I watched through the TV animation series “Revolutionary Girl Utena” and the animation movie “Adolescence of Utena”. While the latter involves historical context of the age of 1999, which supposed to encourage the young to go out to the outside worlds in the age, the former is in sharp contrast describing eternity, radiancy, miracle and revolution. The backbone story is for the relationship between the Rose Bride and Utena. However, each episode focuses on different members of the story and several themes are developed in parallel with the main story. An image of a princess waiting for a prince is broken by a princess being a prince, and the development of story is guided by acts of ones’ own accords. Besides inspiration from Takarazuka Revue Company (a famous Japanese all-female music theater), the creators is definitely familiar with Japanese underground theatrics such as productions from Shuji Terayama or “The Upper Gallery （天井桟敷）”. The music during duel, and anime pictures exhibit quite a lot of inspiration from the underground theater, even in the drama performance of pupils during the story. This is enforced by a backup from “An experimental room for theaters, Universal Gravitation（演劇実験室◎万有引力）”, which is a follower of Shuji Terayama and “The Upper Gallery （天井桟敷）”. “An experimental room for theaters, Universal Gravitation（演劇実験室◎万有引力）” also collaborated with other animation creators in “Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story”.
The TV series is finalized by the episode how Utena, who did not at all have a desire of revolution, in the end did not achieve revolution concomitantly with achieving revolution in the world. It was just a play and this mysterious outcome was predicted by quite a lot of symbolic figures during opening, ending, actual episodes and the genuine behavior of the Rose Bride during the second duel between Utena and Toga. This story is known to be the basis of many animations such as “Mawaru Penguindrum”. It is a cradle of originality, so you should not miss this animation. It also depicts a possible existence of a certain beings that goes beyond religious superstitions or an abuse of quantum theory.
Additionally, it is a bit funny that a clever pupil who can catch up with math of undergraduate showed to the others that memorizing formula is important to obtain a good score in math exams, or a mongoose bit a snake (normal mongooses do not take a risk for fighting with dangerous animals).
Regarding to the stars, by the way, the separation among David Bowie and the others might be one of the most successful cases of farewell to a star. In his last album, “Blackstar”, he showed the creativity of him did not fade out even at the last moment, and the music video “Blackstar” described the final ending of the story of Major Tom and Calvary/Golgotha. David Bowie really grasps human beings to his labyrinth, never to be gotten through unless one has its own genuine wish to live, as in the movie “Labyrinth”.
