The Nozomi cover for Adolescence of Utena
Prior to watching Adolescence of Utena I was expecting something that would completely blow my mind.
After all this film has something of a reputation as an exemplar of the “What the hell were they on?! And is it legal?” genre. For me the reality fell well short of that, but I did enjoy it as an alternative version of Revolutionary Girl Utena.
NB: There are some spoilers ahead.
A Classic Type of Anime Movie
In some ways I see Adolescence of Utena as a fairly classic, and surprisingly straightforward, adaptation of an anime TV series. From this perspective Adolescence of Utena is very much in the same mould as Galaxy Express 999, Macross: Do You Remember Love (MDYRL), and (if I recall correctly [1]) the RahXephon movie.
I grant that The Adolescence of Utena is rather more surreal than those examples [2], but the basic structure of a condensed, alternate, version of the TV series is clearly there to be seen.
You can even see the transitions from the Student Council Saga to the Black Rose Saga to the Apocalypse Saga, along with the key visual triggers for each arc of the TV series. For those that have seen the TV series these visual triggers, respectively, are the duels, the elevator, and the cars.
I think that not seeing the TV series first is where some people get tripped up by The Adolescence of Utena. The visual triggers probably would have confused the living daylights out of me if I didn’t already have context for them.
In this sense The Adolescence of Utena may not be particularly good example of an adaptation of a TV Series. I think that the significant risk of Continuity Lockout introduced by this may have contributed to the film’s reputation.
The Dream World
The other major trick to The Adolescence of Utena is knowing the foundation that the condensed version is built on.
Or not built on, as the case may be.
For example, Galaxy Express 999 and RahXephon are fairly straight distillations whereas MDYRL works better as a Show within the Show [3].
The Adolescence of Utena is a variant on the MDYRL theme: it is an entirely different set of realities [4] in which a similar story to the TV series is being told.
The key to these realities is provided in the opening sequence of the very Escher-like version of Ohtori that The Adolescence of Utena takes place in.
The Ohtori of the TV series was fantastical, but it wasn’t entirely impossible. The duelling arena, and the castle may have been impossible, but the entire school wasn’t [5].
All of Ohtori is impossible in the movie in a crazy 3D Escher-esque way that could only be a dream world, or similar [6].
With this the pieces are in place to lead to an ending that is actually less ambiguous than the TV series.
An Abbreviated Utena
The TV Series shows Utena fighting for her own identity and freedom from increasingly dysfunctional relationships over the course of 39 episodes. This is cut right back in the movie, there is really only one previous relationship with Touga to be resolved.
Oddly Touga is so detached from Utena in the movie that I’m not even sure that he’s really in the dream world. I suspect that Touga is a construct of Utena’s dream that is there to enable her to move on, and this fitted naturally into the visual imagery that evoked the Black Rose Saga.
In other words the development of Utena’s relationship with Anthy, and resolving her previous relationships, are completed about 2/3rds of the way into the movie.
A More Complex Anthy
In the TV Series Anthy was either a Plot Coupon or a puppetmaster behind the scenes, and it wasn’t always easy to tell which applied.
In Adolescence of Utena, Anthy is a much more active, open, and expressive character.
Anthy has been waiting for the right person to make her escape from the dream world with; none of the other duellists have seen her as more than the Rose Bride and this acknowledges her role as a Plot Coupon in the Student Council Saga.
For all that Anthy may want to escape the dream world, and for all that her growing relationship with Utena is a much healthier relationship than the other duellists offer, there is still the fear of the unknown.
It is in this context that Utena provides a measure of reassurance by becoming the, as @ryorin puts it:
…that Anthy will ride to freedom.
The Escape
The escape from the dream world had to involve cars; cars were the most iconic image of the Apocalypse Saga.
I do admit that characters turning into cars was unusual, but didn’t feel out of place to me within the rules of a dream world. I suspect that the WTF factor would have been greater if I hadn’t already rationalised the setting before this happened.
In this instance the symbology felt clear to me: Utena’s story has already been told, and her decision to trust Anthy has long been made. From here Utena will support Anthy, but Anthy must make her own decision to escape to the real world.
Anthy must also face, and overcome, her own challenges without direct assistance from Utena.
The action sequence leading to the escape to reality is all on Anthy, albeit with some help from the other duellists [7]. The implication here is that the other duellists may also have a chance to escape later, once they deal with their own issues.
As for the resolution of the escape, once you strip away the admittedly surreal imagery of dragon cars, bug cars, and a powered castle on wheels, it is actually pretty standard stuff: choosing between the prison you know, and the freedom you don’t.
In this case the reward for choosing freedom is to be immediately reunited with a human Utena, which is considerably more explicit [8] than the TV series ending [9].
