Utena: Adolescence Mokushiroku

WARNING!  The following review is much more a summary and a review, than just a review.  What this means is that this is VERY VERY spoiler heavy, and if you have yet to finish watching Utena TV, or have not yet seen the movie... it's not a great idea to read this, as seriously.  The ONLY way to see this movie is knowing nothing.  You do NOT want spoilers.  Capiche?  Also, forgive me, but I'm going by memory..  I might get the order of some events wrong... so sue me.  *shrugs*

The bells are ringing at Ohtori Gakuen..  a pair looks out from the window of a tower.. and a prince is seen in a garden of roses..  cut away to the angular buildings of Ohtori, shifting and sliding through the air in a surreal manner.  Thus, does the movie begin.

A starting note... this is a very different version of Ohtori than before..  some things remain, such as the Chairman's tower, but for the most part the campus is completely different.  Classrooms contain multiple, shifting chalkboards, the dueling platform is changed completely, and more...

Of course, the movie starts out in earnest with Tenjou Utena, everyone's favorite heroine (now with short hair!), being introduced to Shinohara Wakaba, everyone's favorite onion.  Wakaba shows her around the school..  tells her about various features.. and gives her the first glimpses she has of "the Prince" Arisugawa Juri, and her friend Kaoru Miki.  But of course..  Utena has eyes for only one thing.. a stained glass window above the fencing area, bearing the likeness of Kiryuu Touga.  Thus, does she go running..  thinking she sees him out of the corner of her eye..  and when she reaches him.. finds that things can't be the same, and learns of the Rose Signet.  When a rose shortly afterward gives her a signet of her own.. she becomes caught up in the duels once more, rightly thrashing Kyoichi Saionji and winning Himemiya, the Rose Bride as always.

Of course, now Anthy's a slut.  *blinks*  Ok, well she's not a slut, but she certainly is eager to please the Victor of the duels, now isn't she?  Utena avoids her advances, and Anthy notices a picture of a younger Utena and a younger Touga. OooOOoo...  Well, anywho..  exposition happens and we find out that Touga and Shiori (also known as She Who Rips Out Hearts And Jumps Up And Down Upon Them Until The Person Goes Insane) have been spending some quality time again.. Juri calls Miki unsexy.. and more such things.  Hmm..  and it seems that Kozue has been murdered.. but how?  

Utena follows Anthy, who went out for a late night stroll..  she ends up in the Dueling Arena once more, that surreal platform of a rose garden.  After trying to force some answers out of Anthy, she collapses into tears for her lost childhood, for Touga, who has become strange and distant..  and thus becomes one of my favorite scenes in the movie.  Utena falls asleep, and Anthy recovers an axe.. looking to behead Utena at first, she actually breaks a water main, flooding the garden.  When Utena wakes up.. water has filled the floor, and the stars are reflected..  she looks up at Anthy.. a smile slowly spreads across her face.. and they dance as "Toki ni Ai wa", the 'main' song of Adolescence Mokushiroku, begins to play.  Ballroom scene in FF8, eat your friggin' heart out.  ^_^  This is a scene which is absolutely beautiful..  and has to be seen.  Perhaps one of my favorite scenes in anime..  it's just..   beautiful.

Well, more exposition is available as Utena and Anthy are partners in a sketching assignment, and Anthy leads them to an observation room in the Chairman's tower.  There, after Utena sketches Anthy, Anthy begins to sketch Utena.. in the nude.  At Utena's complaint, Anthy misinterperets and also removes her clothing... which reveals to Utena the secret of the Rose Bride.  A gaping hole in the center of Anthy's chest, like a bloodless stab wound.  

Oh, and then of course, Kageshoujo Iiko and Effko show a scandalous tape which involves Nanami, Chu-chu, cows, elephants, dorks with glasses, and some lizard thingie with an umbilical cord.   Obviously the wrong tape.  And we're then treated to some comic relief from none other than Ohtori Akio, hardly the guy who, frankly, creeped the hell out of me in the TV series.  This Akio is much less a demon than an all around nice guy of a playboy.  But the ending of the tape is for later..

