Main Characters | The Student Council Members | The Black Rose Duelists | Other Characters
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Leaders
Souji Mikage
Souji Mikage/Professor Nemuro
Voiced by: Hikaru Midorikawa (Japanese), Dan Green (English)
- Anti-Villain: Implied Trope. His goal is ultimately to stop Akio opening the Rose Gate, which is undeniably good, but brainwashing the student body into killing Anthy is probably not the best way to go about it.
- Arc Villain: Of the Black Rose arc.
- The Chessmaster: Of the Black Rose arc. He poses as a counselor to make vulnerable students into opponents for Utena.
- Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome: Utena realizes that he's responsible for the Black Rose duelists when she discovers that he kept pictures of all the people he'd brainwashed, in their brainwashed state, and openly displayed them on the walls of Nemuro Hall.
- Dead All Along: Possibly. It's unclear exactly who "Souji Mikage" is and how he relates to "Professor Nemuro". Souji could be Nemuro's ghost; or a kind of living memory manifested by Nemuro's lingering and idealised memories of childhood, and refusal to accept his actions in burning down Nemuro Hall.
- Despair Event Horizon: Weaponized, sorta. He approaches young people who are in their lowest emotional states with promises of a chance to change their worlds and end what's making them suffer by defeating Utena: it's specially obvious in the cases of people like Kanae, Wakaba, Keiko, or Tsuwabuki. And then we learn that Mikage himself also went past the DEH in his backstory, and is pushed even further in the last episode of the Black Rose arc.
- Disproportionate Retribution: All the duels he enables are this, and usually for a small or perceived slight. Mikage himself was guilty of this in the past, too; he burned down Nemuro Hall, killing a hundred people in the process, just because he saw the woman he liked making out with another man.
- Driven to Madness: Seeing his beloved Tokiko seduced by Akio made him crack big time, and Mamiya's death made things even worse.
- Dub Name Change: Sonny in the Latin American dub.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Nemuro Memorial Hall. He does his thing in an elevator decorated with pictures of butterflies (in different stages of development) and a leaf, which leads to a massive underground mausoleum where the bodies of a hundred duelists are stored.
- Even Evil Has Standards: It's implied even he was creeped out by Tatsuya's declaration that Wakaba will always come back to him no matter how she gets treated and only told him he was a "Good person" just to get him out of Nemuro Hall. Either that, or Tatsuya's feelings and self loathing over the choices made by another wasn't enough to darken him into a duelist, and at worst hit too close to home for Mikage to even wish to taint his soul.
- When Kazami comes looking for the Mikage Seminar, he gets turned away. Kazami’s fears come from genuine concern as opposed to the spite of the chosen Duelists, and Mikage can’t twist that to use against Utena.
- Expy: Of Fiore from the Sailor Moon R movie, which Ikuhara also directed. In addition to their appearances and role in the narrative, they also have the same seiyuu, Hikaru Midorikawa.
- Fake Memories: His memories of Mamiya and what really happened to Nemuro Hall.
- Foil: To Utena, pink hair and all. Utena is straightforward and well-meaning; he is manipulative and cruel. They have some similarities, too-see Shadow Archetype and Spear Counterpart below.
- The Glasses Come Off: This is reversed with him, who is unable to clearly perceive things after he loses his glasses.
- He Who Fights Monsters: In order to stop the man forcing people to duel over the Rose Bride for his own benefit, he…sends people to duel over the Rose Bride for his own benefit.
- Indirect Kiss: Tokiko's Lipstick Mark on his cup.
- Loving a Shadow: "Mamiya" is actually Anthy in disguise.
- Manipulative Bastard: How he creates Black Rose duelists. He rips them down to their basest instincts and desires, and at their lowest form he convinces them the only way to get what they want is by "revolutionizing the world," under the idea they are horrible and monstrous and can only get what they really desire by destroying the world that frowns upon them.
- Mind Rape: How he manipulates the Black Rose duelist candidates, via making them tell him their deepest traumas and frustrations and using said knowledge to recruit them to his side. It's a frighteningly good use of the "Mundane" methods.
- More than Mind Control: His entire shtick with the black roses.
- Never My Fault: He claims all of the Black Rose Duelists willingly accepted the rose and came to him of their own free will, ignoring the fact that in some instances he deliberately egged them on towards their respective breakdowns or had a hand in doing so. Shiori only went to Nemuro Hall when she found Juri's locket, which was planted in her room after Juri threw it away. Likewise, Wakaba finally broke when she saw Anthy wearing the hair clip Saionji was planning to give to her, after Mikage asked Saionji for it.
- Older Than They Look: In the present day of the story, Tokiko is a grown woman who moved on, got married, and has a normal life. But Mikage, or Nemuro, hasn't aged a day since he first met her.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Maybe. The end of the Black Rose arc suggests he was Dead All Along, with Nemuro's lingering memories and regret so powerful that they brought Souji and the Mikage Seminar (and everyone's memories of them) into existence. He may also be a self-propagating mental projection, though you may as well just call that a ghost. More confusingly, his flashback scenes don't even match up with what we know about the timeline from elsewhere.
