A trip to high places
"What a pain the whole thing was! No more curry for me!"
Nanami sabotages Anthy's and Utena's home economics class, resulting in an explosion which briefly puts them in the hospital. After they recover it is quickly discovered that Anthy and Utena have swapped personalities. Touga makes Nanami and her gang travel to India in search of the legendary spice that will turn them back to normal.
"Curried High Trip" provides examples of:
- And Here He Comes Now: Utena complains that being in Anthy's body is a bother because Saionji has been flirting with her, and the very next shot is of Saionji... waiting to flirt with her.
- Banana Peel: To seal the deal on Nanami's "Shaggy Dog" Story, just as she is about to deliver the legendary spice to Touga she slips on a banana peel that Chu-Chu just tossed on the ground and smashes the spice container (an oil lamp of the Aladdin sort for some reason.)
- Camera Sniper: Nanami's lackeys do reconnaissance on Utena and Anthy to figure out what the effect of the curry explosion was and collect photographic evidence of them behaving in the way that the other would — each scene has a camera shutter sound, an iris-in shot, and a freeze frame to indicate that photos are being taken.
- Covert Pervert:
- When Keiko, Aiko, and Yuuko start selling photos of Utena and Anthy, Miki buys the whole Anthy collection.
- Utena peaks at a shirtless Saionji.
- Dull Surprise: While everyone else freaks out as Saionji and Chu-Chu eat Anthy's curry, Touga only barely looks slightly alarmed.
- Everyone Has Standards: Nanami and her lackeys only planned to prank Utena and Anthy by having them eat curry that was far too spicy. When told the spice they used might've been even spicier than that, and then seeing the explosion, the four all look immediately regretful.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Anthy and Utena swap bodies, and Utena walks a few miles in Anthy's shoes, dealing with her bullies and trying to negotiate Saionji's awkward courtship. At the end of the episode, the same thing happens to Saionji and Chu-Chu.
- Gratuitous English: When flying off to India, Nanami calls back to Touga, "I shall return!" in English.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The shadow play girls discuss the concept of "Divine Justice," when bad things happen to you because you do something bad. B-Ko shoots a machine gun at A-Ko, but A-Ko ducks and a bullet ricochets and hits B-Ko in the back.
- Hypocritical Humor: Touga scolds Nanami for getting mixed up in the candid photo selling scheme, but immediately turns around and buys all the film negatives for himself.
- Inconsistent Coloring: Nanami's Skintone Sclerae make her character design mildly non-standard, and animators neglect this from time to time especially in the early episodes. This episode takes it to extremes, however, coloring her eyes like the rest of the characters in about half of all her scenes.
- Innocently Insensitive: While stuck in Anthy's body, Utena complains about how she doesn't want to be a sacrifice to the Rose Seal. While Anthy, in Utena's body, is right there. It's no wonder Anthy cheerfully waves goodbye as Saionji drags Utena off in her body.
- Large Ham: Utena, when returning the exchange diary to Saionji, really overdoes "Anthy's" supposed joy.
- Letting the Air out of the Band: When Anthy and Utena come back to school after the explosion, Wakaba jumps on "Utena" as is her custom. But since it's actually Anthy in Utena's body, she sinks to the ground under Wakaba's weight. As she slumps down, the sounds of school bells ringing in the background lose momentum, signifying that something weird (and silly) is going on.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Nanami and her Girl Posse go to India and are repeatedly menaced by African elephants in extremely unusual places, such as chasing them on giant surfboards while the girls are boating or stampeding across a rope bridge far too narrow to fit an elephant.
- New Body, Old Abilities: Utena is just as athletic in Anthy's body as her own, even though Anthy seemingly never participates in sports.
- Pun-Based Title: The "Freaky Friday" Flip episode is titled in Japanese as "Curry-naru High Trip"; the "curry-naru" ("karē-naru") is a play on "karei-naru" ("magnificent").
- Rope Bridge: During their sojourn to India, Nanami and co. have to cross a narrow rope bridge spanning a gorge, and suddenly an elephant comes charging onto the rope bridge. By some absurd miracle, the bridge holds... until the elephant is almost in the middle. Then it snaps.
- Running Gag: During Nanami's trip to India, she and her Girl Posse are constantly attacked by elephants, even when they're in the middle of the ocean.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: This plays into a "Blind Idiot" Translation moment in the official translation. Keiko describes the second curry powder as "Secret Pa-ohn Ultra-spicy 9 Billion-fold Curry." "Paon" is the sound an elephant makes in Japanese, and the translation left out the word "elephant." More precise translations render the full name of the product as "Super-spicy 900 Billion-fold Curry, So Hot it Will Blast You to Smithereens and Make Phantom Elephants Trumpet." The phantom elephants trumpeting gets a callback at the end of the episode, when one appears out of nowhere and its trumpeting blows Nanami's hard-won spice away.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Nanami travels to India and faces all sorts of peril (and surfing elephants!) to find the magic spice. When she returns they discover that the curry was never sabotaged in the first place. Anthy's cooking was just that bad.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Utena starts to feel slightly sorry for Saionji, whose feelings for Anthy seem to be genuine. (It doesn't last.)
- Voices Are Mental: In the Japanese version, Utena and Anthy still speak in their own voices when they swap bodies. Surprisingly, it goes the other way in the English dub, where Utena and Anthy's voices remain the same but their actresses do impersonations of each other.
