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 13: “Tracing a Path.” Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Character designs by Chiho Saito. Be-Papas, 1997 (Nozomi Entertainment, 2011). Approx. 24 minutes. Rated “16+.”
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This technically begins the second story arc, the “Black Rose Saga,” though that story won’t really get started until episode 14. This arc is perhaps the most intriguing in the show, as it has a clever mind-screw plot, and it’s the one that most impressed me when I first watched the series in spite of some clumsy editing and a lot of recycled animation. But it’s also the most frustrating arc, since the elaborate storyline it develops never gets mentioned again afterwards and the apparent revelations it delivers turn out to be mostly misdirection. It’s like twelve episodes of tease.
Every once in a while, Utena does a recap episode. This is common in anime, but Utena is screwy with recaps just as it is with everything else: it embeds important plot developments in the recap episodes to prevent you from skipping over them.
I used to hate this episode, and not just because it’s largely a recap. The first time I watched it, I thought it was delivering important information, and I thought I had a good idea of what was going on. As it turned out by the end of the series, a lot of my guesses were wrong. When I watched this episode a second time, I still couldn’t see how this could properly tie into the story and not contradict the information we’re ultimately given by the time the series is over.
On a third viewing, however, I can see that the misdirection is intentional. Episode thirteen does actually fit properly into the show as a whole.
This is going to be difficult to discuss, because I’d like to describe the episode without giving away what’s really going on. So what I’m going to do is describe how I interpreted this the first time I watched it. Some of what I’m about to say is right, and some of it is wrong, and you’re free to guess which is which.
Touga, having been defeated by Utena in spite of his best-laid plans, has fallen into a funk. He sits in his rooms, gazing despondently out the window while listening to his own tape-recorded voice describing the world revolution. His voice actor went on to other projects during this arc, so although he’ll appear on-screen from time to time, we literally won’t hear from him again until the third and final arc.
A mysterious figure, tall, handsome, and dark-skinned, resembling Utena’s prince, walks into the dueling arena. He gazes up at the castle overhead, which spins in the air and appears to be lowering toward him. Then, we see him in a dark room, presumably inside the castle, where he speaks to a figure clad in white, also resembling the prince, who is sitting atop a hovering orb with his head bowed either in sorrow or exhaustion.
The first figure, the one walking around, has a decidedly sinister air. He begins talking about the duels Utena has fought, and indicates that they are building to something that will “awaken” or “revive” the “power” of the figure seated on the orb. His dialogue also identifies this awakening with the cracking of the world’s shell, the “revolution” that has been vaguely referred to throughout the series. Each of the duels is represented by a stained-glass window, its color corresponding to the color of each of the student council members Utena fought.
We are thus treated to rapidly cut summaries of each of the previous duels, accompanied by J. A. Caesar’s music. At least it’s action-packed for a recap.
Given that a princely figure regularly descends out of the castle to aid Utena during the duels, a figure identified with the power of Dios, we can guess that this figure sitting on the orb is Dios himself, who is also probably the prince who appeared to Utena when she was a child.
We know some sinister figure called World’s End is manipulating things behind the scenes and had connived with the student council president Touga. Based on the dialogue here, we can guess that the figure walking around is World’s End himself.
From what we see here, it looks as if Dios is in some way trapped inside the castle, but is able to summon enough power to aid Utena in her battles. World’s End appears to be the one imprisoning him, though we don’t know to what purpose. At the end of World’s End’s lengthy monologue, Dios raises his head and looks at him silently but accusingly, to which World’s End mockingly replies that the results of the duel will be beneficial to both of them.
At this point, we may assume that World’s End is a villain and Dios a prisoner, and may hope that perhaps by winning the duels, Utena may be able to avoid falling into World’s End’s ploy, ascend to the castle, and free Dios.
After his monologue, World’s End walks out through a brightly lit exit, standing in which we can see a female figure who accompanies him. Shortly after this, we see Utena’s dorm room. Anthy walks in, and when Utena asks her where she has been, Anthy replies with a silent smile—almost certainly indicating that she was the figure in the doorway. This is our first clear indication that Anthy is not being entirely open with Utena.
Following this, the episode ends with a few glimpses of things to come in the Black Rose Saga, but they are not worth discussing at the moment.
