Friends, join me on a trip down the rabbit hole of discovery! While watching Utena with friends, as one does, I noticed that Anthy’s opening to her sword pull sounded different than I was used to in episode 28, “Whispers in the Dark.” The word ’omoi’ appeared and I didn’t recognize it from the shitloads of work I did on the musical. Confused, I figured I’d wait until the next episode, and see if I heard it wrong…and then, in episode 29, “Azure Blue Paler than the Sky”…she used the original line I was familiar with.

Uh-oh. Well this spiraled into an adventure. The facts, because of-fucking-course I went back and checked everything, are as follows:

Anthy’s sword summon in the Student Council Arc:

気高き城のバラよ。。。私に眠るディオスの力主に答えて今こそ示せ。

More or less: Oh rose of the noble castle, Power of Dios that sleeps within me, heed your master and come forth!

Anthy’s sword summon in the Akio Arc:

気高き想いの薔薇よ。。。。お願い、示して 。。。

More or less: Oh rose of noble feelings/sentiments/idunnohelpme…please, reveal yourself…

*EXCEPT* For episode 29,where her sword summon is:

気高き城のバラよ 。 。 。 お願い、示して

More or less: Oh rose of the noble castle…please, reveal yourself…

This line, a blend of the different versions, is in the original and the remaster. Furthermore, based on how she says “please, reveal yourself,” it’s clear this was re-recorded to create this line, not just spliced from the different pieces of original audio. It’s also worth mentioning that the Nozomi translation doesn’t distinguish at all, and uses the phrase “Rose of nobility,” for both arcs. If I’d known about this when they asked, I would totally have rallied to change this line, but whoops.

The change in the summon is not hard to rationalize. In the first arc, the sword is being pulled from Anthy, from the noble castle…from the illusion machine, to use a very old fandom term. What exactly she’s pulling is the subject itself of a lot of debate. Is it her soul sword? Is it Akio’s? Because Akio duels with a similar sword, though blackened, drawn from her chest. It’s the sword used for all the duelists, it’s the sword with the least intimacy. It’s the sword used to direct the course of events, up to the point where Anthy rebels.

In episode 25, “Our Eternal Apocalypse,” the Sword of Dios disappears, and against Akio’s wishes given his reaction, Anthy draws a sword instead from Utena. Now she beckons to the “rose of noble sentiments/emotions/whatever, this is a hard phrase to translate,” because it’s no longer the castle, no longer the illusion machine, that is the source of the power she seeks. It’s Utena herself. The “omoi” she is referring to is Utena’s. In true magical girl form, this is a significant upgrade to the previous sword.

It’s with this pattern set that the Akio Arc proceeds, until we hit a single, lone exception: Juri’s last duel. The incantation changes. Just this once. Why?

Utena is handily undefeated in this arc; every time Dios comes down, every time she manifests the princely power her soul contains, she wins. Except this once. This time, her winning attack fails, just as it does in the first arc. Juri’s capacity to deflect the Dios manifested attack follows from the obvious skill she has. It’s never surprising in the context of the show that of all the duelists, she is the one able to successfully defend herself in that moment.

But this, that Juri successfully deflects this move, is the only thing that marks this duel as unique in the Akio Arc. It’s the only thing that connects at all to why Anthy’s sword summon would also, just this once, be a little different.

My theory? Though the sword pulled is still Utena’s, true…Anthy has taken over command of this duel’s outcome by calling not to Utena’s noble spirit, but to the castle instead. The illusion machine. The means, whatever it is specifically, by which Akio and Anthy control the world of the duel arena. Because she is controlling, ultimately, where the sword is going to go. Anthy deliberately choosing to direct the sword to one end in this duel also implicates her as the reason why Juri loses her first duel, though that is made far more evident than it is here in the first place.

There are no miracles. But there are also no coincidences. There is only intent, and for Juri, it’s intent turned against her. The wording of the summon in this duel is different, because the goal of this duel is different. The miracle that must be performed is different.

