(The below contains spoilers. Just a warning.)

Yeah, the RGU manga's not known for its good character development. I mean, Juri falling in love with Touga? What sort of crime against humanity compelled Chiho Saito to turn one of the most amazing anime characters of all time into a psychotic fangirl? (Answer: homophobia )

The problem with the opening chapters is that, compared to the machinations inside anime Ohtori, they're shallow and easy to understand. Kaido does not become important. He's just there in the beginning as a plot device

No, the Black Rose Arc does not happen. There are two bonus chapters at the end of the series, one featuring Mikage and the other featuring Ruka. They have nowhere near the amount of tension, symbolism, and moral gray areas of the anime.

If there's one really good reason to read the manga, it's to compare manga Anthy to anime Anthy and really appreciate the latter. Some people consider Anthy an "evil, crippled bitch", but better a morally gray witch-princess than the flat damsel-in-distress she is the manga. People like anime Anthy because she's representative of what a real-life victim would be like: "If you can't break of out of prison, just become the cell's top dog, even if that means literally becoming the warden's bitch; no matter how bad prison is, the streets are worse." One of the highlights of the series is seeing whether Utena will still help Anthy even after realizing that she's no longer her perfectly-pure princess. And she does, because Utena realizes that despite everything she has done, Anthy still gets the rawest deal as the show's resident pincushion. The key to escaping is naturally, showing Anthy that she could escape to a world better than Ohtori, except Anthy has to leave herself. Utena can't do it for her.

But in the manga, where Anthy is 100% a victim who doesn't do anything wrong, it's easy and obvious for Utena to want to save her. And that's not the only thing simpler. In the manga, Princes obviously and non-subtly exist. Dios is a genuine Prince very capable of directly helping Utena, Utena can save Anthy without Anthy actually doing anything herself, Touga devotes himself to Utena immedately after losing the first time, and Akio (god forbid) is actually redeemable! The one believable plot change was having Miki fall in love with Utena instead of Anthy. Sure, it doesn't accentuate his desire for purity and intellectual equals, but it's still a more palatable characterization than some of the other examples I've just listed.

Basically, continue reading the manga if you want to see RGU written as a straight-up-fairy-tale, no subversions, no symbolism, no GLBT, where there's a clear-cut-line between good-and-evil, everyone's motivations are straightforward and simple, and princes and princesses are genuinely princes and princesses who are pure and upright no matter what the situation tends to be.

Last edited by Nights1stStar (08-26-2009 10:51:06 AM)

brian wrote:

In one respect the manga is much more clearly subversive. The key is that Utena did not remember one final
statement by Dios: "If you do not lose your noble heart then we will meet again - And you will save us." Utena travelled to find a Prince to rescue her only to find that she had to rescue him. And the only way to do that was to kill him. That's very powerful and in that respect Saito showed more courage than Ikuhara.

Utena discovers that her Prince is not just an ex-Prince but a fallen god. She is still in love with Akio all the way to the end, he is still first in her heart but she still kills him because she knows that is what is needed to set everyone free.

Utena's guilt over the way she treated Anthy is much more powerfully described in the manga and so is the possibility of second chances. The attraction between Anthy and Utena is much more subtle in the manga but it is not absent. They kiss!

It's also much more clear that Utena has chosen the right path for both of them. Utena kills Akio to protect Anthy and then leaves Anthy to find her own strength and make her choice of following her.

The first manga is your only chance to see Saionji depicted as a human being and does a good job of depicting Touga as almost a prince.

(Spoilers, naturally)

Utena saving Dios is actually less subversive than in the anime. Utena's the main character, after all, and we expect the main character of magical girl anime to directly and obviously save the day, even or especially if she doesn't plan to.

Also, Utena doesn't neccessarily "kill" Akio. In the final duel, Utena kisses Akio, thus fusing him and Dios back into one person, and all three of them apparently ascend to a higher plane of existence.

