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Recently i finished the classic anime "Revolutionary Girl Utena" and i thought i would share my thoughts on such an interesting piece! This will mostly be me rambling about random parts of it, soo if you're into that, i suppose it wouldn't be bad to read this!

On my general thoughts first, i have to say it was as good as people told me it would be! What a mixture of feelings i had with it, some episodes were chill, other were heartbreaking, and some were… certainly something

TALKING ABOUT THOSE, there's so many episodes where one of my favorite characters Nanami (mean girls my beloveds) gets into what i could only describe as shenanigans, body switching Utena and Anthy, then travelling to India and being killed by elephants again and again, to slowly transforming into a cow then having eggs… they feel very disconnected from the main plot, but honestly in a good way! A thing with older animes is that they ALWAYS have a bunch of filler episodes (i'm looking at you Naruto) and eeeeeeveryone hates them.. but not ME, they always help me to get to know more about characters, see how they react in silly situations, and overall just have fun, the egg Nanami one is peak, that's all i have to say about it. Getting into more serious territory though, i absolutely loved how much of RGU you can use for feminism, so many interesting topics to discuss, about the paper of women in society, patriarchy and how it hurts everyone, it's just soooooo good, which is surprising honestly! I wasn't expecting such deep commentary about topics like these from an anime of all places (i'm used to the girls not really having much of a big purpose) it's how Anthy says... "in a way, every girl is like the rose bride"

One thing i had difficulty in understanding was the relationship and difference between Dios and Akio (mr patriarchy according to my partner XP) i believe there's a possibility of multiple explanation for them, but i'll try my best to explain MY view about it: When Utena was a child, she lost both of her parents, which made her extremely sad and doubting her will to live, proceeding to trap herself in a coffin, for Utena, she was dead inside. Then a man appeared, he went by the name of Dios, honestly the man wasn't important, maybe he wasn't even a man, but what Utena saw after meeting that man, that was important. A girl being stabbed by multiple and multiple swords, according to Dios, only a Prince could save the girl, and even though he was one in the past, he isn't one now, so he can't do nothing for the girl, looking at the girl so hurt, Utena got her will to live again, she was becoming a prince and saving that girl! Dios smiled and gave her a ring, saying "if you never lose your nobility, even when you grow up, then you might even be able to save that girl. This ring will bring you here" The importance of this scene isn't just because we learn about Anthy's backstory, but also because we learn that, different from the child tale of the girl being saved by the heroic prince! Utena saved herself here, she made the conscious choice to help someone in need, and that i feel like, is something that makes her character shine to me.

I've also debated a lot on the difference between Dios and Akio, they are obviously the same person, but also so different at the same time, i don't feel like it's just the passage of time here, i mean that should be obvious i know, but it's hard to describe with words, they make part of the same problem, the concept of what it is to be a "man" Dios is the pure side of this question, a prince is a person who saves others, who sacrifices his own life for the sake of others, and no matter how good that sounds, that is just impossible to be put in practice, one can't always be what people like to call men a "provider" and RGU shows that, it shows how trying to be this archetype only brings the destruction of oneself.

Then we have Akio, the more realistic portrait of a man, someone who's strong, reliable, he takes advantage of this view of him, and uses it to manipulate people (mostly teenagers xd) which is not uncommon at all for men to do, he's certainly the ugly side of the coin, even though coins don't have an ugly side.. depends on the coin! xp

This duality of them is so interesting, i feel like i could talk about it aaaaaaall day, but jeez this is long isn't it? I might aswell wrap it up, i loved this anime so much, the ending especially gosh, i loved how Akio didn't even die, he was SO pathetic, and Anthy got her good ending, i feel like the reason there's this entire focus on Utena having been forgotten by all, essentially dead, but Anthy still going to her (of course she's not dead duuhh, she's chilling in brazil! eating rice, beans, meat and bananas, like a good brazillian does >:o) means that Anthy can now do her own choices, her own desires, there's such a big pause when she goes to leave the school… she's not trapped there anymore, she can finally live the life she deserves, how could someone not find this beautiful? go figure hehe, anyways that's the END. byebye ;3