WMG / Revolutionary Girl Utena

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Plot

Revolutionary Girl Utena is Magick.

Most of the characters are either magicians or avatars. Akio's pursuit of the occult lead him to channel the spirit-archetype known as Dios, who embodied the First Prince, the first love of all young women, while Anthy was herself possessed by the spirit Rose Bride, She-Who-Married-Flowers-Instead-Of-A-Man, who embodied those who could not find emotional or sexual fulfillment, Dios' constant companion. The presence of two powerful spirits attracted the spirits of the Swords of Hate, the embodiment of the outrage of the death of innocence. At first, the Swords of Hate focused their rage on Akio-Dios, taking on the collective anger of overly-concerned fathers outraged at the strange boys who deflowered their virgin daughters.

Akio-Dios managed to defend themselves, eventually helping a young Utena into finding a reason to live. But as Akio grew older and strayed from Dios' ideal form as the youthful boy-prince, his bond with Akio grew weaker and they faced annihilation at blades of Hate. To save their beloved, Anthy-Rose Bride directed the Swords of Hate at them instead, drawing on the resentment of parents against unfulfilled children. Dios then lost all connection to Akio, causing him to be obsessed with reuniting with Dios. Seeing that the Rose Bride was Dios' constant companion, Akio used magick to bind Anthy to the Rose Bride, keeping her subservient to him through demeaning acts, abuse, and rituals. Dios came to rescue his companion, and Akio in turn bound him to earth. In revenge, Dios shattered Akio's magical weapon, the Sword of Dios, preventing Akio from channeling Dios. Akio also began deluding himself, believing Dios to be a true god and that he could force Dios' into bonding with him again.

Akio then spent the next following years gaining power and influence, ingratiating himself into the Ohtori school system. Using simple magick feats and trickery, Akio conned middle-school students into becoming Duelists, participants in his fairy tale-themed magickal rituals, the purpose of which was to reforge the Sword of Dios by passing it around, contained in the body of his sister, until it reached a strong mediums, that he might claim it once more and force Dios' power - the fabled "Power that brings the World Revolution" - onto himself. He also trained promising students in magick, that they might create rituals and dynamics of their own.

At first, Akio thought Utena to be his final "reward" upon bonding with Dios, a "princess" to his "prince", but Utena was inspired to be a prince instead of a princess. Her mixing of gender roles made her both available channels for both the Rose Bride as well as Dios, which did not at all deter Akio.

The first set of duels against the Student Councils introduced the players of the game as well as gauged their reactions towards magick. The second set of duels - against the Black Rose Society - had Akio manipulate his pupil Mikage into performing the Black Rose Rites with those close to Student Council members, forcing them to bond with the Swords of Hate. The third set revisited the first set, but with the aim of eliminating all other possible avatars of Dios' and the Rose Bride. Akio's schemes were going well, as even his eromenos lover and apprentice Touga (who had grown to be a magician powerful enough to challenge him) was defeated by Utena.

But in the final duel, Akio defeated himself when he shattered the illusion of the castle in the sky, which in turn undermined his own magicks. Anthy betrayed Utena under Akio's instructions, Akio taking the Sword of Dios to break the "seal" which held the "power of miracles." As a last act of defiance, Dios chose Utena as his host, which gave her the strength to move despite being wounded. Instead of escaping, Utena chose to reach out one final time to Anthy, breaking Akio's magickal and emotional hold over her. The Rose Bride was freed but weakened by the ordeal, and bonded with the nearest available avatar, Utena, who was both boy and girl, male and female, prince and princess. This caused the avatar "circuit" to be completed, spiriting the Dios Bride gestalt into the metaphysical realm. Anthy, befeft of Utena's presence but left with the knowledge of her sacrifice, chose to reject Akio, rendering him magickally impotent as he had depended so much on her as both a vessel and a fixture.

Utena and Anthy meet again when they're twenty one

.Why twenty one you ask? Because twenty is the age of maturity and consent in a lot of countries, stemming back from the middle ages where you could become a page at seven, a squire at fourteen, and a knight at twenty one.

The story of why Anthy was attacked by the town and became the Rose Bride is not quite true

.A lot of the story seems very strange and doesn't add up. Why would the town, when trying to get to Dios and being faced with Anthy telling them that they couldn't see him, react with such anger towards her? Something about the story just doesn't quite add up, and the anachronistic fax machine in the barn when this all takes place further suggests that this particular retelling of the story isn't totally true. It's very possible that Dios' White Knight facade is beginning to slip, and the real story is that the townspeople were out for *his* blood and he offered up Anthy as his sacrifice.

Characters

Chu-Chu is the personification of Anthy's soul

It is thought that Anthy's true feelings are shown in her pet monkey. Also on this tangent: Chu Chu is thought to be a pygmy marmoset.