The manga makes formerly vicious characters like Akio, Touga, and Saionji nicer. While you could say it makes them "better", you can also say that's its a copout. One of the best things about the RGU anime is that it has no qualms about showing malicious (but not flatly evil) characters and pointing out how hard it is to redeem them; take Anthy, for example, who has to endure centures of abuse + a million swords to realize that she doesn't have to be the Rose Bride. This struggle is a good thing; after all, if the evil sides didn't sometimes win, victory over them would be nowhere near as sweet. But in your average magical girl anime, all you have to do is find the right magical jewel and say the right magical spell and BOOM! The world-destroying Big Bad is suddenly an avatar of good.

Naturally, nothing so cheesy happens in the RGU manga, but when Touga kneels to Utena and promises to serve her forever immediately after losing his first duel, something is lost. When it's revealed that Akio, deep down, still yearns to reunite with Dios, something is lost. It also makes Utena's "sacrifice", in the end, less of a "sacrifice", because she's not killing someone she loves; she's giving him what he wanted all along. When a central theme of the franchise is about how hard it is to enact "change" and "revolution", the story loses verisimilitude when the bad guys so easily become good.

(Spoilers end)

So, angelina, if you didn't want to read through all those spoilers brian and I wrote, I think the final conclusion is, yes, the manga has enough different interpretations to be worth finishing. Whether or not you actually enjoy those different interpretations, though, will be entirely dependent on whether you like your RGU: Lite.

Last edited by Nights1stStar (08-26-2009 11:44:59 AM)

One thing that must be remembered with the manga is that, regardless of whether we read it only after having watched the anime, it came first. They experiment with themes, they experiment with outfits... It is not a censored version of the anime in which homophobe Chiho Saito made everybody straight and dumbed it all down. It was the other way around; crazy man Ikuhara came in, took over and turned Saionji into a raving lunatic, Juri into a leopard-free lesbian, Miki into a moe boygirl with jungle fever, and so on and so forth. The manga was the birthplace and the building blocks of the anime, which in turn was the source of inspiration for the movie and its manga.

As for my vague thoughts on the manga? It's a lot more sweet and easy to stomach for people transitioning into Utena. Give them the manga so that they can have a bit more of a grasp of the plot and then show them the rest of the SKUniverse. For those who already know and love the show, reading the manga should be the equivalent of meeting the family of a dear friend; maybe what you like about this person isn't what they inherited and you're taken aback at how different they are from their parents, maybe you note with mild interest the similarities they all share and feel some satisfaction at identifying sources of your dear one's traits, or maybe you just find them to be the cutest things in the world and even though they're a bit cheesy you love them like mad. The bottom line is that these are two different things, more so than is normal in book VS. movie or manga VS. anime. I'm almost inclined to believe that in a lot of cases, one who liked either the anime or the manga a lot might despise the other form of Utena.

More specifically, I really liked Kaidou and had hoped he would show up later. If they ever made a sequel to SKU, I would hope it'd be about him and his search for Utena. Notable about Kaidou is his similarity to Suzuki, Yamada and Tanaka; I wonder if the Be Pa-Pas evolved him into them, kind of? It'd be weird. I also draw strong similarities between him and Tatsuya, both in looks and personality. As for the aunt and the love interest, I found those to be major plot holes and thus annoying. Had it been revealed that what's-his-face was actually Akio (to whom he looked so similar), it would have been quite interesting! But as is, one is just left to wonder. Could he be an escaped prince, like Utena and Anthy ended up being? I wish it was addressed!

I'd like to know where you can get the complete manga. I've hit a dead spot at chap 21 on this online manga site.

Light can't really handle the manga.  I get too ASASDFGHJKLprincelyTougaandstraightJuriASFGHLAHGKL.  And as much as I reread it (yes, I own and have re-read it in an attempt to like/analyze it) what little meaning it does have is far too outweighed by all the...well, cheesey romantic unoriginalness.  Sorry.  Evening the very ending, save Utena's sad smile, was just a bunch of pretty, dramatic sounding words. 

