Of Demiurges, Deliberate and Otherwise: Revolutionary Girl Utena and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

I believe that at its foundation, Utena is a story about stories. On all levels, from the metatextual to the ways that the characters reflect and contrast each other and their relationships, it’s built on variations on different themes. This analysis is not meant to distract from the important issues Utena explores, but rather as a bird’s-eye view on the scaffolding that these themes are built on. In line with this approach, I’ll start with the meta level and then zoom in from there.

Perhaps the reason why I came to think about this to begin with was reading about how Utena came to be. It’s fascinating to me that the creative team behind it made the TV series, the movie, and the manga roughly at the same time and, to some extent, in parallel. We have three different, separate but adjacent stories that feature the same characters (mostly) and similar narratives, but put different spins on them. Is either of those stories more valuable than the rest? Well, I would argue that yes, depending on the ways that the themes the stories end up being interpreted, some variations are better than others — and I’ll be honest, the more explicitly and unapologetically queer a take is, the more brownie points it gets in my book. Still, there is value in having all these versions side by side and being aware that they, uh, coexist.

Keeping in mind that we have these three separate continuities, we already have at least three different versions of the characters. They’re obviously similar enough to be recognisable, but they also have different histories, which inform their beliefs and actions in different ways. It’s a fun thought experiment, asking yourself, How would character X be different if YZ had happened to them? And bePapas say, yes, do that, ask these questions! They take it a step further and do it for us and give us three canons to pick and choose from. Or maybe even… suggest that the concept of canon isn’t as set in stone as we usually assume it is.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I mentioned that there are different versions of characters between the three continuities, and now I’m going to delve into one of them–the TV show–and talk about the different variations on a theme that can be found there. Due to its nature as a cyclic story, Utena features a lot of those, and this list is more of a beta version than an exhaustive final one. At any rate, here are some elements that we see in Utena over and over again:

• Dysfunctional sibling pairs. Let’s get the most obvious one out of the way. Akio and Anthy’s relationship is the fulcrum around which the whole narrative revolves, and you don’t need me to list off the ways in which it’s messed up and dysfunctional. It’s echoed by both Touga and Nanami and Kozue and Miki. Each pair reflects some aspects of Akio and Anthy’s dynamic, and sexual and/or romantic elements feature prominently. In terms of character personalities, Touga and Nanami are clearly the closer match to Akio and Anthy. Touga has been groomed by Akio into something that’s starting to resemble him, and he’s closest to End of the World, both by virtue of being the president of the Student Council and because he tries to act similar to him in a number of ways. Nanami mirrors Anthy on the surface level, because she’s the younger sibling, but also in the ways she puts up an innocent, “pure” front that hides the darker, less savoury aspects of her personality. The dynamic between them is less toxic, however, and neither of them seems willing to cross the event horizon that Akio and Anthy have. In fact, we see that Touga is trying to protect his sister in ways that Akio clearly doesn’t. Kozue and Miki exemplify this motif as well, although they’re arguably a looser play on it. They’re younger, as well as closer in age, and that affects their dynamics. Akio and Anthy’s relationship is the prototype and the most extreme interpretation, and the other two pairs mirror it in some ways and not in others. There are different factors at play, which lead to different outcomes. It stands to reason that Akio has an interest in pushing the other two’s relationships down a similar trajectory as his own, but as we see them in the series, they haven’t quite reached that point yet. We see three complicated and messy and unhealthy sibling relationships, but we see that not all of them are beyond fixing.
• Conversely, the other centrepiece of the story is also replicated a number of times: the significant childhood encounter. For Utena, it’s obviously meeting Akio. For Touga, in turn, it’s meeting Utena. For Mitsuru, it’s seeing Nanami. All of these encounters affect the characters deeply and change the course of their lives in some way. All of them result in idealisation and worship of the person they met. It’s also important to note that the viewer’s knowledge of these events is second-hand, skewed through the prism of the character who experienced them. In Utena’s case in particular, the meeting is elevated to mythical proportions, presented like a fairytale, and used to incite and frame the story as a whole. Touga’s recollections of meeting Utena is wistful and nostalgic, whereas Mitsuru’s meeting Nanami is fresher in his mind and informs his actions in a more immediate way. It’s not the objective truth of this encounter that affects the characters as much as their interpretation of it.
• The next and final point I already mentioned: idealising or worshipping someone, or having a Prince. Akio (more precisely, Dios) is the original Prince, that of our protagonist, but Utena, in turn, is Touga’s Prince. Touga himself is Nanami’s, as well as Saionji’s Prince. Nanami is Mitsuru’s. Each of the Princes is a role model and an ideal, it informs the characters’ sets of values. A Prince is also, in line with the fairytale motifs that we see throughout Utena, romantically and/or sexually connotated, an object to be pursued. Above all, though, this image of a Prince that each of the characters has constructed in their mind is just that–a construction. Similarly to the childhood encounters I discussed above, the narrative the characters create for themselves is what carries the power to influence them. And that narrative is also dependent on how each Prince figure presents themselves.

