#utena game

[ladyloveandjustice]

A Ranking of the '4 Days of Ohtori: Someday My Revolution Will Come' Revolutionary Girl Utena Game Endings

I was commissioned to do a post ranking the endings of the Revolutionary Girl Utena dating sim based on quality and enjoyment! I did a liveblog for it for it a while ago, see here. If you know nothing about the game, I think you should read it and then come back to this post. It's a fun liveblog!

I was also asked to talk about if any of the endings work out well for the main character (who I call Purple Pigtails).

Basically all of the endings aren't ideal for Perfect Pigtails. Her dad is sick enough she has to leave Ohtori to help him iirc, she doesn't ever get to reconcile with Chigusa even though she badly wanted to (it's implied she had a crush on her despite everything, but she had to basically kill her). She also knows her dad's a piece of shit now, and that both her parents lied to her. I doubt she'll ever trust them again. She may even hate her Dad now. Her family was a lie, and that's very sad. On top of that, several of the endings imply she may come back to Ohtori which is honestly not a good thing for her!!! So none of them really work out for her, but I'm going to talk about which ones work out for her the least and the most as I rank the endings.

My favorite endings of the Utena video game, from best to worst:

Juri Ending

So, after much deliberation my favorite ending is the Juri one. The fact that her response to Purple Pigtails falling in love with her is "sorry, can't just enter a healthy lesbian relationship because I am super committed to this toxic one. You know that girl I painfully pine over while starting at her in my locket? That locket I wish I could throw away? Well I'm giving you your own pining locket to torment you with MY picture. We can be sad lesbians together."

It's just so Juri. Has to spread her unhealthy behavior everywhere. I don't think she knows any other way to deal with this stuff except to put it in a locket, keep it a secret and stare at it longingly. So she assumes Purple Pigtails needs that too. It's just...incredibly funny but also incredibly sad.

Does this ending work out for Purple Pigtails? Not really, no, she has to leave her crush behind and mirror Juri's unhealthy behavior. As long as she has that locket she can never move on or find a girlfriend. I will say she's better off than Juri though, because at least her crush doesn't try to actively torment her every chance she gets. I also think she's more likely to eventually put away the locket than Juri. She only knew Juri four days and isn't quite as fucked up as her. But then again, I could see her go on a similar quest to find Juri someday, like Utena did for her prince...but I don't think Juri will ever be in the position to be what she needs, even if she's healed and moved on. Because no real princes exist.

Then again, the fact Purple Pigtails was able to leave Ohtori at all means she was able to grow up and move on herself. She's accepted that her childhood was never what she thought it was...so maybe such a quest is unlikely. Maybe she will move on pretty quickly. Or maybe being obsessed with Juri means she will be welcomed back to Ohtori soon...

Anthy ending

My second favorite ending is the Anthy ending. The only reason it's lower than the Juri ending is that the washing each other's back scene is a little uncomfortable to watch, knowing Purple Pigtails has no trouble coercing sexual favors from Anthy. Whether this is all part of Anthy's plan or not, she is likely not enjoying this...and yet it's framed fairly comedically, which feels weird.

But otherwise? God it's perfect, so wonderfully absurd, so wonderfully Anthy. Her plan here is so elaborate and there are so many layers. There's also the question of why the hell she even did all this, which is so intriguing.

The way she's so direct with Purple Pigtails, her resentment and cynicism coming out, is great. Purple Pigtails is pretending she wants her, but she only wants power.

She also actively sabotages Utena in the fight in order get with Purple Pigtails. Why?

But after that, she also sabotages Purple Pigtails, deliberately keeping her up all night with uh. possibly sex, (again, uncomfy) to ensure she'll be too tired to concentrate the next day. But she does this so PP will lose to Utena even though Utena doesn't have a sword anymore.

Anthy played PP so thoroughly, but again, why? My theory when I first played this was Anthy was feeling guilty about her inevitable betrayal of Utena and was trying to get with Purple Pigtails, only to immediately realize there's no way PP could become a prince so she goes back to Utena.

But there are a lot of options. Maybe Anthy and/or Akio needed PP to be taken out. She was upsetting their plans somehow, so she needed to be defeated so humiliatingly she'd never try to get with Anthy again. It could explain why PP eventually left in the other endings, maybe she actually hadn't moved on, maybe Akio felt she was too much of a risk (possibly by how things got so complicated with Chigusa, too much of a distraction for the duelists) and kicked her out.

Or maybe this was all to test to find out where she was a prince candidate, and she was found wanting...considering you have to order rose tea as a prerequisite, this one's very possible.

