Revolutionary Girl Utena is a magical-girl anime of sorts, about a high-school girl called Utena Tenjou – and, as you might have guessed, she's no ordinary girl – but perhaps not in the way you might expect. You see, Utena wants desperately to be a prince, constantly getting into trouble at Ohtori Academy for wearing the boys' uniform. In fact, Utena wants to be a prince so much, that when she sees a girl in distress – that's Anthy Himemiya – she sees no other option but to go sort out her abusive boyfriend. That's when Utena becomes drawn in to the secrets of Ohtori Academy and it's mysterious Dueling Club – and needs to protect her Anthy more than ever.
One great thing about this anime is that, for a shojo series, this has a really damned good story about fighting for what you believe in, for who you believe in, for going against the grain. I love this series for that because I've never seen anything like it.
As I just mentioned, Revolutionary Girl Utena is a shojo series; however, it incorporates elements of shojo-ai as well - although nothing concrete seems to happen in the series (it's not a particularly romantic show), there are a lot of hints towards a relationship between Utena and Anthy. Anthy has a very submissive, cliche-wife personality, which is a great contrast to Utena's unrelenting fighting spirit. That's not to say her character is underdeveloped. There are good reasons that Anthy is the way she is, although sometimes it seems a little overdone.
The art's also pretty nice, if simplistic – very graceful. The character's hair is almost never animated to cover the eyes, and when it cannot be avoided, the eyes are always visible as well. The characters are all exceedingly colourful and distinguished, too. This is demonstrated by the fact that I haven't yet gotten a character confused with another as I so often do.
The fight scenes can also be extremely tense, and every one is fighting for a reason – there is no needless violence in this show. For instance, in the first battle when Utena is fighting to protect Anthy from her boyfriend, the fight is over very quickly – no long, drawn-out duels a la Bleach. Just a short, two-minute sequence, leaving the rest of the show to focus on the story. It must also be said that the only thing wounded in this anime is a character's valour or pride – this series is definitely not about violence.
There are two things that really, really grate me while watching this. The first is that they constantly re-use clips from other episodes as beginning segments. The scene used in the first episode introducing Utena's past must have been used at least six times! The same goes for a couple of other segments. The same sequence is used for the lead-up to battle. Every. Single. Time. The other thing that really gets my goat about it is the music – the soundtrack really isn't great, or maybe it's just outdated. They have the same battle music... the opening isn't brilliant... you get the point.
Either way, if you like fighting series, girls with pink hair dressed as men who are engaged to princesses, or just like shojo, I'd definitely recommend this series. However, if you think the constant 80's music might bother you a little, you should probably give this one a miss.
