These are works that have made a Shout-Out to Revolutionary Girl Utena in some form or another.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Upon finding a rose in the hotpot in Chapter 66, Iku announces that she accepts the challenge.
- Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School:
- In episode 7, Togami in Touko's fantasy is siting on the hood of a moving car in the exact position used in the "Akio Car" Stock Footage.
- Chiaki Nanami's death, being impaled by several spikes, is done in black silhouette on a red background, which looks exactly like Anthy and the swords of hate.
- Guilty Crown: The imagery and framing of Shu drawing out Inori's Void Genome, which is a massive sword, is identical to how Anthy draws out a sword from Utena.
- Penguindrum:
- The scene where the possessed Himari places her hand on Kanba is a near shot-for-shot remake of the sword pulling scene from Utena. Not surprising given the director.
- Two characters from the opening bear resemblances to Juri and Utena (right down to the black and white color scheme from her movie clothes).
- Also regarding Utena the scene in the opening where the lyrics mention the end of the world is similar to the Student Council elevator stock scene. The scenes that followed involved the council members discussing End of the World's plans.
- The scene in the hospital in ep 5 with Masako stroking Kuho's cheek is nearly an exact remake of Juri stroking Utena's cheek in ep 7. Then it becomes Mood Whiplash when Masako erases Kuho's memories, similar to how the scene in Utena ended with Juri lashing out at Utena.
- And the scene where Masako fires her memory erasing balls at the two women and they explode resembles the scene of Anthy being impaled by the swords of hate in terms of composition and color scheme.
- Renjaku's Scary Shiny Glasses and way of standing invoke Anthy as well.
- The Pokémon TV series was so ahead of the curve on Utena references, Utena was still on the air when the first one popped up. In 1997, a Pokémon-ified version of the distinctive spinning rose frame is used for a character introduction in episode 26 (with spinning Glooms in place of roses.)
- In episode 93 of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Ash's school does a School Play. Lillie dresses similarly to the lead from Princess Knight while Mallow dresses as Anthy. It's implied that Mallow's character is a Love Interest. One scene outright depicts Lillie and Mallow like Utena and Anthy, respectively.
- The shadow play
in Episode 9 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is very suggestive, reference to the Shadow Girls. - "Sailor Moon Cosmos": In Galaxia's backstory flashback, there's a scene where her silhouette gets stabbed by swords on top a red background, referencing Anthy getting stabbed by the swords of hate.
- Shirokuma Cafe: A scene of Panda fantasizing about Rin-rin's identity (he thinks he's a girl) is done in the style of Revolutionary Girl Utena, of all things◊.
- The plot of Shitsurakuen is inspired by Utena.
- Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight has many homages to Utena. While most of these are visual homages◊, there are thematic and plot-based nods as well; of particular note is how both series involve the characters having surreal one-on-one fights with each other that involve knocking something off the opponent's body. Both series are also heavily influenced by the Takarazuka Revue. It's easy to understand when you realize the anime was directed by Tomohiro Furukawa, who worked with Ikuhara on Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi and is considered his protégé
- The first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is essentially a one-to-one remake of the first episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena but with mecha instead of swords. New Transfer Student Suletta Mercury defends a girl she just met, Miorine Rembran, from her abusive fiancee Guel Jeturk. After defeating Guel in a mech duel, Suletta becomes Miorine's new fiancee. Incidentally Ichiro Okouchi the main writer of Witch from Mercury also wrote the Utena novelizations.
Comics
- The Steven Universe comics published by KaBOOM!/ BOOM! Studios are not immune to this - the B cover of the October 2014 issue shows Steven and Connie with a pile of comics referencing classic anime & manga, including a copy of "Revolution Lion"
- In Scott Pilgrim, both The Power of Love and the Power Of Understanding take the form of swords that emerge from Scott's chest.
Video Games
- Danganronpa:
- Dialogue from the end of the first game talks about how if there are no roads left in the outside world, they'll build new ones, which is a paraphrased quote from the end of Adolescence of Utena. The series in general afterwards continues to use "the outside world" to refer to locations beyond the Closed Circle in which the game is set, which is usually a school. V3 goes an extra step in the Neo World Program and calls the outside world "the end of the world" like Akio did.
- See also the Anime section above for examples from Danganronpa 3.
- PsyCard: In Friend's Quest: The Flavor Text of the Rose Ring of Friend Quest is one to Revolutionary Girl Utena, as a reference to the Rose Signets, and "grants you the power to bring world revolution".
Webcomics
- Anthy plays a key role in 'The Cursed Storyline' of And Shine Heaven Now, in which it turns out she's the witch Iscariot is hunting, but she befriends Timothy before they figure that out, and she intervenes when Iscariot and STN-J come to blows over the conflict of interest, choosing Timothy as her new prince and granting him the power of Dios. Not only is it revealed that Utena's spirit is the new power of Dios, the sword itself somehow passed on to Timothy which a) gave him gender identity issues, and b) enabled him to pass the power of Dios onto Integra, right when she needed it most.
Western Animation
- Steven Universe is all over this. Creator Rebecca Sugar is a self-admited fan of the anime, as is much of the crew.
- "Steven the Sword Fighter" features shot-for-shot recreations of some of Utena's more acrobatic jumps, flips, slides, dodges, parries, and swordsmanship flourishes, especially from her duels with Juri, by none other than Pearl — a leggy, pink-haired fighter proficient with swords.
- "Lion 2: The Movie" features the first appearance of Rose's sword, the hilt of which emerges in a burst of dazzling light from Lion's forehead. Steven and Connie must pull the sword from Lion's forehead and use it to defend themselves.
- "Sworn to the Sword" also features reenactments of the sword fights from Utena.
- "Your Mother and Mine" — the shadowplay scenes are direct quotations of some of the shadowplay scenes from Utena, right down to Pink Diamond's Noblewoman's (evil) Laugh and angry face.
- Mega Pearl pretty much looks like she was pulled straight out of Utena: she's wearing an outfit reminiscent of Utena's uniform, her hairstyle looks like Anthy's with Utena's hair color, and she has the crown the Rose Bride wears.
- OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes has several shot-for-shot recreations of fighting scenes during "Second First Date", which even brings the rose theme as Enid and Rad battle.
- One of the storyboard artists of Voltron: Legendary Defender released sketches they drew, among which includes Pidge and Allura as Utena and Anthy, both in their visuals on the movie and the anime.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has a bit of this.
- In "Save the Cat", when Adora transforms into She-Ra in order to fight off Galactic Horde soldiers and escape from Horde Prime, she holds Catra similarly to how Utena holds Anthy at the end of their duel transformations in the Akio arc.
- In "Heart Pt. 2", Catra reaches out to Adora that visually resembles the scene where Utena reaches out to Anthy in the finale. Even the music is similar.
- On a livestream, ND Stevenson drew Catra and Adora as Anthy and Utena.
- In episode 7 of The Owl House, protagonist Luz is briefly seen reading a volume of the Utena manga.
- Amphibia: Crew member Alexa Swanson made this◊ crossover art with Anne as Utena, Marcy as Anthy, and Sasha as Juri.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Scare Master", Utena appears as one of the "unplanned guests" cut-outs who appear as one of the "scares" at Fluttershy's "scary tea party", alongside Sailor Moon, Bulma, Ranma, and Rei.
