• Next -> The first ending sequence.
The opening is a series of short clips set to the opening theme song. The pace is quicker than either ending sequence—appropriately for an opener. The sequence should in some way reflect the whole series. One rule of anime openers is that they should introduce all the main cast, though it is OK to leave out villains. Sure enough, this one shows Anthy and Utena and the Student Council, the most important characters other than Akio. It offers glimpses of duels and of the final showdown.
The major theme of the opener is togetherness and separation. Every segment that I break out below (well, except for the title shot) includes representations of togetherness or separation, and usually both.
Anthy and Utena can be separated, but never permanently. In the Manichaean parallel, “someday we will shine together” is presented as an inevitable rejoining in transcendence when the patriarchy is ultimately defeated.
The theme song ties into Utena’s themes (funny that) and makes specific references. At the same time, it is a conventional love song. It is an expression of the system of control and reinforces the illusions that Utena and Anthy live under.
Empty Movement offers multiple translations of the lyrics, including the lyrics used in the show and a longer version (that I think wanders off the path). The song’s Japanese title is “輪舞 - revolution”. 輪舞 (rinbu) means round dance. The official translation is “Rondo - revolution”. Wikipedia explains “The rondo is a musical form that contains a principal theme... which alternates with one or more contrasting themes.” In other words, the principal theme returns repeatedly. Both titles are puns on the English “revolution”. The reference seems to be not to Utena’s revolution, but to Utena and Anthy returning to be together after they are separated—see analysis below. The last word of the lyrics is kaeru, to change, in “I will change the world.” It has a homonym meaning to return—subtly reinforcing the pun. The story of Utena is presented as one iteration of a cycle, corresponding to Buddhist samsara. Utena is only one of a sequence of heroes that together bring inevitable revolution. In Buddhism, nothing lasts forever and change is inevitable.
The opening sequence points to a few major events of the story, more or less in order as they happen. Actually, it begins before the earliest events of the series and continues slightly after the latest. It’s not clear enough to give anything away, though! It is from Utena’s point of view, or at least the words are. The words “take my revolution” only fit Utena.
Anthy and Utena are unclothed at first, seen in silhouette superimposed over spinning roses. Their clothing appears as they fade into color. Their eyes are closed throughout this initial segment.
It starts with the central characters. Going from silhouette to color is a form of theatrical bringing up the lights. It suggests that the two are in some way prototypical. They are: Anthy and Utena together stand for all women. Going from unclothed to clothed can mean the same thing, and touches on the show’s sexual themes, and along with the heads-together images suggests romance between the two. Utena wears her prince uniform with the epaulets, marking her as male. The theme song’s first line suggests manliness and elegant princely behavior.
It starts before the beginning: The initial large rose is a womb. (The symbolism of the Rose Gate nails down the interpretation.) Anthy and Utena are twins in the womb (see Castor and Pollux), and are born naked. The first heads-together image is not romantic. Their eyes are closed because they are born knowing nothing. Later they are separated, each gets her own rose, and they put on clothing. The second heads-together image is romantic, though they don’t quite meet, and their eyes are closed because they do not understand each other. The roses stand for the Academy, which is both a coffin and a womb (Anthy’s coffin is compared to a womb visually and symbolically and through the metaphor of the egg).
In the first heads-together image, the two are brow to brow, smiling, and naked. In the second they are closer, mouth to eye, unsmiling, and clothed. Expressions suggest they may be intending to kiss. It reminds me of Dios kissing little Utena on the eye. I can’t make out what this collection of progressions is meant to suggest. My best guess is that in the first image they are in the womb, and in the second they are small children, still together. Their opposed attitudes of acceptance and rebellion have not separated them yet.
Anthy and Utena are shown next to each other but not together, if you know what I mean. They do not take action. If they are aiming to kiss in the second heads-together image, then they are miscoordinated. They spin under some outside control; it reminds me of Chu-Chu falling onto the spinning record in episode 3. Spinning can mean confusion. They are inverted relative to each other, as on the S-shaped bed, meaning that they have illusions about each other and/or that they are complementary people opposite in most traits.
In the single rose, Utena and Anthy rotate clockwise and the rose rotates counterclockwise. They stand for all women, and turn in the direction of truth, while the background rose stands for the social view of all women and turns in the direction of illusions. In the twin roses, Utena rotates clockwise and Anthy counterclockwise, and their roses go in the reverse directions.
They stand back-to-back.
Their hands part on a black background.
