Revolutionary Girl Utena

Btw, don't steal my images, I ripped them cows

A very confusing show to say the least, with most of the concepts being hard to grasp some seeming very sick or unnessisary until much later (ie; characters ripping off their shirts, taking people for a ride in cars changing their life and phallic looking towers)
For a summery off wikipedia
The main character is Utena Tenjou, a tomboyish teenage girl who was so impressed by a kind prince in her childhood that she decided to become a prince herself (expressed in her manner of dress and personality). She attends Ohtori Academy, where she meets a student named Anthy Himemiya, a girl who is in an abusive relationship with another student. Utena fights to protect Anthy and is pulled into a series of sword duels with the members of the Student Council. Anthy is referred to as the "Rose Bride" and is given to the winner of each duel. As Anthy is thought to be the key to a coming revolution, the current champion is constantly challenged for the right to possess the Rose Bride.

This series is fantastic in its use of symbology, using archetypal images (Prince, princess, witch, demon, bride, villagers) as the basis for characters. If you look into these simplistic images, it's the key to unraveling the mystery of the loosely threaded plot. (Anthy having Chu Chu, a familiar and changing people into animals, Utena's transformation from a princess to prince, back again, Dios' transformation into Akio, a princess waiting for someone to save him)

I find Dios very interesting, at first I thought hmmm, he isn't real, is he? is he just the car Utena is riding on so to say? if you look at the ending credits, you can see how aloof he is and ectomorphic.

The whole "lesbian" thing in this series is overrated, and that's me saying that, the first few eps are dodgey just to grab attention from the mail masses. The starting cerdits would drive anyone off......ewwwwww

It rode on this ideal of changing the world or a characters view on it (Jury's feverous desire to disprove miracles that seems to happen to everyone but her). Often, these desires include revolutionising another person, which brings up the can of worms of "you can only change yourself" attitude in psychology. Which I agree with.

The main idea of true revoltion atthe end, the Akio car saga. It's an embodiment of what Akio wants, he rides apon the Ohtori (his number plate) academy to regain his powers, his revolution.

(Oh come on, you all know the academy isn't a normal place, right?)

When you watch the movie you see Anthy's Car being Utena, and Utena's car being the student council, her friends. Which brings up interesting ideas about motives...But that movie is stupid and refuse to acknowledge it!!!!!

There is also some interesting imagery in the background, baloons, animals, elephants, apples, cars, chairs, removal of clothes (it symbolises an opening of the person that wouldn't normaly happen btw!!!) that the characters seem to not notice! I think that the message in this is too easy to miss and isnt overly relevent unless you want to analyse the heck out of this series, which would be a bit of a task...

The main thing I took out of this series is Dios remains a seperate entity, as Akio was a "lord of the flies" before he was imbued with the power of Dios.

As, after all, there seems to be alot of dialog and interaction between Dios and other characters that Akio doesn't understand, in fact, the whole sword of Dios remains seperate from Akio when the duels are going on, and the whole spirit of Dios inhabiting Utena is heavily implied. But I'm not sure how far you'd get on that tangent as there isnt much beside the series to examine.

Just pay close attention or you'll get left behind with the car taking driving off without you and guys ripping their shirts off o.o (Show me a way that can't be seen as dodgey and I'll show you a liar)

Any ways, I'm done my rant for now, I just found some stuff in this series facinating and recomend you give it a try!