If you want to watch Tenbatsu! Angel Rabbie yourself, here’s a link to an excellent re-encoding and subtitling that Smuggler made: ua-cam.com/video/sSliAOPoAPw/v-deo.htmlsi=5DijKYL-M9MyOW-6
I fucking love this movie so much. Definitely would recommend that folks watch the series first, as there are still a lot of references from it in the movie that won't make a whole lot of sense otherwise.
Watching random anime is extremely fun. I once started roaming around the random tags and picked series that have more than 65% recommendation and found some cool stuff. One that I'm watching right now is called "The Testament of Sister New Devil". If you like Highschool DxD you will definitely like this. I'm surprised how a series like this has better combat than a lot of fantasy/isekai out there. At the same time having more well made "sus" scenes than a lot of hent**. Why watch series with detailed plots that will change how we see the world when we can just watch trashy shows with lots of "plot" instead?
Slight correction, the Utena anime is not based on the manga, they were created at the same time and are a different retelling of the same story. You do need to consume all three versions of the story, manga, anime and movie, to fully grasp wtf the whole plot is. ...or just watch a UA-cam video of someone else summarizing it.
I don’t think you need to consume all three. I think the plot of the anime is strange and gets more symbolic in the climax/towards the end, which makes it more confusing, but the themes are pretty clear. Watching the movie afterwards was more confusing because I expected to learn more about their world, but it’s quite different and goes in its own direction with a more clearly happy ending. Describing it as a retelling of the same story is fair. I haven’t read the manga, though. I heard it’s less gay, is that true?
@@pheonixrises11 Yes the manga doesnt have much romance between the girls, the story is easier to understand but goes in a completely different route to the anime since none of them follow each other at a point, it talks about utena meeting god and anthy is there but she can't do much,is a very weird plot ngl, the ending is quite straightforward compared to the anime which is more about symbolism and concepts
In general manga adaptations of ikuhara series /tend/ to be pretty different, I think from being made at a similar time or afterwards but with the input of that creator and going in a different direction intentionally, iirc they did this for yurikuma arashi too, can't remember for the others atm I swear the manga artist and ikuhara had a bit of beef over certain plot developments for the utena anime but I can't remember the details, ik the two pieces of media are very different though
@@meltyholic Ikuhara did not write the Utena anime and movie, Yoji Enokido did. The poor dude has scripted some of the greatest anime of the 90's and early 2000's and nobody credits him.
The Utena move is basically a pop quiz that goes "did you get it? did you get it?" about every every symbol employed in the show. And the answer is usually "kind of" even for repeat watchers.
the Utena series is weird, but compared to the movie it's positively normal and coherent. Like, there's still a lot of symbolism, but it's more straightforward, if not always sensible. It's also not immediately clear in the series that the school is supernatural in nature - the architecture is weird, but only the dueling arena and the freaky upside down castle in the sky seem obviously impossible. if you want to see all these characters but in a plot that makes significantly more sense, I can highly recommend the series.
This is like playing Russian roulette but instead of getting shot in the head you have to spend six minutes looking at gratuitous anime panty shots. Not sure if it’s better or worse that way
I highly recommend Revolutionary Girl Utena. It’s just as weird as the movie, but it makes a lot more sense. It’s also a classic, it revolutionized (wink wink) the way a lot of Shoujo anime were made and what they talk about. Also, it’s damn beautiful. They don’t make anime like this anymore.
legit, I was thinking "man, it would suck if he pulled the utena movie, that doesn't really make sense unless you watch the anime" and then you pulled it 💀 The movie feels more like a surreal dream version of the already kinda surreal anime. The movie is like a bunch of memories bundled up, that's why the school is all in pieces. I like to think it takes place after the series. There are a lot of theories, and if you watch the tv series, I seriously recommend doing it subbed on youtube, the comments are really useful discussions of the episodes. The show means a lot to me as a queer person of color :D
Yeah Adolescence of Utena is NOT a stand alone, it's basically all in code that you only have any hope of understanding if you've watched the entire series at least 3 times. I'm fascinated by weird world of insane Visual Novel universes that have only ever had their most peripheral instalments animated. School Days is the only the tip of the Overflow iceberg.
Yes, I read the I''s manga many, many years ago. The manga wasn't particularly fanservice-y either from what I remember. There are two notes I do clearly remember about it: First is that the author was REALLY good at framing. The whole manga has this cinematic, almost movie-like style where it would frequently zoom the camera out to focus on the background. It was the first time I ever remember being absorbed in the visual style of a manga (it's by the same artist as Video Girl Ai, if you've ever read that). The second is that all of the content after the anime ends was just miserable to read. Like, it was mostly the main character being depressed because he hadn't seen his girlfriend in like a year and wondering if he should just bite the bullet and cheat on her (with the high school girl next door who happens to look identical to her). I hated that stretch so much.
I really enjoyed the manga, but I do agree the identical girl arc was kind of dumb. I tried watching the first OVA they made of the show, the one released before the anime, and it was so bad. It introduced all these one time characters I had never seen before that weren't in the manga and a plot that isn't in the manga either. I don't think the writers actually read the source material, it was some weird plot where Iori gets stranded on a flooded shrine and then the childhood friend almost gets kidnapped by some motorcycle gang. It was so weird and stupid.
Subjecting yourself to watching that first one for our entertainment is the ultimate sacrifice, thanks for all the work that goes into these videos, your scripts and delivery are great. Also want to add your reaction to the last movie was hilarious "I don't know what's going on... but that was awesome" lol
welp tried the randomizer after watching this video and got something called the "Legend of Duo" and gotta say that was definitely one of the animes of all time. There were definitely characters.
Also from what I was told by a more let's just say, Utena-obsessed homie, it's more a companion piece to the series than wholly its own thing. Which thanks for reminding me I need to finish it, dunno why a random rec did that, but yh lol, you should too though, it's been really good so far.
