NOTE: This is an unfinished draft for a video I was working on. I plan on overhauling this project and keeping the analysis specifically to Slay the Princess and Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence. I'm sharing what I have anyway since I've hinted or brought up that I've been wrestling with this since March. Consider this a passion project that I want to try and do as best I can with.
In Slay the Princess, the Princess and the Quiet are two entities trapped in a construct created by a mysterious third party known as the Narrator. In a nutshell, the Narrator somehow transformed a powerful, godlike being that contains the abstract concepts of death, change, and growth into a humanoid princess. Then he chained her up in the basement of a cabin. While the cabin is specifically her prison, the construct is large enough to feature some surrounding scenery such as a forest, a dirt path, and a night sky. The scenery is ultimately set dressing for the very specific story he wants to tell. The Quiet is another godlike being that has been transformed into a humanoid bird creature and he's set as the Hero. He's instructed to find and slay the Princess for the safety of some nebulous world and people she has the ability to destroy with undefined, terrifying powers.
The Quiet feels conflicted, caught between the moral dilemma of outright murdering someone and the real threat the Princess may be. While there are many potential game routes, the Nightmare plays out if the Quiet chooses to lock the Princess in the basement over slaying her or releasing her. He barricades the door with a table and guards while she threatens him from the other side. If he believes she's a monster that has to be restrained, she'll become that monster. Compared to other routes, he's completely surrendered to his fears here. The Nightmare can shut him down without touching him because he's so scared by the unknown possibility of what she is or what she's capable of. The fear is overwhelming, suffocating, a shock. It's so much that one of the Quiet's internal voices takes on the full-time job of keeping the body operating in the presence of an Eldritch horror. She wears a mask since her identity is undefined and shaped by his scattered thoughts and unchecked anxiety. The closest means to accurately describe her is: She's the personification of fear of the unknown.
In Chapter II, if the Quiet tries to run away from her again, she'll stop him and invade his space. They're so close he can't pull away or avoid eye contact. She removes her mask. There's an ambiguous pitch black figure with wide, unblinking eyes, visible veins, and a forced smile stretched back to show gums. A single tear rolls down her face before the Quiet gets sucked into some ambiguous mind-scape. It's a condensed highlight reel of what her inescapable hell looks like. No matter how her life plays out, whether good, bad, or mundane, she eventually dies and resets.
It's a never-ending cycle in a cramped space with no room to explore or grow, but small enough to ruminate and despair. The Nightmare keeps repeating, "Let. Me. Out." She breaks the Narrator himself by showing him what he dreads most: The Princess experiences the existential dilemma of a world that constantly changes, morphs, and moves on but she's forced to stay still and stagnant. She's painfully aware that a larger outside world exists, but not how to get there or if there are any means to escape.
There's always a reset button that returns her to the same horrible construct. The Narrator can't handle the weight of what fate he resigned her to. He claims he supports free will, albeit begrudgingly. He's a civil captor to his favorite caged bird. Then he's strapped to a Clockwork Orange vision of what he's sentenced his hated Princess to. In the Damsel route, the Narrator is stuck as a passenger in a vignette that plays out the blissful eternity he claims is the penultimate goal. Here, it isn't a slow build with time to reflect. It's a forceful roller coaster ride in a non-stop nightmare that's so much all at once, he snaps from the pressure.
The Nightmare's experience reminds me of how the ending scene in The Truman Show has become shorthand for an allegory about someone leaving an entirely artificial world. Truman's entire life was nothing but a series of highly curated, controlled, and surveilled elements. Everything was a carefully planned and orchestrated narrative choice. No matter how perfect the director tried to make his world, Truman hungered for the world beyond. He wanted an adventure or experience with no guardrails and unpredictability. Even if things went horribly wrong, he holds ownership over himself, his life, and his choices. He wanted free will and autonomy.
I've come across someone's fanart of Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena referencing Truman's iconic scene where he mounts the stairs at the end of the world. With context, Truman's door is a fantastic analogy to where Anthy sits, in an existential sense, at the end of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime.
