I looked up enough details of sword design that I can use a few technical terms. I’m indebted to semi-anonymous Nick, who helped me name the sword types and explained some points of fighting style.
The same sword is often drawn differently from shot to shot in a duel. Sometimes it can be put down to showing more detail or less, though not always. I chose pictures that I thought showed the “actual” features of the swords, though it’s not clear that they are intended to have actual features that stay the same! See unstable locations and characters are variable for examples of things that are deliberately inconsistent over time.
The goal of an Utena duel is to scatter the opponent’s rose. It seems hard to do with a sword thrust. The natural technique is to slash the rose with a sharp edge, preferably an edge near the sword’s tip. All the duelists are remarkably precise and nobody is seriously injured (though Nanami tries). I think the natural sword for the job is light, with a tip sharpened on both edges, like Utena’s sword of Dios. But then, these are points of realism, and Utena does not particularly try to be physically realistic (only emotionally realistic).
Guards. As shown by Anthy’s sword below and its comparison to Utena’s, the shape of each sword’s guard reflects its owner’s sexual desires. I think each sword guard stands for the character’s specific love or loves, not their general predilection. Epaulets have a similar meaning, but there is evidence that it is not the same.
Black Rose swords. Horseteeth alerted me to differences between Touga’s katana in his hands, and in Keiko’s hands in episode 21. The grip, blade, and tip all look different (and I never noticed). Now that I look, the other Black Rose swords have differences too. I’m putting the not-actually-identical Black Rose swords in a separate section at the bottom with pictures of the original swords for comparison.
The sword of Dios is a rapier. Its guard has a blue-green jewel and a rose theme. The jewel and the rose on the butt end are held in calyxes, which refer to Utena. The blade has a fuller (Wikipedia), which makes it lighter and stiffer. The blade is blue-green for the illusion it represents. The point shape seems good for slicing roses (but is sometimes depicted differently).
It’s a one-handed sword, but Utena often uses two hands to apply more force.
The katana can be used with one or two hands. It seems to have a hexagonal cross-section for most of its length. Here, Utena has miraculously cut through it. The red lines on the arena are spraying out like the sword’s blood.
Saionji has a power style of sword fighting, which Nick tells me is native to kendou. He uses a sturdy sword and makes strong heavy strokes. He uses it to force Utena back, but it doesn’t seem suitable for cutting roses. It seems to me that it would take a lot of skill and training to make accurate cuts with a heavy sword—Saionji and Touga are noted for their skill. On the other hand, Utena’s light sword seems poor for parrying the heavy strokes. Utena needs a lot of physical strength—which she has, since she is Hercules.
Miki’s fencing sword has two edges and a very light blade. Based on Wikipedia descriptions, it doesn’t seem to match any regulation fencing sword; maybe it is specialized for the arena. The guard seems good for fencing, but it looks like it would not offer much protection against a heavy blade. His fighting style includes a trained stance and a lot of quick thrusts. I think he’s fighting as if fencing with an épée, where only a hit with the tip scores. As Juri says, his sword is not for combat. The round guard is female; Miki’s desire is for Anthy. But note the small straight extenders. They could refer to his attraction to Utena. Or they could refer to Kozue’s desires, since he and Kozue become one as Hermaphroditus. Or maybe the cup of the guard is his/Kozue’s breast.
The guard of Juri’s rapier is smoothly curved and metaphorically female—her desire is for Shiori. It is curved forward, which seems like it offers less protection to the hand but more leverage for Juri’s signature disarming move. Juri uses the guard in disarming Utena in episode 7. The blade looks very like the blade of the sword of Dios, except that it is reddish rather than bluish. The hilt seems to have a variable length. Sometimes it is one-handed, sometimes two-handed.
Juri offers her sword to Utena in episode 12, “to set the final scene,” re-arming Utena after disarming her. The female guard is suitable for Utena too. The sword breaks in the duel, matching Utena’s emasculation in wearing the girls’ uniform. See Juri’s arc - episode 12. I think the curve of the guard compares the sword to Nanami’s cowbell; both episodes have Utena defeating patriarchal traps.
