part of why i say it's lifechanging is that it was, as far as i can remember, the first real critique of liberal feminism i ever really absorbed. i was a teenager, maybe 15 when i watched it for the first time. i started the show completely cheering for utena to become a prince and by the end i was able to understand that "women does the shitty thing a man does" is not actually a worthy goal and that it really just maintains the systems of patriarchal control. it fundamentally changed the way i looked at the world

it also changed how i looked at art, prior to utena i was very much a "the curtains are fucking blue" type, i didn't get symbolism and didn't want to. but utena changed that as well. i remember getting to the scene with touga and saionji on their shitty bike and going "ohhhh, i see! this is a parallel to the akio car scenes indicating that touga is (and always has been) trying to imitate the adult masculine ideal of akio, but that's fundamentally impossible for him and it ruins his relationship with his friend/boyfriend!" and from that point forward i was able to do media analysis good, like i saw the code in the matrix

utena's mixture of obtuse and opaque symbolism with some blindingly obvious stuff is really good for that sort of thing, i was able to instantly understand a lot of the stuff going on like the car representing sex and masculinity and adulthood and all that and plenty of the shadow plays make sense, while stuff like the coffins or all the flower symbolism or the duel themes i can turn over in my brain and constantly find new meaning