In the back-to-back image, the background has returned to a single rose. The theme song “even if we are separated” line is here. They have in some way recognized their togetherness, but they still suffer illusions about each other. Facing apart suggests that they are misleading each other. The two heads-together images above show movement together, and the movement continued, but in this shot the two are moving apart again—Utena is drawing downward and Anthy upward. I suppose that Utena is pushed down (berated by teachers and so on), and Anthy is accepted (Akio loves her).
Above, they were born together, then separated, then brought together again (at the Academy). Here they hold hands, then are separated. The separating hands image repeats in episode 23 just before Utena says “you can’t stop being the Rose Bride”; the only difference is that in episode 23 it has fainter sparkles. At the start of the Apocalypse Saga, they hold hands in bed. Then Akio emotionally separates the two and they stop holding hands. At the end of the show, they repeat joining and separating hands.
Utena starts the show lonely and grows increasingly alone as time passes. At the end, in leaving the Academy and exiting the system of control, she leaves behind everyone she knows. It can be taken as the alienation of the lone hero who goes her own way. It’s like the cowboy riding into the sunset at the end of a western. Then Anthy leaves to find Utena, implying a return to togetherness. Oops, the cowboy was not the end?
This separation is also before the beginning. The two were born together as parts of the patriarchy, and both are intrinsic to it. Anthy is acceptance and support; she is part of the system of control. Utena is the resistance the patriarchy arouses through its unfairness and evil. Now they go their separate ways, only to meet again later. Utena already wears her epaulets; in some way, she is a prince from the start. The prince story is an origin myth not only for Akio, but for Utena.
Anthy and Akio are siblings because they are sibling parts of the patriarchy; they work together. At the same time, Akio is Anthy’s father—as she hints in episode 25—because he pressed Anthy’s role on her. He created her. Their womb is the Academy where Anthy has always been (even though Akio only took it over recently, from his point of view), and which Utena returns to in hope of meeting her prince. Akio is equally Utena’s father; he deliberately created her rebelliousness in order to exploit her.
The title fades in.
I gather that the most essential themes have been touched on—not that the viewer can understand them until late in the series—and now the show can be named.
We see the city with Akio’s tower in the foreground, Utena superimposed walking away.
Anthy and Utena separately walk to school, Anthy among girls, Utena among boys. Each turns to look backward.
Akio’s tower is the closest the opener comes to introducing Akio. Anthy is under Akio’s control, but is not associated with the tower here.
Utena returns to the Academy. She is again marked male. Anthy and Utena have caught each other’s interest; they are walking in opposite directions, and each turns back to look at the other. It is noticing the attractive other. It’s curious, because both are walking to school and they should be going the same direction. Metaphorically, the two complementary people are opposite in their paths as well; Utena believes in personal freedom and seeks change (revolution), while Anthy believes in Akio’s controlling paternalistic worldview and seeks stability (eternity). More broadly, the boys and girls are going opposite directions: Boys are to learn power (and cause changes), girls are to learn submission (and seek husbands to gain eternity). For other brief notes, see crowds - opening.
Utena’s male marking and the implied attraction between the two is subversive, but only along one axis. It accepts most of the cultural expectations around boys and girls, reversing one point. It’s not revolutionary; Utena is not about rapid revolution but about step-by-step change (which does eventually amount to a revolution). To help Anthy escape the trap she is in, Utena must adhere to convention enough to attract conventional Anthy’s interest, and must break convention enough to help her escape.
The theme song mentions the sunny garden, meaning the gardens of Miki’s memory and Anthy’s greenhouse.
Miki’s sunlit garden is a childhood fantasy that no longer exists. The greenhouse appears eternal but is equated with it. It says that the patriarchy is a childhood fantasy that will cease to exist.
The opener skips ahead to episode 1. Utena does not wear her epaulets; she does not play the role of a prince until the duel of episode 2. The two are attracted to each other on sight (I think there are other hints of it, but this one is the clearest). I take it that neither is ready to admit it to herself, though. They have more-conventional prior attachments.
Anthy and Utena stand in the greenhouse, the central pillar prominent on the left.
Introducing a key location. For the first time in the opener, Anthy and Utena are standing together, not inverted or reversed relative to each other. Their relationship has progressed. After noticing each other, they meet and spend time together. But they are in the greenhouse, a cage and a symbol of the Academy and (as mentioned in the theme song and separately in Miki’s song) a sunlit garden.
Anthy and Utena lie on autumn leaves under bare tree branches, Anthy inverted.
Anthy hands Utena a rose, which Utena accepts languidly.