Nanami’s sword is a scimitar, and her dagger is curved; the blades are metaphorically female. Wikipedia tells me that “scimitar” is a European word for a wide range of curved swords used “um, off to the east.” Sword and knife are decorated with a three-point motif. Nanami’s motivation to duel is jealousy over Anthy, which feeds a desire for revenge. The curved guard points to her unnoticed desire for Anthy. It is S-shaped, which must stand for Class S. The knife has a straight guard, for her lesser love of Touga.
A curved blade is heavier than a straight blade for a given reach, or equivalently has a shorter reach for a given weight. But it is easier to use for inflicting slashing injuries. I think Nanami uses a scimitar because she wants to cut her opponents. She tries to cut Utena in episode 10. Curved swords are associated with fighting on horseback, where slashing attacks are more practical—and horses are associated with the prince.
Touga’s katana looks no different from Saionji’s. They look the same in hilts that have blue-over-yellow grips, guards, cross-sections (usually hexagonal, diamond in some images), and curved tips. In some images the tip is a more katana-like chisel tip.
A katana is one-edged. This view of the point of Touga’s sword shows the hamon (Wikipedia) of the sharpened edge. According to my reading, this type of point is not typical for a Japanese sword. The point does seem good for cutting roses, though the sword itself is heavier than is good for the job. Still, it seems reasonable for someone strong and precise like Touga.
Kanae’s rapier has a gold-colored hilt and guard, which may reflect her wealthy family. The guard has a unique design, which doesn’t look practical to me. The curves of the guard hint that she too desires Anthy. The blade is indistinguishable from the blade of the sword of Dios, which in this episode is drawn with a longer flattened point than in the picture above. It has the same blueish coloring, connecting it to illusions. I suppose that Kanae’s illusions are the feelings she falsely believes she has about Akio, or falsely believes she doesn’t have about Anthy, or maybe the illusions that allow her to be controlled by her family. Or all of those.
Kanae is not practical either. Her sword thrust looks dramatic, but it’s awkward. Her fingers can’t grasp tightly at that angle, and her arm can’t exert full force. She loses as soon as Utena decides to fight seriously. I read her as a pampered rich girl who has never needed physical skills.
Mikage’s rapier is thin and flexible. I don’t think it’s more flexible than the other rapiers (Juri flexes her sword similarly in episode 7). The blade is close to neutral gray, but it is faintly blue-green. The difference is so small that I’m not certain what the color is supposed to be.
The guard is round. Mikage’s love is Tokiko, not Mamiya (at least the love reflected in the sword). Anthy plays Mamiya to seduce him as part of a plot by Akio.
Princess Shiori draws Ruka’s rapier. It shares features with the sword of Dios (he was a past candidate to gain the Power of Dios) and Miki’s sword (he is a fencer). The guard has curves, seeming to match Ruka’s seeming love for Juri.
After dumping Shiori, Ruka denies that it is his sword. It is the sword he uses, and is drawn from his heart, but the evidence of his story and his epaulets agrees that it is not his sword—I’m 80% convinced. Ruka is dead, like Mikage, and Akio took Ruka’s sword. Or Ruka (unlike Mikage) knows that he is dead and considers that he does not own his old sword any more. Or maybe the point is that the sword in the locker is not the sword drawn from his heart, though it looks the same. Or that it was recently put there and could not have been polished every day.
Nothing tells us where this sword came from—other than from Ruka’s heart, of course. It is his in the sense that it must describe him.
In episode 36 Touga no longer uses a katana, but a Western sword with a tapering blade. It is longer and heavier than the rapiers above, which seems appropriate for Touga’s height and strength. The hilt is two-handed, and Touga switches between one-handed and two-handed grips. The guard is straight and metaphorically male, which goes with his new relationship with Saionji.
Why did Touga switch from the katana, which he practices regularly? His new sword is the weapon of a prince. I think it reflects that he is Saionji’s prince. Of course, at the same time he is attempting to be Utena’s prince. The pink rose petals tie him to pink Utena. Defeating Utena to protect her is... a typical Utena reversal. He does genuinely love Utena; he believes the propaganda and wants to make Utena his princess and protect her (and the earrings agree).
Anthy apparently carries two swords in her heart. One is the sword of Dios, with a blue-green jewel. The other is her own sword, similar but with a purple jewel and other differences. The guard is gray or dark blue and has a more rectangular, less curved shape, making it symbolically male. It has plainer decoration.
