‘Revolutionary Girl Utena’ Is the Anime to Watch This Pride Month

An avant-garde series that's as much a surreal art piece as a traditional narrative, the 1997 series remains as beguiling today as it was 30 years ago.

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Recently, queer anime has been having a bit of a moment. Once generally marginalized and confined to specific circles, LGBT-themed shows like “The Summer Hikaru Died” and “Go For It, Nakumara!” have seen critical acclaim and success. Concepts from gay-themed anime genres have reached the mainstream beyond even fans of the medium: thanks to “Heated Rivalry,” more people than ever know what yaoi and fujoshis are, for better or worse. 

Japan’s complex attitudes towards homosexuality — at the risk of overly simplifying it, the country is more conservative towards queerness than America in some ways, and more accepting in others —bleed into the media that comes from the country. You typically won’t see much in the way of queer characters in the biggest and most mainstream shows, although even then, there are exceptions: it was “Sailor Moon,” after all, that pushed the button for queer representation in the medium during the early ’90s by introducing an open lesbian couple. Niche and transgressive works that tackle LGBT themes have always been produced by the anime industry, from works tackling transgender coming-of-age (“Wandering Son”) to heartwarming and escapist romances (“Yuri on Ice”).  

But there’s one LGBT anime that looms above all others, one that still resonates as a torchbearer for queer representation in the medium. “Revolutionary Girl Utena,” a 39-episode series first released in 1997, isn’t just one of the first anime to center LGBT themes in its storylines: it’s one of the finest masterpieces in the entire history of anime, and a work that still proves wildly influential for new creators working today. Although hard to track down, the series is well worth watching for anyone who cares about great TV, much less anime. And, with GKIDS releasing the film reimagining “Adolescence of Utena” — part-sequel, part-remake of the the show — in theaters on June 21, now’s the perfect time to celebrate the series and its still transgressive, boundary-breaking approach to sexuality, gender, and storytelling. 

The rare Japanese animated work to start as a completely original idea rather than an adaptation, “Revolutionary Girl Utena” was the brainchild of Be-Papas, a production group formed specifically to make the series. The series and Be-Papas were the brainchild of director Kunihiko Ikuhara, a veteran of Toei Animation who served as series director of “Sailor Moon” for three seasons as well as the director of 1993’s “Sailor Moon R: The Movie.” Frustrated over the lack of artistic freedom afforded to him, he left Toei in 1996 and brought together a creative group that included manga artist Chiho Saito, animator Shinya Hasegawa, and writers Yōji Enokido and Yūichirō Oguro to create an original work. Early on, the intention was to create a relatively mainstream “shojo” series aimed at young women in the vein of “Sailor Moon:” a very early abandoned concept was that the show would focus on a group of female warriors fighting to prevent the end of the world.  

As production went underway, however, the series morphed into a work unlike anything that’s been seen in anime before or since. Ikuhara grew more ambitious in his aims, incorporating avant-garde elements, drawing inspiration from Japanese experimental theater and hiring composer J. A. Seazer to compose the show’s now-iconic score. The series increasingly became wildly stylized, featuring elements such as shadow play segments commenting on the main story, scenes marked with a stained-glass decorative frame, and fight scenes that drew inspiration for their choreography from Japanese Noh theatre.

Perhaps most boldly, Ikuhara decided that the central relationship — between title character Utena, a girl who wishes to be a prince, and Anthy, the “Rose Bride” — should be a romance. Several people involved in the show’s production, most notably Saito, were initially opposed, believing that the mainstream young female audience the series was supposed to court would respond poorly to anything other than a heterosexual pairing. But Saito, whose artwork proved the foundation for the show’s florid and rich visual style, eventually grew supportive, and the series evolved into a subversive, utterly unique queer coming-of-age tale. 

A deconstruction of both anime tropes and the conventions of a fairy tale, “Revolutionary Girl Utena” has a premise that, on its surface, doesn’t differ much from prior animated series and manga such as “Princess Knight” and “The Rose of Versailles” — both of which focus on cross-dressing, sword-fighting heroines and feature some ambiguous gender commentary. In particular, the series draws easy comparisons to “Princess Knight,” a manga from “Astro Boy” creator Osamu Tezuka which focused on a girl with the blue heart of a boy and the pink heart of a girl and disguises herself as a prince to save the kingdom. Like “Princess Knight,” “Revolutionary Girl Utena” was inspired in part by the traditional Japanese Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theater troupe where women play both male and female parts, in its aesthetics.

“Princess Knight,” however, created its world via very stereotypical ideas of gender: the main character’s male heart was the source of her strength and ability to fight, and the series ended with her giving up her male side to live as a traditionally feminine woman. “Revolutionary Girl Utena” is far more subversive and radical in its approach, questioning the roles of men and women through the boyish Utena’s desire to become a prince — less a literal desire to be royalty or change her gender and more to embody the qualities of strength and compassion the role symbolizes. Contrasting her with the meek, mysterious, and passive Anthy, the series examines the constrictions both men and women face via traditional gender roles, with an eye towards gender fluidity that remains radical today. 

Set against the backdrop of the exclusive Ohtori Academy, a strange surrealist space that seems to exist unconnected from the outside world, Utena and Anthy’s romance is treated without explicit prejudice from the rest of the cast, but Anthy’s hand in marriage is courted by a variety of male students via a series of duels, thanks to her apparent power to “revolutionize the world.” What that means is barely explained in the show’s opening arc, which is more straightforwardly rendered than the increasingly surreal final episodes, yet already a strange work rife with symbolism and abstract visual storytelling. Nonetheless, the series evolves into an elaborate soap opera over its 39 episodes, with complex scheming characters opposing Utena, her relationship with Anthy serving as the lodestar that guides this tragedy towards its ambiguous conclusion. 

“Revolutionary Girl Utena” is a work that can barely be summarized; the experience of watching it is less traditional narrative than it is an art piece, one that’s queer in every sense of the word, from its aesthetics to its relationships to its storytelling ethos. Remarkably, “Adolescence of Utena” is even more surreal and queerer than the original show, focusing more on Utena and Anthy’s physical relationship than the series was able to get away with in the ’90s. There are plenty of fluffy queer anime to watch during Pride, rom-coms that prove comforting and sweet. But if you’re looking for a series that pushes queer storytelling in surprising, challenging directions, “Revolutionary Girl Utena” is indisputably one of the greats: not just for anime, but for all of TV.