- Playing with Fire: The reason Nemuro Hall burned down.
- Psycho Psychologist: Poses as a therapist and then brainwashes his patients to try and kill Anthy.
- Reality Warper: The reason for his continued existence: he treasured the time he spent with Tokiko and Mamiya so much that it essentially paused him in the same state forever, both physically and mentally. Unfortunately for him, Akio and Anthy are also Reality Warpers.
- Ret-Gone: After the Black Rose arc, everyone but Akio and Anthy forgets he was ever there.
- Sanity Slippage: In the final episode of the Black Rose arc. He's run out of duelist candidates, he realizes he's been Akio's pawn, Utena sees through his bullshit, and he starts hallucinating that she and Tokiko are the same person.
- Shadow Archetype: Of Utena. Both of them are living their lives to memories whose details are so far-off that they've grown blurry and idealized (Mikage's love for Tokiko, Utena and her Prince). It opens up the question of how healthy Utena's desire to be a prince is and if she's in danger of slipping down a dark path for her pursuit of the past. Though they both suffer the same fate (vanishing from the school and being mostly forgotten), Utena's has a far more positive twist than his.
- Signature Move: He's ambidextrous.
- Spear Counterpart: To Utena—pink hair, attached to a submissive person in an engagement type of situation (whose looks and names are quite similar) motivated by idealized memories.
- Driven home even further by the After the Revolution manga, in which Utena's role (of drawing her old peers back into the dueling arena to confront their problems) is a benevolent reversal of Mikage's.
- The Stoic: Was described as being akin to a "human computer."
- Teen Genius: A professor at just 18.
- There Are No Therapists: Man could really have used one. He also functions as a twisted version of a therapist in the Black Rose arc, urging the students who visit him to confess their psychological problems... Of course, having Mikage listen to your issues is really not a good way to solve them.
- Unwitting Pawn: His plan is to overthrow End Of The World and seize control of the Rose Crest Duels. Unfortunately, Akio has been using him from the very start to research ways to develop stronger Duelists and Soul Swords, and as a scapegoat for the dirtier parts of the research (such as murdering one hundred children as fodder for the creation of the Black Rose Duelists).
- White Hair, Black Heart: He has pinkish white hair and gets people to duel by pushing them to their breaking point.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Inverted with Mikage convincing the Black Rose Duelists that their baser, worse instincts are who they really are and thus they are worse than they think they are. The black roses then freeze the duelists in their respective horrible aspects and thus they try to "revolutionize the world" so it is okay for them to keep existing as these people.
Mamiya Chida (Spoiler Character)
Mamiya Chida
Voiced by: Maria Kawamura (Japanese), Liam O'Brien (English)
Click here to see the real Mamiya.
Mikage's associate who is assisting him with the growing of roses for his duelists. His purpose is to be the new Rose Bride in Anthy's place. He's a Walking Spoiler, so all entries for this characters are unmarked.
- Ambiguously Brown: He has dark skin and a bindi despite having a fully Japanese name. It turns out that the real Mamiya had a lighter skin tone; the only reason he appears Ambiguously Brown is because Anthy is impersonating him.
- Dead All Along: The real Mamiya died some decades ago, while Mikage was still a professor.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Anthy takes over his identity to fool Mikage into believing that Mamiya is still alive.
- Delicate and Sickly: Had some kind of terminal illness, which brings up the question of how he's still around. Of course, the truth is that he died of his illness some time ago and the Mamiya we see now is actually Anthy.
- Dub Name Change: Miles in the Latin American dub.
- Facial Markings: Wears a bindi, just like Anthy, since Anthy is actually impersonating him.
- Identical Stranger: To Anthy. Considering that the Mamiya we see is actually Anthy, and that his real appearance was completely different, this is actually subverted.
- She's a Man in Japan: The Latin American dub refers to him as female on his first appearance (inverting his conversation with Souji where originally opposed being the Rose Bride due to being male). He goes back to being male in later episodes.
- Spear Counterpart: To Anthy, since he looks like a male version of her. Subverted, since Mamiya really is Anthy.
- The Stoic: Tends not to show much emotion.
- Un-person: No one but Mikage and the Black Rose Duelists know he exists, and they forget him once their roses are destroyed.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about him without revealing that we don't actually know anything about him, since the one we see is Anthy.
- Youthful Freckles: The real Mamiya had freckles.
Black Rose Duelists
The Duelists in general
Members of the student body who were brainwashed by Mikage’s patented seminar to fight Utena, in the name of killing the Rose Bride.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: To an extent. While they were all driven to Mikage by their own doubts and fears, it’s his brainwashing that redirects those feelings towards defeating Utena and obtaining the power to revolutionise the world.
