Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX writer Yoji Enokido's commentary from the two Revolutionary Girl Utena script books for the episodes of Utena that he wrote....TRANSLATED.

We sent these two 1998 script books, The Rose Bride and The Rose Crest, to Nagumo, who confirmed there are indeed deviations in the published scripts compared to the final result...so I guess that's these puppies on the scanner chopping block! But in the meantime, the episode commentaries themselves have been translated, as always, by our friend Nagumo, with Ayu Ohseki editing! Downloads to the scans of these pages in Japanese are included! Read them here, at From the Mouths of Babes, our creator commentary/meta site!

The Rose Bride (Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 14, 15, 22, & 23) The Rose Crest (Episodes 25, 26, 30, 34, 37, 38, & 39)

What have we got??? A handful of highlights:

Here’s a little snippet of advice:

a dead ideal

"...how boring reality would be if we lacked the sensitivity to recognize beauty in beautiful things."

Mitsuhiro Oikawa & Chiho Saito for H! Rockin' On Japan Magazine, July 1999

That's right! Did you know this movie manga artwork, that graced many a wall in the early 00s, is based on a real photo of movie Akio's voice actor and mangaka Chiho Saito, taken at the iconic Meguro Club Sekitei love hotel? Well, it is!

And you know what else? We translated the interview it came with! H! Rockin' On Japan is a music-oriented magazine, covering the Utena movie more from Oikawa's perspective. The queer vibes in the interview are off the charts, and it's clear as day that the shift in Akio's visual style from the series to the film is in no small part in response to Oikawa's involvement. This interview is a really neat look into the context around that change, and it's all thanks to translation by Nagumo and editing by Ayu Ohseki! I did not work this interview into the magazine pages, since they are text-dense anyway, so you can read the interview here at In the Mouths of Babes, or you can look at the high resolution magazine scans, complete with magazine cover and table of contents, here at the Bibliothèque! And as always, there's a ton more new Utena stuff to check out at Empty Movement proper!

Musical Utena ~ Blooming Rose of Deepest Black EVERYTHING

Oh, hey! Did you like what I did with the 2018 Musical Utena ~ Bud of the White Rose? With the posting a script, lyrics to the main banger, and links to download the everything I ever did about it?

I'm back to bring you all that tasty kibble, but for the sequel that followed the next year!

Musical Utena ~ Blooming Rose of Deepest Black EVERYTHING

You've asked, like, a lot a lot, and finally I answer! You want the script? You want some goofy memes and meta? You want to download (check the thread!) both the original crunchy streams on top of the Blu-ray, but also the soundtrack I made? Wanna read the translated program? The interview with Ikuhara and Yoshitani? Wanna see all the bromides? Yep, like last time I even collected the Twitter behind the scenes images.

Once again a massive undertaking both originally and in pulling together the script, which again, I did live on the subtitles, so I never actually made a script I could just copy and paste to show y'all! Well! Here it is!

Also, yes, I know you wanna see the banger's lyrics:

Bud of the White Rose: EVERYTHING

HEY. HI. VANNA HERE. Yes, I've seen the countless messages, mostly on Tumblr, begging for links to download the musical, a static accessible copy of the script, and lyrics in Japanese for the main banger, Absolute Darkness: The Rose Garden.

I've procrastinated on this for many reasons! The script was worked out live in the subtitles, making it...kinda hard to translate back into a normal format. Thanks Notepad++ as always for that one. Also, I've felt like I should make a website for this content, and I still think that, but it also has impeded my sharing the content, and that sucks. But you know what? WE HAVE A FORUM. And unlike Discord, this will be archived and permanent! (Yes, I will do the 2019 Black Rose one as well, gimmie time)

2018's Musical Utena ~ Bud of the White Rose: Script & Everything Else!

Ok fine, I know most of you want the banger lyrics and are too lazy to click for the thread:

Revolutionary Girl Utena X Cocollabo, 2022

Do you like chibis? You've got a few more of them incoming this month thanks to the recent Marakuji collab, but the same artist, or at least style, of chibi dates back to this 2022 drop, that I finally finished cleaning the scans for! Enjoy! I disassembled the keyrings to get these clean scans of them. All part of the usual Utena onslaught at Empty Movement!!

