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Episode 1
"Bara no Hanayome"
[The Rose Bride]
Utena is a schoolgirl in the eighth
grade of Ootori Academy. She has the strange memory that,
when she was very
young, she met a mysterious "prince" and was
given from him a ring with the
Carved Seal of the Rose. One day, Utena finds people are
making fun of a
love letter on display, which is soon found to be written
by her best
friend, Wakaba, for the captain of Kendo Club, Saionji.
For the sake of her
best friend, Utena challenges Saionji to a Duel. Then,
Saionji tells her to
come to the forest of the Arena.
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Episode 2
"Tagatame ni Bara ha Hohoemu"
[For Whom the Rose Smiles]
(quick synop --- more detail is
here) Winning the Duel with Saionji, Utena
is now the Victor of the Duel and bound to get
"engaged" to the Bride of the
Rose, i.e. Anthy. Starting the next day of the Duel,
Utena and Anthy live
together in a dorm, which accommodates only the two.
Saionji, who is in fact
really in love, asks Anthy to get back on good terms with
him, but without
success. After that, he challenges Utena to a return
match. Feeling the
whole thing is just insane, Utena determines to lose the
Duel on purpose.
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Episode 3
"Butoukai no Yoru ni"
[On the Evening of the Ball]
Utena unleashed Dios's Power in the
last Duel with Saionji, which attracted Touga's interest
in her. Touga sends
Utena a dress for the upcoming ball. On the other hand,
Touga's sister,
Nanami, thinks her brother has a feeling for Anthy, and
in a fit of
jealousy, she sends Anthy a water-dissolvable dress.
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Episode 4
"Hikari Sasu Niwa /Prelude"
[The Sunny Garden /Prelude]
Utena and Miki are about to start a
Duel. The rest of the episode and the following one are
flashback to show
what has caused this Duel. Miki often plays a particular
tune on the piano.
He says he cannot truely play the tune because he has
lost "something
shining". Nanami finds that Miki has a feeling for
Anthy, and from jealousy,
she tries to tease and razz her. Taking advantage of
that, Miki makes a good
friend of Anthy and then Utena. Learning Anthy and Utena
got poor grades in
a math exam, Miki suggests his tutoring them. However,
Nanami is not the
type to leave them alone.
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Episode 5
"Hikari Sasu Niwa /Finale"
[The Sunny Garden /Finale]
In the tune Anthy just casually
played, Miki found "something shining" that he
had been seeking. He has a
twin sister, Kozue, who used to play the very tune with
"something shining".
However, she does not play the piano anymore because (he
thinks) of his
fault. Miki wishes to protect Anthy's "something
shining" in her tune;
however Anthy tells him that, because she is the Bride of
the Rose, by the
rule she must obey the Victor of the Duel, i.e. Utena at
the moment. She
even says that, if Utena told her not to play the piano
anymore, she would
not. Since he thinks it is his own fault that he lost
"something shining" in
the past, in order not to lose "something
shining" again, Miki challenges
Utena to a duel and tries to set Anthy free to protect it
this time.
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Episode 6
"Nanami-sama Goyoujin!"
[Nanami, Be Cautious!]
Lately, someone has been trying
to take Nanami's life. Overhearing a conversation between
Anthy and her
brother Touga, Nanami misunderstands that Touga is the
one who is trying to
kill her. After that, someone saves Nanami out of a
danger and she falls in
love with him, who turns out to be a young boy. Nanami
asks him to be her
boyfriend, but she does not seem to be able to
distinguish between a lover
and a minion.
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Episode 7
"Mihatenu Juri"
[Unrequited Juri]
Juri disbelieves in miracles. In the
past, she had a secret love for someone, but she couldn't
win the person's
heart. She thinks if miracles were to exist, she could
have achieved her
love. One day, Juri has a talk with Utena and there, she
gets enraged by
Utena's words that she believes in miracles for the
destiny between her
"prince" and herself. Juri challenges Utena to
a Duel and tells her to show
that miracles exist by defeating Juri.
