When Tenjou Utena disappeared from Ohtori Academy, life for the students moved on.
Or, did it?
In Shoujo Kakumei Utena After The Revolution (少女革命ウテナ After The Revolution) twenty years have passed. Touga and Saionji have become competitive art dealers. But a simple card telling them that “those who seek the power to revolutionalize the world, should return to Ohtori” inspires them to come back and discover that what they had forgotten on the dueling ground.
Juri has spent 20 years as a competitive fencer so she will be a worthy prince to the princess she’s chosen to protect, her Shiori. A competition is crashed by Ruka, who promptly attempts to steal Shiori from her. He must be defeated on the dueling ground in order for Juri to find herself.
Miki has become a concert pianist, but he is facing a crushing artistic block since Kozue fell into a coma, after her husband beat her. Miki and Kozue find themselves on the dueling ground facing each other and attempt to rebuild their relationship from scratch.
In each case Utena appears as both a child harbinger of crisis and as Dios falling from the castle, signalling resolution. But it’s not until Kozue and Miki create a staircase of music, that Utena can ascend to find Anthy – still crucified – and free her at last so they can be together.
The end of the manga sees them all freed, (again,) but in doing so, it gave each of them a completely new history, a backstory that differed from either of the previous manga versions or the two animated versions. To make this manga make sense, we have to ignore the title – this is not really “after the revolution at all.” Sure, they’ve aged, but they haven’t grown. It takes one last duel to push them forward.
Ratings:
Art – 9 I *have* mentioned that Saitou-sensei’s art is amazing.
Story – 8 One point off for not giving Utena and Anthy the time and page count lavished on the student council
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 3 Naked Anthy still a thing.
Overall – 9
These are not the choices I would have made for a 20th anniversary story, but I respect that these were the choices made by the original team. I just wish we had been able to see both Utena and Anthy 20 years later, as well.
I never thought I’d see something like this. (there are, of course, fan works. A LOT of those)
Do you think these are the resolutions Saito-sensei wanted these characters to have, or are they the ones these characters NEEDED?
To think, they could all grow older without truly growing up.
Thanks for writing about this. ^_^
Interesting question. I couldn’t begin to answer it. ^_^ Be-Pappas worked on it, so I’d put my money down on this being what they wanted. I think they need a different ending, as I said. ^_^
So this is the last of it, then? No Nanami in this version either?
As of right now, this is it. No, Nanami appeared only as a unconscious child in Touga’sand Saionji’s memory.
This is sad, it undoes the end of the manga when Anthy is finally free to live her life and leave Akio’s influence. :/
Frankly, I’m jut glad Ruka is alive. I don’t really care how.