• Alternately, Dios is the personification of Anthy's soul. at the end of the series, It is revealed that Utena's meeting with her prince was decidedly different from how she remembers it. Instead of a mature, rakish Akio praising her for her mourning, a younger, more childlike Prince, presumably Dios, shows her Anthy, who is far far worse off, and sadly relates Anthy's tale. It is this incident that moves Utena to go to Ohtori. Anthy, in an effort to save herself from the pain and sorrow of being asacrifice, astrally projected the most powerful and emotive part of herself as an idealized image of her brother. It is this being who Akio talks to in the first season recap episode. The latin name for a Yamato Nadeshiko flower provides support: It's called a Dianthus.
  • If you pay close attention in the scene where Utena and Dios meet for the first time, it becomes apparent that he gradually matures during the conversation. At first he looks close to child Utena's age but upon reaching Anthy, Dios appears to be in his teens.

Anthy is the only one that's "real"

The entire show is about Anthy learning to rescue herself byway of massive delusions. Her brother represents her wish to be a child forever, Utena her idea of innocence and so forth. Which would go a long way towards explaining why everything got so weird at the end.

• Alternately, Anthy's fake, too; the entire school is someone's mindscape, with Anthy as "I, the Central Voice." At the end of the series, the person's issues are resolved, so (s)he can go out and deal with the real world again.

Miki has noticed time is broken.

(Proposed by a con panel): Time obviously is broken at Ohtori — look at the Black Rose Saga for the most obvious example, but there's plenty of others. Miki's constant fiddling with the stopwatch is his attempt to figure out exactly what's happened to time.

Miki is timing the fansubs

Because every time he shown with that watch, it contains the exact length of the previously said phrase.

Dios and Akio are separate people, created by Anthy.

When Anthy created Dios, it was out of her idealized notion of humanity and nobility, who would always save people from harm. However, Dios couldn't save people from themselves because Anthy never imagined the possibility. When Dios couldn't save Anthy and she began to resent other people for being saved by him, he died, and the townspeople stabbed her thinking her a murderer. That's why Dios later only appears as a spirit- he's a ghost. As she continued to be stabbed by the million swords, Anthy hated and feared other people but secretly wished to return to the old ways- which is why Akio appeared and set up the duels. His abuse of her and their self-destructive relationship is her blaming herself for Dios's death and the fact that he never saved her.

Anthy and Akio grew up in British-colonized India.

The reason we never see their parents is because they perished in one of the many plagues or famines that hit the British Raj. The Power of Dios was simply a game they made up to escape the harsh reality, but people actually began depending on their story. Having overexerted himself, Akio could no longer fight as Dios. Anthy was blamed for his loss of power and was attacked by the townspeople for witchcraft.

Akio and Anthy are NOT Dios and his sister.

They're their reincarnations. It's an endless cycle. Whenever the Dios-incarnation reaches the later stages of adolescence, he becomes End of the World, and the sister-incarnation becomes the Rose Bride. The Dios that Utena met was a physical manifestation of humankind's belief in the ideals that the real Dios had created.

• The series was most likely the final loop, considering how it ends.

Spoilers for the final arc Dios was supposed to die in the tale of the rose, so he could be reincarnated

• In many myths there are gods and/heroes that die only to return of the dead, or reincarnate. This was common on spring rites. So maybe the life of Dios was one example, he appears on the world, rescues girls, make everything good, then dies, and the cycle starts again, but the last time everything got botched to hell, so the knew incarnation of Dios came corrupt as Akio.
• Also, it could be that in every reincarnation, the prince is different in some way, and Anthy got really scared because she didn't want to lose this version. And then everything went downhill.

Chu-Chu is the basis for stories of a Witch's familiar, and semi-immortal.

• He's not himself eternal, his body will eventually die, but his memories and personality will be passed to the next. Either as an actual new body, or a completely identical descendant. It really was him in Nanami's Egg, and the shadow play later about cuckoos hinted at his "species" being a form of brood parasite. He of course had Nanami raise the egg, rather then Anthy. Both so Anthy wouldn't be sad while he was gone, and so he'd have a little chance to mess with Nanami.

Utena meets Demian

This is a bit WMG with Fridge Brilliance, but since it's only a theory, I post it here.

This tropette has just recently read Demian, and of course, the "chick smashing the shell" speech resonated in my mind everytime Abraxas or the sparrow hank was brought out (which in the later chapters, it was a lot)). Some people know already that Utena borrowed some themes and symbols of the book, specially for the Student Council's motivations, but after thinking a lot, I realized that Utena's parallels with Demian go beyond the Sudent Council, and in a deeper way. To understand this, it's necessary a little insight of Demian.

