Utena Project

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Reflections on the Girl

iblessall 3 Comments

This is the third in a series of three posts reflecting on the various roles of Utena Tenjou, the titular character of Revolutionary Girl Utena. These posts are adapted from an academic paper I wrote in Fall 2014. These posts assume the reader has completed the anime and thus contain spoilers. Citations will be noted in footnotes at the bottom of the piece.

Happily, the discussions of the previous two posts lead quite nicely into the topic of this final post. As you’ll see in the body of the post, I think Utena is such a tightly woven character that it is essentially impossible to discuss her heroism or role as the agent of change in the story without discussing the fact that yes, Utena is a girl. A girl prince.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

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Revolutionary Girl Utena: Reflections on the Hero

iblessall 1 Comment

This is the second in a series of three posts reflecting on the various roles of Utena Tenjou, the titular character of Revolutionary Girl Utena. These posts are adapted from an academic paper I wrote in Fall 2014. These posts assume the reader has completed the anime and thus contain spoilers. Citations will be noted in footnotes at the bottom of the piece.

I am of the opinion that Utena’s unique role as the hero is directly related to her unique role as protagonist—not only does being the protagonist set her up as the de facto hero of the story in a traditional sense, but her unique place in the narrative paves the way for a reimagining of what it means to be a hero.

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Revolutionary Girl Utena: Reflections on the Protagonist

iblessall 2 Comments

This is the first in a coming series of three posts reflecting on the various roles of Utena Tenjou, the titular character of Revolutionary Girl Utena. These posts are adapted from an academic paper I wrote in Fall 2014. These posts assume the reader has completed the anime and thus contain spoilers. Citations will be noted in footnotes at the bottom of the piece.

By way of introduction, the thesis of my paper was, in essence, that the character of Utena deconstructs a trio of archetypes and reinterprets each of them in her own identity. This is from the first section of the paper, which details my thoughts on Utena’s narrative role as the protagonist of the story.

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