It's all so fascinating. Maybe I should have put it as favorite...ok, let's say it's this and Juri tied.

Obviously this doesn't work out at all from Purple Pigtails Perspective. She becomes a supervillain, she's humiliatingly defeated, and she very well may be stuck at Ohtori for a long time...and fact she doesn't appear in the anime implies she's no longer friends with any of them. Maybe Akio made everyone forget about her. Maybe she was so bitter she rejected them all.

Utena's ending (Romantic Version)

(As a PS... it's very obvious the girls aren't allowed to kiss on the lips in this game, likely because of outside pressure, both Saionji and Miki get lips, while Utena and Juri do the princely forehead kiss (but you could also argue it's because they are the most "princely characters...and imitating the prince kiss is 100% in character for Utena. Also kissing a girl on the lips at this point in the story would pretty much short circuit Utena. Send her into such a lesbian crisis her heart might give out)

This ending is so sweet on the outside, but then you peel a layer back and see how fucked up it is. Utena very deliberately imitates her "prince" here, and that will someday horrify her, that she imitated Akio and got another girl obsessed with princes. And obviously that's very bad for PP too, since the thesis of Utena is the chivalrous prince who will save you is a lie.

Utena's words imply they will meet again and there's not a lot of outcomes that are good for that. One outcome is that PP goes back to Ohtori to find Utena, only to find she's already gone. But then Akio has a replacement Utena, right there. I'm not sure that would even matter, with Anthy gone, there's no way he can like, use her for anything...but he might take his anger at Utena and Anthy out on her. The better option is PP finds Utena in the real world, and sees that she and Anthy are officially girlfriends and have become healthier people. That might be good for her, actually--I'm sure Utena would encourage her to move on, find her own identity, and Utena would still want to be friends. Or she could ignore Utena andsink into bitterness and jealousy.

One of the most screwed up things about this ending is that PP basically loses her individuality and has become a copy of another person. It's not great for her that she's so wrapped up in Utena that it's her identity now. It's very sad just like it was with Anthy in the manga.

So no, I don't think this ending goes well for Purple Pigtails at all. She loses who she is, becomes obsessed with something that's just a false patriarchal idol, and that makes her vulnerable to Ohtori. Her only hope is finding Utena in the real world, and Utena making up for her past mistake.

Miki's ending

It was such a chore to get to this ending, but it's worth it for how funny it is. Purple Pigtails immediately deciding she actually wasn't in love with Miki after all (hint it's because she's a lesbian hint) and just. blowing him off, pretending she has a boyfriend back home. Legendary of her, and honestly Miki kind of deserves it. From his perspective it must feel like she really played with his feelings, though.

Because it doesn't exist, Miki!!! It was never real!!!!

She does say she "likes younger boys" after this, but that's just what she's telling herself. Someday she'll realize. Hopefully.

I think its interesting that Miki is the only one in this game who explicitly actually has feelings for her. He is able to move on from his sister (sort of. I mean at the very least iirc he never compares PP to Kozue that I can remember. Which is HUGE for him), but none of the rest can move on past their obsessions.

I actually think this works out pretty well for PP. She's not too attached to Miki, so she's unlikely to go back to Ohtori, and it doesn't break her heart to leave him, she's still herself, and I think she'll be able to move on.

Touga Ending (italicized since I haven't seen the whole route)

I haven't fully watched this route, so I don't know what it takes to get there. If I did it might affect my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. But while this ending is so mean and horrible, it is also so darkly funny. Touga distilled. He's such a asshole that it is impossible to get any thing positive from your ending with him even in a dating sim, and that's amazing. You think you've won but you lost. You lost the second you decided to date Touga.

Basically, Touga promises he will write PP every single day, and he will come visit her too, and she's ecstatic.

And then he goes and burns her address, calling her stupid, because of course he fucking does. Thus PP is totally ghosted, left despairing and wondering why.

It is also very interesting he's the only love interest she does NOT get a kiss from, unexpected since Touga has not problem kissing girls he does not give a shit about. Either he just, genuinely hates her guts THAT much or he's ---

ahhh shit. I just looked it up. You can have PP have sex with him. In fact you have to actively avoid it if you don't want to. So that's why he doesn't need a kiss. Her already got what he wanted. That actually makes this ending so much more heartbreaking, a lot of girls place a lot of importance on their first time, and PP was treated so cruelly with hers. This goddamn prick.

