This should be relevant to the thread:

From the Youji Enokido - SKU Privacy Files 1-3 that I've copied and pasted onto another thread:

http://forums.ohtori.nu/viewtopic.php?p … 92#p243792

“Shoujo Kakumei Utena” Privacy File Finale: The Case of Ootori Akio, or the prince’s flaw by Enokido Youji

I promised to talk about the climax this time. Utena and Anthy fight against the prince. The two girls destroy the system of the prince. There is nothing in this that deviates much from the TV series. Prince. Yes, a prince called Ootori Akio appears in this work. But what on earth is “prince”? The title “shoujo kakumei” indicates that a young woman frees herself from what controls her. And in this story, “the prince” is framed as the antagonist that controls her. And you know what? – I think the word “prince” is the greatest pitfall for any young woman. In the show, Akio is not the prince of some country; he is of common origins (most likely). However, precisely because of that, there is significant meaning in the fact that he calls himself and is called a prince, because it is closer to what the word “prince” has come to mean in the popular parlance.

Of course, it is not that the Utena staff wants to negate the idea of “prince”. It’s just that somehow it turned out that we ended up questioning the idea of “prince” in our work. It was not our motivation to begin with. In the beginning, we quite simply only wanted to depict sensual pleasure. But the more we pondered on what passes for sensual pleasure in the world nowadays, the imagery of prince somehow became something like Akio. It just turned out that way. Why? Because we were annoyed with such an obvious value. A cool prince appears out of nowhere, marries the heroine and they live happily ever after. We thought there is nothing convincing about this. If that is all it takes to be a prince, then it is too easy.

There is something brave about Utena who doesn’t buy into this shit. There is something attractive about this because she is for “real”. The happiness of prince and princess seems to lack this “for real”-ness. Yes, isn’t this “for real”-ness what we need most now?  When I look around the misfortunes around me, they are founded on the lack of this “for real”-ness. Even in hatred, this “for real”-ness seems to be missing. (Okay, it’s not like I can tell with perfect confidence how for real I am either). To be for real is tiring and troublesome, and more importantly it is accompanied with risk. It also takes up a lot of energy. However, is this not why we would like to examine the value of being for real? And is it not this very thing that we seem to lack? What I want to say is – people who are in love for real would not be chasing after the image of a prince.