The bird is fighting its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wishes to be born must destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The god is named Abraxas.
Herman Hesse, Demian
Revolutionary Girl Utena, episode 17: “The Thorns of Death.” Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Character designs by Chiho Saito. Be-Papas, 1997 (Nozomi Entertainment, 2011). Approx. 24 minutes. Rated “16+.”
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After one of the worst filler episodes in the show’s entire run, Revolutionary Girl Utena is now back on track.
This episode finally introduces Shiori, the nameless purple-haired girl we had earlier encountered in flashbacks as the unrequited love of Juri. Shiori stole the man she thought Juri was in love with.
Shiori has enrolled again at Ohtori Academy after having attended another institution through middle school. The unnamed boy she though she had swiped from Juri is now out of her life for reasons we never learn.
Juri acts deliberately cold toward Shiori while Shiori herself, appearing soft and gentle, tries to repair the rift in their relationship. Of course, as with most characters in this show, Shiori is more conniving underneath than she appears on the surface.
Trying to put away her feelings for Shiori for good, Juri takes the locket she wears, the one containing Shiori’s picture, and casts it into a lake. Shiori returns to her dorm room soon after only to find the window open, as if someone had broken in. She finds the locket, wet from the lake, sitting on the corner of her desk.
We don’t see exactly who extracted the locket from the water and delivered it to Shiori, but it is hinted that it may have been Anthy. If so, this is the first time Anthy has manipulated the other characters in a way that is direct and deliberate. Until now, her methods have come with plausible deniability—but we don’t actually see Anthy doing anything in this episode, so she still had deniability at least from the viewer’s perspective.
Shortly after opening the locket and realizing that it is her own picture inside, Shiori goes to the Black Rose Circle for an “interview.” As she descends into the Earth on the diabolical elevator, she reveals that she has always hated Juri out of jealousy: she has resented Juri for being better at most everything, and it was for that reason that she had tried to steal Juri’s man.
Now having seen the picture in Juri’s locket, she is simultaneously triumphant and repulsed. Knowing that Juri is in love with her, she considers herself to have “won” over her enemy, but she is at the same time disgusted, apparently wishing that she could recover some friendship with Juri, sans lust and sans jealousy.
Shortly after this, of course, she confronts Juri and pulls a sword from her chest, and then challenges Utena in the arena. What follows is a particularly energetic but brief battle.
Afterwards, we see Shiori, returned to “normal,” gossiping with other girls as she strolls along a walkway. Utena and Anthy watch from an upper-story window. Utena comments that Shiori has changed considerably, but Anthy replies—ominously—that Shiori is really the same as she’s always been.
This is a curious interaction. Up to this point, we have got the impression that Utena is able in some way to repair or at least lessen the psychological damage of the other characters by fighting them in the arena. In a moment of unusual assertiveness—Anthy usually being one to, seemingly, bend competely to Utena’s will—Anthy here asserts that Utena is less effective than she, or we, have previously supposed.
And the episode’s final moments may suggest the same thing: the locket comes back into the possession of Juri, who returns it to its accustomed place around her neck. Perhaps nothing has changed.
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