Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 39 Discussion

tl;dr: Confused after finishing the series? Don't worry, everyone was :) Now, go back and watch the first four episodes again, knowing what you know now.

Kind of like in The Usual Suspects, literally everything in almost every scene changes once you know what's really been going on: Akio and Anthy have been playing a game of chess, with each manipulating the naive Utena, not to mention everyone else, from the very beginning.

On the silly Nanami episodes: Anthy was a witch, and witches have familiars (Chu Chu) and are good with animals. After the harassment that Anthy gets from Nanami in episode 3, it should make a lot more sense why it looks like Anthy is having a blast during the whole scene at Utena and Anthy's dorm in episode 4 (and onward).

It should come as no surprise that almost everything in the series is happening because Anthy, Akio, and/or ChuChu have caused something to happen, or caused someone else to do something to cause something to happen.


Actually, here's a great litmus test for catching what was going on:

Did you fully track the movements of banana that Nanami slipped on in episode 31? Go check it. It's at 08:20 in on the episode. Watch carefully, then think about how carefully Akio and Anthy planned out those events in order to introduce the two of them, then to get her to move in, then let her idea of their "healthy" sibling relationship get traumatized, and then eventually duel Utena in ep 32.


In many ways, Anthy is actually the protagonist the whole time. At some point early on (either at the end of ep 2, by the duel in ep 5, or during ep 12), Anthy decides to start taking matters into her own hands. It's up to you to decide when/how Anthy strikes out on her own, and when/how Utena's own influence changes Anthy's desire.


Finally, think of Mikage in the Black Rose Saga was a sort of foreshadowing of the stakes for Utena's success or failure. By her own standard, Utena seems to have failed... But by having affecting Anthy so much, she elicited Anthy's freedom. Utena wasn't herself a "revolutionary girl" in the sense of *being a Prince* (she failed at the end), but she did in fact cause a Revolution to occur.