God the dramatic irony of watching you go "the movie and show basically tell the same story, so I don't need to watch the tv show first" knowing the ride you were about to go on. Like watching a horror movie character go in the spooky basement all alone. RGU is my fave anime (formative gay awakening media lol) and hearing your thoughts was really interesting! Glad you had a good time, even going in without the context offered by the tv show.
great idea. Would really support this being a series. It probably took a while to make, but even as a monthly/bi-monthly series, this would be really, really cool.
Highly recommend the Utena series. It's full of the same weird imagery as the movie, but presented in a more gradual way. By the end you've learned a whole lexicon of symbols that make sense but can't really be translated to words.
I've seen the hype for Trigun Stampede animation (incredibly fluid action, amazing really) and really liked the main character, soon I've learned about 98' anime Trigun and watched it Never has an anime touched me so right in the feels. This series is a masterpiece and an absolute recommendation just as Cowboy Bebop is, I am not overhyping here.
Considering how you had zero context for understanding _Adolescence of Utena,_ I'm so glad that you ended up liking it so much. And I hope you do go back and watch the series.
I love the Utena movie. Sadly, while it's a 'retelling' of the manga & anime rather than a sequel to them, you do still kind of have to be familliar with at least one of the prior stories to understand the nuances of the film. Thankfully the broader strokes - breaking out of confining gender roles, the surreality of adolescence, the boarding school/college campus experience's estrangement from outside reality, one person acting as a vehicle to help another's maturation - playing out in awesomely & hilariously literal form, that all reads well enough without prior context. But yeah, a lot of nuance is lost without knowing the previous works. It also helps to have a familiarity with the tropes & common subtext of the magical girl genre generally. It's maybe not /as/ direct a genre deconstruction as something like Madoka is, but the anime at least definitely hits the ground running with an assumption that the audience can keep pace, rather than spending any time getting them up to speed. The manga does a bit more of that, but not all that much. Anyway, do please watch the tv show at some point if you have the time, very worth it. yeah it's a bit long, at least by modern standards, but it's one of the 90s classics for a good reason.
I think it was Noralities who's video pointed out to me that Utena is best understood as a play. The environments and backgrounds are there to give the impression of where events are taking place, rather than be accurate representations.
Really cool and fun idea for a video. Loved how you went over the history of each anime and didn't just quickly skim the plot but gave a detailed synopsis of them. Would love to see another at some point
Well that's nostalgic. I first saw the I"s manga as a teenager because it was in the german version of Weekly Shonen Jump back then (Banzai is what it was called) and remember thinking it was weird and... overwhelming. It must have been the first chapter or so too, because I vividly remember the bullying and photoshopped nude plot. I tried watching it years later (when the whole thing wasn't way too adult for my tiny kid brain anymore) but I guess I never made it past the first episode because I don't remember any burning house or busted MCs.
"Lasty Farson, which sounds like a made-up midwestern hockey player" that's a great line and extremely accurate lmao. It reminds me of the SNES game Fighting Baseball, which has a bunch of fake, American-sounding names made up by the Japanese developers. Highly recommend checking those out if you haven't already
I finally read the whole Utena manga for the first time last year - including the manga version of the Adolescence movie, which is apparently slightly different than the movie itself - so when I saw it come up I was like "oh no." I mean, don't get me wrong, the series is REALLY good - I found the story overall to be very engaging. But there are definitely a lot of parts where I too was quite confused/shocked as to what was happening. In a way, I'm glad I waited till recently to read it, cause if I had tried to read or watch it when it first came out, when I was still in high school, I don't think I would've understood it as well. And I've heard the anime series is even MORE twisted than the manga. Still, for the time it came out, it was quite revolutionary (pun not intended) in its explorations of gender identity and such, especially since in the late '90s even being gay publically was still pretty taboo. Also the opening song, "Rinbu Revolution," is a serious banger, which I've enjoyed for years despite never having seen the anime. They also came out with a sort of sequel volume to the original manga in 2017, in honor of the series's 20th anniversary, called "Revolutionary Girl Utena: After The Revolution," which is basically a collection of short stories following the members of the student council after the events of the main series, particularly exploring how they are affected by Utena's disappearance after the final battle. Anyway, would recommend. I agree, the Angel Rabbie thing sounds interesting...the only anime I know of with "magical girls sent by heaven" are Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, both of which came out around the same time as Angel Rabbie. Also the amount of fanservice in anime openings is very odd. It shows up in openings for series that aren't even ecchi, like this '80s action kaitou series I've been watching called Cat's Eye (I would still be watching it but it disappeared from Crunchyroll, so I have to find a new place to watch it). There's not a lot of nudity, but there are some disturbingly suggestive poses and silhouettes of the characters in leotards that don't leave a whole lot to the imagination. None of this reflects what happens in the actual series; it's just pure fanservice. Still, I tend to not watch it where my parents can see. 😅 That being said, I do forget how many ecchi series there are out there. I generally avoid those, though years ago I watched an anime called "Project A-ko" which was kinda ecchi (in retrospect, knowing the guy who introduced it to me, I should've suspected it would be). I also once watched a "cleaned up" clip of a hentai series called "Venus 5" on UA-cam which is basically a hentai of Sailor Moon with some Wedding Peach elements. And even the "cleaned up" version was not very cleaned up. (This was years ago; that kind of thing would never be allowed on UA-cam nowadays I think).
I'm really glad you liked the Utena movie! I only got around to watching it a few months back and it instantly became one of my favorite films ever. I saw the series quite a while back and I love that too, I highly recommend it. People who say the Utena movie is standalone probably don't really understand the movie. A lot of what the movie does only makes sense if you have context from the TV Show first. Watching it without seeing the series first will make it far more confusing than it actually is, and there are implications that Anthy has retained knowledge of what happened in the show's universe. On a minor side note, when you see the letters "ou" in a Japanese word or name, it's almost always going to be pronounced like the o in "no". Technically it's a bit different than that, since the u indicates that you're supposed to extend the vowel sound a bit, but that's pretty difficult to distinguish if Japanese isn't your native language so that's really a big deal. More to the point, this means Touga is pronounced more similarly to "toga" (the clothes worn by ancient Romans), not "tooga" as you were pronouncing it. Though I haven't seen Utena dubbed, so there's a chance they screwed up the pronunciation there.