- Knights of Cerberus: Their arrival increases the stakes of the anime: now Anthy’s life is on the line, instead of just her marriage.
- Moveset Clone: All of them take swords from a member of the Student Council, and Utena notes they fight particularly similar to the person they got their sword from.
- Walking Spoiler: All of them are previously introduced characters. The fact they fight Utena at all is a twist.
Wakaba Shinohara
Wakaba Shinohara
Voiced by: Yuka Imai (Japanese), Roxanne Beck (English) Foreign VAs
- The Ace: After sheltering Saionji in her room and gaining his attention (so she believes), Wakaba becomes one of these, with a montage showing her excelling in all her academic and athletic classes. It's implied that she was always this talented, but having Saionji act as a Magic Feather caused her confidence to rise.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Poor girl is madly in love with a guy who is openly abusive to women. Due to missing the Aesop of her storyline in the Black Rose arc, it's implied that she will continue with similar romantic obsessions in the future.
- All Love Is Unrequited: With Saionji, though by the end of the series she's gotten over him.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the movie, she becomes a car as well allowing the Student Council to help Utena and Anthy. If not for Wakaba, the Locust Cars would've crushed the duo before they could escape.
- Cool Car: Becomes a car in the movie. Hers is much less cool than the other characters' cars, though, possibly representative of her story arc in the series.
- Dark Action Girl: Out of all the female Black Rose Duelists, she's the most brutish. She literally rips Saionji's sword out of his chest, and handles Utena like a rag doll in their duel, nearly dragging her friend by her hair.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of Social Circle Filler characters like Naru from Sailor Moon, who are introduced as the protagonist's friends before gradually fading in relevance to the plot. Wakaba, for her part, is driven by a desire to be special like Utena and Saionji and knows they have something she doesn't. So when she finally acquires that special something through Saionji living with her, she begins to enjoy her new status until she realizes it's not permanent. Her happiness turns to rage and, when she becomes one of Mikage's duelist, she doesn't hesitate to try and kill Anthy and almost murders Utena while screaming about what it's like to get trampled on by the actual special people of the world. Despite this, it's shown that Utena does genuinely treasure her and Wakaba's friendship, and is dismayed at having to fight her best friend.
- Driven by Envy:
- Dub Name Change: Wanda in the Latin American dub.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of the series she's no longer pining over Saionji, her friendship with Tatsuya seems to be in a better place (but they don't appear to be lovers) and she now has a new best friend who dotes on her the way Wakaba doted on Utena.
- Genki Girl: She has a Motor Mouth, an overactive imagination, and almost knocks Utena out of a window more than once as part of a recurring gag sequence. And she is fast - fast enough to make people who anger her regret it. Beware the Nice Ones.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Smacks Utena out of her self-pity when she's going through a Heroic BSoD after losing to Touga.
- The Glomp: She does this to Utena a lot, almost knocking her out of a window.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: She thinks she's not nearly as great or "special" as Utena is. Despite this, it's shown that Utena greatly values their friendship and she also has quite a few other friends who admire her.
- I Can Change My Beloved: Some analysis declare this is her deal with being in love with Saionji. She sees him as a Troubled, but Cute guy that just needs someone to shows him true love to change.
- I Just Want to Be Special: A deep analysis of her character reveals that, as she's conscious that she's just an average girl, she can only feel special when around special people. As Wakaba is an innate nurturer, she feels special when special people, like Utena, rely on her. When Saionji was freeloading in her room, it was her dream come true: the troubled special guy was relying on her and appreciating her. When she believes that Anthy steals him away, her elevator confession reveals that she felt she was close to becoming special herself but her chance was foiled.
- Irony: Underneath her cheery exterior, Wakaba desperately wants to be special, to be something other than a tertiary side character. Little does she know it, but out of all the side characters, Wakaba actually does very well for herself. Wakaba believes the only way she counts as a special person is by keeping Saionji in her room, since he now relies on her. She doesn't realize how important she is overall to the narrative of the story, and isn't phased out of the story once the main character becomes associated with the other main characters, nor does she recognize how many people besides Utena already liked her. When Wakaba becomes a duelist, she is the only one Utena won't draw the Sword of Dios on and slashes Wakaba's rose using her own strength without ever letting Wakaba fall, something she never does with any of the others. She's the only Black Rose duelist to remain as a supporting character throughout the show without being regarded as a complete Satellite Character, her storyline receives a proper conclusion by the last episode, and in the movie she proves pivotal in helping Utena and Anthy escape from Ohtori. She also happens to be one of the last of the main characters seen at the very end of the movie after Utena and Anthy.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: When she duels Utena, and how. This trope describes all of the Black Rose Duelists, but most of them already had something wrong with them; Wakaba was very innocent and her personality as a duelist is very aggressive.
