Ranked #4422

Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Manga)

An classic manga with lots of simbolism and fantasy. In order to understand all the story read the manga, after this, watch the anime and, in the end, watch the movie, they have important diferences but are related.
The story is very original and the progress of the characters and their past is very deeper.
The story is focused in each member of Student Council, their relationships and the quest of Utena to find her prince and became a prince herself. It shows like someone can fight for his own wishes, live the way he wants and the importance of friendship. A very good history that influencied a lot of others that came after, great and memorable characters made this an unlosable history to anyone.

Story
You have to pay a lot of attention to understand this. But basically Utena is a girl who was save by a guy when she was a child. Some years later, she is looking for this guy (her prince) and trying to be like him. She goes to a academy where she mets the rose´s bride, a girl that is traded in duels between the members of Student Council trying to obtain the power to make miracles from a place called something like "end of the world". Just read it and try to figure this yourself.

Art
There´s nothing special about the art, it´s nice and clear, easy to understand.

Character
Each character is special and have a deep desenvolviment. You can only 100% understand them if you watch the series too. The manga is too short to desenvolve them all, so the story don´t pay much attention to the secondary characters.

Enjoyment
It´s a great manga and makes you want to know more about this world. Certainly
influenced many others titles.

Overall
All the Utena´s world is very complicated to understand, the manga is the easiest way to introduce you in this world, many things are more explained in the serie and the movie, so don´t miss them. read more

I will try not to allow my love of Chiho Saito to slant this review, but I can't promise anything. I'm one of the very few who enjoyed the Utena manga more than the anime, probably because I could relate to it more (and I like the ending better...not to mention it made more sense than the anime). The characters are more realistic. Touga and Akio actually appear to have some heart. Because it's much shorter than the anime, there is less time to go into secondary characters, so the story mostly focuses on the main triumverate (Utena, Anthy, Akio) and Touga. Definetly more symbolic than most shojo, it's more theme driven than character or plot driven. Many are turned off by the metaphysical focus of the story, but anyone who likes kick butt girl power should find this story entertaining. Not for anyone who has issues with homoeroticism (although this version has nothing on the others). read more