If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without ever being born.
We are the chick-
The world is our egg.
If we don't crack the world's shell, we will die without ever truly being born.
Smash the world's shell.
For world revolution.
In Utena, these words are a common refrain - whenever the dueling arena is entered, the cabal, the student council, read them. From the start they're mysterious. World revolution? What's that supposed to mean. Other phrases keep popping up also like 'The end of the world' which are kept obfuscated - a kind of code to figure out. So let's dive in to Utena and see the esoteric gold it holds.
When tackling esoterica, figuring out the vocab is key. 'The end of the world' is the first key term we see being thrown around. To understand this, let's say that the universe starts at a point of pure potential, which we can symbolise as an egg and, in our scientific mythology, can be understood as the big bang. The entropy of the universe is zero - all is calm and waiting to become. The end of the universe, therefore, is at maximum entropy which can be understood like an old chicken just before death. The chicken has reached its 'mostest' point. It has matured or 'individuated', as Jung called it, and achieved its quintessence. It has become itself in its purest form, fully actualising its potential. The end of the world is, therefore, akin to the Platonic form wherein everything has achieved its most perfected, true state. Akio-san, the chairman, is the End of the World, as we discover later, who is an archon, sending messages to the cabal, the student council, as to what shall be done next. Akio-san is this perfected state - he is a divine perfected form, namely the divine masculine form. He is the matured quintessence of masculinity, the fully actualised idea personified. Himemiya, the rose bride, as you may have guessed, is the complementary divine feminine form.
'As above, so below' as says the Emerald Tablet. What is happening on the outside, is also happening on the inside. The exterior plot we see is also a psychodrama within Utena's mind, as she contends with these corrupted manifestations of these archetypes within her psyche. In other words, Himemiya and Akio represent the unconscious representations of femininity and masculinity inside of Utena. As to how these archetypal manifestations became corrupted is explained through Utena's backstory.
As we later discover, Utena is the child who locked herself in a coffin. Her parents died and she became troubled, retreating into a shell away from society. But as the student council president reveals, Akio-san showed her 'The end of the world', which brought her out of the coffin to keep on living. In other words, Utena witnesses the divine, princely masculine form - a numinous vision in her time of need. To become a prince, to fight, to have honour, is the vision she received from her unconscious to keep her afloat, to arise her from despair. To survive beyond the grief, she donned princely garb and held up her sword to fight her demons. However as the oft played intro says:
This was all well and good, but so impressed was she by him that the princess vowed to become a prince herself one day. But was that really such a good idea?
Through becoming a prince, she reached a psychic homeostasis, able to walk into the future. But was this feasable in the long term? Her fantasies and strife say not.
Returning to Utena's story later, we'll first cover the rest of the student council and their woes. We'll cover them in the order they appear. Saionji, the green haired one, probably has the least to be talked about, since his backstory is never fully exposed. He mistreats Himemiya consistently because of his inferiority complex towards Touga, the red haried one. Always treated like a little brother, he directs his anger towards himself, and as a result to his anima, mistreating the Rose Bride. The next to appear is Miki, the blue haired one. He forever yearns for the days when he and his twin sister played the piano together. Himemiya comes along and plays just like his sister did - or at least how he imagined she did. The sister later confesses she was never very good at the piano, and was always being carried by her brother. And once when they were due to play together in a concert and her brother grew ill, those halcyon days of playing the piano together fell into disrepair. What Miki saw in his divine feminine was the times he was happiest - playing the piano with his twin sister. A time he became infatuated with, leading to infatuation with the Rose Bride also. Next is Juri, the yellow haired one. She forever regretted losing her best friend when her friend stole her crush. Instead, she carried a small photo of her in her amulet. What she saw in Himemiya was the divine friendship of yonder year corrupted, resulting in Juri often mistreating and disrespecting the Rose Bride. Next is Nanami, the peach haired imouto of the president. Because of her brother complex, she can't help but see any femininity as a threat to her love of her brother. Again, she mistreats Himemiya in an attempt to shoo away any attention coming her brother's way. Yet this rejection of the divine feminine has a counter-reaction in herself causing her to show a bossy 'animus-possessed' persona. Finaly is Touga, the red-headed president. He cares not for Himemiya, but instead is infatuated with Akio, the chairman, the divine masculine. Forever trying to imitate him and live a loveless playboy lifestyle, he can't find satisfaction or true relating, instead powered by the drive to achieve this divine form.
Heaven and Earth is a common theme. Heaven is the world of the rotating castle in the sky where the prince and princess live happily ever after, where the world is eternal, where the end of the world, the Platonic forms, reside. Whereas Earth: that's where all of us are. What is really the case resides - the material reality. In the final arc, we discover that the heaven where duals took place was never real - simply, it was being
projected from the planetarium (literally projecting 'heaven'). Heaven as we see it on the outside, Jung would argue, is just a
projection of our interior contents. The end of the world, dueling, Akio-san, Himemiya, world revolution, all exist inside their heads, being projected out into the world as fantasies of a heaven which doesn't exist.
But Utena needs world revolution: fast. The archetpyal forces of her mind are becoming twisted, and an interior symbolic revolution to save her, to reorder her, is crucial. Himemiya, her divine feminine, is being crucified. She's subservient and in so much pain. All because Utena, in order to stabilise herself after her parents' death, found salvation in becoming the archetype of the prince. And in becoming the prince, her unconscious divine masculine, Akio-san, becomes anything but princely. Despite his friendly appearances, he's a womaniser, a scoundrel and a cheat, who feels nothing from love. To achieve world revolution, to achieve a paradigmatic shift in her cognition, she must unbury her past and unbury the divine feminine she sealed away in the coffin. Only then can the chick break out of it's shell, and Utena can be truly born.
In the final battle, Utena picks princehood and fights her malformed divine masculine (who possesses and bullies her divine feminine). She dons the prince's garb, only to send ever-more daggers Himemiya's direction. In refinding her princely fantasy, she only torments her divine feminine ever more. Archetypes are autonomous entities within us. They are Dawinistically selected modes of thought with their own desires to be respected and manifested. For Himemiya, who is Utena's divine feminine archetype, the constant repression of her intents and desires leads her to insanity. Stabbing Utena in the back, Himemiya says: "You remind me so much of Dios when I loved him. But you can never be my prince, because you're a girl." Utena's divine feminine, Himemiya, wants a prince to be found externally rather than internally. Utena becoming the prince herself only torments the archetype's intentions ever further. And thus Himemiya, the oppressed feminine archetype who suffers and is backed into a corner ever more, can't help but stab her.
Utena manages to open the yonic door of the rose through emotion. She reconnects with her capacity for emotion, her animus, instead of merely playing the princely role of acting out of a sense of justice. She can now truly relate to others outside of a princely sense of duty. The pathway to her incorporating her positive feminity is opened. The coffin is opened. And she smashes the world's shell.