- Love Letter Lunacy: She sends Saionji a love letter. He scoffs it, and it ends up put on display and mocked by other students. Poor Wakaba collapses crying, and Utena steps in to defend her honor... via challenging Saionji to a duel.
- Painting the Medium: During her Character Filibuster as a Black Rose duelist, a variation on the theme music associated with the main characters plays, but strained and in a lower key, implying that even though she is doing better than usual, she is still not up to par with the more "meaningful" characters she admires.
- Ms. Exposition: Her role in the first arc is basically to introduce our main characters to Utena. Later on she becomes a more complete character.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: The trigger Mikage used to break her was having Saionji give him the handmade hairpin he was planning to give to Wakaba and instead giving it to Anthy. Thinking Saionji gave it to her, Wakaba became a Black Rose duelist and was the only one who actively tried to kill Anthy in the dueling arena before the duel even started.
- The Nondescript: Subverted. She thinks she's this and it causes her distress, but she stands out far more than she believes and proves to be a good friend to Utena even if she's not aware of the dueling game.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the movie, she took the initiative to transform into a car so Juri, Miki and Saionji could help Utena and Anthy escape Ohtori even though the four of them aren't ready to leave just yet.
- Small Role, Big Impact: She's a fairly minor character despite being Utena's best friend, but her crush on Saionji is essentially what kicks off the plot; when Wakaba sends Saionji a love letter and he puts it on display to mock her, Utena stepping in to defend Wakaba is what gets her involved in the duels.
- Take That, Audience!: During the Black Rose arc, her character is meant as an indictment of bored, dissatisfied fans who wish they had adventures like those of anime and manga protagonists.
Kozue Kaoru
Kozue Kaoru
Voiced by: Chieko Honda (Japanese), Roxanne Beck (English) Foreign VAs
- Ambiguously Bi: In episode 26, she flirts with Anthy while the two of them are in the car, and even looks like they at least make out. This ends up making Miki lose his focus while he's dueling Utena for the second time. What makes it ambiguous is whether Kozue was sincere in her flirting or just trying to get a rise out of Miki, or was she brainwashed by End of the World, or was she an illusion.
- Ascended Extra: From the manga to the anime, where she gets more fleshed out and a near total personality overhaul.
- Attention Whore: Deconstructed; her inferiority complex with regards to her brother makes her think that negative attention is the only kind she can get, hence her promiscuous behaviour.
- Character Exaggeration: Kozue in the manga was a very different character from Kozue in the anime, to say the least. Basically, she was just bratty and overprotective of Miki, and she certainly didn't act promiscuous or shove anyone down flights of stairs.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: In the manga, and overtly so.
- Cool Car: Shows up as one in End of the World's garage in the movie.
- Creepy Twins: Miki is a sweet boy in nearly every respect, but Kozue more than makes up for that!
- Curtains Match the Window: Blue eyes and hair.
- Damsel in Distress: Becomes one of these in the manga and light novel, forcing Miki (who, in these versions, had been completely opposed to the dueling game beforehand) to duel against Utena in order to save her.
- Defiled Forever: Subverted in After the Revolution, she thinks this is why Miki isn't interested in sleeping with her. He doesn't actually care about that. It is his aversion to Twincest that stops him.
- Demoted to Extra: In the movie, she doesn't have much of a role compared to the anime.
- Dreadful Musician: Downplayed since she's not outright terrible, but when Kozue plays the piano in the present day, it's quickly made evident that she's rather mediocre compared to Miki, making a lot of mistakes as she plays. While Miki remembers Kozue being just as skilled as he was when they played duets together, this is due to heavy Nostalgia Filter on his end; Kozue herself admits that she was never as good as Miki.
- Faux Action Girl: As a Black Rose Duelist and the wielder of Miki's soul sword, her poor repertoire is apparent in her battle with Utena. This refers to the fact that she's nowhere near as competent as her brother, and also a nod to her subpar piano skills in comparison to his.
- Freudian Excuse: When Miki was unable to attend their piano recital when they were younger, not only was it revealed Kozue was a sub-par player on her own, but being alone in front of the crowd clearly traumatized her. And while Miki is the series' Nice Guy, he hasn't treated her with the same affection since she stopped playing the piano and projects her childhood self onto Anthy. No wonder the girl has issues.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Don't take her brother's attention from her. Just... don't.
- Half-Identical Twins: While she and Miki are necessarily fraternal, she looks almost identical to him aside from her hair being slightly longer and a different shade of blue. When Utena sees both of them together for the first time, she even comments on how similar they look to one another.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: Show attention or attraction to her brother around her, or worse, hurt him? You're in for it big time.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The reason why she puts herself in great danger to save an abandoned bird nest placed in the branches of a tree that was about to be cut down is that she saw herself in the birdies, as they were abandoned by their bird parents
- Parental Abandonment: See Miki's section. Kozue isn't exactly fond of their parents.
