Line #36 Trivia/RevolutionaryGirlUtena


1	* ActingForTwo:
2	** In the Japanese version:
3	*** Akira Nakagawa plays Keiko Sonoda and a school girl.
4	*** Katashi Ishizuka voiced Yamada and quite a few minor roles.
5	*** Masayuki Nakata voices Touga's father, a doctor and a professor.
6	*** Aiko Wakiya's voice actress, Naoko Takano, also appeared as a schoolgirl.
7	*** Creator/HiroyukiYoshino voices Tanaka in addition to some minor roles.
8	** The English dub's principal voice actors also performed a number of supporting characters in addition to their primary roles. For example:
9	*** Besides voicing Utena Tenjo, Creator/RachaelLillis voices Chu-Chu.
10	*** Roxanne Beck voiced both Wakaba Shinohara and Kozue Kaoru.
11	*** Amanda Goodman voiced Juri Arisugawa and Keiko Sonoda.
12	*** Creator/CrispinFreeman voiced Touga Kiryuu and Dios.
13	*** Creator/KerryWilliams' memorable roles were Kanae Ohtori and Yuko Ohse.
14	*** [[Creator/JimmyZoppi James Carter Cathcart]]'s roles in addition to Miki Kaoru were Suzuki, Tanaka and Yamada.
15	*** Mari Hozumi and Aiko Wakiya are both played by Carol Jacobanis.
16	*** In addition, most of the actors voiced numerous bit parts, especially Goodman and Freeman.
17	* ActingInTheDark:
18	** Creator/RachaelLillis, the English voice of Utena, has admitted that she has never met Sharon Becker, who voiced Anthy, despite being co-leads.
19	** The dub's first director, Jim Malone, allegedly knew very little about the show's story, characters, and themes, which explains the somewhat detached performances in the early episodes. The dub shows a marked improvement in quality once Anthony Salerno took over.
20	* ActorAllusion: Anthy's rabbit song in episode 7. The Japanese word for "rabbit" is "usagi," which was also the name of the main character in ''Anime/SailorMoon'', voiced by Juri's voice actress, Creator/KotonoMitsuishi.
21	** In the musical ''Blooming Rose of Deepest Black'', when Wakaba is trying to hide the fact that Saionji is staying with her, she claims, among other things, that she's auditioning to be a superhero and says "Henshin! (Transform)", and that she's trying to banish an evil spirit by yelling "Akuryo Taisan!" Yume Takeuchi, the actress who plays Wakaba, previously played Sailor Mercury in the Sailor Moon musicals.
22	* ApprovalOfGod: Creator/KunihikoIkuhara was reportedly very happy with Creator/RachaelLillis' performance as Utena.
23	* CompletelyDifferentTitle: Was released as ''Ursula's Kiss'', its intended US title (see below), in various countries.
24	* CreatorBacklash:
25	** Not so much for the show itself, but Creator/RachaelLillis has admitted that she thought she was miscast as the voice of Utena in the English dub, and also lamented that original ADR director Jim Malone had little knowledge of the show and characters, which heavily affected her performance and the dub's quality.
26	** Creator/KunihikoIkuhara also wasn't fond of how the dub of the first episodes of ''Utena'' turned out to the point where he became much more involved in the English dub in later episodes as well as ''Anime/AdolescenceOfUtena''.
27	* CreatorsFavorite: From the English dub, Creator/CrispinFreeman (Touga), Amanda Goodman (Juri), and Creator/LisaOrtiz (Shiori) have all named ''Utena'' as one of their favorite voiceover projects.
28	* DivorcedInstallment: The franchise began as an idea for ''Anime/SailorMoonSuperSTheMovie''. Creator/KunihikoIkuhara would have made the latter's lesbian couple Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune as the primary characters, and some of his original ideas for the film would eventually be repurposed for the ''Utena'' television series.
