Even though I’m only five episodes in, Revolutionary Girl Utena has effortlessly managed to grab me by my collar and has pulled me deep into its imaginative and sprawling world, sweeping me off my feet and leaving me spellbound and clamoring for more. The one-two combo of its beautiful visuals and its grandiose soundtrack makes for a very attractive series and even though the show is almost two decades old it still manages to feel like a breath of fresh air all these years later.
It’s clear that I’m having a lot of fun with this series and I’m really interested in seeing it all the way to the end, not just to see the pretty visuals and hear the beautiful music and spend time with the characters but to ultimately see where the writers go and what themes they tackle.
The backgrounds for Utena are akin to the backgrounds that you’d see in a play, a feeling that has exuded from every crevice of this series. The framing of scenes for one is very musical like with exuberant cinematography and 'sets' that exist merely to look attractive. The camera pans and sweeps with the music in harmony like dance partners in sync both complimenting and strengthening one other. Each scene has just enough visual elements to create a sense of place and build the set without feeling overbearing and each frame explicitly captures what is necessary to make the scene work. Background elements are elaborately placed in order to create atmosphere and the camera is meticulously positioned in order to add personality to each and every scene. The visual storytelling is very over-dramatic and works extremely well. Backgrounds are very sketchy and plain with only the main focal points having the utmost detail and color.
Speaking of which, the use of color and even lack thereof is super effective with fantastic use of shadows being utilized in order to emphasize the play like nature of the series with some shadows even being cast onto the background. The backgrounds are generally white which allows for the more colorful characters to shine and standout with an effect that is not too dissimilar to having a spotlight on the actor speaking on stage. The characters are the stars of the show after all and the props merely exist around them, but that’s not to say that the set pieces don’t steal the show every once in a while either. Even though a lot of the backgrounds are plain it never feels as a means to cut corners and instead comes across as hyper stylistic and unique choice that is very deliberate and it’s these visual elements that have allowed Utena to become the highly praised and revered series that it is all these years later.
The character designs contain distinct hallmarks of the shoujo manga of yesteryear with pointy noses and huge, blank, empty eyes and very extravagant hairstyles with colors that cover every gamut of the rainbow. Intricate and elaborate costumes are littered throughout which adds a lot of personality to the series. The characters themselves are both very slender and lanky with long legs and strange proportions which along with the huge eyes and elaborate hairstyles adds a lot of femininity to the series. The titular protagonist, a girl who wears a boy’s uniform, partakes in ‘male’ activities and yearns to become a prince one day lends credence to the aforementioned fact about femininity and the constraints that this show both strives to break and critique.
The show has yet to delve deeper into these thematic expressions and yet I’m already enamored. The cast is interesting and exude charm in each and every scene that they appear in; the dynamic facial expressions help a lot no doubt. I didn’t expect Utena to be a show that tickled my funny bone and yet it does, each scene with Nanami in particular is highly entertaining and Utena herself is a super likeable character.
It’s clear that I’m having a lot of fun with this series and I’m really interested in seeing it all the way to the end, not just to see the pretty visuals and hear the beautiful music and spend time with the characters but to ultimately see where the writers go and what themes they tackle.