Demian is about a boy struggling to break free of the social dichtonomy of holy and evil, in order to live on his own desires. Thanks to Max Demian, Emil Sinclair starts to further analyze things to see their multiple interpretations instead of following the "right" one. Demian also suggest that there should be a god that represented both holy and evil, male and female, as a whole, and soon the protagonist meets this god in Abraxas.

"The bird breaks the egg's shell, the egg is the world. To break free, one must destroy a world. The bird flies to god, the god's name is Abraxas."

Abraxas is the god that unifies both good and evil in itself, then allowing people to care less of moral and following their true self and desires. The bird is a sparrow hank, a bird that flies freely, and represents the inner struggle of wanting and breaking free.

My theory is that, in Utena, there was a sparrow trapped in a world's egg, wanting to be free. But isn't any of the Student Council's member (yet. Who knows? Maybe they'll break free too someday) but instead is Anthy.

Anthy is methaphorically and literally trapped. By her brother, by society, by her role as Rose Bride and by her own fears of the unknown. But suddenly appears Utena in the picture and starts to change the way Anthy sees the world, sutlely but sure. Utena while in Ohtori, was a Demian figure to Anthy. But the real parallels are played in the last duel.

Utena goes to the locked Rose Gate, wanting desperately to save Anthy and she managed to open it, but only a little. A little ray of light gets inside the coffin Anthy has been, a little crack on the egg's shell that allowed the sparrow hank to see Abraxas. Utena, with her having both male and female caracteristics, could be Demian, Frau Eva (Demian's mother) or even Abraxas. Utena managed to open a crack on Anthy's shell, showing her a contradiction of her world views: a girl managed to get this far the duels, a girl has defied her brother, a girl was closer to be a prince than other men could, but specially that someone cared enough for her to try to help her.

But Utena only could give to Anthy the way, not rescue her. That was something Anthy needed to do herself. Demian in the book, gives to Snclair tools in order to help him to be independent or else, he would be relying on Demian and his mother like Sinclair did on his parents in his childhood. Anthy needed to want to be free and act according to her desire to archive real individualization. She taking Utena's hand was just that. Unfortunately, the coffin falls and both hands are separated. Utena banished from Ohtori's world.

But Anthy has seen her Abraxas, and it's determinated to fly to her, all that it's left is breaking free of the world's shell. Leaving Akio's grib over her and walaking out the school's gates has smashed a world's shell: without her as a bait for duelists, the whole dueling system falls aparts, destroying Akio's hopes of taking back the power of Dios.

Sinclair managed to break free too, just in time to be left all alone as he was going to battle in the WWI, but Demian told him in their last meeting, that whenever he was in troubles, all he needed was look within himself and realize that Demian was within him, instead of phisically. This means that Sinclair was now able to think and do the things Demian could and he was already independent of his constant support.

Anthy also is all alone (sans Chu-Chu), but she now can do the things Utena could. She's now her own self, independadnt of her brother or Utena, free to follow her desires without restrictions. This sparrow hank is flying freely to Abraxas; Anthy is searching for Utena.

Tokiko Chida is the most powerful being in the show.

Because she's the only character who can leave and enter Ohtori at will before the revolution occurs, because she is not staff nor student. Everyone else is still in their shells and their coffins, but Tokiko Chida not only is not restricted by any of this, but also is highly aware of the fact that everyone else is, since she voices her concerns that time isn't working right and that nobody is aging, concepts everyone else ignores. Even Akio, the one who is responsible for it all in the first place, is still in his coffin according to Anthy.

• Tokiko lacks the hang-ups that keep the others trapped: Her love for her brother is healthy, not the obsession of the other sibling pairs, and her 'eternity'/'miracle' is a much-more-reasonable "prevent an early death," not the impossible wishes of the Duelists. She considered Nemuro a friend but there was no romantic or sexual aspect, which is unusual for Ohtori but common in the Real World. Tokiko's absence from Ohtori means that she was able to move on instead of obsessing over the past. Tokiko's power is as simple as being a normal, functional human, and the reason she left is twofold: First, she knew that something was wrong with Ohtori, and secondly, she outgrew it. It's not until the end of the series that Utena, then Anthy, figures it out: For all the swords and souls, the greatest power one can have at Ohtori is realizing that you don't have to stay there.

(Finale spoilers)Utena does in fact die at the end of the series

• It's implied, if not outright stated, that Akio and Anthy are not average humans, if they're human at all. Presumably, they are somewhere along the lines of being demigods. Utena, on the other hand, is likely a completely normal human. Presumably, Anthy could survive things Utena could not. Such as the Swords of Hate. Anthy even states that Utena has vanished from the world - a common euphemism for death. This isn't necessarily a bad thing or a sad ending, however. If Anthy is divinity, she likely either has powers relevant to death and the afterlife or knows who to turn to for help with such things, and will find her again in the next world.