“Juri, she’s a fool! She doesn’t realize that you get miracles only by standing on the sacrifices of others! Yet miracles only come to people like her! Don’t you find that unfair, Juri?!”

Ruka’s intentions, and even who Ruka is referring to in this moment, are the subject of a lot of debate. I’ve always found it interesting that this dialogue works regardless of whether you assume he’s talking about Shiori or Utena. Shiori seems the more likely subject, after all she’s the person Ruka’s trying to sever from Juri. She’s the one he’s angry at. But also, in his duel, Ruka sees Anthy seem to be praying for Utena’s success, and he surmises from that that the Rose Bride is the source, at least partly, of Utena’s ability to win. So, it can also be Utena who is the fool, standing on a sacrifice she hasn’t noticed. Framed this way, where Ruka imagines the Rose Bride to be the source and the sacrifice that grants miracles, his placing himself in the position of Juri’s Rose Bride is him willingly being the sacrifice he imagines necessary that buys Juri’s miracle.

It’s unfair, it’s true, for a miracle to belong to someone unaware that a price was paid for it…but even as he says this, he pays in secret that price himself. Whatever transpired in the car, between him and, we’ll say…the powers that be…decided Juri’s fate without her input. It’s why the outcome of this duel is made different, and it’s why Anthy intervenes directly in the course of events to create that.

The Sword of Dios is a weapon wielded by Akio and Anthy, regardless of whose fingers are wrapped around the hilt. In episode 25, Anthy chooses to give up some of her control over events in favor of letting Utena defend herself and protect her. It’s a sign of her growing trust in Utena that she lets Utena wield, literally, her own will. It’s also a vote of no confidence in Akio and his plans, and it’s why Akio is so pissed off about it. Letting Utena wield her own blade implies a trust in Utena to create the outcome Anthy wants. A trust it took her this long to grow.

However, in this duel, the goal has shifted. Ruka, for whatever reason, has intervened behind the scenes to create a different result, and that result cannot be left to the even minuscule random chance Utena represents. Anthy invokes the castle this time, because she wants absolute control over the outcome.

This may or may not be why the line is changed. It seems to me as good a theory as any, especially given how deliberately this is done. It doesn’t shorten the sequence for timing. It’s not a splice of existing audio. It’s an explicit change made only for this one episode. It’s the kind of minor detail, so easily missed, that really sends home to me why I love this show so much.

I, certified trash for entirely different characters, don’t dip my toes into Juri’s business much, I admit. I will, however, also be the first to say that Juri’s duel episodes are some of the best directed and most powerful episodes in the series. They don’t waste a single frame, their scripting is tight, their visual language both clear and almost a whole separate thing from the rest of the story. Little details like this utterly don’t surprise me to find hidden here, in an episode where chairs shift and move. Where two duels happen at once. Where the color palette is made to reflect Juri’s state of mind. Thank you, Revolutionary Girl Utena, for being the kind of garbage where a minor script change in a repeated sequence can lead to realizing Anthy straight up nerfed Utena for the duel.

PS. Fun thing we learned when trying to sort this all out: Yoji Enokido’s scripts for the first arc use a different phrasing than what ends up in the series:

薔薇の剣よ、私に眠るディオスの力よ・・・主にこたえて今こそ示せ 。

More or less: Sword of the Rose, Power of Dios that sleeps within me, respond to your master and come forth.

This line is included in Enokido’s script for episode 14, though it is not used in the series, because for the BRS Anthy doesn’t do this bit at all, it just goes straight to Utena’s “Grant me the power…” line. His script for episode 26 matches the line used in the series, but since he didn’t write episode 29, there’s no written record of this being deliberately different.

Additionally, one of the artbooks has the line “ Ô rose de nobles sentiments!” in it, which apparently has a totally different connotation to the English word ‘sentiment.’