Shoujo Kakumei Utena, by Chiho Saito Nokemono to Hanayome, by Asumiko Nakamura Mawaru Penguindrum, by Lily Hoshino Yuri Kuma Arashi, by Akiko Morishima

In September 2017, Ikuhara had an entire retrospective book published about him: Kunihiko Ikuhara: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mawaru Penguindrum, Yuri Bear Storm … Our Revolution and Survival Strategy

It included new art from the people Ikuhara had worked with, including these four gorgeous full color images. My cleaning skills and options have expanded a TON since I scanned it though, so here are brand new copies!

Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection

IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.

Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?

This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 

It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 

What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:

I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!

We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha

Prolific animator Yoshihiko Umakoshi (馬越嘉彦) is best known for his work in shonen anime like My Hero Academia, however he also worked on several episodes of Kunihiko Ikuhara's 2011 Mawaru Penguindrum. During this time, he gave us this Revolutionary Girl Utena piece, itself a bonus purchase privilege poster at Mandarake stores for the purchase of Monthly Anime Style (月刊アニメスタイル) magazine, Vol 5.

It was first published as the full-color feature of the Hardcore of Utena's Supplement booklet in 2013. The Hardcore of Utena is a massive, two volume artbook released at Comiket 84, where you could receive this booklet with the purchase of the larger volumes. Mostly miscellaneous sketch art that features elsewhere, I nevertheless had it scanned already and felt like, hell, let's just finish it and get up there for you! So here are the scans of the 44 page booklet, or if you want the even larger versions, or a download of the lot, I also uploaded it to the Internet Archive! That's gonna be a pattern, y'all. ;)

GOGAI, GOGAI!!! COME GET UTENA KIBBLES

It's September 3rd. It's 1997. Princess Diana just died, and that's very important to lots of people. You, however, are chewing your nails to nubs waiting for the climax of Revolutionary Girl Utena's Black Rose Saga. It's going to air today.

But like any good fan, you're already one step ahead, because you've spent the last couple days thumbing through Animedia's September issue supplemental, the 100 page Duelist Bible. Strangely, it appears to be in English??? Wow! Thanks Nagumo for translating, Ayu Ohseki for Japanese editing, teasot for proofreading, and ME, FUCKIN' VANNA, for scanning and scanlating this massive booklet!

We've got duel summaries! We've got character design sheets! We've got a school directory! We've got THE DUEL RULES. We've got cast interviews! WE'VE GOT THAT CHU-CHU DOLL CRAFT GUIDE. Check it ALL out here, in the Something Eternal Bibliothèque! You can flip through it page by page here, or you'll also find on the page a link to a PDF version for your at home viewing/archiving needs!!

This gargantuan tome really gets it across that in 1997, you didn't have a fandom wiki or on demand viewing. If you didn't catch and record the episodes, a booklet like this becomes a critical tool for keeping track of everything that's happened up to now, and is also a way for the series creators to tap fans on the shoulder and draw attention to details they want seen but not explained in the show directly. For example, this drops at the close of the BRS, but points out Touga's sword isn't the same in Keiko's duel and in the opening sequence. A thing we don't see cashed in until MUCH later!

This has been a true and absurd labor of love on my part. I even rescanned the booklet from my originals because their quality (decades old lmao) was not worth scanlating. This took a ludicrous amount of time, and has been a main project of mine for over a year now!! I'm so happy to have gotten it done in time for the Something Eternal Watch-Along thread, and I really really hope everyone finds something cool and interesting about it! The really cool thing is this now completes the set of magazine supplementals by the big three magazines made for Utena during its run. We now have fully scanlated this, as well as Animage's June Utena Dossier, and Newtype's November Utena? (Oh My!) UTENA! Take a stroll through memory lane, be they yours or someone else's!

As always, if you like this kind of content, consider supporting us on Patreon! Especially right now, a holy grail acquisition is in the works that I will bleed to share with y'all. More on that later, lmao.

Revolutionize the World! Love, Vanna

Hi, Vanna here. I have submitted to the strange authority of Xenforo's image hosting system, which demands that if I want gallery items to appear in proper order, I will have to upload them back to front.

As such, welcome to the last few page's of Animedia Magazine's September 1997 supplemental Duelist Bible, translated by Nagumo and edited by me!

Anyway

THIS IS NOT A DRILL, VINTAGE OFFICIAL PATTERNS FOR YOUR VERY OWN DIY CHU-CHU

I DID IT. I, VANNA OF EMPTY MOVEMENT, DID IT I DID IT. Tips and more below the cut!