The anime you watched weren't half bad! 20:56 I just enjoy so much how obscure all this is. You're spitting out facts like mad and it's just so much fun listening to your commentary. I never even knew the mascot for Visual Novel Database was Lasty Farson, I thought it was just some OC character. Please keep doing these. Edit: Yeah Utena is even more confusing than a David Lynch movie.
Utena tldr: everyone is actually dead and each completion of the arc is a time loop with very small changes each time. The movie is like the final loop before they escape so we’re meant to recognize scenes from the last time loop and draw subplot from the differences between them. So it’s kind of very necessary to watch all of the show and movie to be able to find nirvana. Utena literally becomes her girl’s vehicle to freedom
@@mechengr1731 there are no alien mind worms and there’s a lot more feminist theming but I really like ur comparison lol Also they TURN INTO car not get hit by one
UTENA let’s freaking go! Was not expecting something I know being on this list. Fun fact the first time I watched Utena was on a watchalong streamed by crunchyroll Hime (vtuber) she’s a big fan of Utena
I’m just discovering your channel and I’m an anime fan of over 15yrs, I love your videos and particularly this randomizer style series. You got me interested in sum odd media I didn’t know was anime and now I wanna try something like this myself. I’m personally at the point in life there aren’t many must watch/iconic anime left for me to view aside from seasonal stuff and my “long overdues” so this makes me excited to approach anime from a different way. Thanks again
I loved this, if you want to watch something similar to Utena with a more coherent plot I’d love to recommend an old Favourite of mine ‘Princess Tutu’. Don’t let the name fool you it’s a master piece and I despair it not getting a longer story. If you can, the English dub is very endearing.
i'd love for this to turn into a series. i love the mix of review, reaction and little lore dives into the diffrent shows. i mean, i finally know who that random visual novel girl on the site is now lolol super great video, honestly and i think it brings out your personality really well!
I thought the first one would be the weirdest but then the mc changes into a car in the last one. The last one looked amazing. The art style is so beautiful and so surreal from what I’ve seen of these clips that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it talked about anywhere else. It looks so unique and stylistic. 10/10 video would love to see more!
I definitely recommend the I"s manga, one of my favorite romance manga's. The Utena anime is also another series I'd recommend since you enjoyed the movie. The same director also would go on to direct Mawaru Penguindrum, which is also batshit insane. Great video man, been loving your content!
Most of what I watch is a bit of new stuff while catching up on things that caught my eye back in 2015-16 when I was at Uni because I didn't have a whole lot of time, as well as slowly going through CLAMP's backlog. With this system of mine I was able to watch some great shows such as 'Otherside Picnic', 'Snow White With The Red Hair' and 'xxxHolic' all of which I've started reading because I wanted to find out what happens next after the amine ended.
I was so worried when you were like what is happening in the Utena movie as someone that also saw the movie first (it was at my local movie rental) I watched it over and over as a teen. Later watching the series I realized a lot of the movie is tied to the series. You realize why and how after a few times through the movie. The series was a treat to re-watch as an adult as well. Glad I found you on my recs your videos are fun and well thought out!
I wish I could go back to the time when I hadn't watched anime and was discovering something new and fresh everyday. Now Im just over picky feeling like I've seen it all.
I've been loving your content because it gives me an insiders perspective on anime, one I don't have considering I'll only check something out if it is standalone good. So imagine my surprise seeing something you haven't in Utena! I didn't realize it was obscure. I don't even quite remember how I came across it, I think it was either the She-ra and the Princesses of Power reboot showrunner N.D. Stevenson talking about influences or just another video essay on She-ra. It's climax pays homage (they don't turn into a car but still). And apparently you can see references to it in a few other notable works.
So that piledriver in Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie looked a lot like a different variation of the piledriver, look up Adam Page's Deadeye finisher and it's basically like that except of course in the show she's trying to kill the golem in the harshest way possible by snapping every single vertebrae in its back lmao
This was very fun to watch! Subbed and I hope it's a series :> EDIT: Utena being your last is hilarious. It's one hell of a ride to watch and I'm glad you liked it.
That was a surprisingly enjoyable ride, might give that wheel a spin myself sometime soon, maybe just with my backlog, to finally start chipping at it.
thanks youtube for this recommendation, such a fun idea for a video! eventhough i don't personally watch anime i got curious and i'm glad i checked this out. very well made and great presentation, i admire your dedication to not just watch the works but tell about their background. i would definitely watch more of anime randomizer!
It's amazing how out of who knows how many shows listed on MAL, all three you got were shows that you can't get into on their own without any supplementary material (another series, wiki, etc.). I didn't think it'd be this random but it was interesting. Thank you for not only watching all of them but also giving a breakdown and commentary. Oh and thank you for the trivia about the database's mascot. I never wondered about who it was but it's certainly nice knowing who she is. Now whenever I'd end up visiting the site, I'll know her name. "Lasty Farson" is a strange name though haha
Wow, of all the anime to randomly get, Utena is a classic. Really great story, absolutely baffling metaphors about very heavy topics, banger soundtrack. 10/10
Thanks for telling me about that randomizer site! I've already seen over 1000 anime, been watching since the 90s and it gets hard finding something new or interesting. Seen most of the recommended stuff for the genres I like on MAL already too lol
Highly recommend watching Revue Starlight since you liked Utena! The director worked on penguindrum and took inspiration from Utena and Evangelion! You won't be disappointed
Love how thorough your commentary is regardless of the anime you're covering. I was super suspicious of where you'd go with the first one, but I ended up enjoying your thoughts on all three shows. Would definitely watch you react to more!
Hey, new fan here thanks to this video as I’m someone who’s fairly new to anime but generally isn’t fussed about which to watch, so I find videos like this great. Plus I’m admittedly easily invested and pleased by most stories I watch as well, so I’d likely enjoy anything you select or that I randomise myself thanks to you mentioning the randomiser site 😅 Maybe to ensure variety of anime for us and more importantly yourself if you do a video like this again (which I’d love), have a rule of at least one movie/OVA and series in each selection if possible. Edit: I must also just be lucky as my first ever randomised anime on the site is Steins Gate, and it has a good reputation judging by the anime UA-camrs I now watch.
