At the academy, she meets Anthy, who is the Rose Bride, but Utena has no clue what that means. All she knows is that Anthy is engaged to Saionji, the student council vice president, and Saionji treats Anthy like crap, continually slapping her around. Utena also finds out that her best friend, Wakaba, is in love with Saionji. Utena is upset with the way Saionji treats both Anthy and Wakaba, so she challenges him to a duel, with no clue what she is getting herself into! Utena is only able to enter the floating castle because of the rose ring that her prince gave her years ago. She wins the duel on sheer willpower, even though she only has a practice sword and Saionji has the rose sword that Anthy carries inside her. Utena has no clue what winning the duel means, but finds out that she is now engaged to Anthy the Rose Bride. Saionji is beyond upset over this turn of events and vows that he will get her back. Not to mention, the Rose Sword is said to give the power to bring revolution to one who possesses it.
Utena is assigned to live with Anthy in the dorms. They're actually the only two in their entire dorm, which apparently hasn't been used for 10 years. Utena still doesn't really know what's going on with this engagement nonsense, so she decides that she will lose the challenge that Saionji issues just to be done with the nonsense. During the duel though, the essence of the prince who gave her the ring possesses her, invoking the power of Dios and she not only wins the fight, but cuts Saionji's sword in half, proving that she is the one destined to bring about the world revolution that the rose sword is foretold to lead. After seeing that Utena can truly harness the power of Dios, Touga, the Student Council President, decides that he wants Utena.
Nanami is Touga's sister and she is upset with Anthy because of how she thinks that Anthy treated Saionji by leaving him and she's upset that Anthy and Utena are stealing her brother's time from her. She decides to send Anthy a "water-dissolvable" dress to wear to the ball to embarrass her. Touga sends Utena a dress to wear as well. Utena only agrees to go to get Anthy out of the house, but you can imagine how much trouble this is going to cause. Utena seems to be quite adept at dealing with everything though.
Miki is on the student council as well, and is a piano player. He used to play with his sister, but she doesn't play anymore. He has decided that he is in love with Anthy as well, so the spark has come back to his piano. Apparently, there was a rose bride before Anthy. I guess a new one is chosen whenever one marries off. Apparently Jury (who is the last member of the student council) was in love with the previous rose bride's husband and he was in love with Jury, but the rose bride was in love with him as well so she lied to him and stole him away from Jury. Jury wants to win Anthy to prove the previous rose bride was wrong when she said miracles can happen. Jury wants her to give up her ring. Utena most certainly will not do that, so she must fight again. After Jury loses, the council needs a new fighter and installs Nanami as a duelist. Utena will have to fight her and Touga both to keep her bride free. The last two episodes really change the tone of the show and the attitude of Utena. I can't wait for the rest to see what happens, to see if she really does recover herself.
Although it might seem like Utena Revolutionary Girl is a bit serious with all the dueling and such, it's really not. There are some hilarious episodes, like when Utena and Anthy switch bodies. Nanami reminds me of Team Rocket in Pokemon with her silliness and daydreams of what she thinks is going to happen and her inevitable failures. There are some special features available on the DVDs, but they're mainly the original TV ads and a music video. It's nothing that is going to add to your knowledge of the story, but is a bit interesting to see. If you like anime, Utena Revolutionary Girl is a pretty good series. It has a tendency to be a bit silly at times, but also provides action as well.
