Revolutionary Girl Utena
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[edit] Introduction
Revolutionary Girl Utena (Shoujo Kakumei Utena) was published as a manga in Japan in 1996. The anime was broadcast in 1997 (3 seasons, totalling 39 episodes), and fansubs began to leak into the United States later that year. Central Park Media got the rights to a commercial release of the first 13 episodes (the "Student Council Saga") in 1997 or 1998, but something went wrong with the rights to the rest of the series. While fansubbers mostly eschewed releasing those first 13 episodes, the rest of the series remained available by fansub until CPM got the rights worked out sometime in 1999. Meanwhile, the Utena movie, "Adolescence of Utena," came out in theaters in Japan in 1999, and CPM got the rights to release it promptly. CPM finished releasing the TV series in the United States in 2003.
So fans have had mixed access to the series over time. Many fans outside Japan had access only to the first 13 episodes for several years. Other fans had only seen the movie, and vaguely knew there was an anime.
The North American Revolutionary Girl Utena fandom opened up in mid-1997. The fandom, like the anime, was heavily involved in exploring gender, sexuality, and friendship in fiction and art. Like Sailor Moon, Utena fic had a large yuri and shoujo ai component, as well as yaoi and het fic.
[edit] Terminology
Below is a list of terms and their definitions that are used in this fan community.
This section needs more information.
SKU = Shoujo Kakumei Utena
EOTW = End of the world
[edit] Timeline
Below is a partial timeline of events that took place in this fan community.
[edit] 1997
- June: The "Arena of the Revolutionists" site opened.
[edit] 1998
This section needs more information.
[edit] 1999
- In January, The Blood-Soaked and Honor-Bound site opens. This site, rife with humor based on the interaction of the authors, Becka and Karen, with the Utena characters, is immensely popular and frequently imitated in Utena fandom.
- In February, The Arena of the Revolutionists moves and becomes the Utena Encyclopedia, the central clearinghouse for Revolutionary Girl Utena information on the web, including episode summaries, episode translations/transcriptions, character summaries, and a mailing list.
- In July, the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.utena is started by Jennifer Brill for discussion of all things Utena (the group is still active to this day, if much quieter and less heavily trafficked than it was at the beginning. The AFU user FAQ is located here: http://www.deathquaker.org/utena/AFUFAQ.txt or http://www.deathquaker.org/utena/afufaq.html ).
- In August, the duellists mailing list opens on YahooGroups.
[edit] 2000
- In May, the SKUAD Mailing List opens on YahooGroups.
- Erica Friedman and other notable Utena fanfic authors, such as Sean Gaffney, Alan Harnum, and Chris Davies, join forces to start their own (private) mailing list for fic C&C. They subsequently open a fanfic archive site, The Fanfic Revolution, which contains a sizeable archive of Utena fanfic, among other anime series.
- At the instigation of dreiser and her "Scenes From An Elevator" Utena spamfic, Erica Friedman begins a long chain of events that lead to the creation of Yuricon and ALC Publishing.
- In November, Empty Movement, begun by Giovanna Spadaro, opens. It becomes the preeminent site for Utena multimedia on the web.
[edit] 2001
- On April 1, 2001 the fan created Utena music site Rose and Release is opened, providing in-depth analysis of individual tracks and direct downloads for 8 Utena soundtracks, not to mention bonus and Karaoke tracks! These MP3s are for evaluation use only. Please support the creators by buying the official release.
- On July 4, 2001, the LiveJournal community Animefanfic was created. [1] Among the fan fiction communities represented on this community include: Bleach, Clamp, Detective Conan, Fushigi Yuugi, Get Backers, Gravitation, Fruit Basket, Inuyasha, Kodocha, Loveless, Mamono Hunter Yohko, Pokemon, Prince of Tennis, Ranma 1/2, Revolutionary_Girl_Utena, Samurai Troopers, Shaman King, Tenchi Muyo, Weiss Kreuz, Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu Yu Hakusho.
[edit] 2002
- In February, Empty Movement moves.
- In June, The Satellite of Revolution site opens. One of many sites that imitate the Mystery Science Theater (MST) format in critiquing and mocking badfic, SoR used a cast of (mostly horrified) Utena characters, trapped on a satellite together and kept a continuous storyline running through the framing sequences of the MiSTed fics. The site's author and maintainer, Chris Rain, last made an update sometime in 2004.
- Around mid-year, Alan Harnum announces his retirement from Utena fandom, and the likelihood that his novel-length fanfic Jacquemart will remain unfinished. He offers his multi-author Utena Fanfiction Repository to a new maintainer. Lady Brick takes up the challenge.
[edit] 2003
- May: The Utena Encyclopedia shuts down without an announcement -- it simply becomes unavailable. Empty Movement uses files from the Wayback Machine to post much of the information from the Utena Encyclopedia so that it isn't lost.
- September: Arisugawa's Locket [2] reopens after a year's hiatus.
[edit] 2004
- Near the end of the year, the Utena Fanfiction Repository shuts down.
- On September 11, 2004, the LiveJournal community utena_fans was created. [3]
[edit] 2005
- On March 8, 2005, the LiveJournal community ursulaskiss was created. [4]
- Around the middle of the year, many of the Utena mailing lists on Yahoogroups and otherwise begin an inexorable trickle down to almost no activity. Some of this traffic is picked up by the LiveJournal communities.
[edit] 2006
- August: After a break of nearly three years, one novel-length Utena fic that was presumed dead, Archimage (located at http://www.broomstick.org/utena/archimage.html), by Jude McLaughlin, was updated.
- September 5: Empty Movement [5] updates, with more fanfiction, fan art, and five new analysis essays.
- October 16: Empty Movement spins off a forum, In the Rose Garden, which quickly grows to critical mass.
- November 1: Empty Movement contacts Alan Harnum and Lady Brick and revive the Utena Fanfiction Repository under their own web domain. [6]. Lady Brick expresses interest at keeping it more up to date and Giovanna decides to keep Empty Movement's fanfiction separated from the UFR.
[edit] 2007
- On March 2, 2007, the Revolutionary Girl Utena LiveJournal community 20_roses is created. [7]
[edit] 2008
This section needs more information.
[edit] Kerfluffles
This section needs more information.
[edit] Influential Fanworks
This section needs more information.
[edit] Fandom Members
See also Category:Revolutionary Girl Utena fans.
[edit] Fandom Size
See also Revolutionary Girl Utena fan fiction community size.
[edit] External Links
[edit] Sources
Below is a partial list of articles and academic sources to help you continue to learn about this community.
This section needs more information.
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