Monday 9 March 2020

#140: Adolescence of Utena (1999)



Director: Kunihiko Ikuhara
Screenplay: Yōji Enokido
Based on the manga by Chiho Saito and the Be-Papas
Voice Cast: Tomoko Kawakami as Utena Tenjou; Yuriko Fuchizaki as Anthy Himemiya; Aya Hisakawa as Miki Kaoru; Kotono Mitsuishi as Jury Arisugawa; Kumiko Nishihara as Shiori Takatsuki; Mitsuhiro Oikawa as Akio Ohtori; Takehito Koyasu as Touga Kiryuu; Takeshi Kusao as Kyoichi Saionji; Yuka Imai as Wakaba Shinohara
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Even into the 2010s, the United Kingdom never got Kunihiko Ikuhara's seminal 1997 series Revolutionary Girl Utena as a release. MVM nonetheless released the 1999 tie-in film as Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie. This film is a thirty nine episode story condensed into less than ninety minutes, which does prove an obvious issue for a first form of this franchise to see. I however am externally grateful to them for this curious decision as I've now seen Adolescence of Utena, which eventually doesn't become something under the series' shadow but something greater. The result in just ninety minutes is a surreal one-off that ties Ikuhara's work, a franchise with a huge significance for LGBT anime and manga fans, LGBT themes being discussed in a major project in the series, and is tied to even Japanese avant-garde art and the films of Shūji Terayama in some of Ikuhara's creative choices.

Ikuhara, alongside likely directing episodes of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, cut his teeth in the anime industry through the Sailor Moon franchise, which is notable as it deviated from the original Naoko Takeuchi manga with the nineties anime franchise its own huge cultural beast. Reolutionary Girl Utena was his seismic powerhouse, let loose and still having a profound effect today, to the point most people probably don't realise it's based on a 1996 manga created as part of a circle involving him called the Be-Papas.

Trying to assess a full plot is going to be an issue as this is a retelling of a series, but sticking to the film's form alone, it can be boiled down to this: in a school existing out of time, an ever shifting entity like a living M.C. Escher painting, sword duels between students are taking place with the prize for the winner being the "Rose Bride" Anthy, who is explicitly for this film a figure who will be with the victor even in bed. The titular Utena, a new female student, discovers about these duels and intervenes out of indignation and by pure accident, having accidentally found a ring important to her is a symbol of dualists, winning a duel when provoked and thus tying herself and Anthy together.

You cannot talk about any Utena, even just the film, without considering just how significant it was for LGBT fans as, ironically alongside Sailor Moon which had a lesbian couple awkwardly dubbed as cousins in the American export, this is a love story about two young women. Utena in this film is hostile and pining for a male friend, but the romance between her and Anthy grows over the course of the film. It's explicit in the film at the beginning what is intended in how Utena is introduced in the first scene, very short pink hair and dressed in boy's clothes, before their slowly growing romance blossoms and becomes the crux of the narrative. A lot of people to this day speak of how much of a watershed moment this franchise was, such as Erica Friedman, a proud gay former publisher of yuri (girl's love) manga, a writer on the subject, and who got to present Adolescence of Utena at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, the British LGBTQ Film Festival and the Tampa LGBTQ Film Festival back in the early 2000s1.

Coupled with this, and still felt profoundly even in this abridged version of the series, is the delusions and heteronormative trap of fairy tales. The "prince" who rescues the princess as in old Disney films aren't good, either an illusion or an unhealthy concept,  the back-story of Anthy with her brother having a dark, incestuous aspect as Ikuhara never pulls his punches in dealing with adult subjects in bright colours, especially as this back-story is elaborated on further in the television series. The only good prince is Utena herself, who decided to become one even if she eventually reveals full length feminine hair in contrast to her masculine dress. Set in an ever changing, shifting fantasy school Utena whilst beautiful to look at constantly reveals the artifice throughout, a place that is an illusion that eventually crumbles in shadows and horrors.

Significant to this is how gorgeous this production is. Ikuhara is someone I call "pop surrealism" because for me, the "pop" is his use of bright colours, very clear symbolic motifs (roses here) and the energy of his work that can juggle comedy to drama, such as the abrupt cameo of a character Nanami but only in a gag segment as a cow stood against very serious subject matter. This is the only theatrical film Ikuhara has made - a production even co-produced with Sega, which is likely explained with them collaborating on a 1998 Utena Sega Saturn game - and it's stunning to witness in the quality and the early use of computer animation which thankfully gels.