- Polar Opposite Twins: She and Miki are this trope and also one of the several Red Oni, Blue Oni pairs in the series. Miki is polite, thoughtful, and very accomplished but also very inhibited. Kozue is direct, self-centered, and does not seek anyone's acknowledgement or permission for anything - unless it's Miki.
- Really Gets Around: She invokes this to get Miki's attention.
- Satellite Character: She is only relevant in episodes that heavily focus on Miki.
- Theme Twin Naming: "Kozue" means "treetop" while "miki" means "trunk".
- Twincest: Implied, particularly in the movie.
- More blatant in the 20th anniversary manga. Wherein Kozue is openly attracted to her brother, going so far as to try kissing him in his sleep (she was rejected), and actually kissing him when she came to him in the middle of the night, claiming that her husband had abused and potentially sexually assaulted her, claiming she was in love with another man. It was to the point that, after the second mentioned rejection by her brother, she went into a state of catatonia. She does make an effort to develop a healthier relationship with Miki by the end of the manga, though.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Miki certainly thinks so, and he holds her up on it big time despite the fact that his childhood memories are... biased, to say the least.
- Yandere: Over Miki.
Shiori Takatsuki
Shiori Takatsuki
Voiced by: Kumiko Nishihara (Japanese), Lisa Ortiz (English)
- Adaptational Sexuality: There's decent evidence in the series that Shiori is a deeply-closeted lesbian. Shiori in the movie is genuinely attracted to Touga (or her perception of him), and shows no sign of reciprocating Juri's feelings.
- Always Someone Better: Shiori feels this way about Juri, believing that Juri is more beautiful and talented than her and loathing her for it.
- Ambiguously Gay: She has repressed feelings for Juri.
- Ascended Extra: She was only ever really important to the episodes focusing on Juri. She graduated to one of the villains in the movie.
- Adaptational Villainy: While no peach in the series, the movie upgrades her to an even more destructive force in Juri's life. Because she implies Juri was the girl her "prince" drowned trying to save, she manipulates Juri's affections towards her to force Juri to be her prince instead and uses this to manipulate her into a duel with Utena.
- Attention Whore: Shades of this in her character, though it's more like she just wants positive attention from someone who can actually make her feel good about herself.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: A soft-spoken girl capable of extreme cruelty.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Due to her cripplingly low self-esteem. Utena initially thinks Shiori regrets what she did to Juri and nags Juri about forgiving her so they can be friends again, not realizing Shiori is upset but only because she used the wrong tactic to hurt Juri. She plays this up further in the movie where she's soft spoken as she tries to manipulate Touga into dueling Juri, then manipulates Juri into dueling Utena.
- Cool Car: Turns into one and attacks Utena in the movie.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Utena makes rather quick work of her in their duel.
- Dark Action Girl: As a Black Rose Duelist. And in the movie as a car.
- Defiled Forever: It's heavily implied that she and Ruka had sex while in Akio's car and because of this and her low self-esteem, it's implied that her over-the-top begging for Ruka to not dump her is because she feels that now nobody would ever want her.
- Disturbed Doves: When she loses her Black Rose duel.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She rejects Juri's attempt to console her after Ruka dumps her. She's also convinced that the only reason Juri was friends with her in the first place was because she felt sorry for her, which has made her extremely bitter.
- Drives Like Crazy: In the movie. While trying to ram Anthy off the road, she doesn't seem to notice that she's about to crash into a fork in the road.
- Driven by Envy: Her jealousy of Juri is what first drives her to duel.
- Dub Name Change: Sally in the Latin American dub.
- Evil All Along: Played with. Her confession in the elevator reveals she's secretly hated Juri since they were kids, out of jealousy and a sense that Juri only pitied her. She also reveals she purposefully tried to steal that boy when she believed Juri loved him for the sake of hurting her. And once she finds out Juri loves her, she gets pleasure out of knowing how miserable Juri is and wonders where she can take it from there. What stops Shiori from going full on evil is that, deep down, she's really not happy with this situation at all and wonders why things have to be this way. Mostly because she realizes her biggest problem is that she knows what she's doing is wrong, but is too weak to avoid the temptation.
- Evil Knockoff: As a Black Rose Duelist and wielder of Juri's sword soul; Utena comments that Shiori fights exactly like Juri, but easily defeats her, referring to Shiori's jealousy of Juri and being second-best compared to her.
- Gayngst: Depending on interpretation, part of the reason for her self-hatred is her internalized homophobia towards herself over her feelings for Juri.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Believes that Juri was always better than her at everything, and that she was only pretending to be friends with her in order to look down on her.
- Incompatible Orientation: Truthfully, this is the least of the problems between Juri and Shiori. Actually subverted; it's strongly hinted that she has her own romantic feelings for Juri, and this has been confirmed by the director. Their relationship also appears to have improved by the end of the series.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: While not exactly acting "superior" she certainly acts a lot more confident than she actually feels, mostly to hide a horrible self image.