It is horrible, but it is exactly what I'd expect Touga to do (esp since this is set so early in the story) and I think it's incredible the game was so true to his character that you just get a straightforward unhappy ending when you date him. The others at least APPEAR a little happy, though they're quite sad when you think about them for long, but the game makes no pretenses with Touga. It just goes "no, you got nothing good out of this relationship, this man is trash, he played you like he does everyone"

Obviously this is pretty sad for Purple Pigtails, who gets manipulated and ghosted, and, depending on your choices, gets to have the lovely experience of a horrible older boy manipulating her, fucking her, and throwing her away at the tender age of 14. But, assuming she is able to move on (I hope so?) this might be happier than others for her in the long run (especially if she avoids having sex with him). Touga ghosting her means he won't be able to torment her further, and that's better than any other option with him. Unless, of course, she goes back to Ohtori to get an explanation...

Perfect Ending

I do like the perfect ending bc of the funny interactions the council get in--Juri teasing Miki about liking older girls and Miki getting extremely flustered, Touga being so fucking annoying especially when he insists on calling Saionji BEST FRIEND over and over until Saionji is like "can you shut the fuck up''...

The goodbye with Utena is fairly generic though, just the tiniest bit gay. One thing that is interesting for this ending is PP wanting to learn fencing.

It's ambiguous who she's talking about here, she could even mean Chigusa despite the fact she's deader than dead, or it could be "we don't know which person she's most attracted too ooooh".

As far as working out for Purple Pigtails? She escapes romantic trauma, which is great for her, but she seems really determined to go back to Ohtori in this one, and as has been said many times, that is not good for her.

Akio Ending

I considered rating this higher bc it's so funny how PP calls Akio on his bullshit.

But there's the fact that PP's particular Akio ending is even more uh, rape-coded than any other Akio car ride, IIRC? It's not only the fact she's underage, but she actively begs Akio to stop. But of course that motherfucker doesn't listen.

It's honestly so sad so that kind of ruins any fun. Which doesn't make it bad, but i don't like thinking about that part.

This is the second worst ending for PP. Just like the Black Rose and Anthy endings, she's still at Ohtori and has no friends, but there's the sexual assault aspect on top of that. She will be so traumatized, and on top of that she lost humiliatingly, while Akio basically called her worthless.

Saionji ending

Saionji's ending is both kind of boring and vaguely interesting. (And I'm ranking it like this on the assumption Saionji never hit her, which I assume he didn't from the Youtube comments. While he would definitely be cruel to a gf in multiple ways if she stuck around enough, I think it's possible the only person he would physically abuse while dating is Anthy. which is. something to analyze.) Saionji is (blessedly) silent during most of this ending. only saying "I owe you a lot" when he gives her the present (implying she's been kind of for caring for him, wet pathetic dog that he is, which does fit with the snippets I've seen of this route and echoes his relationship with Wakaba)

Saionji does give her his little leaf (apparently the only present he's capable of making?? like if he can carve this leaf he must know how to carve other things, right??? maybe it's just the carving he's best at) but PP knows he's too obsessed with Anthy (and Touga. the obsession with Anthy is just an extension of an obsession with Touga lets all be honest here) to return her feelings and they're both pretty honest and open about things. But THEN she claims she'll come back and make him look her way someday.. AND THEN she just plants one on him out of nowhere. Girl, you forget about consent!

Honestly Saionji just seems extremely confused and freaked out about it, even his expression afterwards, which makes me feel bad for him, something I'd never thought I'd say in my life. It's kind of interesting to see him like that. But...it doesn't stand out too much other than that. It's kind of just like. okay girl. calm down.

This one does not work out perfectly for PP since she seems pretty determined to come back to Ohtori and make Saionji love her, which is definitely never going to happen. But she doesn't lose her identity, doesn't get a pining locket, Saionji is surprisingly nice to her, unlike Wakaba she knows she doesn't have a chance right now, so she wasn't hugely disappointed...so it could be worse.

Utena Friendship Ending

Basically the same at the perfect ending, except we never get to see any fun interactions between the group. Boring.

Black Rose Ending

This one claims PP is obsessed with books, which has never come up in the game before, so it feels out of nowhere and like it wasn't properly developed. There's not much to dig into, when there should be. And her defeat is basically the same as the Akio endings, so it doesn't add much.

(Utena is being so mean here!!!! You know she's brainwashed why are you being an asshole about her skill!)

One the worst endings from PP's perspective, her mind is messed with, she literally has no friends, and she's stuck at Ohtori.

Game over

Obviously a Game Over is pretty boring. The game just ends. Bye.

I think PP would disappear from the world in the game over ending, just like Chigusa wanted. So this is the worst ending for her, she not only dies. she's erased from existence. At least in the other endings she gets to live.

