Welcome to Empty Movement: the ultimate source of Utena trash and treasure for over twenty years! We (Vanna and Yasha) still update an actual website, complete with an affiliated forum! Come hang with us at Something Eternal!
In an ever-changing cultural landscape, we've managed to beat the odds and stick around, and as your humble webmasters and this illustrious series age, our devotion to (especially queer) media archiving has only increased. Only a fraction of the media of this age will exist into the next, and while we missed our chance to get Absolute Destiny Apocalypse on the Voyager Golden Record, we're gonna do our best to be the next best thing!
Come! Join us! If we can't take you to the world you desire, we can at least take you to a neverending treasure trove of Utena content.
Social media? Sure, we've heard of it! But like the rest of the civilized world, we're using it less, and focusing on our own social networks, the forum and the Discord. If you want to support us, we have some great custom merchandise you can get here, or support us more directly on Patreon!
Something Eternal: OUR FORUM
Discord: invite only, e-mail us at emptymovement(at)gmail.com! It's a great community and we'd love to share it.
Tumblr: empty-movement
Twitter: @ohtori_nu
Bluesky: empty-movement.bsky.social
In the Rose Garden: (archive)
The center of the Utena fandom for almost a decade, the IRG forums are now a static archive. We know it's a mess, it's on the to-do list.
Over 13,000 images, an exhaustive collection of production artworks for Revolutionary Girl Utena, including screencaps of the series and movie, production artwork, backgrounds and sketches, sheet music, and more. Explore, and get lost.
The Bibliothèque is a gallery system attached to our forum, and is an ongoing, fast growing repository of Utena media, with a focus on printed materials like magazine articles, full high-resolution artbooks, and scanlated media. The entire 1997 run of Newtype Magazine, wherever Utena appears, for example, is here. This is also where the future Shounen Ou and Schell Bullet archives will end up!
A collection of high-resolution scans of dozens and dozens of Utena doujinshi. A fascinating look at the state of the Japanese fandom around the production of the series.
A relic of duellists.tj, the Utena Fan Translation Project's scripts of the television series. A unique and independent translation from the official releases, and a great quote resource.
Translated by the immortal Dallbun and presented by Giovanna, the two Utena light novels reimagine the events of the first arc of the series, and include among other things...Touga and Miki as a canon thing.
A collection of transcribed and translated input from the creators of Utena. Interviews, commentaries, tid-bits. Essays, blogs. You name it. Ignore everything Ikuhara says, though, it'll make life easier, I promise.
Untranslated resources such as the game guide book, CD booklets, essay books, and other potential goldmines of Utena content, waiting for an enterprising translator to bring to us. This site has some overlap with The Bibliotheque, so if you're looking for something specific it could be in either!
An exhaustive resource covering the music and soundtrack releases of Utena, including side-by-side lyric comparisons of multiple translations, album information, and liner notes.
Countless amazing essays and considerations surrounding Revolutionary Girl Utena. Character information, production info, and a growing list noticed references. Much of this site was built to make analysis easier, and you all have rewarded us handsomely.
Character shrines used to be a common site, but Akio character shrines...were not. Come see what Vanna sees in the beast. No, I don't seriously stan him, but I do find him fascinating. The title of this site is based on an ancient mistranslation, by the by. Fitting, no?
She's onscreen for less than two minutes, but she made one hell of an impression. A mini-shrine to an interesting character, an eerie scene, and a toxic relationship.
Before the availability of high-resolution images, a fad existed of vector tracing anime into high-resolution images. These can be found here, inclding a tutorial that shows how dated this really is.
Before there was social media, there was this, Utena art and fanfics hosted on Empty Movement, at one point the busiest and most labor intensive part of the site.
....brought back to life. These are websites saved from the wreckage of 20 years of Utena fandom, reposted with the blessings of the original creators. Come see some ancient history, including fanfics older than you are, and shrines to the least loved characters.
It was common back in the day to have a little subsection of larger websites with information about them. That can be found here. It's retro.
We've made a few items that can be purchased through our online store to support us, or just to get you some cool stuff!
There have been lots of requests for us to put up a Patreon, and so we bow to this demand!! Empty Movement has been an extraordinarily expensive labor of love over the years, and while we've been happy to mostly shoulder that burden, we absolutely appreciate every dollar you contribute. <3
July 22, 2024
Trying to find the perfect place for everything Utena that we have to share is often the hardest part of sharing it, and there are some idiosyncrasies of how the content on this site is organized that I simply cannot change, without it sucking up the time I'd otherwise spend adding new stuff. Believe me, I tried!! The Gallery remains The Art and Screenshots Place, but Historia Arcana is where you get cover to cover scans of interview books and fan published-analysis in Japanese. And then there's the Bibliothèque, which is where I will be uploading full artbooks, translation efforts, and print materials like magazine clippings, scans of the game CD booklet, etc, etc. This software's features lend it to group uploading, and labelling and explaining of errata images in the description there, something the software that runs the original Gallery fails to do.
