Adolescence of Utena

Director: Kunihiko Ikuhara

1999 / 100min / DCP

Ikuhara’s customarily off-the-wall adaptation of Chiho Saito’s manga Revolutionary Girl Utena is a head-spinning blast of subversive queer psychedelia that follows the title character, a tomboy newly enrolled at the fantastical campus of Ohitori Academy, as she engages in a succession of duels with the school’s student council in order to win the love of the mysterious Rose Bride, said to be possessed of “the power to revolutionize the world.” Chockablock with baroque visual flourish, melodramatic excess, and layered allegory, with extravagant art direction by Angel’s Egg’s Shichiro Kobayashi and a deliciously lush score courtesy Shinkichi Mitsumune.

Distributor: GKIDS