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Revolutionary Girl Utena (Shoujo Kakumei Utena) TV

Genre:Shoujo/Fencing/Surreal... Umm, this one is hard to define ^_^;

Date Submitted:

Review by:Tama-chan

Plot Summary: Revolutionary Girl Utena is a series about a girl named Utena (no duh ^_^;) who wants to become a prince. This is a sort of bizarre goal because this series does not take place in a medieval setting, but rather at an exclusive modern-seeming school known as Ohtori Academy. Because of a ring that she was given as a child, Utena is soon drawn into the strange behind-the-scenes goings on at the school... The Student Council all fight duels to possess the Rose Bride, an exotic and mysterious girl named Anthy Himemiya. It is said that whoever possesses the Rose Bride will be able to grasp eternity...

But once Utena accidentally ends up fighting a duel and winning the Rose Bride, all she wants to do is help Anthy live a normal life. Will Utena be able to become a Prince? Will Anthy ever live a normal life? What is the mysterious entity known as 'Dios', or 'End of the World', for that matter? You'll have to watch and find out ^_-

Main Characters:The main character, obviously, is Utena. Despite her pink hair, she's fairly obviously a tomboy. She wears a boy's school uniform to her classes and has a horde of screaming fangirls. Despite all this, she insists she is just a normal girl. She tries to live a noble life, and will stir things up if her innate sense of justice is disturbed. But, on the other hand, she is also obviously not perfect. She jokes around with her best friend, she overstuffs her closet, she loses her temper... But you still have to admire her ideals.

The other main character is Anthy, the Rose Bride. Most of the students on campus only know her as an odd girl who hangs around with the student council, as her status as the Rose Bride is a secret from normal students. She has to do whatever the victor of the duels says (who she is 'engaged' to), and tends to stay off by herself. She seems fairly pitiful and trapped at first, but she does have hidden layers...

What to Expect: Contains spooky rotating roses, Shadow-play Girls, a mini-monkey, an infamous car, and gratuitous shots of male chests (well, during the latter half of the series, anyway).

Final Grading:

-Quality of Artwork is pretty good. The character designs are attractive by and large. The animation quality is fairly good and consistant for a television series... The only minor 'problem' is that there are a few oft-repeated 'stock footage' sequences that might get on a picky person's nerves.

-Music is excellent. The duels (which appear in roughly 2/3 of the episodes) are all marked by unique choral songs with strange lyrics, which add greatly to the feel of the series and the excitement of the duels themselves. The rest of the music is all fairly good as well.

-Story is pretty good. Eventually, the reason for a great deal of the strange goings-on in Ohtori Academy will be revealed... but I do find some parts of the series to be confusing and unresolved, so that keeps it from rating excellent.

-Character Development is excellent. Not only are Utena and Anthy fleshed out, but also all the members of the Student Council, and even some of the minor characters have a full episode devoted to their development.

-Overall: Utena is an excellent series... If you can stand its little quirks. If you can stand shoujo, and you can stand a great deal of the surreal, you'll probably want to give this one a try. Especially if you like hunting for symbolism. I give it an 8/10.