Decades of Utena trash & treasure, brought to you by Giovanna (she) & Yasha (ditto)! Come for the curated content, stay for the shitposts. PFP by
@tokaii24
! 🌹
This was a funny coincidence until the 'inaccurate backseat having 1957 Corvette driving to the Real World' shot now I'm convinced somewhere in the creative team is some deep undercover Utena trash
I've never felt as old as I feel right now explaining to a younger Utena fan that Akio's car phone isn't designed to look phallic, that it's just what phones looked like in the Before time.
The Utena fandom punching way above its weight on silly fandom polls will never stop being funny. Ten thousand queer nerds screaming in unison while most of the modern day anime community is like 'who tf is this'
Hbomberguy: Here is the reality of James Somerton
The Utena fandom, apparently: How James Somerton frames the narrative of Utena says a lot, and now we will spend the next month analyzing how his unreleased Utena video gloriously exhibits all his worst traits as a 'creator'
Okay so I'm going to explain this, because there's some curiosity here. :) Yes, in the late 90's, it was a common read that Utena was straight, and that Utena and Anthy were just THAT CLOSE, etc, etc. WHY? Well! Let's go on a journey!!
I don't want the confidence of a mediocre white man
I want the confidence of Kunihiko Ikuhara and Mamoru Nagano giving entire interviews in Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus cosplay
ALERT ALERT THIS IS NOT A DRILL, WE HAVE A NEW IMAGE FROM THE MYTHIC 1999 UTENA MUSICAL BY SEAZER FRIEND EI TAKATORI. THE ONE WITH MACHINE GUN ANTHY. AND ZOMBIES.
And it turns out... Another iconic lady!Akio, because the very principle of that is iconic. Thanks
@mabithebard
!
#UTENA
STORY TIME! This image circulates pretty readily on account of being beautiful and gay af. However, keen observers notice that only a fraction of it appears to have been used in the closing credit sequence. So how, you ask, do I have this small image of the actual cel???
I would like to live in a world where "two men"* can create an important work of queer fiction and "women (who are likely wlw)" can create careless, toxic queer trash to enjoy
*This argument is so cowardly it has to hide Utena's manga author and Be-papas member, Chiho Saito, lmao
So apparently Citrus is bad because it reads like it was made “by men for men,” despite being written by a woman (who is likely wlw)
Meanwhile, Revolutionary Girl Utena is revered as one of the best yuri works of all time, despite being written and directed by two men 🧐
James Somerton made an Utena video and instead of a horrifying act of brutal plagiarizing of the collected efforts of decades of exploration, it's disparate observations poorly strung together along a retelling of the Utena Wikipedia.
Tbh I kinda wish it was the first one.
"And someday, with me..."
"Someday, with you..?"
The finale of Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
aired December 24th, 1997. The most future they dared imagine for themselves then was a decade, but it has been 25 now, and together, this fandom has kept them shining. ❤️
The Revolutionary Girl Utena and Henry Kissinger connection needs to be remembered before the history books obscure Utena's influence on his death check my tweets for the commemorative t shirt lol
'Disturbing, Traversing, Borderless, Shaking Sexuality: The Place where Revolutionary Girl Utena was Born' ()
This is a long, amazing, moderated back and forth between Ikuhara and Mari Kotani, exploring the pop culture and queer media origins of Utena.
When they finally meet, Anthy begs Utena to run, implying the swords will kill her if she stays. I don't think Anthy stops believing that. Anthy reaches back when she understands, and accepts, that Utena would rather die holding her hand, than live without her.
"I'm naturally dark-skinned....it's my first time getting to play a dark-skinned character, and it's a role I love from the bottom of my heart. If there's a continuation, I think...I'd like to...do it again!" - Yuka Yamauchi, 2018 Musical Utena curtain call, translated by Fukiko.
There's no way you know about Serial Experiments Lain but got the idea for a 1957 Corvette with a backseat driving to the real world from something other than Utena
but then, I have also 75% seriously asserted that The Matrix itself references Utena so I might be That Weirdo
I never thought much about it until today, but this is one of the first scenes Utena and Anthy are alone together in.... And Utena is desperately trying to stuff everything into a closet before failing miserably.
