DAVESWORLD

Utena

I finally got around to watching this TV series and I have to say that this series is seriously weird.

Right at the beginning of the series, you learn about a girl who is upset about her parents dieing and is save by a prince; who give her a ring with a rose on it. He tells her that one day the ring will bring them back to together.

Then the show starts and we get to see the first members of the show.

	Tenjou Utena: She is really the star of the show and is a great athlete. She defends the weak and ends up duelling over Himemiya Anthy (below), who is called the rose bride.
	Himemiya Anthy: She is the rose bride and the series never really explains properly why she’s called this, except that she used to be a witch and for some reason is linked to the End of the world. She also has the sword of Dios inside her (yes you did read that right).
	Kiryuu Touga: He is the president to the school council and a duellist. Like the other members of the school council; he believes that he is destined to change the future of the world. He is a typical playboy. Rich and popular with all the girls. They don’t seemed to mind that he just treats them a play thing.
	Kyouichi Saionji: Vice president of the school council and also life long friends of Kiruu Touga. As I have said above he also thinks that it is his destiny to change the world. He is in love with Anthy. When Utena returns to the school, he is the champion of duelling and is the first person to loose to Utena.
	Arisugawa Juri: We don’t learn a lot about this girl; except that at some point in her past; she was in love with a boy and her best friend took him away from her out of jealousy. She too is a member of the school council and thinks that she can change the world.
	Kaoru Miki: A child genius who spends most of the time playing the same sodding song and has a crush for Anthy. He too is a member of the school council and spends the rest of his time stopping a stopwatch for no apparent reason. All the members of the school council are duellists.
	Kiryuu Nanami: She is the younger sister to Kiryuu Touga and has an almost disturbing obsession for him. She seems to think that no girl is good enough for him and tries her best to stop any girl from getting close to him and would probably explain his playboy behaviour.
	Dios: Very little was explained about this character. He is some how link to the sword of DIOS but how I couldn’t really work out. When Utena fights; he would descend from the castle above and assist Utena in her duel.
	Shinohara Wakaba: This girl has an obsessive love for Utena and makes me wonder if she’s not in fact a lesbian but, I think that once I explain the nature of the whole series, it might not seemed to be the case. She’s still weird though.
	The Shadow Girls: Not a lot is mentioned about the three shadow girls. They spend most of their time telling you what you’ve just seen. I found them to be rather annoying. Most of the time they just talked absolute nonsense. I guess the writers knew what they were doing. Children usually talk nonsense. The only ones who think otherwise are in fact the children.

Now that we have the cast of the show in place; it’s about time that I explained; or should that be, try to explain WTF is going on. This series is seriously weird. Utena returns to a new year and last year back at the academy, where she spots Kyouichi Saionji slapping Anthy. She latter challenges him to a duel. Why would she do this I hear you ask? Well: for some reason the whole school spends there time duelling each other. It’s completely silly I know but for the purpose of the TV series, they have to.

You see; the whole of the show is a series of duels and people who seemed to think that if they duel Utena for the rose bride, that somehow they could regain something that they have lost. The reason they keep duelling Utena for the rose bride is because she has to obey and do what ever the victor of the duel tells her to do. I told you this series is weird. Through the series Utena tries time and time again to get her to start doing things for herself but without any joy.

New characters appear and disappear for no reason. They challenge Utena and loose as expected. It got to the point that the duels were a little bit too predictable for my liking. The more I watched this show, the more confused I became. It shows a little bit of the psyche of each person and nothing more. You learn something of their past but not enough to explain the decisions they make. It is seriously weird. The trouble with writing a review about a 39 episode TV series is keeping the review a reasonable size and not to explain too much.

I did learn something about this serious from a friend. Apparently the whole series is all about friendship. I think you could call this girl Anime. It’s the sort of Anime that would be watched by girls in Japan. It’s okay, just very strange.

Arisugawa Juri: We don’t learn a lot about this girl; except that at some point in her past; she was in love with a boy and her best friend took him away from her out of jealousy. She too is a member of the school council and thinks that she can change the world.

Kaoru Miki: A child genius who spends most of the time playing the same sodding song and has a crush for Anthy. He too is a member of the school council and spends the rest of his time stopping a stopwatch for no apparent reason. All the members of the school council are duellists.

Shinohara Wakaba: This girl has an obsessive love for Utena and makes me wonder if she’s not in fact a lesbian but, I think that once I explain the nature of the whole series, it might not seemed to be the case. She’s still weird though.