One of the first anime I bought on DVD was the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, mainly because I remember reading about the series in Animerica magazine when I was still watching my anime on VHS. And the series certainly got a lot of attention at the time because of the themes it addressed. And it only re-affirmed my main attraction to anime – that there is a title out that covers just about any subject matter.
The reason I though about sharing this video is because I was wandering around YouTube, something I do a lot ^^, and I decided to find the dance scene from the Utena movie; mainly because I didn’t want to dig out the DVD to watch 2 minutes. And after the movie ended, I decided to look at the related videos and saw this little gem. Granted I have been aware of this song for some time now, but never thought about it being used for an anime music video (AMV). So when I saw this the first thought that came to me was “YES…YES…This is so fitting a Utena AMV” and had to watch it. You can watch it below.
The transition from childhood to adulthood, perception of gender roles, sexual attraction ( most characters at least hint at having both same-sex and opposite-sex attractions), abuse are just some of the themes addressed throughout the story. One could even make the argument that Utena and Anthy had an interracial relationship. These are certainly themes that make for an interesting story, at least for me.
After watching this movie, I was really impressed and interested in it. I can’t remember how or why, but I found myself looking for Utena related stuff on eBay. It was there that I found replica Rose Duelist rings. So like the otaku I am, I bidded on one…and was out bidded at the last moment. Well, after a while I eventually located what I thought said “movie version” but actually what is said was “movic version.” Which was cool for me, because the design on it was certainly nice. You can see it below.
Sadly, the ring is much to small for my big fingers but its still nice to have. What I really like is that, as I said before, it has a design on it. A lot of the cosplay rings are just simple silver bands with the duelist emblem in the center. It at least makes a nice conversational piece, if you like to have conversations about cosplay items.
This is one of many anime related items I have picked up over the years. Do you collect a lot of anime related merchandise?
The only reason I really started thinking about Utena today anyway is because I was looking for pictures and video of Black Rose Dragon from the new Yu-Gi-Oh 5ds anime. Then I started to think about roses and that lead to me thinking about Utena. Strange how looking for one thing leads you to another sometimes.