#NationalComingOutDay
Happy birthday, Tenjou
#Utena
! You've been revolutionizing our world for 25 years, in manga, in TV, in film, in musicals...it goes on, and it will continue to. <3
JadeSabre's incredible Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
production material find: Anthy's blink of betrayal, with the key douga and accompanying eye frames, scanned by Jade and edited to this visual by me!
Because of a weird thing about Xenforo's gallery system, I'm having to upload in reverse order. As a consequence, the scanlation of the Utena Duelist Bible is gonna get done from back to front. The upside? Here's how to make a felt Chu-chu!!
Utena as a lesbian struggling with comp het and Utena as a disaster bisexual are both entirely valid and justifiable readings of the series, and pretending one must exist to the exclusion of the other erases that both readings have empowered and helped people feel seen.
Chiho Saito's 1998 covers for the two Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
novels written by Ichirō Ōkouchi, 'Twin Saplings,' and 'Verdant Hopes.' In her art book commentary, she calls Utena dignified in the first, and the second a rare picture of princess-like Anthy.
These are downscaled.
Newtype, May 1997
"This sleeping position overlapping in the same direction seems to be a pose where two people can be saddled with each other."
Ciao! Jan, 1998
"One of my worries when drawing Utena is that the primary colors tend to look childish. But if you do this..."
huh.
It takes Utena almost the entire series to listen to Anthy instead of assume she knows how to help. Not because Utena is clueless, but because she is afraid. One of the scariest things about loving another person is realizing that *you can't always save them.*
retweet this, then photoshop something (anything) onto the cover, lastly comment it below; giving money to my favorites!
1st place $1000
2nd place $500
3rd place $300
4th place $200
5th place $100
6th place $1
7th place 50 cents
8th place a single penny
I thought I was done with this image, then I learned how to clean this kind of scan right. Here is an absolutely ludicrous 8000px wide scan of Chiho Saito's gorgeous
#Utena
and Rose of Versailles mashup! Go to the site for the clean full size. :)
I just learned that apparently, not everyone on earth has seen this image???
- Revolutionary Girl Utena L'Apocalypse: 6 (DVD) - 1999 (Japanese Release)
Revolutionary Girl Utena is now the snobby hipster alternative to the mainstream Netflix trash Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Come new friends. Eschew the cool popular thing and join us. We have cake.
But you shouldn't eat it, God knows what Akio put in it.
Chiho Saito's artwork for the Utena movie is something you need to see if you haven't already
This aesthetic dominated Utena fan website design for years in the 2000's, lmaaaao TWO COLORS GAUSSIAN BLUR
Wait did I finish a months long digitization project for Chiho Saito's 1999 Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
Original Illustration Collection and kinda forget to tell Twitter?? Uh oops. Read more on the Tumblr post tbh, there's just too much story to tell!
The finale of Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
aired on Christmas Eve, making this one of our biggest holidays!! My gift to you: Chiho Saito's movie manga artwork rescanned at truly obscene sizes, with additional notes about their origins and comments by her!
The
#Utena
Sega Saturn game depicts the city around Ohtori, and it is a VIBE. You can see the nonsensical movie architecture poking out from the series aesthetic, while also kinda selling the idea there may be a cow pasture nearby.
The city? Houou City. 'Phoenix.' Sure, Akio.
The promotional artwork for the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie used the series cast with some variations in the outfits. It also shipped Utena with just about every character, and looking back, of course it did. "Who does Utena end up with?" was a primary concern at the time.
On behalf of the Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
fandom, Thank You
@Hbomberguy
for tanking James Somerton's career *before* he released his truly embarrassing Utena video essay to the broader public. Though I don't speak for
#Evangelion
fans, I know they too owe you one for this.
The story may say Wakaba isn't special, but the choice of storyboard artist sure does. Katsuyo Hashimoto (pen name for Mamoru Hosoda) is the primary architect of some of the most striking duels and impactful visual storytelling in the series.
Guest Utena illustrations by Arco WADA and Kenjiro Hata for the September 2017 Kunihiko Ikuhara retrospective publication by Eureka. That I'm not scanning. ;D
Woohoo! There are now 1,600 people willing to put up with my inane crap for occasional high quality Utena content!!!
