Hello, I finally got around to watching this series and I can't say I'm disappointed at all. I'm interested to ask what the people from this forum think the actual 'revolution' that Utena caused was, seeing as it is in the title of the anime and all. I'm sorry if this has been discussed to death before but I didn't find any thread that I could post in about this topic that wasn't a very old thread.

When watching the ending and seeing the Swords of Hate going towards Utena, my first thought was that perhaps Utena had managed to changed the loop of Dios being the Prince and Anthy suffering as the Rose Bride for his sake. Given that the Swords of Hate were coming after Utena, I figured that Utena was the new Rose Bride and Anthy was now the Prince. After some thought though, I don't think this is the case.

When Dios was powerful, he was entirely selfless and cared more about protecting the masses of the world who would take advantage of his generosity instead of caring about the person he should have cared for the most, his sister. This kind of princeliness is questionable, he is said to 'make all of the girls in the world into princesses' but really it doesn't seem realistic or feasible at all to be a prince (how could anyone find the time to entertain ALL the girls on Earth, let alone battle monsters and so on?). So naturally Dios works himself into exhaustion, Anthy gets upset and does the whole 'Rose Bride' thing to conceal his power. Also the exact reason why he does this is questionable, perhaps Dios just wants to be an archetypical prince because this is the only sense of purpose he has. Without it, he becomes Akio.

Akio tries his hardest to make Utena into a princess, even if she is 'the one who will cause the revolution' and in a much darker way than one would expect from 'the prince who makes all the girls in the world into princesses'. He seduces and sexes her, tries to intimidate her and woo her with his princeliness, and when she's finally stabbed in the back by Anthy and struggles to open the coffin, Akio simply dismisses her saying "If I couldn't do it, there's no way a girl like you could do it." This is the bad side of being a Prince like Dios, even when Akio was Dios he probably couldn't believe that there could be a girl who could do something he couldn't. This also relates to his abusive relationship with Anthy: Anthy is a woman, and yet she's capable of sealing away his power and taking all the pain that he would have taken instead. Akio may never admit it, but I think the fact that Anthy is capable of doing this intimidates him. Which is why he tries his hardest to belittle and molest her.

I think the revolution here is that Utena doesn't become the 'new Rose Bride', she becomes a whole new type of Prince. A revolutionary prince. Rather than beating herself up more and more to protect the masses of the world, Utena doesn't care about the masses of the world. When the students of Ohtori try to harness the Princely power of Dios, the same power that could have almost solved all the world's problems, Utena doesn't give them a chance. By dispatching all of the students who try to, as Touga says, make the world as they want it, Utena is teaching them a lesson of sorts. That you can't simply rely on a prince to solve all of your life's problems, sometimes you have to take all the pain, suffering and heartbreak in your life and find a way to move on. When Dios could no longer solve all the problems of the world, the hate of the world was directed onto Anthy.

Utena is revolutionary for a few reasons. The most obvious is that she is in fact, a girl. The next thing is that instead of Dios who made all the world's girls his princesses, Utena does no such thing. She only has one princess, and her name is Anthy. Utena is willing to make the same sacrifice that Anthy is willing to make for her prince, she's willing to take all of the hatred of the world onto herself for Anthy's sake, much as Anthy did for Dios. Where Dios neglected his own sister for the sake of the world, Utena does the exact opposite. Where Dios became spiteful towards the world, darker and less caring until he turned into Akio, Utena shines her brightest when she's fighting against the people of the world who would exploit her power. When Dios loses his youth and nobility, he turns into the devil himself; when the devil seduces the youth and nobility of Utena away from her (by having sex with her, by tricking her into reaching the top floor of Ohtori, by stealing her soul sword from her after she's chosen to start the revolution), she never once abandons her goal of saving Anthy, even when she knows there's practically no chance anymore. She still tears open the coffin, she still reaches desperately out for Anthy, even when the Swords of Hate are waiting to punish her.

Utena is a Prince, but an entirely different breed of prince from Akio. By choosing to protect the one she loves the most instead of sacrificing and compromising herself for everyone else, she 'graduates' Ohtori and helps to set Anthy free as well.

I'm sorry for this long ranting post, all of these ideas are rather badly formed in my head and I just wanted to put it out there and share. I'd love to hear what people here think of this topic.

Last edited by demifiend (10-10-2012 02:49:40 PM)