Trying to Describe Revolutionary Girl Utena
It's difficult to describe exactly what Revolutionary Girl Utena is. The series definitely has some roots as a magical girl series and the anime echoes what previous plans the director wanted to explore with Haruka and Michiru in Sailor Moon. While I'm not sure exactly what he might have explored with Haruka and Michiru, Utena and Anthy do have a slow burn gay romance but it's more about how their relationship overall challenges and defies patriarchy, what societal roles are expected from a woman both internally and externally, and more. Utena and Anthy grow closer as they better understand themselves and each other. It's not just a romance, though. While Utena and Anthy are the core, the entire story tries to tackle and unpack a person's struggle against and internalization of patriarchy period no matter who they are, what their background is, their gender, sexuality, everything.
Utena herself is introduced as an orphaned girl that found a new lease on life when a fairy tale prince comforts her, encourages her to continue to be a noble and bold soul, and that one day he'll return. Utena is inspired to become a prince herself despite the implicit rule that only a man can be a prince. Her take on the role is a very confident, outspoken, brave, and brash person that defends and protects any maiden in need.
She fills the role with classic chivalrous grace: She's there to help a maiden because she needs help, not to try and win her favor or affections. While there are many girls and boys absolutely smitten by Utena the prince, Utena is dedicated to her prince. While becoming a prince is part of her identity, it's also a means to keep the memory and guiding light of her own savior alive. He's a good luck charm and a symbol more than a living, breathing person. So, she'll be what she thinks he might be like until he returns. This begs the question: Who is Utena when and if he does ever appear?
Then Utena's role is challenged when she meets Anthy, the first maiden who needs the full services of the prince Utena claims to be. Anthy is engaged to Saiyonji, a proud and arrogant man that treats her as a possession he's fully entitled to. While they're together as well as after their break-up, Saiyonji insists that he's in love with Anthy. He heavily relies on her for emotional support and as an outlet where he can be vulnerable, whether it's dumping all of his emotional baggage on her through his exchange diary or slapping her as some means of relief or catharsis. Saiyonji and Anthy are an example of what a very traditional marriage would look like.
A man takes a wife as a transactional exchange. She serves as his quiet, submissive helpmate where he provides for her material needs. Her feelings, opinions, and personhood are irrelevant to how valuable she is to her husband. While Saiyonji believes there's more or could be something sincere between them, his feelings are very one-sided. When Utena tries to step in and help Anthy pull away from this abusive relationship, Saiyonji challenges her to a duel. And this duel starts what this series' monster of the week formula looks like and presents a means for exploring character and story beats through sword fights, props, costume, and winning blows.
The duels initially decide who 'owns' the Rose Bride. Utena defeats Saiyonji, but discovers both that the role and title of the Rose Bride is complicated and Anthy seems wholly devoted to this role. She changes her demeanor, behavior, opinions, and everything based on who her current fiance is and how they might expect her to conduct herself. Utena duels with the Student Council in an escalating series of battles that act as an introduction to these characters, their motivations, and their hopes for what they might do with Anthy's unspecified, limitless power as the Rose Bride. Anthy's status as an object to be won, traded, or used is set as a mirror for how and why someone might commodify a person for their own gain. The majority of the Council is aware they're treating Anthy as an object and have no qualms over doing so. They justify their goals as noble and superior enough that it supersedes Anthy herself.
Even Miki, who's set as the one Council Member that seems to develop a genuine crush on and interest in Anthy, does this albeit unintentionally. He's suffering from a creative block and believes his music is poorer quality because he's missing a certain special but hard to define thing. Then he hears Anthy play the piano and becomes obsessed. He starts to blur his nostalgic memories about playing duets with his twin sister when they were younger with his newfound romantic interest. To put it lightly, he has a complicated relationship with his twin. They miss each other, but drifted in such a way that it feels impossible or weird to bridge that gap and rebuild emotional intimacy. While his twin jumps between romantic partners and short-lived relationships, Miki projects how much he wants to fix or rekindle that relationship onto what he thinks Anthy wants and what he expects from her. The key concept is he assumes he knows who she is. Everything is about him and how lonely he feels rather than Anthy herself.
Utena continually asks Anthy why she continues to be the Rose Bride despite the obvious lack of any benefit for or to herself. She tries to figure out what Anthy actually wants and nudge her towards her own interests and dreams. While well intentioned, Utena does speak for and act on Anthy's behalf. It's partly about helping Anthy but more about fulfilling the more romantic, idealistic parts of playing as someone's prince. Fighting for Anthy is the most direct, immediate evidence that Utena is indeed what she says she is. Just as Anthy serves as a mirror for the Council, she was Utena's mirror for validation. Utena doesn't realize this until she loses a duel against Touga.