(also I think either this one or the perfect ending are canon for the anime. The game over ending makes a lot of sense, since they would all forget PP and all that happened with her ever existed, and that would be the explanation for why she's never mentioned in the anime. But the more optimistic take is that the perfect ending is canon, and nobody ever mentions her because she just doesn't come up.

So there's my favorites ranked from best to worst.

NOW let's rank the endings from worst to best for Perfect Pigtails!

Game Over (she dies)

Akio Car Ending

Black Rose Ending

Anthy Ending (it's possible for her to have friends in this one)

Touga Ending (provided a) he has sex with her and b) she is unable to move on from what happened. Without those two factors though, it's under Utena's in the long run)

Utena Ending

Juri Ending

Saionji Ending

Perfect Ending

Miki Ending is the best one for her, weirdly! (Or at least my interpretation of it. She got out unscathed and has no desire to return to Ohtori!)

---

And those are my rankings! I hope everyone who read this far enjoyed the rambling.

[bigshoeswamp]

LMAO... and they were not even roommates

[empty-movement]

CONTENT DROP!!! Here's a tour of magazines boosting the Revolutionary Girl Utena Sega Saturn video game, Story of the Someday Revolution.

Top to bottom: Sega Saturn Magazine, December 1997 Dengeki G's Magazine, January 1998 Sega Saturn Magazine, April 1998

Enjoy this strange taste of 90's Sega Saturn media! These magazines were absolutely wall to wall massive JRPGs and low-key porno games, the Sega Saturn really and truly was the superior platform of its era and any other, I bought one on day ONE and will simp forever

[shizukateal]

Same character btw. If you even care.

[n2nataliegoodman]

Are you SERIOUSLY telling me that the Utena game confirms that the President and Vice President are decided by age??????

What even is this game??????

[doingartiguess]

Queer crime is the best crime ✨ you all loved the last Nimona piece so much I decided to expand on it and include all our fav queer criminals.

New print I designed for this week’s conventions! All the prints are 11x17, signed, and on a museum quality paper because I don’t believe in that cheap shit.

You can get it this weekend at Flame Con (if you’re around) or on sale this week here at the shop link:

[arielluva]

[martelldragon]

SWORD GIRLS SWORD GIRLS SWORD GI

[liauditore]

Equally Invalid

[rogueolight]

shout out to juri for being everyone’s autistic dad and older lesbian sister figure at the same time

[cyphyree]

I threw together a Show / Movie recommendation template so I can find more stuff to watch!!!

PLEASE feel free to fill this out and reblog from me so I can find more cool shows/films!! (hopefully i'll have time to watch them RIP) Or repost with credit :) Anyone can modify/expand it however they want too! Here are some of my recommendations:

[bigshoeswamp]

THIS GAME lmao

[izylly]

[empty-movement]

Content Drop! The Utena Sega Saturn game's graphic assets, hosted on...

...EMPTYMOVEMENT.COM. Yep, our nonsense is so unwieldy at this point that we have two domains!!! It's hard to say how they will work with one another yet, but ohtori.nu is OBVIOUSLY not going anywhere, and might be where I do 'retro' format stuff, with emptymovement.com being intended to have a much faster updated front page.

What I'm getting at is that emptymovement.com will hopefully be the central location for new content and Utena meta, regardless of what Elon Musk is doing! It's going to be presented in blog format, and I'll try to make sure it's tagged and sorted over time for ease of use! It sounds wild but at this point, ohtori.nu is SO huge, that anyone that's not from That Era of Websites has a hard time finding anything, and it's my hope this blog eventually makes the content, new and old, easier for folks to find! So check it out, bookmark it, and be gentle, I've been banging this this against my head all day, lmao.

BUT THE CONTENT.

Discord mod teasot lovingly ripped the graphic assets from the CD-ROM of the Utena video game, and I've done my best to present that work in an easy way to cover multiple use cases. I break them down here! In short, there are zips with accompanying contact sheets to show you their contents, because 1,700 tiny images would absolutely destroy the navigability of larger areas of the gallery.

If you're wondering what the hell one might do with this stuff, this is how I made a video accompaniment to Nagumo's translations of the Sega Real Doll bonus audio dramas for Utena and Anthy! Neat huh? Also, rose crest icons on EVERYTHING.

Oh yeah, and we also signed up for Mastodon! Catch up https://mastodon.lol/@emptymovement!

Anyway that's enough trying to do things I've never done before in one day while forgetting to take my meds! Enjoy, and definitely let us know what you do, if anything, with all this food!!

[ladyloveandjustice]

This came up on youtube so I was able to relisten and confirm without having to replay the game- Nanami, who famously did not know the english word cow and so did not know that a cowbell is a bell for cows, knows the English word "lesbian". This implies so much.