Himemiya Anthy

the effigy of the flower shrine, general overview -- version 1.0 July 2003

The Rose Bride. Bara no Hanayome. Witch. Sinful woman. Doll. All of these phrases have been used to describe Anthy, one of the most enigmatic characters in Shoujo Kakumei Utena, both in terms of personality and in symbolic meaning on all scales. The interpretations and theories are as wide and as varied as the number of fans, as it is with all of the characters and the symbols in Utena. The whole of Shoujo Kakumei Utena is catalytic, a water-mirror presenting images and enigmatic quotes that have an intuitive link as simultaneously light and viscous as all thought within an eccentric mind; the symbols, characters, and meanings reflect a person's inner thoughts and ideals, seen out of hope that they manifest the viewer's inner feelings.

Anthy's fate as the Rose Bride is to be a heartless doll, an effigy, to be traded around in the Duels as a prize and to be used to further fortify the egos of her protectors--coffin princes who need a princess to protect to feel validated in their roles, their shells. The protectors do not feel for Anthy as a person or want her to be free, all save the true Prince, Utena. So, Anthy is fated to be placed in a birdcage on a pedestal, a beautiful trophy to protect, but not to love for a person, hence all of the references to the rose garden being a birdcage and Anthy being a bird. Anthy's fate is multifaceted in its punishments, collaborating the swords of hate coming at her from all directions along with the birdcage arrangement and all of the other fun features her fate entails. Truly, Anthy fulfills her role as a doll during the first part of the series fully, expressing no will or feelings of her own, no opinion. She was merely a physical body that was there to fulfill the purpose of those that wish to control her; she took on the will and innermost wishes of her current Engaged, a mirror, an entity of substance that takes on the properties of those around it. The hollow smile, with eyes always closed--closing the windows to the soul in anguish that must be quelled under her punishment. Anthy's smile is her mask. She is something that is not real, an eternal entity that is an illusion like her brother.

Anthy is an effigy for Akio (or Dios, as the case may be). She takes on all of the criticisms and attacks aimed at him--the "swords of hate". This is one explanation for taking all of the swords into her body, why they are all magnetically attracted to her body. The insults thrown at Anthy--all of which are "Witch!"--are said to be a result of her sealing away Dios?s purity and power, contributing to his downfall into Akio. The swords of hate whisper "Witch, witch" as they stab Anthy in the final episode. The world blames Anthy for Dios's downfall, when in fact Anthy made Dios fall to save Dios himself, the latter of whom was exhausting himself body and soul by rescuing all the princesses of the world, falling further and further into his self-validating shell of "prince". The Sword of Dios may, in fact, be a manifestation of the swords of hate, ironic, considering that it is used to defend Anthy. The Sword of Dios disappears in episode 25, the first duel of the Akio Saga, and from that point proxy Rose Brides are chosen by the Duelists to draw their Soul Swords--the same swords that the Black Rose Duelists drew from the Student Council in the Black Rose Saga. Anthy draws Utena's soul sword. The nature of the Soul Swords may in some way tie into the theory on the swords of hate, being the lances of criticism drawn toward the Duelists for their sins that their brides draw away from them, into a physical form out of their chests, that they use with which to fight. This, or they are merely weapons forged from their strong hearts that desire for the ideals within the illusionary castle. Or they just look cool and Ikuhara Kunihiko is dangling a random illusion for all of the viewers to interpret any way they please, a beautiful spectacle of the fantasy world that just "is" in a scientific existence that can be overanalyzed. Then again, nothing in Utena can be analyzed too deeply.