Next to Touga, Anthy once again becomes someone else's shadow and acts cold towards Utena. Utena's influence and presence did spark smaller shows of Anthy's personality. She loves and cares for animals, honestly enjoys cooking beyond just a housewife's supposed chore list, can be a bit absentminded or lost in her thoughts. When Utena defeated Saiyonji, Anthy was satisfied to push back against him in what small way she could. After Utena loses to Touga, she starts to seriously question herself and her motives for the first time. If she was helping Anthy as much as she hoped she was, shouldn't Anthy fight back and resist Touga too?
She wonders how much gravity her growing connection to and intimacy with Anthy holds when weighted against the albatross of the Rose Bride. If Anthy can't break free of her role, then there's no foundation for Utena as a prince. Touga has made a few remarks about and advances towards Utena. He feels drawn towards her, but his interest is offset by how cavalier he is with any girl, whether it's Anthy or one of his many shallow admirers. Utena is a challenge. When he gifts her a frilly pink ballgown, it shows that he disregards Utena's preferred gender expression or sense of self. Outwardly, it looks like he wants to tame and dominate her. To shape her into what it looks like for Utena Tenjou to be just another average girl.
Touga is set as a foil to Saiyonji in some respects. Saiyonji feels entitled to a wife, whether that woman is Anthy or even the brief window where Wakaba voluntarily filled that role. Despite his interactions with Wakaba feeling more genuine and tender, he takes her for granted. She's a gentler reflection of what Touga is trying to do with Utena. Wakaba hoped that a kind-hearted, gentle touch could change and reform bad boy Saiyonji. All he needed was the 'right' woman. She never saw what Anthy dealt with behind closed doors or the truth of what her relationship with Saiyonji was. Wakaba only saw someone that she thought wasn't worthy of how strong, dedicated, and powerful Saiyonji seemed. Even if she did leave an impression on Saiyonji, he didn't regard or want her the same way she did with him. Her love wasn't going to change Saiyonji. Only Saiyonji can change who or what he is.
Where Saiyonji expects to take and keep one girl that conforms to him implicitly, Touga fits the role of prince comfortably and plays the role for any girl who asks. But he doesn't feel like he fills the mold and even when he plays the role, it doesn't satisfy his appetite. He gladly abuses his role for a brief dalliance. He's romantic, charismatic, and silver-tongued, but all of his gestures and overtures are empty. It's just an act. Touga is drawn to Utena because there's some mutual connection or interest. On some level, he wants to be her prince, but it never feels quite right and she rejects him because he's a shadow of who she wants or expects. She's also seen how he treats others, his true nature, and both of those either erase or contradict anything remotely 'prince-like' about him. He's a fraud.
Touga's adoptive sister Nanami is set as his ultimate admirer. She obsesses over him. He's her whole world and reason for being. Touga enables Nanami's worse tendencies and steps in to defend or rescue her out of obligation. While most of the story teases at Nanami's brother complex, she's conflicted when met with the reality of what that might look like. It starts with discovering the reality of what Anthy's relationship with her older brother Akio is. Nanami only caught a glimpse, but she was traumatized and struck by what she witnessed. Akio is the pinnacle of the handsome, polite, and sophisticated poise that Touga tries to embody. It's effortless for Akio to be the prince where Touga puts on a performance filled with hairline cracks. Akio has full, uncontested ownership over Anthy. She's completely submitted to him and nobody knows the depths of this unless they've seen Anthy and Akio behind carefully closed doors.
But even though Nanami has seen them, Akio's reputation, position, and power overshadow anything her, or anyone else, might try to say or do about it. When Touga tries to entice Nanami with 'what she wants most,' she relents. She wanted the perfect, idealized vision of her older brother Touga. She discovers that they aren't blood related and that their father asked Touga to fulfill that role. The idea that she's just an obligation or a duty shatters a huge part of her world. What Nanami wanted was someone that loved her and felt as wholly devoted to her as she was to Touga. This is tempered by the extreme display of submission between Anthy and Akio. She still loves Touga, but she won't surrender her whole self and person to him.