Thank you for this video and the ‘Spin Dot Moe’ idea! 👍 I need to try this. It’s bound to give ridiculous results. 👀 I would like to see if we can narrow down the options a bit. 😅 I watched Utena just a few weeks ago. The old version. The new anime version is.... well, different. 😅 Personally, I gave it a 5/10. 😳 The anime is very symbolic throughout but it was also perhaps, too metaphorical for my taste. 🤔 Thank you for this video Lextorias! 👍
you can use filters and only have it choose between specific kinds of shows. i think you can even hook your MAL account to it and have it choose from your watch later list. I just chose to spin with no filters for the full random effect
While watching this, I, no shit, thought, "Wow, what if Utena pops up." I had a friend of mine about 12 years back bring this up as one of the only anime she has watched. I watched with her as an act of solidarity....can't say I'd recommend it.
OMG, I"s was my teenagehood! The manga was a rollercoaster of feelings, I loved it and Katsura is still one of my favourite artists. The anime was a nice watch once and I liked the OST. I totally understand you liking the shipping with Itsuki more, I was in the same boat. And the constant problems with stretching the story to finally have Ichitaka and Iori be a couple were funny the first times, but a bit tiring at the end. Some of the best scenes not included in the anime involved more friends from school, great characters too.
genuinely fucking wild that within three turns of the spinner you got the utena movie. id say its pretty impressive! that's like hitting the confusing fever dream jackpot! hope it encourages you to watch the series!! once you do that and go back to the movie, although it's more outwardly bizarre at parts it'll fill in a few gaps left by the show. it's one of those looks-like-a-spinoff acts-like-a-sequel movies, pretty clever but a bit confusing to the uninitiated since it's not really a stand alone unless you're just watching it for the art. You'll notice in the show the characters act a lot less openly and confidently for the most part, that's probably the most obvious clue that the timeline of the movie occurs after they've been through one round of this stuff already.
as a bonus: the cow is actually a main character! either they ran out of room for her or chose not to include her, and so that little scene is her screentime (iirc) said character is a human and one of the duellists (hence the outfit), but there's an standalone episode where she becomes obsessed with a designer collar that slowly turns her into a cow, that crazy scene was a bit of a reference to that. she's kind of a mean-girl type on the surface but is very susceptible to shenanigans, hence the cow thing. there's several other things. at one point she thinks she lays an egg and has a teen mom crisis. it makes sense in context, but she gets a lot of the more silly episodes and episodes that are massive metaphors for bigger issues presented in a kinda whimsical way. nanami is good you go in expecting to hate her but she's messy and innocent in a way that you can't help but like her
Hey dude if u want an obscure anime to watch, I recommend the alien 9 ova, it’s a psychological horror that pulls the Madoka twist before madoka lol it’s a weird series but it only has 4 episodes so it’s definitely worth checking out imo
New to the channel, but I'm glad this got recommended to me. I ended up really liking the video and the results were amazing. Maybe I should do this too, so I actually watch anime and don't CONSTANTLY ignore my watch list or stay up to date with anime I promised myself I'd watch from the get go. This was both hilarious and interesting. Please make more!!
i actually watched Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie a while back and was trying to refind it last week with some friends, seeing this video with it in it was a shock !!!
If you want to watch Tenbatsu! Angel Rabbie yourself, here’s a link to an excellent re-encoding and subtitling that Smuggler made: ua-cam.com/video/sSliAOPoAPw/v-deo.htmlsi=5DijKYL-M9MyOW-6
"And then the lesbian sword fighter turned into a sports car" is a hell of an elevator pitch
I haven’t even watched this yet and … what the hell
And I'm all for it
I know its freaking Utena from just reading this
that movie is aclassic
I fucking love this movie so much.
Definitely would recommend that folks watch the series first, as there are still a lot of references from it in the movie that won't make a whole lot of sense otherwise.
This needs to turn into a series, this video was great
Watching random anime is extremely fun. I once started roaming around the random tags and picked series that have more than 65% recommendation and found some cool stuff. One that I'm watching right now is called "The Testament of Sister New Devil". If you like Highschool DxD you will definitely like this. I'm surprised how a series like this has better combat than a lot of fantasy/isekai out there. At the same time having more well made "sus" scenes than a lot of hent**.
Why watch series with detailed plots that will change how we see the world when we can just watch trashy shows with lots of "plot" instead?
100%
@@VikingBrave 100000%
please! It was very enjoyable! His voice is very soothing.
i agree
Slight correction, the Utena anime is not based on the manga, they were created at the same time and are a different retelling of the same story. You do need to consume all three versions of the story, manga, anime and movie, to fully grasp wtf the whole plot is. ...or just watch a UA-cam video of someone else summarizing it.
oh that’s very interesting
I don’t think you need to consume all three. I think the plot of the anime is strange and gets more symbolic in the climax/towards the end, which makes it more confusing, but the themes are pretty clear.
Watching the movie afterwards was more confusing because I expected to learn more about their world, but it’s quite different and goes in its own direction with a more clearly happy ending. Describing it as a retelling of the same story is fair.
I haven’t read the manga, though. I heard it’s less gay, is that true?
@@pheonixrises11 Yes the manga doesnt have much romance between the girls, the story is easier to understand but goes in a completely different route to the anime since none of them follow each other at a point, it talks about utena meeting god and anthy is there but she can't do much,is a very weird plot ngl, the ending is quite straightforward compared to the anime which is more about symbolism and concepts
In general manga adaptations of ikuhara series /tend/ to be pretty different, I think from being made at a similar time or afterwards but with the input of that creator and going in a different direction intentionally, iirc they did this for yurikuma arashi too, can't remember for the others atm
I swear the manga artist and ikuhara had a bit of beef over certain plot developments for the utena anime but I can't remember the details, ik the two pieces of media are very different though
@@meltyholic Ikuhara did not write the Utena anime and movie, Yoji Enokido did. The poor dude has scripted some of the greatest anime of the 90's and early 2000's and nobody credits him.
