Plot

A tomboyish schoolgirl finds herself forced into repeated duels for another girl who has a role in a world revolution.

On the day of her parents' funeral, a seven-year-old girl named Utena is overwhelmed by despair until she has a miraculous encounter with a travelling prince on a white horse. The prince encourages her not to lose her strength and nobility as she grows up, and gives her a rose signet ring that he claims will lead her back to him someday. However, Utena isn't satisfied with being the princess waiting - she actually wants to be a prince herself. Seven years later, Utena (who now presents herself with a mixed male and female image) has followed the trail of her prince to the prestigious Ohtori Academy boarding school. One day, Utena attempts to defend her best friend from the abusive vice-president of the student council, and is unwittingly drawn into a secret sword-fighting competition held between its members, who all bear signet rings identical to her own. The champion of the Rose Crest Duels is awarded access to the mysterious inverted castle hanging above Ohtori Academy, "the power to revolutionize the world", and the hand in marriage of the demure and obedient "Rose Bride": a student named Anthy Himemiya. The relationship between Utena and Anthy slowly blossoms as a number of challengers emerge to fight Utena for their own personal reasons and self-actualisation. Utena grows closer to Anthy and her older brother (the charming and mature Akio Ohtori), is forced to confront the incongruities between her childhood ideals and developing sexuality, and discovers the secrets of her own half-remembered past and those surrounding the hidden benefactor of the Rose Crest Duels: a mysterious figure known as "End of the World".

This series is about a girl called Utena who was helped in a difficult time by a handsome prince. She was so impressed with him that she vowed to become a prince herself. She is attending a boarding school where she stands out with her gender bending ways and boy's uniform and makes friends with other students in school, most notably a bizarrely submissive Indian girl called Anthy. When one of her friends is publicly humiliated by her crush, Utena protests and is called out on a duel by the boy at a bizarre arena. With some difficulty, she wins and finds that Anthy is now "engaged" to her as the "Rose Bride" that is the key to a world revolution. Now, she finds herself forced to fight repeated challengers for Anthy, face similar rivalries in her personal life and tries to help Anthy gain some will of her own. All the while, the duels she must fight are leading her to a goal of world revolution that has implications she is not yet aware of.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)