Where Touga couldn't achieve conquering Utena romantically, he does succeed in wounding her pride and ability as a duelist. There's a conflict of interest between what it means to be a proper, feminine woman and the assertive, take-charge, masculine outline of a prince. At least, there's a conflict of interest for Utena. She usually wears a boy's uniform, is outspoken, athletic, and assertive. She outwardly fits the cut of a prince but she also buys into some societal aspects and beliefs about femininity that conflicts with her chosen role. Girls are demure, girls are weak, girls wear skirts, and girls don't take up space. If Utena is a girl and believes that she's a girl, it eclipses everything else about her as a person.
Where Utena wants to help Anthy, her efforts and actions don't carry their full weight until she defines and owns what it looks like for her to be a prince. It shouldn't be just another mold. It's one aspect or element of her character rather than just another undefined, loose thread idea. And this isn't one grand epiphany. Utena struggles with figuring out who she is and what she wants throughout the full story. Her victorious moments start when Anthy pulls a sword from her instead of Utena pulling a sword from Anthy. The original sword was a symbol of someone possessing and using Anthy's power. The Utena-summoned sword is a symbol for Anthy's building trust in Utena, their mutual resolve, and their combined power.
Ohtori Academy is a Truman Show Dome
The magical girl element shows up with the frills Anthy adds to Utena's outfit whenever she's about to enter a duel and what extra power or abilities Utena gains from Anthy or the spirit of the prince. Where most magical girl series, at least the ones I've visited, take place in a grounded Earth setting like Tokyo outside of the monster battles and powers, it's debatable whether Ohtori Academy actually exists. The floating, upside down fairy tale castle is the first obvious hint at the more surreal, dream-like elements of the story. There's a scene where Saiyonji waxes poetic about spiriting Anthy away to that castle and their beautiful future together within.
Though, it doesn't take long for reality and fiction to blur even further. When Souji is introduced, he becomes the active antagonist through the second cour of the anime. The initial duels were restricted to the Student Council and the primary goal is who claims ownership over Anthy. The End of the World hand-picked duelists and promised them the ultimate wish if they follow ambiguous instructions from them, defeat Utena and each other, and win the Rose Bride. It's a present day and ongoing competition for dominance and power.
Souji's efforts amount to trying to kill and supplant Anthy as the Rose Bride with his ward Mamiya. Supposedly, if the boy becomes the Rose Bride, he'll live forever. Souji recruits students for his seminar, preying on their dark desires and insecurities. Every victim is jealous or bitter. It starts with Akio's fiance Kanae. She's concerned about how she can never get Anthy to open up to or befriend her as well as jealous of how close Akio and Anthy are. When Kanae enters Souji's seminar, she enters a small office and answers a series of very leading, personal questions. Her answers and how they reflect her emotional state are followed by shots of a framed butterfly on the wall regressing to a cocoon, then a caterpillar, then a leaf. Every one of Souji's victims would benefit from talking directly to the person that hurt them directly or hashing things out with a counselor. Instead, Souji encourages them to give in to and be consumed by their negative feelings.
When the victims appear as Black Rose duelists, they're in a hypnotized or brainwashed state. The battlefield is covered in a series of desks with an item or token relevant to their particular drama. They duel Utena with the goal of stepping around her and murdering Anthy. If they succeed, it's a means for catharsis or revenge. It doesn't matter if they have a direct grudge against Anthy or Utena. Those two represent whomever or whatever the emotional obstacle is.
Souji himself is somewhere between a wrathful ghost and a painful memory. When he was still alive, he met and fell in love with a woman named Tokiko. The two of them were working towards finding a means to prolong Tokiko's brother Mamiya's life. Souji is described as someone that didn't understand emotions or empathy. Tokiko and Mamiya were the first and potentially the only time he cared deeply for someone else. Enough so that he dedicated himself and his life to them. But Tokiko was engaged to Akio and Mamiya passed away. Everything that gave Souji's life any meaning was ripped away in an instant. For lack of a better description, he returned to Ohtori Academy in the hopes of recreating his short-lived happiness. He was taking out his bitterness on the existing student body, ready to take everybody and everything with him again in another futile attempt to rescue someone he absolutely refused to let go.
Souji and Anthy's older brother Akio are introduced in the same cour. Souji was the first lifelike, gripping, reality-cracking illusion Akio employs in his overall goals. If the early duels were a means to dredge up and address character's issues, the Black Rose duels were emphasis on how dangerous remaining stagnant and bitter can be.