Let's celebrate with some pics of recreational Utena and Anthy! ❤️🌹❤️🌹
The 2008 Japanese DVD remaster of Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
brought with it a batch of seven unique new illustrations inspired by the works of Junichi Nakahara. I have finally finished this set, so here are the last four to have been finished!
True story Nozomi worked with us and the fandom at large to refine the subtitles for the Nozomi Blu-ray and this kind of shit was absolutely taken into account
Imagine unfollowing an account devoted to Revolutionary Girl Utena because it stands in support of justice and rebelling against unfair and abusive power systems
Rest in Peace, Rachael Lillis, who died this weekend after battling breast cancer at 46.
It's a sobering thought that both the Japanese and English actresses for Utena have now lost early battles with cancer. Cancer fucking sucks. Attached are a few links I found to interviews:
The 2017/2018 20th Anniversary
#Utena
Exhibition promotional artworks, scanned from clear files. They utilize a gradient-heavy style uncharacteristic of other series artworks.
OKAY BUT IF THIS IS TRUE
ANTHY SENT NANAMI A BRAND KNOCK OFF ROSE BRIDE LOOK
AND IT'S A COWBELL
A COW WEARING A FANCY COWBELL IS THE SAME SHIT AS A ROSE BRIDE WEARING A FANCY DRESS
EITHER WAY YOU'RE DRESSED UP TO BE CONSUMED
@ohtori_nu
I was pretty sure it was Dior inspired and yeah it def is. I bet it was specifically inspired the Zemire dress (), with Chanel-style colour block trim, but crossed with the dueling suits, and I know jack shit about men's fashion unfortunately.
GOGAI, GOGAI! We're hyped to finally share with y'all the 36-page June '97 Animage Extra supplement, THE
#UTENA
DOSSIER!
@Nagumo191
's *cover to cover* translation has been edited by
@AyuOhseki
, and returned to the magazine scans by me, Vanna!
The sketch for a never-realized
#Utena
key art, drawn by Shinya Hasegawa. Published in the 1999 Art of UTENA artbook, which is full of such examples and currently being butchered and put through the scanner. ;D
Oh hello there quick note, the Akio profile pic is because Akio has been my favorite character in Utena for 25 years
What's important to understand is he's my favorite in the same way every medical examiner has an autopsy they found the most interesting
Akio Ohtori is meant to be read as *American* in the way he presents himself and his role in the narrative, imo. The American Corvette, the NYC bartender arm garters, the jazzy music that follows him.. And also the oppressed af American plastic covering on the couch in this essay
the difference between Dios and Akio is not that one is good and one is bad, it's that one is idealistically controlling and one is bitterly abusive, they're both toxic manifestations of oppressive patriarchal power structures
King Magnifico from Disney’s ‘WISH’ is the ruler of Rosas, a magical kingdom where wishes really do come true.
Disney referred to him as “the sole keeper of hundreds of wishes entrusted to him by people from all over the world.”
Western
#Utena
and
#Evangelion
fans wasted a lot of breath on comparisons back in the day. Meanwhile two of these dropped before Utena's finale. Y'all there are entire chunks of these I'd hesitate to describe never mind scan and share, it was wild back then.
The great thing about being in the Utena fandom is the newer generations introducing descriptors we've desperately needed.
I introduce to you Ikuhara & Mamoru Nagano's Schell Bullet, and Yoji Enokido and Shinya Hasegawa's Shounen Ou. Their post-Utena content was very...gender.
Teasot grabbed a batch of miscellaneous Utena movie production material copies. A good half of the batch is Utena and Anthy's kiss. An absolutely incredible find! Big scans soon!!!
Early manga artwork by Chiho Saito! The manga for Revolutionary Girl
#Utena
came out ahead of the series, hence the different colors! Allegedly the final outfit colors, especially for Utena, were the subject of much debate between Ikuhara and Saito. Bloody, nasty debate.
The Utena movie was announced in 1998 with a batch of teaser images in a trailer that had a medley of different duel songs. The art is beautiful, though at times willfully odd in its choices.