Revolutionary Girl Utena Makes its Return with a New Manga

After 20 years, the “Revolutionary Girl Utena” makes its return with a new manga to release in line with creator Chiho Saito’s 35th anniversary in the manga industry.

The manga will be worked on by Saito and anime writer/director Kunihiko Ikuhara. Taking charge of the publication is Shogakukan’s Flower Comics Alpha imprint. For the story, it will be revisiting Utena and Anthy, as well as Touga, Saionji, Juri, and Miki. There will be three volumes to cover the story and the titles are as follows:

After the Revolution
Beautiful Thorns
The Eve of Their Revolution

The first volume has already been released in Japan. There is no confirmation for an overseas licensing for the volumes but it has been noted that there is a special feature in the volumes. This feature being postscripts by the creators on the making of the original manga.

It was in the June 1996 issue of Ciao that the manga series made its debut. The series ran for a year and had 5 volumes published before ending in 1997. As for the anime, it was released in 1997 and while similar to the manga, went in a different direction. The anime ran for a total of 39 episodes before ending in December 1997.

More than the anime and manga, “Revolutionary Girl Utena”, otherwise known as “Utena” has had different adaptation. These adaptations include a film, a game, and different stage plays.

“Utena” had become one of the top classic anime and has gained recognition as a highly metaphysical, surreal and allegorical shōjo series. Featured in the series were a variety of themes from feminism to queer topics to deconstructing the Prince fairytale genre.

The story of the series takes focus on a tomboyish teenage girl named Utena Tenjou. When she was young, she was impressed by a kind prince and made the decision to become a prince herself. Now she is a student of Ohtori Academy and it is there that she meets Anthy Himemiya. Discovering that she is in an abusive relationship, Utena fights to protect her.

From this Utena soon finds herself pulled into a series of sword fights with the members of the Student Council. Apparently, Anthy is what is called the “Rose Bride” and is essentially the price for every duel. It is said that the, in the end, the winner of the tournament will receive a mysterious “power to revolutionize the world”.

Source: Crunchyroll News