The play that the Shadow Girls present, a simplified (and sophomoric, as Akio says--like something one would read in high school English) version of a fairy tale, shows Anthy as the evil witch that sealed her brother away because she was the only woman that he could not save due to their blood relationship. It is said that girls must be rescued to become princesses, and girls that do not become princesses have no choice but to become witches, hence Anthy as the witch. This shows a curious preaching of the immorality of incest, something blissfully all but unseen in Shoujo Kakumei Utena (the morality, not the incest). This philosophy is the most dark, chaining side of femininity spoken in the simplest terms, something the Shadow Girls do analogetically well. It is reminiscent of something that Mudou Setsuna says in volume 2 of the Angel Sanctuary manga: "Girls become more beautiful, more kind, because they are being protected. Don't act like a guy. Hurry up and find somebody to protect you." (I think that this was more Alexiel's influence talking at the time. Part of the reason that I relate Alexiel to Anthy.) Part of Anthy's shell, the part far more self-fulfilled than her eternal curse as the Rose Bride, is her fulfillment of her femininity to the capacity that she is fully submissive, meek, silent, subservient, and helpless, needing protection from a prince. Anthy says "Girls are all like the Rose Bride in the end" after Utena asks her what it means to be feminine. She could mean that all girls are like the Rose Bride in fulfilling those requirements of femininity that Anthy embodies, in that they are only used to fulfill the egos of their princes in the end, no matter how selflessly they draw away pain and ridicule or how much they sacrifice for their princes, and that in the end all of them fall into this pattern no matter how strong they are, forever a princess to be protected.

As far as "coffins" or "shells" in Shoujo Kakumei Utena are concerned, Anthy is one of the most self-fulfilling and self-entrapping members of the cast, but unlike Akio (the other one) she is unhappy and masochistic. She is shut in her coffin to escape pain, in there because she believes that she must be, because that it is the way things are. She fulfills her assigned role dutifully until Utena rescues her and frees her from herself. When Anthy escapes the coffin, the revolution occurs. The nature of the Revolution is a long, complicated, multifaceted argument of infinite theories and possibilities that can be discussed at length in other places on the site. As far as the shells are concerned, the princess shell is shown to be painful in Shoujo Kakumei Utena and is something avoided by the champions of the show (Utena, for example), but this shows a paradoxical aversion to the connotation of the princess shell that is just as arbitrary as the predetermined fate that all girls must be princesses.

Anthy's punishment for sealing away the light of Dios is to be eternal, to live forever and suffer. Anthy's anguish is the "something eternal" that young Utena sees the night that Dios visits her and gives her the Rose Signet, that which inspired Utena to live and become strong and noble. Anthy's punishment entails with it an embodiment of wondrous powers that the Duelists seek--the eternity that Saionji and Mikage seek, the shining thing that Miki seeks, the miracle that Juri seeks, the revolution that Touga and Akio seek. Utena, unlike the rest of the Duelists, only wants to rescue Anthy and end her suffering, even if the end of her suffering means the elimination of all of the illusionary powers. Utena is Anthy's true prince, the one person that is who Dios once was and can never be again, but unlike Dios Utena can save Anthy. Utena is unlike Dios in the fact that she is not tied down to her coffin role as a prince, she breaks out--that is what makes her different, untied by the conventional, standardized morals of gender and blood relations that Dios followed. Anthy may have made Dios fall so that he would lose his strong sense of morality and would look at her, his blood sister, as a lover and a princess to protect. Utena truly cares for Anthy. That is the key determining factor in the Revolution, that which allows her to pull Anthy out of the coffin. The only way to open the Rose Gates to reach Anthy's coffin is to cry for her, to truly feel for her and allow a tear to fall into the pool lock, not attack the doors with a sword as Akio was doing.

The Revolution Duel ends when Anthy stabs Utena in the back per Akio's request, saying "My meddlesome hero. Thank you for letting me have a taste of true friendship. But, you cannot be my true prince. Because you are a girl." It is wondered if Anthy really meant that Utena could not be her prince just because she is a girl, if Anthy was looking for an excuse to hide a deeper feeling of doubt and fear, or if she was trying to protect Utena from Akio's revolution.

A theory involving the revolution is closely tied to Anthy's self-locking into her coffin. The Rose Bride, the role, the fate that is set upon Anthy may in fact be an illusion itself, a self-fulfilled prophesy that Anthy believes to be true and therefore makes true. The power of illusions and ideals over the mind and the mind's ability to make these things into "truths" is Akio's power and the only true power that exists in the planetarium and the Castle. The revolution could in fact be Anthy's realization of her self-fulfilled coffin and of all of the illusionary, arbitrary roles and fates that people hollowly follow in the empty movement of life. When Anthy realizes this and no longer believes in the hollow dueling game, she breaks free of her coffin and leaves Akio to play prince in his coffin.