And suddenly, a Duel springs up.  Juri and Utena begin to duel, no doubt from Shiori's manipulations, and in front of much of the student body no less.  Utena seems to be pushing Juri back at first, but then Juri just shows off her superior sword skills, basically putting Utena in her place.  Utena's sword is lost...  but when she recovers it and rises, she has become Dios.  Yes, THAT Dios.  Juri stares, and in that time, Dios takes her rose.. while Anthy freaks out and runs.  

Scandleous tape continues as Shiori shows it to the entire student body.. and people weep over the suddenly found body of Ohtori Akio, who has been dead for some time now... buried in the Rose Garden which Anthy tended.  When Akio had drugged Anthy, and attempted to rape her (presumably..) while she was asleep, he finds that she was not asleep..  when Anthy states that she did not mind, Akio simply freaks out at what he has been doing, grabs a knife, stabs Anthy squarely in the chest, and throws himself out a window.  End tape.

Utena now is running in an attempt to find Anthy, but only finds a hallway.  With arrows pointing toward a certain door.  : ) Once she is in the Confessional Room (of the Black Rose arc fame..) and it begins to move like an elevator, on the other side of a mirror-like wall appears Touga..  over the ensuing dialogue, we learn things.  Yet another great scene in the movie, this I will not spoil, but it is perhaps the most poignant scene in the film.. although it confused me the first time, the second time it moved me.  After this scene, she exits the elevator... in front of the path to the Dueling Arena.  

Anthy, still scared, is waiting for her when she reaches the Garden.. and Utena pleas with her.   Leave the duels, end the charades.   It's time to leave Ohtori Academy for the Outside World.   However, before such a thing can happen.. a giant machine leaps from the roses.. and despite valiant efforts to keep her out of it, Anthy loses grip of Utena.. holding with her the Rose Signet as Utena disappears between giant car washers.  What follows is an utterly creepy scene.  Utena's uniform is ripped from her as Absolute Destiny Apocalypse begins to play, flying out into the garden, machines beginning to shift her, scan her..  and by the time it's all over..    the Dueling Platform has lowered, reaching the ground, the car wash has stopped, faded.. and Utena has exited as a most impressive, shiny pink car.

She begins to rust rapidly, until Anthy realizes that she holds the key, which was once the Rose Signet.  Getting into the Utena-car, she starts the motor.. dispelling the rust.  "Let's go.. to the outside world."

And now, we learn the true purpose of the Kageshoujo, the shadow girls, seeing them as they are for the first time.  They monitor Anthy's progress as she strikes out onto a long highway toward the Outside world, much like a race crew might, trying to make sure she can make it out of Ohtori Gakuen.  They give Anthy advice and such through the car's radio, but nonetheless, of course trouble springs up.   Shiori has become a car, and is doing everything in her power to stop Anthy from reaching the outside world.  That plan ends up bad when Shiori crashes and explodes.  ^_^  Good riddance!  However, now thousands upon thousands of black cars are following her..  into a tunnel, crawling up the walls, etc.  They start falling in front of Anthy, and she just plows through them, putting the Utena-car into worse and worse shape.. until a huge tank of a car appears overhead.   As it falls to crush them both, a hook pulls them to safety..  Saionji, Miki, and Juri, riding upon a Wakaba-jeep.

They part with her as Anthy draws ever closer to the exit.. until a familiar presence is seen.  Closer, and closer.. the Eternal Castle in the background..  until it begins to rise up.. the most massive castle car in existence.  Complete with exhaust pipes.  ^_^  Wheels beneath the castle are constantly moving, crushing anything beneath them.. and completely blocking the road.  Does this stop Utena and Anthy?

HELL no.  ^_^  Cue ~ Rinbu Revolution.

The Utena-car is covered in a red silk, completely repairing it, and Anthy floors it.. darting in and our of the wheels as many of the Black cars chase after her, being destroyed in the process.  But just when they make it out.. giant treads close in from both sides.. trapping the car in place, tearing it's sides to peices...

And Akio appears, walking normally upon the quickly passing pavement..  trying to discourage Anthy..  take her back to the school.  Anthy refuses..  and in the triumphant scene..  the treads burst apart, break completely, and in a flourish of rose petals, Akio is destroyed.. by Anthy and Utena bursting from him, whole and well (and nekkid ^_^;;), crying out..  everyone together now.. "Sekai o.. kakumei-suru chikara o!".

