairytale prince does, is in the end kind of what she was doing for Anthy the whole time, without really understanding what was killing her inside for the longest time. Utena doesn't just assume a traditionally masculine role, she breaks free from proscribed roles altogether.

God I love this show! I still need to watch the movie, and this definitely pushed me to do it. I love how, if you're like me and you're really bad at picking up metaphor, the end of the second arc basically forces you to acknowledge the symbolism with "and then the bad guy thought himself out of existence (?)". Also, it's cool how once Nanami realizes how unhealthy her relationship is with her brother, she becomes the smartest character in the entire show. She somehow ended up my favorite character, faults and all.

I think another great piece of meta that adds to this meaning is the Palace Perspective- a meta take on Nanami and her connection to Anthy, which also talks about Touga's connection to Akio, and Utena's connection to Kanae. It talks about how this cycle is not the first time this has happened- but it's the first time someone has set Anthy free. It talks about incest and the way Ohtori Academy uses two parallel myths- the sister-wife and the princess-wife- to set women against each other, and the way Akio is grooming Touga to take over his place- with Nanami replacing Anthy. It's very very heavy, and it is probably the meta that made me most understand Nanami and Touga and their roles in the story. I'd highly recommend it.

3:25 It was a long time ago that I saw Utena, but wasn't it outright stated that the castle was an illusion created by Akio's planetarium? The offer of eternity is just another lie Akio tells to make people become duelists.

There is a lot of stuff I am still parsing from the show, but one thing I got right the way is the school is an allegory for the patriarchal institutions that exist in our world and that's why Anthy finally leaves the school at the end, to symbol a departure from this systemic abuse and exploitation. The school is also a social setting, which symbolizes the social experiences men and women have that distill us into our expected roles in the wider society.

Utena is one of those shows that you can always go back to. You can step away from it for a couple of months or even years and come back and find something new, which I love. One thing that's always stuck with me is how the show feels like an amalgamation of all the things adolescents question about their identity (gender, sexuality, love and friendship, being "mature" or "adult") that just explodes. And how these struggles can be beneficial in forming ourselves and finding support systems but which are also toxic results of a society that does repress us in a lot of ways. I've always had mixed feelings about the ending and whether revolution was really accomplished and I think it depends on each viewer to decide that based on their own experiences watching the show and where they are in their lives. Like a lot of stuff in the show, there's no clear "yes or no" answer. When I was fifteen and watched this show, it was revolutionary for me because it made me question a lot of stuff about myself but then as a twenty year old I was more on the no spectrum because the things that mattered to me then seemed less well-developed in the show. Now, I feel like knowing that the journey towards revolution and breaking the egg was more important than if the egg was actually broken (if that makes sense). I think a lot about the cycles in this show, which you pointed out, and how revolution itself is one complete turn in which you start at a beginning then end up at the beginning which is also the end. And whether you like it or not, something has changed even though it might feel like you're in the same place. That's why the ending now makes more sense to me even though I didn't find it satisfying before and that's how I feel now as someone who was a child then a teenager and am now officially an adult (yay college grad). Also, that pic of Ikuhara is incredible lol. "The Most Gay" definitely describes his works.

Utena isn't just about dismantling gender roles. It's also about dismantling religion. As you said, "Dios = God" and "Akio = Lucifer". In other words, the church stays in power by forcing people to obey abusive social structures that keep people from being themselves while deflecting accountability for that by justifying the Problem of Evil. Furthermore, Anthy as a "witch" can be used to identify any social group that is ostracized for falling outside of that order, whether it be atheists, LGBT people or any other "sin" or heterodoxy. They are perceived by the faithful as beyond their Prince's power to redeem/make a princess-- even though he is theoretically omnipotent, and their damnation is seen as deserved, however unfair or disproportionate. By revolutionizing her world, Utena plunges her sword into this two-faced false god and makes it to the Outside World, a lens of reality where you are absolutely free and absolutely responsible for your actions, without an infernal scapegoat and without the shackles of a divine covenant.

Nanami's egg is about menstruation (and probably also about how afab folks are often kept in the dark on basic important information about their own bodies)

Honestly I felt the first arc was better and the show really really struggled in the black rose arc before picking back up with the bonkersness later, but hey, people are different.

So, I think baby Anthy was trying to protect Dios from the masculinity that was putting so much pressure on him and literally killing him, so she sacrificed herself to the mob of men trying to find Dios. That's why she is deemed a witch who hid the hero/prince of the world. On top of that, it's emphasized that anthy is also perceived this way because she cannot be a princess because the prince is her brother, therefore she has no value because she has no proximity to men (queer metaphor alert). Despite the fact that she tried to preserve the innocence of her brother he still succumbs to male gender norms and becomes a predatory grown man. It's despicable and symbolic that her inability to be with her brother (for obvious reasons?!) was used against her as a child despite her display of sisterly love, and then that love was invalidated and devastated by Akio sexually abusing her as adults. if any of that makes sense? This show has so many themes of childhood vs adulthood as well as gender roles obvi... i could talk forever