Utena becomes a Physical God together with Anthy

• The epilogue manga After the Revolution has various characters encounter an apparition of Utena, who manifests much like Prince Dios does in the series. Much like the Greek mythos pairing of Hera and Zeus that Anthy and Akio ultimately harken to, it might be possible that divinities can "succeed" each other in role. Maybe Utena becomes a new Prince Dios in a way— But rather than falling to Chronic Hero Syndrome and failing an unattainable ideal like Akio ultimately did, Utena instead encourages people to Follow the Leader and become their own heroes, something far more practical and ultimately sustainable.

Nanami's Girl Posse are linked to the Shadow Play Girls, and in the movie they're part of the expanded group

They share the theme naming, and in this series we've seen stranger things.

In the finale Anthy stole Akio's car

She has now rejected Akio and everything he stands for and is going to travel to find Utena, by stealing the car she gets to travel much faster and gives Akio one last "fuck you".

Setting

Everyone at Ohtori is dead.

Their souls are stuck in a spiritual purgatory, created by two gods with distinct multiple personality disorders. Note, the campus itself resembles a funeral plot. Also, in the flashback, Utena's parents' funeral in her memories had a third, unusually small, coffin. Her "hiding" in it? It was hers. This is further supported by The Movie, where at least one major character with whom Utena interacts is in fact dead and has been for years.

• Plus, it was highly implied that all of 'Ohtori's Princes' were dead before The Movie ever began.
• To expand upon this, the school is a limbo ruled by Akio & Anthy, two gods who fell for some unknown reason. Neither believes they can leave & Akio has been down there so long that he's lost most of his sanity. The Revolution is ascent to heaven or descent to hell, depending on who gains control of the gods' power. Utena made it to heaven with that power, and showed Anthy that she, too, could leave.
• Alternately, Akio is a deity who chose to fall, sacrificing his full powers for a realm where he is Demiurge. Ohtori is a pocket-dimension where Akio's power is absolute, and he's allowed to populate it with a certain number of souls: Students and teachers. According to his "deal," as in every good myth/fairytale, there's a loophole: There must be a way to win their freedom. Enter the Duels and Revolution; since Akio knows a human winner could unmake everything, Akio's rigged the deck. Anthy is a once-human priestess of Akio, then Dios, who serves as an anchor/bridge between Akio's world and the Earthly souls; perhaps Dios began the transformation into Akio and Anthy was targeted as a priestess of a hated god. Maybe Anthy wished for power herself, and her 'witch' personality is her original one: Serving as a 'sacrifice' made her capable of understanding, if resenting, the pain others undergo, making her capable of human feelings by the time she met Utena (instead of dulling her emotions, as in canon). Utena won, and though she didn't know enough to unmake Akio's demi-world, it was enough to crack the shell: Her effect on Anthy was another victory, and Anthy's departure means she's freeing herself of her once-worshiped idol. Without Anthy's presence, Akio's world will eventually crumble and its souls will be freed to go to their ultimate destinations.
  • Anthy was a priestess whose worship of/faith in Akio allowed him to build Ohtori? Then, if she's switched faiths to Utena...

The Movie's version of Ohtori is where Utena and Anthy went after the end of the series.

It is the next higher "level" of reality, what is beyond "the ends of the world". Anthy actually managed to get there before Utena, and has been busy setting things up, and they're much closer to the ideals what they'd like to be. Anthy is much more active and self-determined, and Utena's appearance and attitude is even closer to her "prince" persona. Meanwhile, much as Anthy said at the end of the series, Akio seems revealed as much less slick and more petty. This can be nicely dovetailed with either of the above.

• Additionally, it's not just Anthy and Utena - All the characters who appeared in both the Movie and the Anime are moving through their stages of Ascension, becoming less of whatever mask they wore in the Series and closer to being 'real people.' In example: Touga drops the manipulator facade after realizing that he was purely selfish before; Miki is consciously distancing himself from Kozue and not backing down, while Kozue is less manipulative and more outright (if no less unbalanced); Akio is not the god-like puppeteer but a flawed being whose own self-revulsion leads to that fall off the tower. While Utena and Anthy may have been the only ones to escape, it's possible that the others are being forced to face and dispel their own ideas about themselves, leading them along the road to being 'real.'
• Related to this, the movie's "scandalous tape"? It's the Utena TV series. "If you want to know why Anthy killed Akio, watch this tape!"

Utena has 'escaped' Ohtori before, and each Alternate Continuity is her trying to free everybody - the 'revolutions', to bring them back to the real world.

