REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA: ADOLESCENCE OF UTENA (2000)   **1/2

Reviewed 6/13/03

Convoluted, near-incomprehensible anime in which Utena, a girl, masquerades as a boy at the elite Ohtori Academy, a school whose architecture is so spacious and grandly imposing that Bill Gates himself couldn’t afford to build it.  From time to time Utena enters fencing duels with various students, the purpose of which is to win the hand of Anthy, the Rose Bride who tends to a giant rose garden atop a floating platform.  Utena doesn’t even want Anthy (at first); she only wants to get the attention of her ex-boyfriend Touga.  Luckily, she doesn’t reunite with him since he basically looks like a svelte Fabio.  Instead she flirts with a lesbian relationship with Anthy whose ready to bed Utena at the drop of a hat.  A dead prince who had an incestuous relationship with his sister, a video of a cow and some elephants, a monster car wash, and a humongous castle on wheels has something to do with it all.  The action climax has Anthy literally driving Utena, who has been transformed into a sleek car.  So perplexing that after a while, you just throw up your hands and go with the sensuous imagery and the infectious passion of the characters.