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Episode 8
"Curry-naru High Trip"
[The Great Curry High Trip]
Somehow, Anthy's curry and rice
explodes and that shock switches Utena and
Anthy's personalities. Now Utena is feminine while Anthy
is boyish. The
cause of the incident seems to be Nanami's practical
joke, trying to mix in
the curry the "Indian Special 100-Time Super-Spicy
Curry", which has
mistakenly been replaced with the
"900,000,000,000-Time
Phantom-Mega-Super-Spicy Curry". Scolded by her
brother, Nanami flies to
India to obtain more of the same spice.
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Episode 9
"Eien ga Aru toiu Shiro"
[The Castle Said to Hold Eternity]
In the Kendo Dojo, Saionji and Touga
are fighting a Kendo duel. Touga
defeats Saionji by a narrow margin. Utena hears from
Saionji that they have
been fighting hundreds of duels in the last ten years.
Saionji also tells
Utena that he wants to win the Duels and take Anthy to
the Castle in the sky
above the Arena. A memory crosses his mind about that
raining day when he
was a young boy... One day, he receives a letter from the
Ends of the World,
in which they say the Castle will come down to the Arena
today. On the other
hand, Utena gets a phone call from someone unknown and he
says Anthy is
being kidnapped at the Forest of the Arena.
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Episode 10
"Nanami no Taisetsu na Mono"
[Nanami's Precious Thing]
Taking the Bride of the Rose to the
Arena without a duel besides inflicting
a wound to Touga, Saionji is expelled from school. Nanami
blames Utena for
Touga's wound. Utena apologizes, but Nanami doesn't
forgive her. A memory
crosses her mind that she gave a kitty to Touga as a
birthday present when
they were very young, and later, from jealousy she killed
the kitty. At
Touga's birthday party, Utena brings a bunch of flowers
to express her
gratitude. Nanami is upset and scatters the flowers away.
Touga suggests
them fighting a Duel on the Arena by the code of the
duel.
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Episode 11
"Yuuga ni Reikoku, Sono Hana wo Tsumu Mono"
[Gracefully yet Heartlessly, the One Who Picks the
Flower]
From his observation of the last
five Duels, Touga thinks he has completed
collecting sufficient data to defeat Utena. Touga has
been implying to Utena
that he is the prince she has been looking for. One day,
in the Rose Garden,
Touga shows Utena that he is her prince in concrete
terms. However, he
challenges Utena to a duel. Believing that Anthy wants to
quit being the
Bride of the Rose, become an ordinary girl, and make many
friends, Utena is
determined to beat her prince for Anthy's sake.
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Episode 12
"Tabun Yuujou no Tame ni"
[Probably for Friendship]
Utena was defeated. But the real
shock for her was not that she was
defeated, but that from Touga's explanation, learned that
Anthy was just
playing the role of the Bride around Utena, that is,
Anthy was wanting to
quite the Bride, become an ordinary girl, and make many
friends, *because*
Utena, or the Victor of the Duel, wished so. Utena now
loses herself.
Wakaba, although she knows nothing about what's going on
with Utena, she
tries to cheer up Utena. Gradually, Utena gets back to
herself. Utena goes
to the Rose Garden to see Touga. Touga thinks she's come
to accept his offer
to go on a date. However, she challenges him to a Duel.
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Episode 13
"Egakareru Kiseki"
[Plotting Out a Locus]
In this episode, we review episodes
1 through 12 with Ootori Akio's
monologue (In the next episode, we will learn he is
Anthy's brother). When
he appears in the Arena, the Castle in the sky comes
down. Akio talks to
Dios sleeping in the castle. He names each of Utena's
duels as follows: 1.
friendship (amitie); 2. choice (choix); 3. reason
(raison); 4. love (amour);
5. adoration (adoration); 6. conviction (conviction); 7.
self (soi). Akio
says Utena might be the one they (Akio and Dios?) have
been looking for. At
this rate, she could reach to the duel named
"revolution" and Dios could be
released.
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