29	* ExecutiveMeddling: ''Utena'' was difficult to pitch from square one, and Ikuhara admits to bending the truth about what they were making in order to get it made. When it came time to pitch the show to overseas markets the content was misrepresented again, but with with the cart ahead of the horse. Enoki Productions, the licensing middleman, distributed a English-localized proof-of-concept to potential buyers, casting it as quirky but upbeat ''Sailor Moon''-like fare...and when Central Park Media bought it, they ditched the localization but kept the marketing playbook. They also only got rights to the first 13 episodes and dealt with the show as if the remaining 26 episodes were none of their business. By the time they secured the rights to the rest of the show, they wisely changed their marketing approach and treated the dub a bit more seriously.
30	* GodCreatedCanonForeigner: The Sega Saturn game was created by all the original TV series team, and so the two characters and the events in the game officially count as canon.
31	* InMemoriam: The anime's 15th anniversary DVD special edition was dedicated to lead VA Creator/TomokoKawakami, who passed away the previous year.
32	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: It started out this way, with literal tapes back before the show was licensed. Then when it was picked up, it turned out that Creator/CentralParkMedia had only bought the rights to the first 13 episodes, so fans continued doing this for the remaining episodes until the rest of the series was finally picked up years later. When CPM went out of business in 2009, the show fell into legal limbo, and fan distribution became the only way to see it outside Japan again; eventually, [[http://www.theanimenetwork.com/Anime/Revolutionary-Girl-Utena/Watch the Anime Network]] started airing the series online. Right Stuf rereleased both the series and ''Anime/AdolescenceOfUtena'' in 2011.
33	* MagnumOpusDissonance: The titular Utena is widely considered to be Creator/RachaelLillis' best performance of her voice acting career (TheMovie especially), with {{approval\|OfGod}} from series creator Creator/KunihikoIkuhara to boot. As mentioned [[CreatorBacklash above]], Lillis herself thinks she was miscast for the role. And as well-regarded her turn as Utena was, it's far from her [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries most popular work]].
34	* NoExportForYou: Zigzagged with the show and ''Anime/AdolescenceOfUtena'', as explained above under KeepCirculatingTheTapes. Played straight with the Sega Saturn game and the light novels, although fan translations do exist for those to one degree or another.
35	** ''Utena'' had an [[http://ohtori.nu/analysis/introduction.html erratic broadcast history]] in English-language markets due to rights issues (and possibly censorship concerns). The English dub didn't air on television until Australia's short-lived teen network Fly TV in the early 2000s, along with a few on-demand services like Creator/AnimeNetwork and AZN in the US and Canada (and, strangely, a local station in Hawaii). [[Creator/{{Syfy}} The Sci-Fi Channel]] licensed the show in 2002 but [[FridayNightDeathSlot dumped it in their late night block]] and only aired the film and a few episodes of the Student Council arc before dropping ''Utena'' altogether. A Creator/CartoonNetwork executive has [[https://ask.fm/Clarknova/answers/141829371369 confirmed]] that they tried to license ''Utena'' for Creator/{{Toonami}} in the late '90s but weren't able to obtain it due to the CPM licensing issues.
36	** The slightly {{Bowdlerized}} Latin American Spanish dub only got 30 episodes of the TV series and didn't air the rest of it and as a result ''Anime/AdolescenceOfUtena'' was never dubbed there either, allegedly this was due to the show's controversial subject matter.
37	* OutOfOrder: The original 6th ("Curried High Trip") and 8th ("Take Care, Miss Nanami!") episodes had to be switched in the final release due to production difficulties with the former.
38	* RealitySubtext: Director Creator/KunihikoIkuhara is buddies with the [[Creator/HideakiAnno director]] of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and shares many of his interests. Considering that, it's no surprise that the show turned out the way it did.
39	* SequelGap: ''After the Revolution'' came out twenty years after the original series ended for the 20th Anniversary.
40	* SerendipityWritesThePlot: A lot of the series' direction and storytelling arose from the fact that it had a small budget. This led to StockFootage sequences repeated OnceAnEpisode, other instances of reused animation, and drawn-out dialogue scenes with little movement from the camera or characters. This saved a lot of money, but also gave the series an oddly ritualistic and surreal atmosphere, which it cheerfully leaned into.