Anthy's relationship with Akio is a partnership--she helps him implement all of his plans while hiding behind a blank mask--and a lover's relationship. She is the princess, the eternal effigy for her fallen, refraction of a prince, now a dark corpse in a coffin that struggles madly to escape. She shows a finesse for manipulation and the ability to completely hide her feelings behind a smiling mask, closing her eyes--something the webmaster calls the "Chichiri Mask (no da)", closing the windows to the soul and controlling the facial muscles, which are far easier to control than the eyes. Anthy visits Akio on Saturday nights to sleep with him--the sort of sleeping where there is no sleeping going on: screwing like rabbits (or like Chu-Chu and the frog). Anthy removes her glasses and sets them on a desk before approaching Akio on these occasions--definitely a symbolic gesture, perhaps of the removal of a mask or symbolic of the fact that she sees things clearly, that she is no longer feigning blindness and innocence. When she turns around after this gesture, her eyes are no longer innocent and blank, but are dark and twisting, revealing a labyrinth soul, a stark contrast to the innocent exterior she presents through most of the series. Anthy still believes that her brother is her prince, her Dios that can be regained if only the power to revolutionize the world is unlocked, and so for that hope and because of her eternal devotion she helps him with the duels. She turns a blind eye to the possibility that Dios cannot be resurrected, that her brother is a hollow corpse acting out the motions of being a prince. She is dead and frozen inside, refusing to see the possibilities outside of the set world of coffins in which her brother is the virtuoso of manipulation and illusion mastery. She is a corpse like Akio until Utena rescues her from her coffin. In her final farewell she leaves her glasses--her mask--with Akio to be a relic of the past, something arbitrary only fit for Akio's illusionary world, and then goes into the outside world to find Utena. In the movie, the idea of reaching the outside world is stated more clearly--a place in which there are no roads, no predetermined paths, no coffins or roles to fulfill. The movie is more fully analyzed elsewhere in this happy site of doom.

Anthy hates herself. She has a severe masochism complex. She loathes her very existence and thinks that she deserves her suffering for selfishness in taking Dios all to herself, and so locks herself further and further into her coffin and receives gratification and penance from the pain that comes from her "fate". The fate of the Rose Bride could in fact be foraged by Anthy herself so as to make herself feel better. She tries to kill her own will and make herself into a doll, either to numb the pain befalling her soul or because she believes that it is part of her rightful punishment and role. Anthy is truly "dead inside" before she meets Utena. Utena wakes her up inside when Anthy was cold deep down, dying, without a thought, without a voice, without a soul (don't let me die here, there must be something more...save me from the nothing I've become..."Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence is a perfect Anthy / Utena song). Utena unlocks Anthy's will and soul, her existence as an autonomous and valid being.

Anthy is a quiet and submissive girl, sweet, kind, and with an affinity for animals. She communicates more easily and is more comfortable with animals--birds, snails, mongooses, Chu-Chu--who do not judge her by her quirks and think her "weird"--as does vast majority of the student body at Ohtori--but see past the surface and warm to her gentleness. She keeps many pets around her dorm room, one of which is the friendly, charismatic, graceful, self-depriving monkey-mouse Chu-Chu. She enjoys working in solitude on her rose garden in the center of the academy grounds, where she can be alone with nature. She dislikes taking any life, even a bug's, thinking that all things have a right to live. She is avoided by the students in the academy, all of whom fear her and think that she is "weird", or they form gangs and smack her around, blaming her for various bouts of depression befalling the popular members of the Student Council (swords of hate again). She does not have any friends other than Chu-Chu and Utena, has a phobia of crowds, and has considerable talent in playing the piano. She is very shy and expresses a desire to make more friends, but it is unknown if she was tapping into Utena's concerns and trying to please Utena or if this was a genuine request--or if it was a genuine request that happened to resonate with Utena's concerns and therefore she allowed it to manifest. Anthy does not do well in academics or in sports, but she is not by any means dumb. She likes feeling secure and safe, and fitting into the role of the Rose Bride helps her feel such, even if it is a hollow relationship. She grows to deeply love Utena and begins to realize that maybe there is a prince that can rescue her after all...