Think about it -she escaped from the Ohtoriverse once before, and returns again to free the people she met there after becoming accidentally trapped there by the rose ring given to her -the manga was the first time she went through the Ohtori rollercoaster trying to save everyone and rescued Anthy from Akio. Through Anthy being a 'witch', the anime is Utena and Anthy going back to rescuse everyone else from Ohtori and Akio. Either that, or the Shadow Girls are the witches who brought Utena and Anthy to the 'anime' version of Ohtori. However, due to imperfections in the spell cast, Utena, nor Anthy can remember what happened, nor the reason why they are there, (possibly because Akio interferes with them re-entering) - and this version of Ohtori has disintergrated somewhat from what they saw - thus leading to Utena only rescuing Anthy again before returning to the real world. The movie is another attempt to free everyone trapped by Akio - and Utena and Anthy remember some of why they are there - and this time Utena and Anthy succeed, leading everyone out from Akio as a car, or something. Ohtori is considered a timebubble or alternate universe created by Akio to imprison his sister, and perhaps people he didn't like - and where the same events play out over and over again, with varations. The differences can be explained by Akio slowly losing control over his alternate universe after losing Anthy - the movie headtrip is caused by him being outdone by Utena twice in keeping Anthy and him slowly going into petty vengance...

Utena takes place After the End.

We never see anything of the world outside Ohtori. No one ever leaves. And in the movie, Utena and Anthy find themselves in a deserted wasteland after escaping. Isn't it obvious?

• Besides Nanami's trip to India (which is debatably real, given how silly it was) we do see the outside world prior to Utena going to Ohtori in the manga. However, since time doesn't seem to pass within Ohtori, it's plausible that the world ends while everyone else is in there.
  • It's possible that Ohtori was set up to preserve humanity After the End, and that Utena was the last to enter the "preserve": Since time functions differently there, we have no idea how long passed from Utena's arrival to her departure, and the literal end of the world might have occurred during that time. The lack of aging is supposed to keep them alive, without the excess strain on resources that normal life-cycles might cause; or, whatever led up to the cataclysm caused everyone to become sterile anyway, which is why no children are ever born despite the amount of sex that's going on. Whatever stopped the physical aging also prevented the inhabitants from emotionally maturing, and with most of the cast being in their teens - likely to ensure that they'd be "viable" longer, if the sterility was cured or the time-stop failed - it led to the messed-up atmosphere Ohtori currently has, born from the fact that everyone's stuck in the middle of puberty and have been for years or more.

Plausible crossovers

Anthy is a deconstruction of Disney princesses, specifically Cinderella

Anthy shares many characteristics with Disney's Cinderella: she is seen cleaning Utena's and her room Cinderella-style (up to and including similar headdresses), Anthy's best friend is a monkey-mouse-thing while Cinderella's friends are mice, and even the castle above the arena looks like an upside-down version of the royal castle in Cinderella. Anthy is also very similar to Cinderella in position and even behaviour: both girls are forced into a position where they have to be servile and submissive, and appear very genteel and kind to the outside world. The only way both girls can fight back is passive-aggressively: Cinderella occasionally deals stealth insults to her step sisters, in the same way Anthy occasionally gets back at Nanami. However, Cinderella remains a kind person throughout her story, while any kindness or even submissive behaviour from Anthy is only a façade. Moreover, while the prince is the one to save Cinderella from her situation, the prince is either the one that forces Anthy into her situation (Akio) or is unable to truly save her (Utena) - the only one who can save Anthy is Anthy herself.

Impossible crossovers

Utena is a Shaping Duel

The show actuly takes place in Exalted's Wyld and is one long shaping conflict between fair folk. The Student council are the nobles, people with faces the commoners, and the faceless are simply fantasies created from the Wyld. The ending scene is Utena's animating force proving that her character is more important than Akio's entire world. Utena has Sword shadowing Staff. (or maybe Ring, she mostly uses Sword shaping, she does basically systematically destroy the social order of the school though, hence Staff) Touga has Sword shadowing Cup. (The episode where he convinces her that he is a better prince, is a magnificent Ravishment). Nanami goes from a Staff commoner to a Staff shadowing Sword noble. Anthy is a Ring commoner. Akio is a master of both the Staff and the Ring, (but he kind of walks into Utena's Sword shaping, and lets her set her Character up as the Hero). The way Utena gets dragged into fighting for Anthy is a Burden, at first imposed using Staff shaping but it is reinforced with Ring shaping soon enough.

The series is either an alternate universe iteration of a Green Lantern origin story, a Future Imperfect retelling of one, or a Black Mercy hallucination

Granted, this troper has only read the manga, but c'mon! A dying person passing on his ring of power to a successor and telling them they have the ability to overcome great fear a noble heart? "One of strength and nobility is always a prince"? And Anthy, Akio and Dios are inhuman beings who oversee the world? Hell, Dios even turns into a ring when he's killed, never mind the fact that Anthy is viewed as a tool by all the mortals around her.