..and as they ride away on the last bits of the car.. now truly away from the grip of the dreamworld of Ohtori, where the dead remain living..  Ohtori disappears in the distance, and they wonder about their future.   Surrounding them is a mountainous, barren world.. the REAL world..  and the ruins of the Black cars lie around them.   Back in Ohtori, everyone seems to be gone.. turned to straw dolls.. the Kageshoujo, straw dolls.  And there are two straw dolls, bearing the nametags Himemiya Anthy and Tenjou Utena.   Cut back to Utena and Anthy.. they share a tender kiss...  roll credits.  ^_^

GOOD GOD I love this movie!  O_O  I don't know what I can say about it now without rambling on and on and on about nothing in particular.  But let's start with the aesthetics.

The animation in this movie is nothing short of amazing, everything fluid and moving.  Ohtori Gakuen itself is now like a living entity with the way bits of it shift and fly about the screen seemingly at random, and much of the movie is veiled in cloth and water.  Everything is extremely fluid, the cloth removing itself from things of importance, curling itself into a large cocoon..   very surreal, and yet all very beautiful to watch.  The dance scene itself is spectacular, with the water overflowing the Dueling Platform, sending roses cascading down into the academy from high above as Anthy and Utena dance, their dueling counterparts in the reflection beneath them..

..which leads me into the music.  Again, astounding..  I like the new dueling songs, personally, but the rest of the music is excellent..  bringing in both Absolute Destiny Apocalypse and Rinbu Revolution at the perfect moments, along with Toki ni Ai wa.  And the background music is wonderful as well!  To sum it up easily..  I WANT THE MOVIE SOUNDTRACK! O_O

And the character designs.. while some characters such as Juri, Shiori, Touga, and Saionji didn't change much.. most of the other changes fit.   Utena's short hair, while a bit odd seeming at first, really does fit well, as does the flowing locks she gets after pulling the Dios no Ken from Anthy's chest.  Anthy herself is VASTLY improved I feel for her character.. as she is the "prince" of the movie and Utena the bride, they have done away with Anthy's slightly mousy look, leaving her hair always down and doing away with the glasses.. giving her one of those "pretty yet sinister" looks to her.  Kudos to that.  Miki has changed little, just a slight shift in hairstyle.. nothing to right home about.. and the biggest change is easily in Akio.  He looks extremely different, now much more like Dios than before, and he comes across as a simple playboy.  Until the end, when the old Akio resurfaces.. truly a great scene in a movie full of them.. but his character is for the most part downplayed.

Symbolism out the wazoo.  This represents Adolescence Mokushiroku perfectly, in my opinion.  Everything is symbolic, the majority of the scenes have subtexts to them... to catch everything, you need to see the movie at LEAST twice.  For instance, in the scene where Juri and Miki are hanging around a garage.. a car in the background's license plate reads "Kozue"..  I couldn't even BEGIN to get into everything that is said in this movie..  though I must commend a few things.  Turning Ohtori Gakuen into sort of a dream world, a prison where people will never die.. is perhaps the greatest move for Utena.  It explains much of the surrealism, as well as setting up a true villain.. not Mikage, not Akio.. but the school itself, out to entrap people.. it makes it a living entity, and it does it well.  This could be compared to the ending of Shoujo Kakumei Utena, when Anthy leaves to go searching.  She, like her movie counterpart, has left the Academy for the Outside World.

And this is what I enjoy about the movie..  to a newcomer of Utena, it may make little sense, and yet be entertaining.  For others, it is an alternate ending to the TV series.  To me.. it's perfection.  From the little details, like the Black Cars possible representing the Million Swords which are meant for the Rose Bride, to the sweeping changes to the storyline, as with Akio and Touga, this movie IS Utena.  It encompasses the feel of the TV series perfectly.. and it seems almost only right that my favorite anime series has spawned my favorite anime movie.  

Final Rating: 10

Released by: N/A

Available: Fansubbed

Retail Price: Depends..