- Innocently Insensitive: Juri calls her "cruelly innocent", referring to the fact that Shiori hurt her without realizing that she was the person Juri was in love with. Even so, she is willing to do deliberately harmful things because of her inferiority complex.
- It's All About Me: In the movie, when, after she becomes a car, she rants to Anthy that the only who deserves to escape from Ohtori is "beautiful me. Me. Me. Me! Me! Me, me, me, me, ME!!!"
- Lack of Empathy: In the movie, while Touga talks about how he was sold into sexual slavery as a child, Shiori barely seems to care as she keeps trying to convince Touga to duel Juri while saying how "Disgusting" Juri is because of her locket and the rumor that started because of it. She seems to think what Juri's done to her (how she "Killed" Shiori's prince, the locket) is on the same level as the horrible abuse Touga was put through.
- Macabre Moth Motif: In the movie. She technically becomes a Cabbage White butterfly, but the disturbing context of the scene as well as what the butterflies represent (mainly parasitism and cruel innocence) are more in line with this trope.
- The Nondescript: Considers herself to be plain and ordinary in comparison to the beautiful and talented Juri.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: Downplayed in the film, where her uniform is almost the same as the other female students', but with many frills added.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In After the Revolution, she's mellowed out considerably over the last twenty years and is now Juri's close friend and manager.
- Poor Communication Kills: Granted she does try to communicate once and Juri isn't the easiest person to talk to but a lot of her and Juri's relationship issues could be eased if they talked to each other. Shiori's tendency to bottle up her bitter feelings to a festering point really doesn't help her case.
- Psychological Projection: Shiori believes that Juri's kindness towards her was only ever Condescending Compassion, but this perception is implied to be distorted by her own self-loathing.
- Red String of Fate: As seen in Juri's past memories of her in episode 7.
- Satellite Character: She's only relevant in episodes that explicitly focus on Juri. She moved out of this in the movie where she began associating with Touga and even fought Anthy and Utena on her own and lost.
- Selective Obliviousness: When Juri tries to warn her away from Ruka because she's worried about her, Shiori misinterprets her words as jealousy and thinks she's awful for it.
- Self-Deprecation: To the extreme; she calls herself "useless" and cannot believe that anyone could genuinely like her.
- Self-Serving Memory: In the movie, as she's recounting her so-called relationship with Touga before his death, she mentions that "My Prince and I were going to go steady." Considering he was still in a relationship with Utena at the time, chances are she's either lying or that's how she remembers it. (On the other hand, Touga could very well have been two-timing, even at that young age. This is Touga we're talking about, after all, and we only get so much insight into his character in the movie.)
- Shrinking Violet: She appears friendly on the inside but deep down she suffers from a lack of self-confidence. She doesn't let this trope out until Ruka breaks up with her.
Kanae Ohtori
Kanae Ohtori
Voiced by: Ai Orikasa (Japanese), Kerry Williams note (English)
- Arranged Marriage: To Akio.
- Cute and Psycho: When this girl snaps, she snaps. Being practically Mind Raped by Mikage and Mamiya did NOT help.
- Dark Action Girl: The very first one introduced in the Black Rose arc. Her fight with Utena was short, given she's not a Duelist at all, but she does provide Utena with a bit of stress.
- Dark Mistress: Heavily deconstructed. She's nothing more than another pawn, as Akio uses sex to control anyone he can; it's even heavily implied that he kills her later, just to demonstrate how ultimately unimportant she was to his plans.
- Disposable Fiancé: She's introduced as Akio's fiancee but Akio uses her power, cheats on her with everyone including her mother and maybe even literally disposes of her.
- Downer Ending: Out of all the duelists, Kanae is the only one not shown in the Book Ends montage towards the end. The last we see of her is, well...
- Dub Name Change: Kate in the Latin American dub.
- Meal Ticket: The only reason Akio is with her is so he can stay as the acting chairman and have the planetarium for his personal use.
- Princess Classic: Kanae is the daughter of a wealthy family, beautiful, elegant, charming, gentle, and seemingly endlessly pleasant. However, it's deconstructed when her elevator confession shows that she can't handle her darker emotions (like her deep dislike of Anthy), which causes her to be manipulated by Mikage into becoming a Black Rose Duelist. In addition, like many helpless princesses in fiction, Kanae has little power or control over her own life, and is little more than a manipulated pawn for Akio; it's even implied late in the series that he kills her once she's no longer useful to him.
- Sanity Slippage: She's really paranoid about Anthy due to the latter's Stepford Smiler nature.
- Stepford Smiler: Kanae initially appears to be The Ojou but she confesses during her elevator session that she cannot stand Anthy because something about her future sister-in-law unnerves her. At her lowest, Kanae confesses no matter how hard she tries she simply can't pretend to keep liking Anthy and the idea that this is a failing for her causes Kanae to despair.