I laughed SO HARD when I saw he randomly got the Utena movie omfg, it's perfect for this kind of video
I just went 'Oh god, he's about to say he hasn't seen the anime'.
The Utena move is basically a pop quiz that goes "did you get it? did you get it?" about every every symbol employed in the show. And the answer is usually "kind of" even for repeat watchers.
the Utena series is weird, but compared to the movie it's positively normal and coherent. Like, there's still a lot of symbolism, but it's more straightforward, if not always sensible. It's also not immediately clear in the series that the school is supernatural in nature - the architecture is weird, but only the dueling arena and the freaky upside down castle in the sky seem obviously impossible.
if you want to see all these characters but in a plot that makes significantly more sense, I can highly recommend the series.
I definitely need to check it out sometime. I'm hooked
Utena is basically the Evangelion of Yuri anime
Revolutionary Girl Utena (both the series and the movie) are SO good. Would 100% recommend.
This is like playing Russian roulette but instead of getting shot in the head you have to spend six minutes looking at gratuitous anime panty shots. Not sure if it’s better or worse that way
Depending on the person, it's either a blessing in disguise or a fate worse than death.
Had exactly the same idea 😂 Would be interested what are the odds for landing on good anime.
Depends on whether you have to make content out of it I guess
may play this game with my friends
As soon as the first one was rated R+ I knew this was gonna be a good video
I watched a lot of dark animes like school days before this so it had the complete opposite effect 💀💀💀
@@niellity my guy said school days is a dark anime lmfao
@@furynvm mean it is kind of 🤷♂
@@matyrito3273it's on crunchyroll by definition it's invalidate dark anime status.
I highly recommend Revolutionary Girl Utena. It’s just as weird as the movie, but it makes a lot more sense. It’s also a classic, it revolutionized (wink wink) the way a lot of Shoujo anime were made and what they talk about. Also, it’s damn beautiful. They don’t make anime like this anymore.
Actually they do. It's just made in America, and called Steven Universe. :3
@@the-NightStar I have that on my watch list, I’ll make sure to check it out sooner rather than later now. Thank you.
The music is also the ultimate bop
@@the-NightStar Which falls off hard in later seasons and fails in consistency.
They do.
legit, I was thinking "man, it would suck if he pulled the utena movie, that doesn't really make sense unless you watch the anime" and then you pulled it 💀 The movie feels more like a surreal dream version of the already kinda surreal anime. The movie is like a bunch of memories bundled up, that's why the school is all in pieces.
I like to think it takes place after the series. There are a lot of theories, and if you watch the tv series, I seriously recommend doing it subbed on youtube, the comments are really useful discussions of the episodes. The show means a lot to me as a queer person of color :D
Should do the same thing for manga next
that would be fun and also probably a nightmare
@@Lextorias Half the manga you'd get, would be impossible to find in english
@@henri3170 That's the part of experience
@@henri3170really? cause i can barely find manga in japanese 😔✊
I have seen a UA-cam do something similar
Yeah Adolescence of Utena is NOT a stand alone, it's basically all in code that you only have any hope of understanding if you've watched the entire series at least 3 times.
I'm fascinated by weird world of insane Visual Novel universes that have only ever had their most peripheral instalments animated. School Days is the only the tip of the Overflow iceberg.
The Overflow franchise is ridiculously big and the lore is too... I wonder why the fuck
Yes, I read the I''s manga many, many years ago. The manga wasn't particularly fanservice-y either from what I remember. There are two notes I do clearly remember about it: First is that the author was REALLY good at framing. The whole manga has this cinematic, almost movie-like style where it would frequently zoom the camera out to focus on the background. It was the first time I ever remember being absorbed in the visual style of a manga (it's by the same artist as Video Girl Ai, if you've ever read that). The second is that all of the content after the anime ends was just miserable to read. Like, it was mostly the main character being depressed because he hadn't seen his girlfriend in like a year and wondering if he should just bite the bullet and cheat on her (with the high school girl next door who happens to look identical to her). I hated that stretch so much.
oof
I really enjoyed the manga, but I do agree the identical girl arc was kind of dumb. I tried watching the first OVA they made of the show, the one released before the anime, and it was so bad. It introduced all these one time characters I had never seen before that weren't in the manga and a plot that isn't in the manga either. I don't think the writers actually read the source material, it was some weird plot where Iori gets stranded on a flooded shrine and then the childhood friend almost gets kidnapped by some motorcycle gang. It was so weird and stupid.
10/10 video. Lex just looked scared and confused throughout most of it.
I suffer for my art
@@Lextorias a true artist always does
@@Lextorias I thank you. That's my favorite type of art.
Enjoyed the vid and liked the randomizer review idea. Wouldn't mind a part 2
Subjecting yourself to watching that first one for our entertainment is the ultimate sacrifice, thanks for all the work that goes into these videos, your scripts and delivery are great. Also want to add your reaction to the last movie was hilarious "I don't know what's going on... but that was awesome" lol
welp tried the randomizer after watching this video and got something called the "Legend of Duo" and gotta say that was definitely one of the animes of all time. There were definitely characters.
This is actually pretty genius. I'd watch s bunch more of this concept. You actually got some pretty normal stuff too.
Also from what I was told by a more let's just say, Utena-obsessed homie, it's more a companion piece to the series than wholly its own thing. Which thanks for reminding me I need to finish it, dunno why a random rec did that, but yh lol, you should too though, it's been really good so far.
this got you to watch Utena so I see this as an absolute win tbh. highly recommend the directors other works like Penguindrum and Sarazanmai
God the dramatic irony of watching you go "the movie and show basically tell the same story, so I don't need to watch the tv show first" knowing the ride you were about to go on.
Like watching a horror movie character go in the spooky basement all alone.
RGU is my fave anime (formative gay awakening media lol) and hearing your thoughts was really interesting! Glad you had a good time, even going in without the context offered by the tv show.
great idea. Would really support this being a series. It probably took a while to make, but even as a monthly/bi-monthly series, this would be really, really cool.
Highly recommend the Utena series. It's full of the same weird imagery as the movie, but presented in a more gradual way. By the end you've learned a whole lexicon of symbols that make sense but can't really be translated to words.
