Tenjou Utena was a girl who wanted to become a prince. She actually did rescue a princess…and became the power to revolutionize the world. But at what cost?
20 years have gone by and the members of the student council are still trapped in their own drama. The girl who gained the power to change everything had left them behind to find their own way out. Being mere humans, not princes, they had failed to do take the steps they needed to be free. If this sounds like a fanfic, well, it pretty much is. Like so many fanfic it begins with Touga, Saionji, Juri and Miki still caught up in the same dysfunctional relationships that bound them at Ohtori.
In Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution, co-creator of Revolutionary Girl Utena Chiho Saito, revisits the Student Council members. Touga and Saionji are finally allowed to cast off the lingering ghost of the Chairman of Ohtori, and find the camaraderie with each other that had been twisted into a toxic rivalry. Juri discovers in herself a more honest reason to keep fighting and is able to let go of of regret and failure. Miki is finally able to have an honest discussion with Kozue about their relationship.
Viz Media’s reproduction of this 20th anniversary manga is so excellent, I’m almost sorry that they didn’t give it a hardcover edition to match the box set of the original manga. Adrienne Beck’s translation kept the voices we already knew so well. Sara Linsley went out of her way to do an award-worthy lettering job. She’s detailed how she hand-drew the sound effects to match the Japanese volume on Twitter. Designer Alice Lewis did a terrific job and I know that Nancy Thistlethwaite as editor gave it the most loving treatment possible. It looks terrific. Great job folks.
Like so many fanfic, this manga is excellent, right up to the point where it fails to do the last thing it needed to do. Because, as she says in the afterword, Saito-sensei was unwilling to allow Utena to grow up…indeed, she youthens her for this story, Utena and Anthy’s reunion is not of this world, but very much in a world that only the two of them occupy. I had read the chapters as they came out in Flowers hoping desperately that we’d get to see Utena and Anthy together in the “real” world. It’s wholly understandable why this was the path chosen…it’s just not the one I wanted. ^_^ OTOH, Juri is still with Shiori and Utena and Anthy do find each other again, so that’s something. Depending on what your fandom of Utena is rooted in, your mileage will vary. For me, this was a beautiful, but ever-so-slightly unsatisfying story.
Ratings:
Art – 9 I have repeatedly 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 is still a thing.
Overall – 9
I guess I’ll just have to stick with my own Utena fanfic for now, since Saito-sensei and I don’t share a vision. If it were up to me Kozue and Shiori* would not have been given so much real estate. ^_^
* I don’t dislike Shiori….I just don’t like Juri and Shiori together. Juri deserves someone better.
“Like so many fanfic” ? Isn’t this a canon sequel to the original story?
It is a sequel to a story that had, within it’s original run 4 wholly disparate versions of “canon.” The manga, the television series, the movie and the movie manga were all functionally different versions of the same story. So what, in that context, does “canon” even mean? Did Utena save Anthy, did they leave together, or separately, did Utena disappear or did Anthy? Which “canon” is the right one?
It’s a sequel in the sense that it is said to take place 20 years later…but which version is it 20 years after? ^_^
I see, thanks for the info. I’m only familiar with the franchise at the anime level, so I thought it was a direct sequel.
Speaking of 20th anniversary, how would you feel about the idea of restarting the original anime? Just recently, adaptation of CLAMP’s Babylon was announced to celebrate its own 20th anniversary.
I have written about the various iterations in my retrospective article, Retrospective of a Revolution – 20 Years of Shoujo Kakumei Utena if it interests you.
Thanks, this will be a helpful reading.
I own a copy of this myself & I personally think this is better viewed as an outline to a Utena 20th Anniversary Epilogue OVA Anime Project that-never-was/that-never-came-to-be,due to the premature death of Tomoko Kawakami. It would help to better digest the contents of this book & not merely dismiss it as “fanfiction”.
There was no dismissal intended and if you read it as such, I’m sorry. I love fanfic, and believe it is akin to the work of medieval bards who took beloved characters and reworked stories with them endlessly to appeal to different audiences.
It may well be an outline to a not-made OVA, but as there are already 4 disparate canon versions of the “story” I am comfortable saying that all versions are equally in/valid.
I love this book (agree that it’s essentially fanfic), it made me cry three times as I read it, and… I also think it fell short. One of my favourite parts of the TV series is the empowerment of Anthy at the end, to go out into the real world and find Utena on her own terms. From my perspective it’s a pity that this story features trapped-Anthy/saviour-Utena again. Makes sense that they’d go that route, but a bit disappointing. That said, I really appreciated the closure for the other three relationships, especially Touga and Saionji.
I agree completely.