- Teach Her Anger: Her elevator confession is all about realizing that, no matter how much she tries to like her, Kanae actually hates Anthy.
- Tempting Apple: In the third arc, Akio and Anthy feed a BSODing Kanae an apple pin-cushioned by forks. It is strongly implied that they're poisoning her, and the apple also obviously stands for Anthy's swords of hate. One of the background music tracks, which normally plays during Akio and Anthy's familial bonding is called "Fruit of Sin", as well. Make of that what you will.
- Uncertain Doom: The last time we see her, she's sporting Dull Eyes of Unhappiness and remains unresponsive as Akio and Anthy hand-feed her pieces of an apple, itself nightmarishly stabbed with dozens of forks. With the knowledge that Anthy and Akio do, in fact, use poison to maintain the chairman's illness, along with how Kanae is conspicuously absent during the anime's denouement... the implications aren't great.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Being engaged to Akio gives him the status as the chairman of Ohtori Academy. However, she's nothing more than another pawn, as Akio uses sex to control anyone he can; it's even heavily implied that he kills her later, just to demonstrate how ultimately unimportant she was to his plans.
Keiko Sonoda
Keiko Sonoda
Voiced by: Akira Nakagawa (Japanese), Amanda Goodman note (English) Foreign VAs
- Backstabbing the Alpha Bitch: Eventually turns on Nanami after Touga feeds her a horrible pack of lies, most prominently the "fact" that he and Nanami aren't related. This is immediately averted when Nanami gives her and her other two friends an offscreen beatdown and then they're all back with complying with her orders.
- Beta Bitch: It's clear that Keiko is the one who leads Aiko and Yuuko, judging by the fact that she's often to one to slap Anthy, is usually at the front of the group, and the one who has the most lines and focus.
- Boss Banter: Though most Black Rose Duelists usually ramble on about their means of undergoing corruptions, Keiko's is the most talkative. Granted, none of them were to begin with and their temporary competency comes from the Soul Swords they wield which came from the Council members, but Keiko barely makes an effort to fight Utena and just goes on about her love for Touga.
- Cinderella Plot: Subverted. At first, Keiko seems to follow this tale straight to the point of parody, Nanami being a sorta "evil stepmother"... But then her attitude to her "prince" appears to be much more "rose-bridish" than "cinderella-esque". And as she gets close to Touga at last, she switches roles with Nanami, starting to humiliate her. To crown the subversion, she ends up beaten and "princeless".
- Cute and Psycho: Keiko acts notably more unhinged after being made a Black Rose duelist.
- The Dog Bites Back: Keiko finally pays Nanami back for her abusive treatment of her, particularly back in the Black Rose arc, when she makes out with her brother Touga and gets to slug Nanami in the face.
- False Friend: Only pretended to be Nanami's friend so that she could get closer to Touga, and wastes no time in ditching her when the opportunity presents itself. This, however, tends to go both ways, as Nanami makes it clear that she views Keiko as more of a servant than a friend and will have her blacklisted if she deems her disloyal, with the other two in the posse following suit.
- Forgettable Character: Taken to new heights when the audience realizes that Utena doesn't even know her name until after she duels her and Anthy mentions it to her.
- Girl Posse: A member of Nanami's three-girl clique, along with Aiko and Yuuko. Keiko is usually the front-and-center one who does the most talking. And the most bitch slapping.
- Girlish Pigtails: Keiko's signature hairstyle.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Does this once after Nanami makes her miss out on seeing Touga at a party.
- Umbrella of Togetherness: She shares an umbrella with Touga, which enrages Nanami.
- Who's Laughing Now?: After much verbal abuse and mistreatment from Nanami while having to suck up to her as her Beta Bitch, Keiko delights in mocking Nanami when she's lost status due to the belief that she and Touga are not blood-related siblings, and in making out with Touga behind Nanami's back as well.
Mitsuru Tsuwabuki
Mitsuru Tsuwabuki
Voiced by: Akiko Yajima (Japanese), Ted Lewis (English) Foreign VAs
- Adorably Precocious Child: Deconstructed. His confused relationship with the concept of adulthood leads him to become a Black Rose duelist, and his innocence ends up being quite creepy at times.
- Ambiguous Innocence: He is an uncannily competent grade-school boy who has a crush on Nanami. He also has been stalking her and, at one point, he placed her in a series of deadly situations so he can rescue her, apparently not realizing that this is very bad.
- Badass Adorable: Sure, the main characters spend pretty much all their free time having sword fights to bring about the World Revolution (whatever the heck that means), but all they ever really do is try to knock something off each other’s shirts. Nine-year-old Tsuwabuki, on the other hand, gets jumped by three high-schoolers, and he takes them all. That kid has got spunk. His duel with Utena lasts longer than Nanami's first, since he utilizes Nanami's blade and dagger combo much earlier than Nanami did. In fact, the only way Utena could beat Tsuwabuki was by first getting the bigger sword out of his hands and then cutting the rose off.
