How About an Utena-Penguidrum Comparison? NO ONE Has EVER Made one of those!!

Alright, guys! Since my last blog post was on one of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s three big works, I wanted to make another post comparing his other two. Let me start off by saying that Revolutionary Girl Utena and Mawaru Penguindrum are some of my favorite animes that I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch, and they’re also probably some of the most philosophical, as well as hella confusing, animes that a person could ever witness.
And perhaps my favorite part about these animes was the attraction between two opposites, both with the same goal to revolutionize the world, bound to… one another… by… fate.
…………………………………………………..
Hold up. 

HOLY MOTHER OF DIOS


OK, so before I start going into my little theory, here (because I don't believe anyone else has thought of this yet), let me give a little background, and be aware that this post will contain tons of mega spoilers. 
Revolutionary Girl Utena and Mawaru Penguindrum are animes that were both produced by the same man that was responsible for Sailor Moon, Kunihiko Ikuhara. The two are almost always put up for comparison by their fans because of how many similarities that they share with one another, both in style and themes. One similarity, in particular, that most people noticed is that they both have a manipulative antagonist that has the hots for the underage pink-haired girl that just so happens to be what represents all that is good in the world. 

In Utena, we have Akio Ohtori, pedophile and man-whore, who seduces practically every character on the show, including the main character Utena, whom he fell in love with for her love and determination for others when she was a child… Which she still kind of is because, believe it or not, this freakishly tall and well-endowed lady is in middle school. Utena is a strong-willed individual who wants nothing more than to give her friend, Anthy, freedom from being the Rose Bride. In the end of the anime, Utena gives up her life, freeing Anthy, while the rest of her friends completely forget about her.

On the other hand, we have Sanetoshi Watase in Penguindrum. Sanetoshi is a charming young man, with hair just as fabulous as Akio’s, with enough charisma to make even me fall for his innocent act when he is, in fact, a terrorist. He quickly fell in love with Momoka, a child, because she could supposedly “see the same sights that he could see.” (I’ll get to the meaning of that later). Momoka, however, was a very kindhearted girl who actually possessed the ability to transfer fates, and she used this power a few times, taking the punishment at full throttle, to help two of her friends, Tabuki and Yuri, escape their misery-filled lives and live happily.

Now, in this way, we can already see some big similarities about the foil characters in these shows, and what I’m about to say may just blow your mind:
Momoka is the reincarnation of Utena, and Sanetoshi is the ghost of Akio/Dios. 
Yes, Mawaru Penguindrum may very well be Ikuhara's Utena fanfiction.
I know, exciting theory that you guys just can’t wait to shoot down, right?

Well, let's see what you think after my pieces of evidence.

Let’s go over the very small things such as minor references to Utena first. Well, both Akio and Sanetoshi manipulated redheaded playboys in their respective animes, and although I think that it was more than likely coincidence, it is something that you may want to stop and ponder about. 

Also, this is just a very small detail that I found, but did anyone else think that Utena’s funeral dress looked almost exactly like Momoka’s dress? It just struck me as very odd.





And who can forget thoe classic dip poses? Yes, I’m talking about the first ending credit picture in Utena and that library scene between Sanetoshi and Himari in episode 9. The poses are almost uncannily similar to me, and the conversations that entail are even more convincing to me of their references to one another. In the Utena picture, it is alluding to a later episode where Akio and Utena have their final confrontation, and he tries to make her leave Anthy behind and wed him so that the two of them can live happily ever after. Meanwhile, in Penguindrum, Sanetoshi places the penguin hat, one of the two current embodiments of Momoka, on Himari’s head, and tells her that it is “the veil bestowed upon the bride of fate.” What really connects these two is the fact that the Princess of the Crystal is, indeed, Momoka, so it was likely her, not Himari, that Sanetoshi was speaking to.

I think this scene alludes to a lot more, as well. Keep in mind that Utena did, indeed, seem to hold some feelings for Akio, but because of what her “prince” had become, and how much she loved Anthy, she chose to give him up, knowing it was the right thing to do. Maybe this could have been the reason that Momoka told Sanetoshi, when he tried to kiss her, “not yet.” Maybe she had meant it in the sense of “not until you regain your sense of humanity.”

And, speaking about the brides and fate, let’s talk about Anthy and Himari, shall we? Both girls share some semblance of trust with Akio and Sanetoshi, respectively. Akio was a former loving and caring big brother and role model to Anthy when she was a child while Sanetoshi serves as both Himari’s medical doctor and consultant of sorts (a role which Akio also played for Utena). And both characters serve as close companions, and tools, to Akio and Sanetoshi. While Akio did love his sister, he later became very warped and twisted, resulting in his abuse of her. In the meanwhile, it does look like Sanetoshi started out simply using Himari, since she is in possession of the penguin hat that embodies one half of Momoka, but you can slowly see him start to care for her a bit more as a person, even if he still is using her. I suppose that in a way, the feeling that both characters held for Anthy and Himari are what led to their downfall. By instructing Anthy to become close to Utena, Akio essentially guaranteed that Anthy would be freed by Utena’s love for her. In turn, Sanetoshi showing a moment of weakness and sending Himari’s scarves to Double H for her resulted in the love needed for Ringo to find the words to bring about her own revolution of sorts.

In other words: they were both killed by love, both from themselves and from others. It’s one common weakness that they have.

