If Frozen took inspiration from any anime, it'd be Sailor Moon...



However, did you know that Touga's voice actor is the voice of Hans in the Japanese dub of Frozen?

no, no utena, you can't marry him

don't talk back to me, you have only known him for a semester

what do you mean you already live with him

boy, you miss a lot when you don't come out of your room for ten years

Sparky wrote:

Did anyone else here notice the similarities between Utena and Disney's hit film, Frozen? I think there were too many for it to be pure coincidence.

- the prince figure is the villain
- the witch is good and also serves as the damsel in distress
- a spunky tomboy princess has to save the witch from the evil prince that she's fallen in love with

There are a lot of other little details too, those character dynamics/plot points are just the main things that stand out. It wouldn't be the first time Disney has drawn inspiration from an anime without giving due credit at least.

I have noticed the similarity before.   I expressed it in a puzzle I wrote here by quoting the show: "A girl who cannot be a princess has no choice but to become a witch."  But I missed the "evil prince" angle.

You know, it's interesting.  I liked Frozen a lot, but I always felt it ended the wrong way.  The act of true love was Anna sacrificing herself for Elsa.  I thought it should have been the other way around.  We already knew that Anna loved Elsa enough to risk everything for her.  The stakes of the movie, to me, were whether Elsa could love Anna that way again.  Instead... well, it might be too much to say Elsa gets off easily -- she isn't exactly spending the third act eating crumpets -- but as I saw it, she doesn't have to sacrifice anything.  She gets back her kingdom and her family without having to show that she deserves them.

Reading this thread made me map Utena and Anthy onto Anna and Elsa.  SKU ends with Utena sacrificing herself for Anthy.  (Oops, spoiler warning.)  Utena, like Anna, has been the active, "pursuer" partner in their relationship since day one.  So why do I find Utena's sacrifice totally perfect, if I think that Anna's was redundant and a little boring?

And there are two reasons for that.  I think they point up important differences between SKU and Frozen.

- Utena and Anna both sacrifice themselves for the person they love, even though the person they love is a witch.  But their relationships are otherwise very different.  For Anna, Elsa is the same Elsa that Anna has been pursuing all film.  Anna already knew Elsa was a witch, and has been 100% consistent in wanting to help her anyway.  That's why I felt that Anna's sacrifice didn't resolve a stake, didn't answer a question.  But for Utena, Anthy is very much not the same Anthy whom Utena thought she knew just six or seven episodes ago.  Utena's view of Anthy has been deepening, becoming more complicated and more ambivalent.  And now Anthy has literally stabbed her in the back.  Whether Utena will be able to retain her strength and nobility, her commitment to helping her... friend?..., under these circumstances, is very much an open question.  So her choice resolves a central stake in the plot.

- Elsa and Anthy have different endings and epilogues.  Elsa doesn't really have much to do after the climax.  Anna rescued her and that's that.  Anthy, on the other hand, is not done; she still has to rescue herself.  Unlike Elsa, Anthy does have to make a sacrifice: her entire life as she knows it.  And she makes that sacrifice not even knowing whether she will be able to find Utena and build some kind of life with her.  Elsa... well, she's sort of going back to the sunlit garden, isn't she?  She gets her kingdom back, she gets her sister back, happily ever after.  Neither Anthy nor Elsa can undo the past -- and neither Utena nor Anna expects them to -- but Anthy learns something, gives something up, makes a decision to reject the role of cold witch and enters a world without paths.  I wish we had seen Elsa grow too.