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What A Cartoon! - Revolutionary Girl Utena "Episodes 1 & 2" (Patreon)

Published:
2020-04-20 04:00:01
Imported:
2026-06
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This week we are joined again by premium Patreon subscriber Casey to talk about a classic of '90s anime, Revolutionary Girl Utena! From many of the folks who adapted Sailor Moon, this challenging show pushed against gender roles and sexuality like few animated series did nearly 25 years ago. Learn how it was made, Utena's ongoing legacy, and listen to our discussion of the first two episodes of the series right now!

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Comments

Reuben Levine

So cool that you guys are doing Utena!

hrhomer

Okay, I am almost certain that I recognize the voice of Casey (or however it's spelled). If you're reading, are you the same person who runs the DC Deckbuilding and Marvel Legendary games at Dexcon and Dreamation?

Jonathan

Yall should do the movie as well as part of your movie specials. Its one of the most beutiful peices of 90s animation period.

mavrick

"you cant sell toys of shadows" - that was my AOL away status message back in 2003 during my emo phase

littleterr0r

I hate the monkey/mouse too but my least favorite out of all of these is Pu from Yu Yu Hakusho.

Guy Incognito

I'm so glad you did an episode about one of my favorite shows. Great episode, and Casey was a fantastic guest. You touched on the very close friendship between Utena and Wakaba, and noted that this kind of relationship is a fairly common trope in shoujo works. This trope is referred to as a "Class S" relationship, after a genre of literature and social phenomenon that arose in Japan in the early part of the 20th century focusing on very intense, passionate (though generally non-sexual) friendships between adolescent girls. As you noted in the episode, Class S relationships then (and largely now, though social views on homosexuality are changing) were viewed as an adolescent phase that girls were expected to grow out of as they became women and entered society. The Class S genre was influenced by the introduction of adolescent girl-focused literature from the West such as Little Women and A Little Princess, the creation and rapid spread of then-novel all-girls' schools in Japan, and the newly-formed all-female musical theater group the Takarazuka Revue* in which women played all roles in their productions, and whose actresses inspired adoration and love letters from female fans to the point that it became a scandal in the 1920s. Over time the genre would serve as an influence to shoujo works in general, and to yuri works in particular. *Utena itself has strong Takarazuka Revue ancestry: The "God of Manga" Osamu Tezuka was raised in the town of Takarazuka (where the production company is based) and his mother was friends with many of their actresses and took him to see many Takarazuka shows. This directly inspired him to write Princess Knight in the 1950s, one of the first major shoujo manga, about a girl who was accidentally born with both the "blue heart" of a boy and the "pink heart" of a girl, which causes her to want to be both a noble prince and a tender princess. Sound familiar? Princess Knight helped inspire The Rose of Versailles, which in turn helped inspire Utena. PS: As a fellow Slayers fan, please please do a Slayers episode soon!

Eve of the Stars

One of my favorite running gags in the show is the variety of activities the student council is engaged in whenever they are discussing the End of the World. Starts off with them playing cards in the first episode and pretty soon they're having a deep conversation while playing baseball on the roof.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

Holy shit this show is so awesome and queer (at least in these first two episodes). Like a lot of anime talked about on WAC, I had no prior experience with this show beforehand (even the name wasn't familiar to me) but I had such a blast with how weird and campy these episodes are and the rock opera music backing the duels might be the most enthralled I've been in a couple of weeks.