- The Chew Toy: His horrible luck is played for utter comedy, even in his Black Rose episode.
- Combat Pragmatist: In his Black Rose episode he attacks Utena before she can even draw the Sword of Dios; he also puts to good use the intrinsic advantages of dual-wielding against someone with a single weapon.
- Creepy Child: Has a cheerful demeanor, but initially places Nanami in a series of deadly situations so he can rescue her, apparently not realizing that this is very bad. Also qualifies during his tenure as a Black Rose duelist where the amount of stress and frustration he was dealing with most likely led to that destructive desire.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Tsuwabuki is practically Nanami's lackey, but he's happy with just being by her side and being useful to her. In his Black Rose episode, he wants to be more than that and snaps.
- Dual Wielding: Wields Nanami's sword and knife as a Black Rose duelist.
- Foreshadowing: Mitsuru's debut episode blatantly spells out an otherwise subtle Central Theme for the entire show: that the stations of heroes and Princes depend on helpless (female) victims to rescue, and that the easiest way to find such a victim is to make one. However, since his antics are Played for Laughs, it's almost a Sarcastic Confession from the writers.
- Forgotten First Meeting: He first saw Nanami when she was little and he was at kindergarden.
- I Just Want to Be You: He wants to be just like Touga... so that Nanami will lavish him with the adoration she normally holds for him.
- Indirect Kiss: His chocolate bar, which had a bite taken out by his friend Mari.
- Just a Kid: His Black Rose episode make him realize he's still a kid, so he desperately wants to be an adult to be at the same level as Nanami.
- Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: When the object of your affection is Nanami of all people, you have issues.
- Oblivious to Love: To push the tragedy of his one-sided attraction to Nanami further, Tsuwabuki is presumably oblivious to the fact that a girl closer to his age named Mari is through several blatant hints to liking him. He's so focused on trying to become an adult he's ignorant to Mari's feelings and pass off her interactions with him as Mari making fun of him.
- The One Guy: The only male student that was lured by Mikage that actually became a Black Rose duelist.
- Satellite Character: For Nanami, serving as her personal lackey and attendant ever since his first appearance. Deconstructed in his Black Rose episode, as it's demonstrated that he barely has any friends outside of his servitude towards Nanami, and the one friend of his we do see, he ignores in favor of working himself to the bone for Nanami, which even she notes is a bit concerning. In addition, when it's made clear that Nanami doesn't take him seriously, it just makes his mental state worse, setting him up to be manipulated by Nemuro.
- Stalker with a Crush: A clipshow episode shows Tsuwabuki following and spying on Nanami since the start of the series. Which leads to him plotting to make her fall in love with him. Surprisingly for this anime, it's only played for laughs.
Introduced in this arc
Tatsuya Kazami
Tatsuya Kazami
Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu (Japanese), Greg Abbey note (English)
- Bait-and-Switch:
- He was sure that Wakaba still had feelings for him like he still has for her, and the ambiguous conversation they have about "being true with your feelings" make it look like they're going to end up together. Then Wakaba hopes him to found someone special as she thanks him for his advice and goes to see her true prince, Saionji.
- His elevator scene in Nemuro Hall, which ends with Mikage rejecting him as a candidate to be turned into a duelist. This could be because he is the only visitor who blames himself for his problems, while the other Black Rose Duelists blame someone else.
- Dogged Nice Guy: To Wakaba. Upon hearing him confess his self-hatred for not being good enough for Wakaba to love him, Mikage calls him "a genuinely good person" and sends him home instead of turning him into a Black Rose Duelist. And immediately afterwards, Mikage uses this new knowledge to target Wakaba as the next Black Duelist.
- Embarrassing Nickname: "Prince Onion", since in Japanese referring to something as onion-make means it's shoddy or second-rate.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Over Wakaba. Despite this, he is rejected as a Black Rose Duelist... possibly because he doesn't blame her for not loving him, but blames himself for not being good enough for her.
- Nice Guy: A theory says that, unlike others, Tatsuya wants a healthy relationship with Wakaba instead of forcing her into being with him, and that's why Mikage said that he's truly a nice person. Others believe he is a "Nice Guy" in the sense he is typical of the type of men who exist in the world and already benefit from the way society treats women, whereas all the other Duelists were told they had to "revolutionize the world" in the sense they must destroy the world as is to get what they want.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Wakaba. His frustration with being this and not getting the story ending he wanted is what drives him to visit the Mikage Seminar.
Tokiko Chida
Tokiko Chida
Voiced by: Noriko Hidaka (Japanese), Tara Sands note (English)
- Expository Hairstyle Change At the end of episode 22, we see her as an older woman. Her formerly short hair has grown much longer.
- Only Sane Man: It's safe to say that Tokiko is probably one of, if not the, sanest person ever to grace the hallowed halls of Ohtori Academy.
- The One That Got Away: To Mikage, in the anime.