(You old timers might recall I was setting up a gallery on this domain using Piwigo software, but I have found Xenforo's gallery software to better perform the task at hand, so these efforts kinda 'redirect' to it.)
Either way, the goal has always been bringing y'all Utena, and in that we are doing JUST FINE.
This update is all about archiving. I've been beating my scanner bloody, and have I got a feast for you!!!
In From the Mouths of Babes (Translated Commentary and Interviews):
• 2017 Special Talk Chiho Saito and Kunihiko Ikuhara Interview! (x2)
- After the Revolution, Italian Print. Translated by mint
- Revolutionary Girl Utena, Vol. 5, Japanese Print. Translated by Nagumo, edited by Ayu Ohseki
An awesome two for one special thanks to mint and Nagumo translating off each other!! Forum winner mint translated an Italian version to English, which then spurred Nagumo to go back and translate it against the original. I have made both translations their own pages, as there are differences between them and it's a cool ride!
• Kunihiko Ikuhara: Without Deceit, I Am a Boy - Ikuhara at Annecy Film Festival in 2000
Ikuhara took the Utena movie through the event circuit in the west, to an audience still new to the 'genre' of anime. Also, Utena is basically French Fanfic, and now we have this interview Ikuhara did in 2000 in France, that was published in French and translated to English by the awesome SmashGenesis!! Thank you so much for this awesome exchange!
Translation work is an ongoing party in this fandom, and a DELUGE of it hit the forum almost as soon as I opened it! A few works in progress: H! Rocking On Japan 1999/July interview - Chiho Saito and Mitsuhiro Oikawa, movie Akio's voice actor. It includes a photoshoot that became artwork. Translated from my scans, which are part of the massive magazine project!
Poster/Pamphlet Gesshoku Kagekidan Nirvanic Beauty - Yes, the machine gun Anthy musical. Look forward to more about that!!!
Choros Imaginary Living Body~ Poster - And this is the other mysterious unknown musical!!
....AND MORE. Just join the forum, FFS.
In the Gallery:STORYBOARDS. An incredible wealth of storyboards. Enough now to get a real insight into the process of creating the series, and how sloppy it sometimes was!
• Episode 18 Storyboards: Mitsuru's Impatience
I acquired this one myself, and was sent reeling by how messy it is! When we get storyboards, we're never sure at what stage the copies are, and this one is full of scenes and shots that are moved, or cut, compared to the final episode. I even made a forum thread about it!!!
• Episode 20 Storyboards: Wakaba Hath Flourished Verdantly
I paid a small fortune for this and have ZERO regrets. One of the best episodes of the series? The storyboards are clean and tight compared to the Tsuwabuki one. This was a mastercraft episode.
• Episode 24 Storyboards: Nanami-sama Secret Diary
A kingly gift from cscratch, this makes for two of the recap episodes being ones we have storyboards for! That's a HUGE boon, since it means you get to see the storyboards for multiple other episodes. This one is messy, and I didn't try to straighten the pages.
VANNA, you might be wondering. Surely there are better ways to consume this content, should I want all of it? What if I am about archiving? Well friend, since these scans clean out my storyboard backlog and are complete 'works'....stay tuned for uploaded PDFs to the Internet Archive! Follow me there, for the ongoing efforts to move some of this content onto it officially.
NEW SERIES PRODUCTION MATERIALS. JadeSabre won an absolutely incredible set of cel sketches, the sequence of Anthy opening her eyes after stabbing Utena.
• Blink of Betrayal (This and the following five eye frames.
• Also! A quick couple, but iconic, sketches donated by Teasot, of Utena in episode 12! (This and the following image.)
NEW MOVIE PRODUCTION MATERIALS. Last, and DEFINITELY NOT LEAST, we have a lovely gift from teasot, who nabbed and scanned a batch of miscellanous production materials from the movie, mostly sketches that must have been xeroxed around. VERY COOL STUFF!
• Over 50 pages of production materials, including some neat shots!!!
• NEVERMIND ALL THAT, 28 SKETCHES OF THE KISS AT THE END, YEAH THE WHOLE THING CHECK IT OUT (The Baiser_Full.gif file that's the first one is animated, but Gallery won't show it, so you'll have to download it.)
