Revolutionary Girl Utena Is as Lynchian as Shojo Anime Has Ever Been

Over the years, critics and everyday people have come to identify media as “Lynchian,” in reverence for how video games, movies, and TV shows evoke the dream-like quality of the late auteur David Lynch. Although most media described as Lynchian takes its inspiration from seminal works like Twin Peaks through referential nods, no show completely embodies the ephemeral vibe of Lynch’s opaque-yet-piercing style of storytelling quite like the similarly influential shojo anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena. The “story” Revolutionary Girl Utena, animated by J.C. Staff, is a 1997 anime adaptation of Be-Pas and Chiho Saito’s manga series of the same name. The story follows a tomboy princess named Utena Tenjo who, after the death of her parents, encounters a prince who gifts her a rose ring and promises to meet her again in the future. Rather than resign herself to being a princess, Utena decides to live up to the idea of being like the prince who saved her. This inevitably leads Utena to ... Read full article.