Well, I can think of one or two…


Now, I would also like to bring up what may arguably be the most famous line in the entire Penguindrum anime. Yes, I am talking about the boxes. For those that don’t know about this small monologue (which means that you obviously haven’t watched the anime and have simply chosen to listen to a boat-load of spoilers to two amazing animes that shouldn’t have to be spoiled to anyone), Sanetoshi is at the train station, talking about how “People bend and stuff their bodies into their own boxes.” … Sounds morbid, right? People have mulled over the meaning of these boxes, trying to find any sort of symbolism that it may contain, and I eventually managed to find my own solution to this conundrum. Two, actually. 
The first one that I came up with, before watching Utena, was that he’s talking about how unconsciously self-centered and wrapped up in their own world people typically are. That’s why all the background characters in Penguindrum are gray bathroom signs. It signifies how each character is so absorbed in their own personal lives. For example, Kanba is willing to kill hundreds of people for the sake of Himari alone; he doesn’t care about the repercussions of all those other families nearly as much as he does about his own. Even in Revolutionary Girl Utena, Utena herself, before her greater self-realization, was really just trying to free Anthy from her cruel fate as the Rose Bride to give herself some odd sense of self-satisfaction. And this applies to people in real life, too. We’re all caught up in our own personal lives, stuffing ourselves into our own little boxes of some sorts. I’m not going to claim I’m a saint, either. I’m focused on running a successful life, getting through university, becoming a better writer and artist, and running a half-assed YouTube channel on the side. 
However, when I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, I came to my second solution to the boxes, in which I found that it was an allusion to another symbol in Utena: the coffin.
In the middle of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Utena’s backstory was fully revealed to us. After the death of her parents, she willingly put herself into a coffin (or a box, if you will) and awaited death. …That is, until Akio came and found her, showing Utena something worth fighting for so that she could get her ass into gear. After that, the coffin was brought up multiple times, with many people saying that they were unable to escape from their own coffin. The coffin was also the big reveal in the finale of the anime, when Utena ultimately saves Anthy from her metaphorical coffin.
This is the reason that Sanetoshi claims that both he and Momoka can see the same sights. Why else do you think that you can actually see the background characters while Sanetoshi is in that train car, talking about boxes? He’s broken out of his own coffin, just like how Akio broke Utena out of hers. They have truly lived their lives, unbound by the restraints of death. This, in essence, would also mean that Momoka has been freed from her coffin before her own birth. In this way, we can also see how Anthy was freed from her coffin by Utena and Yuri and Tabuki from theirs by Momoka, and why the three of them can remember both their liberators and their lives beforehand, when no one else can.

Now, let’s review Momoka’s iconic possession: her magical fate-altering diary. You may notice on the cover of the diary that there appears to be what looks like a Japanese equivalent to an underwater castle. Now compare this to the upside-down castling floating in the sky- the dueling arena, if you will- in Revolutionary Girl Utena. Yes, I do think that there is a connection between these two things. For one, take note of the bubbles surrounding the castle on the diary and remember the sequence that follows when Utena gains access to the dueling arena. As she places her hand on the entrance to the arena, some sort of water droplet comes out and lands on her ring, a symbol which indicates that she has to potential to revolutionize the world. Also, you see streams of water, like fountains, pouring out as she enters. What I eventually came up with from this, coupled with the fact that the castle above the dueling arena is upside-down, is that Dios’ castle is sinking. It does, at the end of the anime, and its image is forever branded onto Momoka’s means of revolution: her diary.

I believe that this may have also been a reason why we were given so little information on the reasons as to how Momoka had a magical, fate-altering diary in her possession: it was always there, plain and simple. The power to change the lives of others through love was something she obtained when Utena gave her life to show Anthy the love she needed in order to break free from her fate. In return, she obtained the power to change the fates of others in her next life as Momoka.

Akio, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so lucky. I suppose that after Anthy left him at the end of Utena, he sort of lost that magic and charm to him, because he lost the “witch” that had sacrificed herself for the wellbeing of her prince, a kindly little boy plagued with expectations to comfort every girl and solve every problem that he came across. With this, he lost himself and tried to start anew in the form of Sanetoshi, or perhaps

Sanetoshi spawned from another part of Akio’s personality, the kind that was kind to others. Now keep in mind that Akio was never really shown to dislike people, as Sanetoshi stated that he did. Instead, I think that it was made clear that Akio selfishly wished for his own happy ending, even at the expense of his dear little sister. However, I believe that upon starting anew, without Anthy by his side, he began to truly detest the world around him. Maybe that’s why Sanetoshi is so much less touchy-feely than man-whore- I mean- Akio. You can see that Sanetoshi likes intimacy, what with his talk about kisses with Himari and those other instances where he tried to kiss her. He still has that charisma, but he no longer feels a love or attraction towards humans; instead, all he cares for is the pure, untainted heart that is Utena, or in this case, Momoka. 

Similarly, I believe that Sanetoshi also saw in Himari a little bit of that helplessness, that being of ensnarement in an unavoidable fate that was in Anthy. That is why he eventually began to warm up to her, and why he let his guard down around that little girl. I suppose that he hadn’t meant to let her win, but it was, in the end, Sanetoshi’s compassion for Himari which lead to his eventual defeat at the hands of Momoka’s magic.

And that’s my theory, as of now. I know that most of the “evidence” standing for this at the moment is either circumstantial or could be wiped off as coincidence, but it is something that I thoroughly enjoyed coming up with and gathering evidence for. I know that I probably missed a few things that would either prove or disprove this theory further, but for now, I’ll stick with it because at least I believe that Utena has lived on through the beautiful heart and soul of Momoka.
But, hey guys, that’s just a theory. An anime theory. Thanks for reading!