Yes, Utena movie leaves the ending to your interpretation. It also leaves the middle and much of the beginning to your interpretation.
I've seen the hype for Trigun Stampede animation (incredibly fluid action, amazing really) and really liked the main character, soon I've learned about 98' anime Trigun and watched it
Never has an anime touched me so right in the feels. This series is a masterpiece and an absolute recommendation just as Cowboy Bebop is, I am not overhyping here.
Yeah it goes from kooky and aesthetic to really contemplative and conceptual at the end. Love Trigun.
98 Trigun us basically Anime Jesus
Considering how you had zero context for understanding _Adolescence of Utena,_ I'm so glad that you ended up liking it so much.
And I hope you do go back and watch the series.
I love the Utena movie. Sadly, while it's a 'retelling' of the manga & anime rather than a sequel to them, you do still kind of have to be familliar with at least one of the prior stories to understand the nuances of the film.
Thankfully the broader strokes - breaking out of confining gender roles, the surreality of adolescence, the boarding school/college campus experience's estrangement from outside reality, one person acting as a vehicle to help another's maturation - playing out in awesomely & hilariously literal form, that all reads well enough without prior context. But yeah, a lot of nuance is lost without knowing the previous works.
It also helps to have a familiarity with the tropes & common subtext of the magical girl genre generally. It's maybe not /as/ direct a genre deconstruction as something like Madoka is, but the anime at least definitely hits the ground running with an assumption that the audience can keep pace, rather than spending any time getting them up to speed. The manga does a bit more of that, but not all that much.
Anyway, do please watch the tv show at some point if you have the time, very worth it. yeah it's a bit long, at least by modern standards, but it's one of the 90s classics for a good reason.
I think it was Noralities who's video pointed out to me that Utena is best understood as a play. The environments and backgrounds are there to give the impression of where events are taking place, rather than be accurate representations.
I did this exact thing for manga quite a few times (granted only for the top 1000-5000) and I found some genuinely great series
Really cool and fun idea for a video. Loved how you went over the history of each anime and didn't just quickly skim the plot but gave a detailed synopsis of them. Would love to see another at some point
Well that's nostalgic. I first saw the I"s manga as a teenager because it was in the german version of Weekly Shonen Jump back then (Banzai is what it was called) and remember thinking it was weird and... overwhelming. It must have been the first chapter or so too, because I vividly remember the bullying and photoshopped nude plot. I tried watching it years later (when the whole thing wasn't way too adult for my tiny kid brain anymore) but I guess I never made it past the first episode because I don't remember any burning house or busted MCs.
"Lasty Farson, which sounds like a made-up midwestern hockey player" that's a great line and extremely accurate lmao. It reminds me of the SNES game Fighting Baseball, which has a bunch of fake, American-sounding names made up by the Japanese developers. Highly recommend checking those out if you haven't already
12:51 He did wipe his hand, in the other guys sweater...
🤢
I finally read the whole Utena manga for the first time last year - including the manga version of the Adolescence movie, which is apparently slightly different than the movie itself - so when I saw it come up I was like "oh no." I mean, don't get me wrong, the series is REALLY good - I found the story overall to be very engaging. But there are definitely a lot of parts where I too was quite confused/shocked as to what was happening. In a way, I'm glad I waited till recently to read it, cause if I had tried to read or watch it when it first came out, when I was still in high school, I don't think I would've understood it as well. And I've heard the anime series is even MORE twisted than the manga. Still, for the time it came out, it was quite revolutionary (pun not intended) in its explorations of gender identity and such, especially since in the late '90s even being gay publically was still pretty taboo. Also the opening song, "Rinbu Revolution," is a serious banger, which I've enjoyed for years despite never having seen the anime.
They also came out with a sort of sequel volume to the original manga in 2017, in honor of the series's 20th anniversary, called "Revolutionary Girl Utena: After The Revolution," which is basically a collection of short stories following the members of the student council after the events of the main series, particularly exploring how they are affected by Utena's disappearance after the final battle.
Anyway, would recommend.
I agree, the Angel Rabbie thing sounds interesting...the only anime I know of with "magical girls sent by heaven" are Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, both of which came out around the same time as Angel Rabbie.
Also the amount of fanservice in anime openings is very odd. It shows up in openings for series that aren't even ecchi, like this '80s action kaitou series I've been watching called Cat's Eye (I would still be watching it but it disappeared from Crunchyroll, so I have to find a new place to watch it). There's not a lot of nudity, but there are some disturbingly suggestive poses and silhouettes of the characters in leotards that don't leave a whole lot to the imagination. None of this reflects what happens in the actual series; it's just pure fanservice. Still, I tend to not watch it where my parents can see. 😅
That being said, I do forget how many ecchi series there are out there. I generally avoid those, though years ago I watched an anime called "Project A-ko" which was kinda ecchi (in retrospect, knowing the guy who introduced it to me, I should've suspected it would be). I also once watched a "cleaned up" clip of a hentai series called "Venus 5" on UA-cam which is basically a hentai of Sailor Moon with some Wedding Peach elements. And even the "cleaned up" version was not very cleaned up. (This was years ago; that kind of thing would never be allowed on UA-cam nowadays I think).
I'm really glad you liked the Utena movie! I only got around to watching it a few months back and it instantly became one of my favorite films ever. I saw the series quite a while back and I love that too, I highly recommend it.
People who say the Utena movie is standalone probably don't really understand the movie. A lot of what the movie does only makes sense if you have context from the TV Show first. Watching it without seeing the series first will make it far more confusing than it actually is, and there are implications that Anthy has retained knowledge of what happened in the show's universe.
On a minor side note, when you see the letters "ou" in a Japanese word or name, it's almost always going to be pronounced like the o in "no". Technically it's a bit different than that, since the u indicates that you're supposed to extend the vowel sound a bit, but that's pretty difficult to distinguish if Japanese isn't your native language so that's really a big deal. More to the point, this means Touga is pronounced more similarly to "toga" (the clothes worn by ancient Romans), not "tooga" as you were pronouncing it. Though I haven't seen Utena dubbed, so there's a chance they screwed up the pronunciation there.
please do this again I absolutely loved it.
