metatronica

I think people get too caught up in attempting to understand something foreign to realize that many elements in Revolutionary Girl Utena are not meant to be taken literally and at times, seriously. Yes, it is strange, but, the strangeness is purposefully achieved as a method of storytelling. If one can look past or even appreciate the strangeness, one can find a worthwhile story that's both entertaining and insightful.

The main character, Utena Tenjou, is a student at a boarding school. She meets Anthy Himemiya, a shy girl who is the Rose Bride, the key figure in a mysterious plot by the Student Counsel to "revolutionise the world". The main storyline revolves around Utena and her journey, through different trials and obstacles, to uncover this mystery. To support the main story, there are many subplots and filled with colourful supporting characters, who add drama, humour, and complexity.

The Student Counsel members often recite a poem with portions borrowed from Herman Hesse's Demian. Like the Demian, Utena is about the antagonist's personal journey uncovering truth within their world and within themselves, through the transitional periods of youth. Unlike in Demian, the hero's journey in Utena is highly metaphorical. Despite seeming childish and simple at first, this series is actually incredibly dark with themes that are both adult in nature and adult in meaning. It uses many traditional archetypes – like the charming prince, the wicked witch, the naive hero – but changes these elements' relationship with each other and within the story as the vehicle to drive these progressive elements. Some of the ideas touched upon are the meaning of gender, gender roles, the meaning of self, etc.

Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of my favourite television series. Both the plot and the characters are highly developed. I actually greatly enjoy the surrealism, with over the top drama that both pokes fun of itself and other series within the shoujo (manga and anime for women and girls) genre. The fantastic story components along with highly stylized visuals full of symbolism paint an almost dream-like setting. It's a post-modern fairytale that's indefinitely unforgettable. You'll either love it or hate it, there's no in between.

There were two things I liked about this film: the actors and the imagery. Other than those two things, this film fell short of my already low expectations.

One of my favourite aspects of the His Dark Material series is the author's storytelling. There's this grand and mysterious sense of a world(s) unraveling, the unveiling of truth. The progression of the story isn't just Lyra's journey, but a journey of discovery. This movie embodies none of those qualities. The plot is too fast and too choppy. The plot hurriedly jumps from one plot element to the next without achieving any character development and often not connecting one element with the next. I watched this movie with a friend who has never read The Golden Compass and she was thoroughly confused the entire time.

This film was intended for an entirely different audience than the books. The plot and themes of the books were abridged and dumbed down until they appeared weak and hardly intelligent. It plays like a film for small children when the novels clearly were not. As much as I would love to see this series (some of my favourite books) adapted to the big screen, I don't think it was a good idea. The state of most of western societies are not prepared for Pullman's original story to be mass marketed. This story cannot be told in a censored form, it must be as accurately as possible or it completely loses grandeur.