41	* ShrugOfGod: Director Creator/KunihikoIkuhara is infamously unhelpful -- and sometimes [[TeasingCreator deliberately infuriating]] -- when it comes to explaining things about the show and even more so regarding ''Anime/AdolescenceOfUtena''. Don't expect much in the way of straight WordOfGod. Probably best demonstrated with his statement about the difference between (Series) Utena and (Movie) Utena: "In the movie, [[spoiler:she turns into a car]]."
42	* StarMakingRole: The titular Utena was the late Creator/TomokoKawakami's career-making role.
43	* StudioHop: The series was licensed for a North American release by Creator/CentralParkMedia. When it went out of business, Right Stuf acquired the rights to ''Utena''.
44	* TroubledProduction: Based on the comments of various actors involved, Central Park Media handled the English dub (or at least the first 13 episodes) in a decidedly haphazard fashion. Creator/RachaelLillis and [[Creator/JimmyZoppi James Carter Cathcart]] indicated that the directors seemed not to understand the source material and gave them very little useful direction on how to play their characters. Creator/CrispinFreeman confirmed that the translators and ADR team missed some major plot points and character beats (most notoriously, Juri's sexual orientation) which he and the other actors had to point out for them. All that and the licensing snafu mentioned above under KeepCirculatingTheTapes likely account for the dub's erratic quality and performances.
45	* UnfinishedDub: The Latin American Spanish dub was never finished and only 30 episodes were dubbed, allegedly due to the show's controversial subject matter.
46	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
47	** The re-release booklet features art of a scrapped ending sequence that heavily featured Chu-Chu.
48	** This also applies to DubNameChange. The English dub featured the original Japanese names, but Enoki Films (the American license holder) did prepare a list of English names, with the title of the show changed to "Ursula's Kiss". Utena became Ursula, Anthy to Angie, Juri to Julie, etc. However, these names did end up being used in the Latin American dub (titled "The Magic Ring"). Enoki's [[http://ohtori.nu/ursulaskiss/ webpage]] lists not only the alternate names, but several characters who aren't actually featured in the show, suggesting this might have been compiled early in ''Utena'''s development. The show was advertised as "Ursula's Kiss" during its brief television run in Australia but apparently aired with the original names intact.
49	** The re-release booklet also shows that Utena was originally going to keep the blonde hair she initially had in the manga, although her uniform color scheme went through many different ideas before they settled on the black and red. At one point, her hair was also considered to be blue, although the pink hair also showed up with other uniform color choices. Anthy also retained her white Rose Bride dress at an early point in development, before Ikuhara decided to change it to red.
50	** The same booklet features an early design for Touga that had him depicted with short blond hair, while Saionji would wear glasses and have short green hair.
51	** If a certain statement from Youji Enokido is to be believed, [[RapeAsBackstory Touga's backstory]] from ''Anime/AdolescenceOfUtena'' had been intended for his series self as well, but was left out for reasons unknown.
52	** Crossed with RealLifeWritesThePlot, on the DVD commentary Ikuhara reveals that during the series inception it was a toss-up between swords and guns for the duel scenes. They opted for the former in part because American gun crimes were being reported on Japanese news.
53	** Utena and Anthy would have been an unambiguous romantic couple in the series had Be-Papas member Creator/ChihoSaito not objected, resulting in an argument between her and Ikuhara. Thankfully, she later changed her mind and retracted any negative statements she may have had towards the pairing.
54	** The opening sequence foreshadows some elements from the ending that were scrapped, such as Anthy disappearing [[spoiler:instead of Utena]] as well as the whole armor and horses deal.
55	** Jason [=DeMarco=] says [adult swim] and/or Toonami was interesting in broadcasting the series at one point, but it didn't work out.
56	* WrittenByCastMember: Souji Mikage's voice actor, Creator/DanGreen, was one of the ADR script writers.
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Context Trivia / RevolutionaryGirlUtena