The anime you watched weren't half bad! 20:56 I just enjoy so much how obscure all this is. You're spitting out facts like mad and it's just so much fun listening to your commentary. I never even knew the mascot for Visual Novel Database was Lasty Farson, I thought it was just some OC character. Please keep doing these. Edit: Yeah Utena is even more confusing than a David Lynch movie.
Utena tldr: everyone is actually dead and each completion of the arc is a time loop with very small changes each time. The movie is like the final loop before they escape so we’re meant to recognize scenes from the last time loop and draw subplot from the differences between them. So it’s kind of very necessary to watch all of the show and movie to be able to find nirvana.
Utena literally becomes her girl’s vehicle to freedom
So, a more abstract and romantic version of Higurashi?
@@mechengr1731 there are no alien mind worms and there’s a lot more feminist theming but I really like ur comparison lol
Also they TURN INTO car not get hit by one
The Utena movie is like a remiix of the TV series
You can watch it on its own but it's so much better when you know what is actually happening
This is such a good idea!! Would love to see more!!
UTENA let’s freaking go! Was not expecting something I know being on this list. Fun fact the first time I watched Utena was on a watchalong streamed by crunchyroll Hime (vtuber) she’s a big fan of Utena
If you want more Utena-like anime go watch Revue Starlight since it's the spritual successor of Utena.
Also great video.
I’m just discovering your channel and I’m an anime fan of over 15yrs, I love your videos and particularly this randomizer style series. You got me interested in sum odd media I didn’t know was anime and now I wanna try something like this myself. I’m personally at the point in life there aren’t many must watch/iconic anime left for me to view aside from seasonal stuff and my “long overdues” so this makes me excited to approach anime from a different way. Thanks again
I loved this, if you want to watch something similar to Utena with a more coherent plot I’d love to recommend an old Favourite of mine ‘Princess Tutu’. Don’t let the name fool you it’s a master piece and I despair it not getting a longer story. If you can, the English dub is very endearing.
Princess Tutu is wonderful! I love how masterful it’s deconstruction of fairytale troupes are.
Dear lord, please watch Princess Tutu, it's absolutely wonderful 💖✨️
You may be interested in Princess Tutu Zwei :>
utena is really abstract and generates discussions, most fans has different interpretations
edit: would like to see more of this. very good video
Love the title, Lex. Happy to be of service. Can't wait to watch this later tonight.
I had this on originally as background noise but actually became invested. More of this please!
i'd love for this to turn into a series. i love the mix of review, reaction and little lore dives into the diffrent shows. i mean, i finally know who that random visual novel girl on the site is now lolol
super great video, honestly and i think it brings out your personality really well!
I thought the first one would be the weirdest but then the mc changes into a car in the last one. The last one looked amazing. The art style is so beautiful and so surreal from what I’ve seen of these clips that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it talked about anywhere else. It looks so unique and stylistic.
10/10 video would love to see more!
I'd love to see a part two! This was exactly what I expect from anime haha
same
I definitely recommend the I"s manga, one of my favorite romance manga's. The Utena anime is also another series I'd recommend since you enjoyed the movie. The same director also would go on to direct Mawaru Penguindrum, which is also batshit insane. Great video man, been loving your content!
Most of what I watch is a bit of new stuff while catching up on things that caught my eye back in 2015-16 when I was at Uni because I didn't have a whole lot of time, as well as slowly going through CLAMP's backlog. With this system of mine I was able to watch some great shows such as 'Otherside Picnic', 'Snow White With The Red Hair' and 'xxxHolic' all of which I've started reading because I wanted to find out what happens next after the amine ended.
I was so worried when you were like what is happening in the Utena movie as someone that also saw the movie first (it was at my local movie rental) I watched it over and over as a teen. Later watching the series I realized a lot of the movie is tied to the series. You realize why and how after a few times through the movie. The series was a treat to re-watch as an adult as well.
Glad I found you on my recs your videos are fun and well thought out!
I wish I could go back to the time when I hadn't watched anime and was discovering something new and fresh everyday. Now Im just over picky feeling like I've seen it all.
That vndb fact was actually fascinating - I had no idea that's where mascot-chan was from. Thanks for the trivia!
I need more of these. Please make it a series
What a fun video! 🙃
Love it when characters speak English (good or bad) in anime lol
I could genuinely watch this for hours that was great
I've been loving your content because it gives me an insiders perspective on anime, one I don't have considering I'll only check something out if it is standalone good. So imagine my surprise seeing something you haven't in Utena! I didn't realize it was obscure. I don't even quite remember how I came across it, I think it was either the She-ra and the Princesses of Power reboot showrunner N.D. Stevenson talking about influences or just another video essay on She-ra. It's climax pays homage (they don't turn into a car but still). And apparently you can see references to it in a few other notable works.
please do a part 2. this was very enjoyable in a new way
So that piledriver in Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie looked a lot like a different variation of the piledriver, look up Adam Page's Deadeye finisher and it's basically like that except of course in the show she's trying to kill the golem in the harshest way possible by snapping every single vertebrae in its back lmao
This was very fun to watch! Subbed and I hope it's a series :>
EDIT: Utena being your last is hilarious. It's one hell of a ride to watch and I'm glad you liked it.
That was a surprisingly enjoyable ride, might give that wheel a spin myself sometime soon, maybe just with my backlog, to finally start chipping at it.
thanks youtube for this recommendation, such a fun idea for a video! eventhough i don't personally watch anime i got curious and i'm glad i checked this out. very well made and great presentation, i admire your dedication to not just watch the works but tell about their background. i would definitely watch more of anime randomizer!
It's amazing how out of who knows how many shows listed on MAL, all three you got were shows that you can't get into on their own without any supplementary material (another series, wiki, etc.). I didn't think it'd be this random but it was interesting. Thank you for not only watching all of them but also giving a breakdown and commentary.