Plus, every strategy to take the Power to Revolutionize the World from Utena involves vast amounts of emotional manipulation, almost as if that's the real way to win a duel; demoralize your opponent to the point that they lose all faith in their own abilities.

The coffins that the rest of the student council are shoved into when they attempt to flee the Castle in the manga!finale speak for themselves: "The name of this coffin is 'Presumption'. It's his flaw. It holds him back." The other coffins are 'Obstinacy' and 'Immaturity' - and what do all three faults have as their driving force in these characters? Fear. Touga doesn't get a coffin because, quote, "You're not trying to run away... so you don't need one," implying that the others are "protected" by their "sturdy coffins" only because they lack the courage to break out. This means that the thing that sets Utena apart from the other people searching for the 'power of miracles' is her valour.

Ohtori Academy was created by Haruhi Suzumiya

If there's one thing that Ohtori Academy never is, it's boring.

• Tell that to Wakaba.
  • Wakaba is Haruhi.
    • Then Utena is the oft sought after gender flipped Kyon?

Akio became the Obsidian Lord

After Anthy left him, Akio started the HiME Festival (which is essentially a duelling tournament) as a method of creating a new Rose Bride, using the same method of tempting the winner with whatever they desire in return for their servitude.

• Following on from this, Tate and Shiho are reincarnations of Touga and Nanami.

Miki's stopwatch was a gift from Jack Harkness.

Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch.

• But wasn't the stopwatch Ianto's?

The story of the Rose Bride and Ohtori Academy were created by Drosselmeyer.

It's got all the trademarks of his stories: quirky heroine stuck between two identities, a Broken Bird princess as a possible villain, a prince with Chronic Hero Syndrome who turns into a villain, and the key to everyone's suffering being Dramatic Irony. In fact, he probably wrote it to outdo the Prince and the Raven; he Tutu's power for understanding feelings through dance with the duels (so Utena would be confused and not always know her enemies' motivations), made it so true love couldn't turn the Prince back to a good guy, and made the princess opposing the main character less sympathetic so nobody would want to save her, keeping everything in the Vicious Cycle.The power to bring world revolution was actually the power to leave the spell keeping everyone in Ohtori. Utena found it by defying her role and keeping true to her ideals, and Anthy followed her by rejecting Akio and refusing to stay as the Rose Bride. (Alternatively, the power is hope.)

Ohtori Academy has another sister school in Japan

It's called Ouran Academy

• Oh, Crap!. If Kanae is somehow related to Kyouya, Akio is doomed.

Ohtori is in Hyrule.

Breaking this down:

1) The Triforce shines, is eternal, can create miracles, and has the power to bring world revolution. Therefore, Akio, Anthy, and Utena are all Triforce holders; Akio has Power, Anthy has Wisdom, and Utena has Courage. Akio (Ganondorf) needs the powers of both Anthy (Zelda) and Utena (Link) to achieve world revolution. That power is behind the Rose Gate (the Sacred Realm/Door of Time), but he can't open it on his own, instead needing someone virtuous wielding the Master Sword (The Sword of Dios). Utena and Anthy had met as children, where Utena pledged to save Anthy, but she wasn't capable of doing this until she was older. Anthy also shapeshifted into a male (Sheik) and had powers like disappearing or giving extra power to the Sword of Dios.

2) In the first arc, Utena has to beat seven duels, analogous to freeing the seven sages (alternatively, the duelists are the Shrine Maidens). The duel names can also be seen as having something to do with the sages (Amitie/Friendship, symbolized by Green; Saria and Link were friends). The colors of several duelists' roses also correspond to the sages' medallions (Nanami's yellow rose to the Light Medallion, Juri's orange rose to the Spirit Medallion, etc.). Either the Black Rose duelists or the duelists themselves can be seen as bosses.

3) There are three alternate instances of Utena- the manga, the anime, and the movie- that can be seen as different worlds or continuities. Since the movie is such a Mind Screw, it may as well be Termina; Utena also went there looking for a friend she lost (Touga), she and Anthy were nearly crushed by a large object holding a beautiful world inside of it (the castle, in place of the moon), and it is at least somewhat linked to the anime world (Ocarina of Time) by the Shadow Girls acknowledging both exist. Several characters either change or don't exist at all between the versions, just like in the games.

Akio is another avatar of Randall Flagg.

True, he doesn't have the 'R.F.' initials, but he's Japanese so it's excusable. Akio's entire M.O. is very similar to Flagg's; he lures people with pent-up resentment and inner darkness to his side in order to accomplish some world-altering goal. Both are immortal and implied to have gone by many names in the past, and both are pretty blatantly sexual in their manipulations. What's more, Akio is associated with the color red.