Utena sits up, and her prince uniform fades in. Anthy’s princess dress fades in on Anthy.
They are head to head, inverted relative to each other. Utena lies on her back and Anthy on her side. Their positions are like those they take in the S-shaped bed in the Apocalypse Saga, except that the two are swapped as if mirror reversed.
Their relationship has progressed again. In a cute detail, when the two look at each other, Utena’s eyes narrow contentedly while Anthy’s controlled expression does not change. In the rose shot, the camera is upside down so that Anthy reaches the rose upward to Utena. The rose is white because Anthy sees Utena as her prince. The rose is both an expression of love and a challenge to a duel (both togetherness and separation). Thorns are visible, tying the rose to Sleeping Beauty.
The fallen leaves and bare branches say that winter is approaching, or already here. Cold in Utena means emotional coldness.
The change of clothing is the transition to the duel segment. I take it to be Anthy in her role as the system of control manipulating Utena into the dueling system—hence the implied coldness.
The dueling tower and arena appear with the castle in the sky.
The duelists appear and show off: Utena, Saionji, Juri, Miki, Nanami, Touga in that order.
The sequence is fast. It runs about ten seconds. I don’t know why the duelists are in that order. Each duelist displays a key trait: Utena lunges, Saionji chops violently, Juri flies to represent her great skill, Miki swings into action (which looks cool but seems out of character), Nanami rushes furiously, scheming Touga poses with his back to the camera. We can take it as a summary of all the duels in the show.
Maybe Miki’s turning movement portrays his change of mind as he is manipulated into taking action. He turns counterclockwise.
Utena brandishes her sword as the arena crumbles, and Anthy recedes amidst the falling debris. Two blue-shaded horses seem to fight hoof-to-hoof standing on their back legs. The left horse carries Utena, the right horse Anthy. Dios awakens as the arena crumbles.
We jump ahead to the final showdown. The opener does not give away future events, but points in their direction. Anthy does fall away as the arena collapses in episode 39. Dios does wake up (though it happens before the arena falls). Utena brandishing her sword corresponds to her saying “I will become a prince!” and causing the castle to fall in episode 38. The fingernail length symbolism is not carried through; her nails are long. Utena and Anthy both have long nails when together. Toward the end of the final showdown, Utena’s nails are consistently long even as she acts as a prince, so it is consistent.
The horses are blue for naive illusion and appear again in the next segment. The blue sky is prominent; the sky too is blue for illusion.
• Anthy and Utena as mounted knights fly together around the castle in the sky.
• Anthy and Utena as blue-shaded figures are pulled apart, so that their hands part.
• Utena rotates over one of two spinning roses.
The mounted Anthy and Utena now seem to be working together, no longer fighting against each other. Anthy’s horse is black for Akio, and Utena’s is white for Dios. But they are trapped in a fairy tale world with an illusionary castle in the sky. In the final showdown, they work together in a reversed way.
The words that Nozomi overcautiously translates as “Let’s find the strength to throw it all away. Strip down to nothing at all. Become like rose petals, blowing free!” are here. This translation tones down the sexiness until the meaning fades. The lines are about casting away clothing to become free and naked, like fluttering rose petals. I take it that the scattered clothing is like scattered petals, and the couple is freed from its restraint. It ties to the symbolism of the target rose in duels: The petals are fluttering free because the rose was “scattered” by a sword strike, which is symbolic sex. See duel symbols - target roses and duel symbols - Utena conflates weddings and funerals and below.
In a way, it contrasts with the image of fantasy flying knights—the two are armored, the opposite of naked. But in another way, it fits. They are deluded and living a fantasy, and they are equated with the loser of a duel. They carry lances, very like swords. The invisible enemy they are jousting against is Akio, and he is winning.
Anthy falls away twice here, once downward as the arena crumbles and once upward as Anthy and Utena part. Both seem to be Anthy’s coffin falling away from the arena. The first shows the illusions of the arena crumbling as she falls. The second shows Anthy’s and Utena’s hands parting. Anthy is falling equally into Akio’s clutches and out of Akio’s power of illusion. The parting hands are marked as non-hierarchical, and Utena shows them with Anthy above in the opener, and with Utena above in the final episode. Utena is equally falling away from Anthy; she can only be unhappy that they are parted.
In the final shot of the opener, Utena rotates over one rose while the other is empty (well, it’s covered with credit text). Utena has left the Academy, and Anthy is not there. It is after the end.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 19 February 2023
updated 25 August 2025