The Verdict
I enjoyed The Adolescence of Utena for the usual reasons I enjoy any installment of Revolutionary Girl Utena: the soundtrack, the style, the general design sensibilities.
My biggest criticism would be the risk of Continuity Lockout, but based on the reputation of the film I suspect that the weirdness factor may trump this for unsuspecting viewers.
The Adolescence of Utena is the movie Revolutionary Girl Utena had to have, and definitely worth seeing at least once. Overall this one is a cautious recommendation, and is probably best suited to people who have seen at least one, and preferably two, of the TV Series sagas.
Day 2 – Naruto Shippuden The Movie (2002)
Day 3 – Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
Day 4 – Steamboy (2004)
Day 5 – Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984)
Day 6 – Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
Day 7 – Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
Day 8 – Ah! My Goddess: The Movie (2000)
Day 9 – Summer Wars (2009)
Day 10 – Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984)
Day 11 – Silent Mobius I (1991) & II (1992)
Day 12 – Space Firebird 2772 (1980)
Day 13 – Junkers Come Here (1994)
Day 14 – Whisper of the Heart (1995)
Day 15 – Patlabor: The Movie (1989)
Day 16 – Card Captor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card
Day 17 – Millennium Actress
Day 18 – Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror
Day 19 – Gall Force: Eternal Story
Day 20 – (I actually know what this one will be, I’m just not saying yet) 🙂
[1] I have only seen the RahXephon movie once. I may rewatch the series and movie sometime this year, I think I’m overdue to properly assess RahXephon.
[2] It is worth noting that being outdoing Galaxy Express 999 in the surreal stakes does take some effort.
[3] I’ve heard that MDYRL pops up as an in-universe movie in one of the other installments of the Macross franchise.
Pirates of the Burley Griffin 
I really enjoyed this movie and, yeah, I agree that it’s pretty simple structurally. The only thing that threw me off about it was the expectation that the characters and set-up would be more closely tied to the series, when the characters all had something significantly changed from the series, such as Anthy’s expressiveness. But, yeah, I brought to it my interpretation of the series and built my interpretation of the movie upon that and I really think that helped. Also I went in braced for mind-boggling surrealism but the symbolism didn’t actually make the film all that hard to follow? Once you accept that literal meanings and occurrences don’t matter (dreamworld is a good term for this, I hadn’t thought of that) there’s not much problem; a lot of the things that sounded so weird before I watched it, like Utena turning into a car, actually make a lot of sense in context. Again, though, having watched the series helped with that. A lot of the film really seemed more straightforward than the series.
“Puppet master” is a good term for series Anthy. I think she’s got more going on than that but that really seems to describe her for a good chunk of the show.
While it was sorta nice to have Utena and Anthy finish off together, in the end I think I liked the ambiguous ending of the series better.
I read somewhere that while the director wanted a story starring a girl he wanted to get away from the princess/witch tropes/motifs women are often stuck in. This is why Utena wants to be a prince, and in the first fight scene why she breaks the (witch’s) broom before using it as a sword.
Another common trope is the hero waiting for the heroine at the school gate. By not having Utena there Ikuhara is once again playing with audience expectations.
Brendan: I think that the movie ending is ideal for the movie versions of the characters; I don’t think it would have worked for the TV series characters.
Interesting comment about the director’s intentions about playing with the tropes. I think that there’s some truth to that and it makes me wonder if that was the reason for changing the characters. i.e. the TV series versions wouldn’t allow him to mess with the tropes in quite the way he wanted, so he changed the characters to fit the story he needed. Which is fair enough.
I’m planning to look at the Nozomi extras in the third box later today, that may shed some light on this.
Ryorin:I can see how the changes to the characters would throw someone off. I’m actually wondering why it didn’t throw me off – the changes to Anthy in particular are blatant from the first duel.
It is bizarre how logical the dragon car sequence becomes once you accept the logic of a dreamworld, and is actually one of the things to admire about Adolescence of Utena.
In terms of the TV Series, Anthy does indeed have a lot more going on than “puppet master” (including, occasionally, being a puppet herself), but very little of this becomes apparent until quite late in the series. I’ve thought about doing a detailed analysis, but the effort involved in an episodic review of Revolutionary Girl Utena makes me cringe away from the idea every time.
I’ve seen people do detailed scene analysis of Utena and it’s pretty bonkers. And fascinating, but, gosh, would that take a long time to write. You’d need some pretty strong feelings and interpretations to want to do that.
With Anthy I was finally like “oh, okay, these are clearly different versions of the characters, time to move on,” but before that I was flailing around trying to figure out why it was Utena’s first day, what was up with Touga, etc. Anthy made things make sense, and that is not something I ever thought I’d type. Except maybe about the Black Rose Saga.
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