I recently read this book called Takarazuka by Jennifer Robertson. If you haven't read it, it's definitely worth a read, even if, like me, you end up tripping lightly over the theory for the historical and thematic commentary. The Takarazuka Musical Revue is a Japanese all-female musical revue troupe (well, it's actually five troupes now) that was founded in 1913 by a rail tycoon who wanted to provide a tourist attraction so that people would use his new train line, and it continues to this day. It's immensely popular in Japan, particularly, it seems, in women age 30-50 or thereabouts. (Note: I suspect that Takarazuka was the inspiration for the all-female casts of the various anime-based musicals, including the Utena musical.)
If you like shoujo anime of any sort -- but particularly gender-bending shows like Utena -- this book is chock-full of eyeopeners, in terms of where certain conventions may have had their origins.
The thing that I found most interesting in regard to Utena was the identification of some of the mannerisms that are drilled into the otokoyaku (women who play male roles almost exclusively) and the musumeyaku (women who play very "feminine" women as foils to make the male-players look more "masculine"). For example, the otokoyaku learn to walk with their hands bunched into fists, stand with their feet planted far apart, and make sweeping gestures, while the musumeyaku learn to move their arms only from the elbows down, arms well in against their bodies, and keep their body language very "demure." Robertson named a few more of the elements of the different "katas" that Takarasiennes learn, and it hit me very clearly: Utena demonstrates the essence of the otokoyaku kata, while Anthy portrays the mannerisms typical of the musumeyaku kata.
Again and again, I run into different ways in which Utena and Anthy are depicted as more archetypes than people -- not just as "Prince and Princess". (For another example, see my essay, Is Utena a Tragic Hero?") It amazes me every time I see it. The amount of symbolic significance that Be-Papas managed to pack into the two characters is stunning. Even more stunning is the fact that under all those layers of symbols, they maintained real personalities for both of them. That's one of the most compelling things -- for me -- about the series: these real girls keep emerging from and submerging back into this mythic morass in which both of them are trapped until, at last, they both escape.
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