Coffins first appear in episode 9, which I think of as the first brain-twisting episode. We see Touga and Saionji meeting little Utena hiding in a coffin next to the coffins of her dead parents, and refusing to leave because nothing is eternal. Why bother cleaning the house, it will only get dirty again. Then, in the dueling arena, we see Anthy playing dead in a coffin made up to resemble little Utena’s, in a pose matching hers. In reality, it represents Anthy’s coffin, which Utena opens in the final episode; see comparisons - Anthy’s coffin.
Later, we hear metaphorical talk of people in coffins. They are trapped in narrow worldviews, unable to grow or see beyond, symbolically dead and in practice dead to reality. And we see Anthy’s “true” coffin, where she is not only trapped in a worldview but trapped in a difficult relationship with Akio. When the system of control has you caged, you’re in a coffin.
Of course, there is something eternal: Death. To be trapped in the system of control is to be metaphorically dead, forever, because the system of control believes that it is eternal. The Black Rose arc equates death and stasis. Akio is immortal and dead at the same time because he does not change.
It seems easy to understand, which made me suspect I was missing something. How can anything in Utena be easy? Sure enough, later I realized that leaving your coffin is parallel to Jesus disappearing from his tomb, and corresponds to Utena disappearing at the end of the series. As the kofun below implies, the Academy itself is a coffin.
Death is a major symbol. Everyone at the Academy is metaphorically dead and in a coffin—dead to the truth, if you like. In the Black Rose, dead boys control the living, and turn them into duelists. It stands for the influence of the past over the present, and the continuity of culture. At the end of the show, Utena is metaphorically alive—she is alive to the truth. But physically she is mortally wounded. Religious and metaphorical correspondences agree that she dies but the important part of her lives on. In other words, she swaps physical life and metaphorical death for physical death and metaphorical eternal life. She drops her allegorical existence and returns to being a pure symbol.
The DVD booklets tell us that Ohtori Academy’s layout resembles a keyhole-shaped kofun (Wikipedia), a burial mound from Japan’s Kofun period (Wikipedia). Only important people were buried in a kofun, which was sometimes gigantic. Coffins and kofuns are both things the dead are buried in, so metaphorically they are the same: The Academy as a whole is in its coffin, which is Akio’s kofun. Anthy says as much herself, in the final episode as she says goodbye to Akio before she leaves. The symbol suggests that the patriarchy has been in power since ancient times (true in many cultures).
It’s not universally true. There are matriarchal cultures in the world, though they’ve been growing fewer in modern times. Every culture prescribes sex roles, though. Just different ones.
Look back at the coffin image above. The red circle on the lid is a rose emblem, and it makes the coffin visually more keyhole-shaped: Round above and squared off below. The coffins at the funeral, by the way, are rounded at the head. They are even more keyhole-like.
I noticed a couple other things that are keyhole-shaped and refer to kofuns.
The entrance to the student council platform is an arched door with a rose emblem window above it, together a keyhole shape. The student council as a unit is in its coffin—despite meeting in the open air. (That’s not the only thing the entrance is.) And the coffin is no help; trains can still pass through.
Anthy’s bird cage greenhouse is laid out with a straight entranceway and a round central area centered on the chess queen pillar. Anthy seems to be securely imprisoned, wrapped up in layers of containment: Buried in a kofun, in a bird cage, in a coffin. It’s possible to piece it together from different views in the series (I originally did), but this picture is clearer. I found the image in the Gallery at Empty Movement, specifically at this page. Credit to Giovanna.
The greenhouse shares the keyhole shape of the Academy as a whole because the greenhouse is the Academy in miniature. The pillar in the center corresponds to Akio’s tower. The pillar is a phallic insertion into a female area of growth and nurturing—a symbol of sex and male control. It is a key inserted into the keyhole; Anthy is metaphorically locked in her greenhouse, a bird in the bird cage. The frequent image of Anthy watering her roses stands for Anthy nurturing the growth of the students with the water of illusions and tears—that is what the Academy is doing, nurturing the students according to the precepts of the system of control. The Academy is a coffin, and Akio’s tower—the symbol and source of his power—is the key locking the students in the coffin; they are both birds in the cage and corpses in the coffin. At the same time, it is a vagina and uterus, with an intruding phallus.
In the overview of the Academy, Akio’s tower is at the square end, away from the dueling forest. But in the final showdown, Akio’s tower is equated with the tower of the dueling arena. It’s in the same relative location as the pillar in the greenhouse. The burial chamber in a kofun is in the middle of the round part and was originally set with standing stones. The tower, which Akio lives at the top of, marks where Akio is buried. The actual burial chamber, if it matches descriptions I’ve read, will be at the bottom of a shaft underneath.
It symbolizes a self-perpetuating system, and therefore eternity. The roses grow the same every year. The students are to grow up the same every generation and send their children into the coffins where they will remain dead to the truth for eternity. It goes with the scene in episode 27 where Anthy talks with Utena about parents passing their thoughts and ideas on to their children.
In episode 27, Touga tells Nanami that men and women are made to fit together. It’s the same idea: That a man fits a woman like a key in a lock, physically and metaphorically. In his view, men are made to control women, or to operate women like a key operates a lock. His later relationship with Saionji turns it ironic.
Mikage’s building is not a keyhole kofun. It doesn’t have any round section. But it does have a burial chamber at the bottom of a vertical shaft. It might be a rectangular kofun; they aren’t as iconic but they exist. In any case, it’s another place to keep the bodies and memory of the dead. Mikage says in episode 14 that his burial chamber leads to the end of the world—equating it with Akio’s projector room.
I looked up famous mausoleums and did not find any that resemble Nemuro Memorial Hall. But I wouldn’t rule it out.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 21 November 2021
updated 3 October 2025