Here it's notable how much Ikuhara was influenced by Japanese avant-garde art. Probably one of the trademarks of this tale, found here, are the silhouette girls, schoolgirls entirely as black shadows (without any features) in school uniforms, who act as a Greek chorus, even acquiring a salacious videotape involving Anthy and her brother. One of the most striking sequences, when the leads fully connect, is literally staged on a pool supported on top of a tower full of roses. The other pronounced choice is J. A. Seazer, an experimental composer whose trademark is combining theatre and rock music who Ikuhara explicitly hired for the television series to compose songs for. With his trademark chorus singing to acid rock guitars, Seazer's only other anime contribution was to the notorious independently made Midori (1992). Beyond this, he's famous for his work in live action cinema with Shūji Terayama, the experimental filmmaker who is tragically under seen and whose work clearly inspired Ikuhara in hindsight for myself, productions like Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974) very much psychodramatic and surreal films with bold visuals and choice of colour. The Seazer music here, especially in the few duels seen, is exceptional as is the score by composer Shinkichi Mitsumune.

Also of note is screenwriter Yōji Enokido, who deserves a lion's share of the praise as, as I look into his career, whilst it is smaller than other's he's made a career of idiosyncratic work. Penning the story for FLCL (2000) in particular on his resume immediately suggests someone very comfortable with surreal and unconventional storytelling, and considering he also penned the TV series, it's for the better the person who worked on the TV series tried to compact this into a smaller and more subjective piece.

Does the film actually work though, especially as I have never seen the series? If we were talking about just the first three-quarters, it's a gorgeous piece to watch, but a curiosity only from Ikuhara. Things change considerably in the final act, starting for me from a sequence in an elevator involving water, which brings on from there and onwards a level of great emotional relevance to the characters barely touched upon that cannot help but over take me. Then the divisive final sequence happens, and Adolescence of Utena becomes incredible. I cannot spoilt it, because just describing the scenes in a sentence isn't the same as watching the finale as I have learnt thinking of this film over the years, that a character is turned into a car and the final act is a car chase to escape into the real world.

It is one of the most surreal things I have witnessed, where even the mech animators hired were baffled infamously why they were hired for a Revolutionary Girl Utena film themselves. The result also happens to be one of the best things to have been done in theatrical anime, an exceptional short in its own length of animation, spectacle, emotional power and symbolic power. The car metaphors in the film are strange but a) Ikuhara has been quoted in being inspired by a craze for supercars in the seventies which he viewed as a juvenile fantasy2, connectable to the dangerous fantasy of fairy tales and found in the TV sereis, and b) there's loaded symbolism in Anthy's brother and his madness which we eventually see being connected to his desperate search for car keys, fearing if they cannot be found the "car" will rust.

The finale is something to behold when, if considered, the symbolism is simple and understandable with a spectacular result. The leads must traverse the perils of a fairytale castle, now a monstrous hundred wheeler that can crush cars underneath, to find happiness. Even if happiness is in a literal wasteland, as it is no longer the delusional fantasy, reality is found and the ending sequence turns the Adolescence of Utena beyond a curiosity in Kunihiko Ikuhara's career, but a crowning gem.

And thankfully, it has lasted. This franchise is still held highly to this day, to the point that arguably this work is just as monumental to anime in the nineties as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop (1998-9) are, the kind of show that has been itself an influence, as can be attested to Stephen Universe creator Rebecca Sugar admitting this for her own famous work3. At the time, this was followed by an absence from Ikuhara in the industry, still working on other projects as well as in other mediums, but never directing any titles throughout the 2000s. Thankfully, in 2011 we got Mawaru Penguindrum, leading to a trilogy throughout the 2010s alongside Yurikuma Arashi (2015) and Sarazanmai (2019). What the 2020s will lead to for him will be of interest and baited anticipation. For myself, until the TV series itself, this is a pretty big title in my own personal fandom to finally have seen, and by God did it exceed expectations.


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1) HERE

2) "When I was little there was a supercar boom. Maybe because of that, even now such a car is something that satisfies childish desires in the adult world. A car seems like that sort of thing. As you grow up toys tend to disappear quickly from your life. Even if, as a child you wanted a model of robot, when you’re an adult these sort of things that you want seem to disappear, isn’t that so? Well, you may want something like a house, but obviously, it’s a little different from wanting a toy. My idea of a car is something that is exceedingly close to an adult’s toy..." - "Be-Papas Interview". Animage. 20 (1): 4–13. May 10, 1997. [Found HERE]

3) HERE

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