Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Revolutionary Girl Utena

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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.

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).

Utena is a story far less innocent than it looks. Even with a subtle dash and all the fantasy comes to controversial issues, as is typical of shoujo, but this anime is much more dense than the others.
Each character is worked in a splendid manner. Its life history, their personal dramas. We note characters very human, with virtues and defects that are in common.

The atmosphere is surreal anime. Be the "Castle Dios" floating above the "Duel Arena" is the uncertainty of time and place. Utena is more than a fairy tale, is a magical story, where nothing is what it seems.

SO perfect! I wish the manga was just a bit more explicitly gay but still. The art is so pretty and beautiful theres surprisingly diverse characters for a manga (and also anime!) from the 90s. And I find the story so interesting and beautiful. I loved Anthy's story so much and I love how much personality the female characters have. During the anime I was confused pretty much throughout the whole thing but after reading the manga everything made a lot more sense. I would recommend reading before watching the anime. The only disappointing part about the manga itself was ****spoiler***** Juri is not a ... lesbian and theres pretty much 0 Nanami! Still! Absolutely perfect

I don't understand when people say the manga is not gay, because it very much was for me. I mostly interpreted the story about being about Utena's abandonment issues, and the fight she had going on between her intuition to find a "strong man" (in short her compulsory heterosexuality), and her will to be her own strong man and emancipate herself and Anthy from the shackles of patriarchy. But maybe I am biased h. I liked that in the ending (spoiler) she actually manages to revolutionise the world and free herself and Utena (I think?). However, the whole was too chaotic, plot-points and magical abilities ... are just revealed like that without any previous indications or structure, but I guess that's part of the fairytale retelling. I might be dense but because of this I didn't catch all of the details of the ending.

I love Utena from the show but ... I think I love the manga a little more after reading it. The show has more time for these characters to grow and battle but the manga is more straightforward with the story in an equally as beautiful way and, oddly, with less of the plot points from the show, the characters come out even better in the manga. I think some are somewhat overlooked like Miki and Juri but all the men that I despised from the show, I came to enjoy their presence (slightly! cant give them all the credit here.) The story is truly ... so incredible from the obvious theme of women choosing to embrace who they are to embracing your faults as a means of achieving your goals and bettering yourself. The art is stunning, as per usual. And the relationships between characters is so well done!! One of my new favorite manga series.

(copied from my goodreads)