Hey, welcome to the forums!

No, it's never established whether Utena ever practiced any form of swordplay before the series. I suppose she could have, but she doesn't show any great interest in it... team sports seem to be more her thing.

Either her natural athleticism and talent carry her through, or skill really isn't a major factor in the duels (no matter what some of the characters might think). The series suggests the latter... Utena doesn't win the duels through her own skill, after all, and it's not what the duels seem to be testing for. Regardless of what's happening on-screen, each of the duels is really about one of the duelists facing their own psychological issues. You could easily say its a mix of both, though.

Well, Utena is not famous for thinking before acting, but yes is hard to believe that if Utena wanted to be a prince she wouldn't want to be skilled with a sword, after all princes are always pictured with swords. As for Saionji, maybe she wanted to: a)Put him in his place and what better way than to beat him in kendo, the club he is captain of. b) Challenging bad people to duels is what princes do, right?.

teyhy wrote:

hard to believe that if Utena wanted to be a prince she wouldn't want to be skilled with a sword, after all princes are always pictured with swords.

Not necessarily, though.  Utena's own prince never used a sword and she doesn't have any experience riding horses even though princes are generally pictured with those, too. And she definitely doesn't own a sword or practice regularly.

I agree that the best indication that Utena had some sword experience is how readily she picked up a practice sword to challenge Saionji. But even that isn't necessarily telling, given Utena's general lack of forethought.

limitless_desire wrote:

Jury is always fighting people and there never seems to be a shortage of fresh meat for her to fight so that might show something about their surroundings as well....

There's no indication that the fencing club has a particularly high turnover rate. Juri always has much weaker club members to fight, but that seems to be more a reflection of Juri's skill.

In any case, Utena couldn't have done fencing or kendo at Ohtori, because if she had she would have been more familiar with the Student Council Members (and they would have remembered her, too, if she's actually as talented as she appears.)

limitless_desire wrote:

Couldnt this be dependent on her grade level as well? Jury is older then her as are most the class members(i think Mikey is younger) But it puts them in other parts of the school,

Miki is a middle school student, and Juri is a high school student, and they practice together in the same club. It's possible that Utena was in some kind of elementary school swordplay club, but I wouldn't expect that that to give her a very high level of skill, especially if she hasn't been keeping it up for the last one or two years.

Utena could also have transferred to Ohtori at some point: she did in the manga, but there's no particular evidence that she did in the anime.

and Utena has no desire to fight at least for no reason, i dont see her as the type to participate in a fencing club.

Yeah. I think it's reasonable to assume that she'd picked up a sword and swung it around before, but a bit of a stretch to say that she'd had any significant amount of formal training.

This talk about Utena wanting to act defend others makes me think, though... between that and her cross-dressing, I'm sure she must have gotten in fights somewhere down the line. I'll bet she could beat up most of the other characters.

You guys are right, thinking about what happened to Mikage; I really wouldn't want to get in a fight with her. Lucky for everyone, Utena is not generally a violent person.
Another person you don't want to annoy in Ohtori is Anthy; those who do don't really know what's coming to them. Thinking about it, if you pick a fight with Utena you better watch out, for Anthy surely would be involved.

Last edited by teyhy (06-24-2010 01:41:21 PM)

Yes, Anthy can be very scary specially with her shiny glasses.
But one thing that I notice in the manga is that Utena practice archery and likes to cook, so maybe it is not such a stretch to say she has a little experience with the sword.
Another thing in the duels that called my attention is that the duels have a schedule. In episode 9 Anthy said that duelist shouldn't go to the dueling arena if they didn't have a letter from End of the world. However, someone here point out that if you lose a duel as the champion you could challenge the new victor without a letter from End of the world.

limitless_desire wrote:

I hadn't finished the whole series with the post, but now that i have i think she might have come across basic fencing but her nobility and her prince was what really helped her win all her duels. Not actually her skills herself. xD

Indeed. All she had known before episode 38 were play duels.