Mikage. <- Previous • Next -> Mrs. Ohtori.
Miki represents immaturity and naivety. Utena is halfway between child and adult, and naive about half of her social world. Miki is described as highly intelligent, but starts out fully naive. He gains maturity bit by bit over the series.
A message from Horseteeth inspired me to write up Miki’s arc instead of continuing to struggle with Nanami.
See design - costumes - episode 5 duel - episode 26 duel.
Miki is gendermixed. See Sailor Moon - Miki draws from Mizuno Ami for evidence. Though he is considered male, Utena visually depicts him as sometimes male and sometimes female. See other symbols - characters are variable for an example. In episode 17, when Nanami asks if it hurt, she treats Miki as female. Miki is Hermaphroditus; see Miki and Kozue below.
Miki has a sense of justice. He shares it with Utena, and as with Utena his naivety means that he is not always just in practice. The good blame themselves, and he blames himself too much for being unable to keep his concert promise to Kozue when they were small. See the episode 10 party fracas for a picture showing Miki’s sense of justice.
Miki is imaginative. He imagines Touga arguing him into dueling for Anthy (episode 5); he imagines Anthy with his father (episode 26); he imagines being in Akio’s car with Anthy (also episode 26). In the duel of episode 5 he imagines he can read Anthy’s blank expression and know what she wants.
Miki is distractible. When visiting Anthy he is nervous and does not focus on his supposed goal; Utena tries to direct him. He is manipulated into his duels, and he loses them by being distracted. He does not focus on the action, but is more concerned about Kozue. Only when Kozue falls in episode 26 does he take effective action.
As a good person, Miki does not seem to intend to harass Kozue by seeking Anthy as his “shining thing”. But seeking another is similar to how Kozue intentionally harasses Miki, and has a similar effect. Is his distraction when visiting Anthy because he is thinking of Kozue? I find it plausible.
Miki starts out fully naive in the Student Council arc. He overhears Utena admonishing Anthy that the duels make no sense and Anthy should not act like a piece of property. The view appeals to his sense of justice and he takes it to the Student Council. Touga counters with an appeal to Miki’s desire for love and will to power, and Miki reverses course. The duel is set. Like Utena, Miki does not even try to distinguish between the views or pick one; he simply absorbs them. He accepts what he is told, like a small child, and doesn’t know enough to evaluate it.
Miki gains some maturity with time. In episode 14, Mikage tries to recruit him and he turns down the offer—he has learned enough to make a decision on his own and stick to it. In episode 36, he and Juri see Utena walking back from the Second Seduction, and Juri helps him practice distinguishing girlish and boyish. In the epilog, Miki mentors Mitsuru, somewhat the way Juri mentored him in episode 36.
Miki’s stopwatch is hard to interpret. He is obsessed with timing things, and maybe with time itself. Maybe he has noticed that time does not make sense at the Academy and he’s trying to find order in it. Maybe it means that he just needs time to gain maturity. Evidence: In the epilog, Miki teaches his stopwatch skill to Mitsuru, another immature character who needs time to gain maturity.
Literal twins Miki and Kozue correspond to metaphorical twins Anthy and Utena. Each of them can match up with both Anthy and Utena. See Utena + Anthy = Miki + Kozue and the swapped Utena + Anthy = Kozue + Miki. Miki shares Utena’s sense of justice and Anthy’s childish illusionary worldview.
Both couples are inseparable. But Miki and Kozue are the opposite of Anthy and Utena in one way: The myth of Hermaphroditus says that they are a couple who were involuntarily joined together (relatives are like that). As different people, they are unable to get along; they have different natures and desires that don’t fit together. Anthy and Utena are presented as one person who was split into two complementary halves. They have different natures and desires too, but as one person their halves fit together perfectly and they belong together.
In the myth, Salmacis (Kozue) lusts after Hermaphroditus (Miki), and they end up combined into a single being, even though Hermaphroditus rejected her. That is the source of Miki’s androgyny and of the close and toxic relationship between the twins.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 22 March 2025
updated 4 August 2025