Compare the sword guards with the Student Council exit backdrops. Utena’s guard has an organic-like girlish design that goes with backdrop design 1, which corresponds to Anthy. Anthy’s guard has a more hard-edged boyish design that goes with the other backdrop designs, which correspond to Utena—and presumably earlier to Dios. Each has a sword for the other: The sexual swords directly represent their sexual feelings for each other, which is a hint about how to interpret the other swords. The purple jewel is likely not for Anthy’s corruption, but for Utena’s and Dios’s. Utena’s sword says that she sees Anthy as deluded, not as corrupted (though we know Anthy is both). A wee bit subtle, eh?
In episodes 15, 17, 18, 20, and 21, the duelists use swords drawn from Student Council members. But they’re not identical to the swords we’ve seen before. Horseteeth alerted me to the big difference between Touga’s katana from the Student Council arc, and its version in Keiko’s hands. Here I compare the swords to their originals. I expect that each little difference has its own symbolic meaning. Somewhere. I hope to interpret them.
The Black Rose swords of Kanae and Mikage are unique to them, and covered above.
Kozue. In Kozue’s hands, Miki’s sword has a black hilt and guard (or very dark blue). There’s no visible decorative pattern to match Miki’s. The cup of the guard has a different shape and may be larger. The rod-like extensions of the guard are longer and have larger endcaps. It’s not clear, but maybe the blade is a little different too.
Miki and Kozue are associated with Akio’s sibling moon (see moon catalog). I take it that Miki’s guard is silver for the moon.
Shiori. Juri’s sword hilt is wrapped in black, and the guard is the color of brass. Shiori’s hilt and guard are the same dark bronze color. The arc of Shiori’s guard is almost constant in width, not flared like Juri’s, and curves in a tighter arc (this particular image doesn’t show the contrast clearly). The prongs flanking the blade are angular and male (or half male) rather than round and female. The blade has a bluish tint for illusion rather than Juri’s reddish tint. I suppose it’s for Shiori’s misunderstandings.
Are the prongs testicles? One theory is that the forward arc and prongs embrace patriarchal power, the blade. Juri embraces it in a female way, giving in to it, and Shiori in a more male way, trying to use it against Juri. It’s an idea.
Is Shiori’s sword weightless? In the image, she holds it in her fingertips.
Mitsuru. His sword and dagger have a darker hilt and guard. Otherwise, the differences are slight. The curl at the butt of the sword is decorative rather than plain. The guard of the dagger looks thicker, though it might be a matter of perspective.
Wakaba. Her sword differs from Saionji’s in the grip and the tip. The grip covering is black (or very dark blue) over bronze rather than blue over gold. Turning the light yellow color into dull yellow-brown matches Shiori and Mitsuru.
Saionji’s sword appears in episodes 2, 20, and 25. Its tip is different each time. Wakaba gets a chisel tip, which (I read) is usual for a Japanese sword. Saionji, for all his Japanophilia, has a less Japanese point to his sword. In episode 25, Saionji’s sword changes for most of the duel from a hexagonal to a diamond cross-section. It is not katana-like.
After research, I read Wakaba’s sword tip as chuu-kissaki (medium point). A touch more curvature to the edge and it would be absolutely prototypical. The unsharpened side of the blade looks like iori-mune, triangular in cross-section, also as typical as can be. (The term compares the back of the blade to the roof of a hermitage.)
Though note: When Wakaba charges (see costumes - Wakaba’s duel uniform for image), the tip is curved like Saionji’s in episode 2.
Keiko. Keiko’s grip has turned red. Like Wakaba’s, Keiko’s sword is diamond in cross-section rather than hexagonal. Touga’s is hexagonal in most views, though diamond in sword clash views.
The guard of a katana is not to protect the hand, like the guard of a Western sword. It is to prevent the hand from slipping onto the blade. Touga’s is square-ish with indented corners, like Saionji’s. Keiko’s is sometimes a plain rectangle. In this image, it is about the same shape as Touga’s but decorated with a pattern I can’t interpret. In the image above where Saionji’s sword is cut through, his guard has a pattern too. There are no clear views of the patterns, but they don’t seem to be the same.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 7 November 2022
updated 15 June 2025