This brings me to my main argument. Utena, in multiple instances, presents us with the stories its characters have constructed for themselves, and makes us buy into them. Some of these stories aren’t deliberately incorrect, some are. Utena’s recollection of meeting Akio is imperfect because she was a child at the time, and severely traumatised, but also because of the way Akio chooses to present himself to her. For the most part of the show, the viewer is shown a misleading, incomplete version of this meeting, and the feeling that it’s wrong and deceptive is one that sneaks up on us only gradually. We don’t have a reason to doubt it at first; typically, people will assume a story is told to them in an accurate way.

But that assumption doesn’t work for this story.

Utena very often uses unreliable narrators, which contributes to its eerie, disturbing vibe. It also tells us that the characters are wrapped up in their own narratives, which are imperfect representations of the universe’s reality at best and purposefully misleading at worst. A lot of times, these narratives are protective mechanisms — they shelter the characters from the confusing or outright scary parts of their experiences, they help them maintain a sense of identity or to uphold the façade they hide behind. However, they often clash and they keep the characters from truly seeing and understanding one another.

On a structural level, I believe that this ties into a gnostic reading of Utena, as a less literal example of an imperfect world constructed by a demiurge. Just like Ohtori Academy is Akio’s own little constructed world, each character’s personal narrative is a reality of their own making. They either don’t realise they exist within these bubbles, or they are resistant to looking past them. The contradictions and dissonance between the ways the characters interpret their experiences contribute to Utena’s internal tension, such as in the episodes from Nanami’s perspective, where the clash between reality and her perception of it seems especially jarring. (Ironically, Nanami’s suspicions about Anthy turn out to be more accurate than we are led to believe by the way they are framed. However, she has them for the wrong reasons.)

Even as we witness the slow unravelling of the characters’ realities, they remain wrapped up in their narratives until the very final episodes. It is only when Utena’s narrative is shattered by Akio that she can take initiative and bring about the much-touted revolution.* Utena’s ultimate victory is reaching into Anthy’s narrative and showing her that she is capable of moving past it, both figuratively and literally. (Anthy’s narrative isn’t one constructed by choice. However, her abuse and self-loathing have led her to the point where she willingly wraps herself up in it.)

To wrap this up, it seems to me that the way Utena uses similar elements in different constellations and lures us into buying into its characters’ subjective, imperfect narratives can lead us to examine the way we interact with stories–the ones we are told, as well as the ones we tell ourselves. Everyone has a personal narrative that gives them a more or less cohesive sense of direction and identity. Such narratives help us make sense of the world and our place in it, but they can also isolate us from others and prevent us from creating genuine connections. In a sense, we are all our personal demiurges. The places where we let our constructed realities crack and bleed into each other are the places where revolution happens.

*I was tempted to say something about cracking the egg’s shell, but I am exercising restraint. Still, it’s a useful metaphor to illustrate this.