Y’know, it’s kind of funny how much death isn’t talked about as a theme in Utena outside of analysis circles considering that the very first thing you learn about Utena Tenjou is that her parents are dead. I could go on about the use of parental death as a background trait in fictional characters, often to add a sense of tragedy and complexity with little effort put in, but Utena in particular plays off of these expectations to lull you into a false sense of security. You begin the show learning that the main protagonist has gone through a traumatic, life-changing event but that’s business as usual for protagonists, right? The fairytale setting adds even more to these assumptions, given how often parental figures die in folktales.
This all culminates in Utena being a typical plucky protagonist, until she isn’t. Until you realize that her parents being dead marks Utena as different from her peers, as uniquely vulnerable to the abuse she suffers through the series, and as someone whose life is permeated with themes of death. Her parents are dead, her prince is dead, 100 boys were killed on this very campus by her own foil, she is trapped within her coffin in the same way everyone else is but she has also literally laid in a coffin to die before. It’s not as overt as other themes, but it’s everpresent as a spectre haunting Utena’s narrative. It’s her life’s background radiation.