Oh and thank you for the trivia about the database's mascot. I never wondered about who it was but it's certainly nice knowing who she is. Now whenever I'd end up visiting the site, I'll know her name. "Lasty Farson" is a strange name though haha
youre laughter is so infectious lol im subscribing
Wow, of all the anime to randomly get, Utena is a classic. Really great story, absolutely baffling metaphors about very heavy topics, banger soundtrack. 10/10
Really fun vid, I liked it a lot! Keep up the good work my duderoni!
This was such a fun idea, you should make this a series !!
Thanks for telling me about that randomizer site! I've already seen over 1000 anime, been watching since the 90s and it gets hard finding something new or interesting. Seen most of the recommended stuff for the genres I like on MAL already too lol
Highly recommend watching Revue Starlight since you liked Utena! The director worked on penguindrum and took inspiration from Utena and Evangelion! You won't be disappointed
I've read the I"s manga when I was younger and I'm so happy to see this here. I absolutely loved it!
Love how thorough your commentary is regardless of the anime you're covering. I was super suspicious of where you'd go with the first one, but I ended up enjoying your thoughts on all three shows. Would definitely watch you react to more!
underrated taxi driver reference, that was funny. Respect to your media knowledge
I got SO excited when I saw Utena on here, and was so glad to find you liking it. That shit's my absolute jam. Lovely vid my man
Awesome video dude, make this a series because it's just quality entertainment ✨🙌
20:46 was a bombshell I was not expecting a video like this to drop. Edit: I got fruits basket season 1 on my first roll lol
Hey, new fan here thanks to this video as I’m someone who’s fairly new to anime but generally isn’t fussed about which to watch, so I find videos like this great. Plus I’m admittedly easily invested and pleased by most stories I watch as well, so I’d likely enjoy anything you select or that I randomise myself thanks to you mentioning the randomiser site 😅
Maybe to ensure variety of anime for us and more importantly yourself if you do a video like this again (which I’d love), have a rule of at least one movie/OVA and series in each selection if possible.
Edit: I must also just be lucky as my first ever randomised anime on the site is Steins Gate, and it has a good reputation judging by the anime UA-camrs I now watch.
Thank you for this video and the ‘Spin Dot Moe’ idea! 👍 I need to try this. It’s bound to give ridiculous results. 👀 I would like to see if we can narrow down the options a bit. 😅 I watched Utena just a few weeks ago. The old version. The new anime version is.... well, different. 😅 Personally, I gave it a 5/10. 😳 The anime is very symbolic throughout but it was also perhaps, too metaphorical for my taste. 🤔 Thank you for this video Lextorias! 👍
you can use filters and only have it choose between specific kinds of shows. i think you can even hook your MAL account to it and have it choose from your watch later list. I just chose to spin with no filters for the full random effect
@@Lextorias - Thank you! 😊
I'm so glad you enjoyed Utena. I'd highly recomm3nd seeing the full series.
You should totally continue this series I loved this vid, subbed
THANK YOU yt algorithm for recommending this to me. This is such a good video and channel
You uncovering the mystery of the vndb mascot is the last thing i expected from this - and there are *a lot* of plot twists.
The commitment to the first one so far earned a sub, fun watch lmao
While watching this, I, no shit,
thought, "Wow, what if Utena pops up." I had a friend of mine about 12 years back bring this up as one of the only anime she has watched. I watched with her as an act of solidarity....can't say I'd recommend it.
Love the idea, would definitely watch more random reviews like this !
my sister is a super big Utena fan and I gasped outloud when I heard u say the title
great vid btw :))
OMG, I"s was my teenagehood! The manga was a rollercoaster of feelings, I loved it and Katsura is still one of my favourite artists. The anime was a nice watch once and I liked the OST. I totally understand you liking the shipping with Itsuki more, I was in the same boat. And the constant problems with stretching the story to finally have Ichitaka and Iori be a couple were funny the first times, but a bit tiring at the end. Some of the best scenes not included in the anime involved more friends from school, great characters too.
I just got this recommended and had a good time. Would like to see another video like this at some point.
You should really check out the rest of Ikuhara's works! They're just as great
Great video as always.
genuinely fucking wild that within three turns of the spinner you got the utena movie. id say its pretty impressive! that's like hitting the confusing fever dream jackpot!
hope it encourages you to watch the series!! once you do that and go back to the movie, although it's more outwardly bizarre at parts it'll fill in a few gaps left by the show. it's one of those looks-like-a-spinoff acts-like-a-sequel movies, pretty clever but a bit confusing to the uninitiated since it's not really a stand alone unless you're just watching it for the art. You'll notice in the show the characters act a lot less openly and confidently for the most part, that's probably the most obvious clue that the timeline of the movie occurs after they've been through one round of this stuff already.
as a bonus: the cow is actually a main character! either they ran out of room for her or chose not to include her, and so that little scene is her screentime (iirc)
said character is a human and one of the duellists (hence the outfit), but there's an standalone episode where she becomes obsessed with a designer collar that slowly turns her into a cow, that crazy scene was a bit of a reference to that. she's kind of a mean-girl type on the surface but is very susceptible to shenanigans, hence the cow thing. there's several other things. at one point she thinks she lays an egg and has a teen mom crisis. it makes sense in context, but she gets a lot of the more silly episodes and episodes that are massive metaphors for bigger issues presented in a kinda whimsical way. nanami is good you go in expecting to hate her but she's messy and innocent in a way that you can't help but like her
Hey dude if u want an obscure anime to watch, I recommend the alien 9 ova, it’s a psychological horror that pulls the Madoka twist before madoka lol it’s a weird series but it only has 4 episodes so it’s definitely worth checking out imo
this was pretty interesting as some one who was been watching anime for over a decade now its nice to see stuff i have not seen yet
New to the channel, but I'm glad this got recommended to me. I ended up really liking the video and the results were amazing.
Maybe I should do this too, so I actually watch anime and don't CONSTANTLY ignore my watch list or stay up to date with anime I promised myself I'd watch from the get go.
This was both hilarious and interesting. Please make more!!
Great video. Would love for it to be a series!
I laughed so hard when you got the Utena movie. Glad you liked it!
i actually watched Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie a while back and was trying to refind it last week with some friends, seeing this video with it in it was a shock !!!