Symbolism

Utena As Religious Allegory.

• The series is an allegory for Maharayana Buddhism. Utena is the bodhisattva figure who leads Anthy to enlightenment, and at the end of the series, both have left for the greater reality outside, while the rest of the cast remain trapped in their own karmic cycles. The Movie ramps this up a notch by having Utena transform into an actual "great vehicle", which is the literal meaning of "Mahayana". Akio represents Mara, the Buddhist enemy figure, and parallels can be drawn for the rest of the cast. The After the Revolution manga builds heavily on this idea, with Utena having escaped a cycle of suffering and remaining as a spiritual paragon to guide the series' initially deeply morally flawed characters on their own path to enlightenment.
  • Alternately, Utena is a Gnostic allegory. This is supported by its focus on the dichotomy of light and darkness, as well as its usage of colors and drives for characters, whch has ties to Aleister Crowley's gnostic-influenced Thelema doctrine. In this view, Ohtori Academy is the world of illusion, and Akio is the Demiurge, manipulating all within it. (Other commentators suggest that Anthy is the Demiurge, instead.) A direct reference the the show's Gnostic underpinnings is found in the Student Council's oath, more commonly known as "the chick speech", which is a variation of a passage from Herman Hesse's Gnostic-themed novel Demian — "The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas." — and ties directly into more overt Gnostic themes within the show. (And to eliminate the possibility that it's a coincidence, the music played under those recitations is called "Legend of the God Named Abraxas".)
    • Alternatively, it is based on the progression of the Tree of Life in the Jewish Kabbalah. Many students have hair/rose colors that match interpretations of particular Sephirot. If we go by the Zohar, Utena may be Keter, (her rose, and in the manga, her hair, is white) "compassion", while Anthy could be both an aspect of Malkuth (the Kingdom, represented by a veiled (glasses wearing) Bride, and Tifareth, "love" (her hair is purple).
    • Another possible hint for the Gnostic connections would be the ending of the movie. In which the school is shown to really be a ruin, with straw dolls of the students. The dolls representing the false physical shells that the Demiurge has forced their spirits into.
    • Alternatively alternatively, all of the above are true, intentionally or otherwise. Different religions from different parts of the world simply express similar philosophical/psychological truths in different ways.

The different hair and rose colors each mean something.

(Proposed by the same con panel as the above): White is perfection/enlightenment/the Prince. Black/purple is corruption and decay, and brown is the mundane. The other colors represent various ways of trying to achieve perfection: red is power (both physical strength and social manipulation), blue is hope and the intellect, orange is the miraculous, yellow is childishness (both in the sense of innocence and in the sense of immaturity), and this troper can't remember whether they said green was eternity or loyalty. Pink is red, but closer to white than plain red is. The student council's hair colors are the most obvious examples, but it also holds in a lot of other places — the roses that occasionally appear in the corner of the screen, for example. A random sampling of other examples:

• Anthy acquires a red dress when she enters the dueling arena, symbolizing the power she has there.
• Anthy's purple hair is tied to her nature as a witch.
• Akio's car, which appears whenever he's manipulating someone, is red.
• The elementary school boy who stalks Nanami is also yellow-haired.
• Ruka's hair is two-toned, both lighter and darker than Miki's and Kozue's shades; this represents his more mature outlook on life (darker blue) and lack of confusion about his goal or methods (lighter blue); rather than chase a 'Shining Thing' or obsess over what he's lost/never had, he pursues his goal with clear-headed planning. It could be argued that, since he achieved his goal, he - like Utena - is proof of at least one path to Enlightenment proving true. In both cases, the core is Selflessness, which dovetails nicely with a number of religions and philosophies.
• Touga's red is not just power but also sex (he's one of the most promiscuous characters), blood (familial connections, e.g. his relation to Nanami and to his father in the movie), and possibly even love (Utena arguably falls in love with him). Don't you love open-ended symbolism?

The rose colors represent the Seven Deadly Sins.

For instance: Saionji, the green rose, is Envy. Nanami, the yellow rose, is Greed. Touga and Akio are surrounded by red roses a lot, and Akio also uses purple roses, linking them to Lust and Pride.

Receiving A Sword From Someone Is An Allegory For Sex.

This has kind of been rattling around in my brain for a while, but if you think about the way the receipt of a sword from someone else's body is represented (especially in the movie, where it's much more grope-y), it seems an awful lot like sex (I guess in reverse, though, since it's removing, rather than penetrating). The "bride" can have her sword removed by anyone who is her current owner, since one of the main duties of a bride (historically) was to sexually serve her husband. When it came to the Black Rose Saga, that sex became by conquest and theft (basically, those relinquishing their swords were being raped by an enraged black rose duelist). In the final saga, once everyone had connected with their love, they could remove the swords by consent rather than having to take them by force.