In the Bibliothèque:NEWTYPE MAGAZINE. SO MUCH NEWTYPE MAGAZINE. This project here that has been MASSIVE as an undertaking. Why? Each page of Newtype Magazine requires me to make two scans and stitch them together in post. So it takes a lot of effort. But what I have to show for it is every issue of Newtype that dropped during Utena's run in 1997. Every Utena-related page I could find in each, and you can see in the resulting page count how the buzz for the series grows over time! I've done more than just scan the Utena spreads, though they're the target. I have also scanned each issue's cover, table of contents, Utena advertisements, the episode ratings pages, episode summary pages, and any resulting fanart or fan commentary I could find. I've even included some of the voice actor bits!! Hundreds of scans, tons of work. The funniest part? This was my B-side project. The complete scanlation of the 100 page Duelist Bible is coming up soon, and it has taken a LOT of work--so look forward to that!
PS. I also scanned a couple of the later issues, for reasons that will obvious. Look forward to a lot more from those, as well! Schell Bullet and Shounen Ou are having a MOMENT soon!
Newtype Magazine's Utena Run, reverse chronological:
1998, January Issue Revolutionary Girl Utena ended the month before, but that just means there's more to say! The last episode summaries are here, as well as a center fold spread and LOTS of fanart and fan commentary! Also, I scanned an Evangelion advert, lmao.
1997, December Issue The finale of Revolutionary Girl Utena brings with it spreads, fanart, trading cards, and voice actor content. Scope out some of our favorites in here, and ask who the target audience for this must be?
1997, November Issue The actual magazine doesn't feature much this time, in fact it's suspiciously absent a color spread! But we do have adverts, fanarts, and TV ratings. Oh? Wait, why? OH. Well there's no spread because there's a massive 52 page magazine supplemental packaged with this one!! Check out Utena? (Oh My!) UTENA!
1997, October Issue A beautiful spread with Ikuhara and J.A. Seazer meta, as well as the usual tail page adverts and early fanarts!!! There's even a review of a doujinshi already. Incredible. Also, keep in mind this dropped a full month before episode 33, fucking cursed imagery.
1997, September Issue A beautiful four page spread featuring artist Hiroshi Nagahama, as well as a couple pages in the back about How To Art Chiho Saito style!! (It's wild how small the originals are...)
1997, August Issue The Black Rose Saga is hitting the airwaves, with a lovely center-field spread! Bonus adverts and vintage fanarts!
1997, July Issue Akio arrives in another two page spread, but this issue is also full of adverts and actor cards! Scope out the familiar names if you can find 'em!
1997, June Issue A lovely, gay little spread, with the usual episode descriptions and such included!
1997, May Issue With the launch of the series, we get an impressive spread focusing on the creative team!! So impressive, that some of it has even been translated! The last two pages are translated and hosted at From the Mouths of Babes! Thanks Tuxedo Unmasked!
1997, April Issue The television show begins this month! That's why it gets a double spread AND some character design sheets later in the volume! Each issue also includes plot summaries, also attached.
1997, March Issue This issue features a two page spread announcing Utena, and would have been many peoples' first look at the anime in full color.
1997, February Issue The first Newtype of the year with any Utena content featured, and it's a teaser bit of character designs! Why did I scan the Yuka Imai page? Because that there is Wakaba's voice actress, and she does appear to be talking Utena here!
And Now For More!!!!
Newtype Magazine, 2000, September Issue The one. The only. Sailor Mars. And also, Mamoru Nagano is Sailor Venus. The fucking power of these images, get genderslapped from across the decades friends.
Newtype Magazine, 2000, August Issue The one. The only. The leather pic. And other stuff about Ikuhara and Mamoru Nagano's new project, Schell Bullet!!
MdN Magazine, 2017, August, Issue 280 While Utena features prominently in a couple articles, I included much of the surrounding pages also, because it's quite a feast of shoujo history! The focus seems to be on gender-bending heroines? Also, food for the Sailor Moon musical fans!!
Puff Magazine, January 1998 Issue Thanks to teasot, we have scans of this little Utena featurette. Characters, merch, the usual, but also several pages of fanart!!
In The Doujinshi Gallery:• Labyrinth, by Gokurakudenpa
(Note: RATED R) These scans were donated by teasot and fixed up by me! This is an absolutely beautiful doujinshi that centers Nanami and her relationship with Touga. Two of the pages have been censored, because no, but the rest of it is so beautiful it was worth posting despite the need!
You know what else is here? Something Eternal, at EmptyMovement.com. It's a forum. It had originally been meant to be an archive/media thing but given current social trends, we decided to do something even cooler.
If you are looking for the previous lists of updated content visit, here!
The content on Empty Movement belongs to Giovanna Spadaro and Yasha (who will remain otherwise nameless). Images and media scanned, ripped, and altered by us. Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena) is © Kunihiko Ikuhara, Chiho Saito, Shogakukan and bePapas/TV Tokyo and/or their respective copyright holders. The US release of the Revolutionary Girl Utena series and movie is © Nozomi Entertainment, previously © Central Park Media, and the US release of the Utena manga is © VIZ . Don't sue us.