(And I thought the manga and the anime were made alongside eachother?  Hence why Ikuni and Chiho mention a couple of little spats concerning Utena's creation and development)

But you shouldn't take my word for it, because what I just wrote was so trollish it shames me.

Hmm....I didn't realize the two were so different. I've only seen 7 episodes of the anime and read the manga up to chap 21. I saw the movie too but I can't say I enjoyed it. If I remember correctly...I think it was chaotic and damn I had no idea wth was going on. Didn't they also turn into cars? What?

I'll have to give it another chance though since I saw the movie a long time ago.


- Upside about the manga is the fact that I don't have to watch and listen to the dramatic music of walking up the longest staircase every single time someone needs to duel. Do they do that throughout the whole series? =Þ

- Upside about the manga is the fact that I don't have to watch and listen to the dramatic music of walking up the longest staircase every single time someone needs to duel. Do they do that throughout the whole series? =Þ

Get used to hearing a lot of Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku   In fact, enjoy it!  Bang on the table while you're listening.  Improvise percussive riffs.  This became my favorite part of each episode my second time through the series, watching with my anime club.

I did the same thing! lol, I've always loved Zettai Unmei. And the epic walk to the dueling arena. You feel the tension built up and she walks and has that pissed look on her face.

But I love the anime, like the movie and am okay with the manga. I feel that you get this entire scenery and vast expansion of where Ohtori is in the anime and movie. But in the manga there are barely any back grounds. Also, I feel that you see the facial transitions and more character detail. Nanami and Touga and Kozue and Miki are so much more complicated and angsty in the series. In the manga they 'normalled' them up. Which allows less tension and feeling to the whole plot. I enjoy the manga, but its more entertainment to me. The anime is pure depth and mind fuckery.

BioKraze wrote:

satyreyes wrote:

Get used to hearing a lot of Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku   In fact, enjoy it!  Bang on the table while you're listening.  Improvise percussive riffs.  This became my favorite part of each episode my second time through the series, watching with my anime club.

On the other hand, if you're of age and feeling rather ambitious, you could always play the Utena Drinking Game written by Chris Rain, creator of the Satellite of Revolution (think Utena meets MST3K).

That's just pure awesomeness. Well I got my hands on the whole series so maybe I'll give that drinking game a try with some friends haha.



About the Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku, if I have to get used to it then it'll probably grow on me.

That's "moshiku shikumo" at the end there, miss

There's something nice -- ritualistic -- about all those stock scenes in the anime that there's no space for in the manga.  The staircase ascension, the Chick Speech, and "once upon a time many years ago" give the series a lot of its flavor simply because of their repetition.  I mean, how often do the characters really have conversations about the revolution of the world?  They mostly only talk about it during the Chick Speech or while pulling a sword out of the Rose Bride, both stock scenes.  But those scenes recur so often that revolution becomes the central motif of the show, right up there with roses and unhealthy relationships, hovering over everything the characters do.  Which to be fair is a strong point of the manga as well -- keeping revolution in focus, I mean.

I had forgotten about Juri and the baseball!

A lot does seem to depend on what you discover first. In my case it was season 1 of the anime, then the manga, then seasons 2 and 3. The manga has the best artwork of all the versions, especially of Utena herself. Oddly enough, the movie manga does not do Utena as much justice. Manga Utena is less innocent than anime Utena, more honest, more self-analytical -- she knows she is going down the wrong path and does it anyway. Poor anime Utena discovers the identity and nature of World's End in Episode 38! I was offended at how dumb she was.

The first time I saw Akio and Anthy together in the manga I picked up on the incest motif and was unsurprised when it was revealed in Season 2. The look in Anthy's eyes when she saw Akio and Utena kissing expressed a universe of ambiguities that left me unsurprised by the anime menage-a-trois. I figured out right away that Anthy and Mamiya were the same person, because even that was hinted at in the manga. In other words I used the anime to confirm my expectations.