• This Troper and her SO have in fact, used the phrase "To pull someone's sword" to mean engaging in less than consensual sex with them.
• I'd argue that it's intended to heavily remind the viewer of sex – the groans of the victim, the facial expressions, and the body postures are all obvious enough hints. It's "removing rather than penetrating" because the sword is their virginity (or their innocence) being taken from them. Whoever possesses the Rose Bride harnesses the Power of Dios that she harbors inside; the Power of Dios is his innocence (when he loses it, he becomes End of the World). The other duelist fights innocence with innocence.

The elevator in the Black Rose Saga drives people insane.

Sure, Mikage and Mamiya have a lot to do it it, but the victims are in an enclosed space, talking to a disembodied voice while the elevator goes faster and faster. If it doesn't drive them crazy outright, it sure doesn't help.

The series ending is an allegory for coming of age.

Utena refuses to let go of her childish ideal of princehood for much of the series and it proves to be her downfall in the end, leading to the tragicomic ending. We are led to believe Utena dies a horrible death, a failed hero that will soon be forgotten by her peers. However, the dialogue between Akio and Anthy before Anthy leaves Ohtori Academy forever indicates that there is more here than meets the eye. Anthy instructs a stunned Akio "By all means, stay in this cozy coffin of yours and continue to play prince", adding that Utena "isn't gone at all, she's merely vanished from your world."

The words "play prince" stuck with me, because what do they evoke? Childhood. The same childish sentiment that Utena held for much of the series. Utena's obsession with becoming a prince ended up tearing her away from the one she loved - but remember what the lyrics in the OP say, "If we are ever torn apart, I swear I will change the world". Akio believes no revolution has taken place, and that the world has not changed, but this is not true. The main characters have all become more well adjusted and friendly to one another and the duels have finished forever. The revolution has taken place on an unconscious level among all the main cast and students of the academy. They may very well forget Utena, but Utena's quiet revolution is unmistakable, and her sacrifice will save everyone else.

The combination of the words "play prince" and "vanished from your world" lead me to this idea - Utena isn't dead or gone to some afterlife, nor has she Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence, so to speak, but it's actually a metaphor for Utena progressing out of childhood. Utena realises the painful truths of life (as metaphorically represented by the million Swords of Hate) - princes don't always save princesses, and they don't always win against the Big Bad. By finally letting go of her childish black and white view of the world, with "good princes" and "good princesses" against "Wicked Witches", she has begun the path to adulthood and shedding the baggage of her past. The painful realisation of this truth removes her from the world where the rest of the cast reside, playing in their fairy tale world of make-believe and surealism. She has started to mature into an adult at last. When Anthy says she has "vanished" from Akio's world, what she means is that Akio has never truly grown up from being a child - he may be an adult, but he still "plays prince" like a little boy. By graduating from the Academy and leaving forever, Anthy begins the same path to adulthood that will take her out of her childhood and back to Utena.

All this considered - the series ending becomes much less a Downer Ending and actually Bittersweet at worst, but I personally see it as an example of Earn Your Happy Ending with a bit of And the Adventure Continues thrown in for good measure.

The main villain of the movie is... Mikage

If you take the perspective that the movie is a sequel to the series in another life/time/behind the gate/in Utena's higher plane, with some connection to the 'power to bring the world revolution,' then Mikage certainly would exist, to an extent.In the series, Akio says that the Chairman's office is the highest place in the Academy, because power ultimately comes down to mundane things like that. In the movie, it looks as though Anthy's rose garden is highest, but there's a point Utena takes an elevator down to it. And aside from how an elevator with a partition in the middle where emotional exchanges take place is rather familiar, the place she's coming from has to be Nemuro Memorial Hall; it shares a lot of the aesthetic, right down to the signs on the chairs. Which means the true highest point of the Academy, the seat of power in this case, is Mikage's hall.And then there are the cars. Beyond Utena, everyone else who becomes a car is a Black Rose Duelist: Wakaba, Shiori, Kozue briefly... And the rush of cars near the end could be those that died in the fire.

The Utena movie ends with Utena rejecting the revolution

Most people think Utena did "revolutionize the world", but maybe, this is not true. Many commenters pointed out that revolution could mean the restarting of a cycle. In the end of the series, Utena wanted to win the duel "revolution" and lost. She lost precisely because she wanted to fight the duel. (Even if she won, she would still have participated in the system and therefore would have lost.) Because of this, the movie represents another cycle after the series finale. The whole highway scene which ended with shattering the castle depicted Utenas triumph, because she refused to start a new cycle. She instead simply left the field (the samsara). Maybe, the position of the prince is more akin to the bhuddist and hinduist Shakravartin, who simply resets the world.