Welcome to Empty Movement: the ultimate source of Utena trash and treasure for almost 25 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. 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 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. Get right to the new stuff!
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
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
March 18, 2025
The party just never stops for us Utena fans!!! We are creeping up on the 30th anniversary of the series, and there is a constant dribble of new merchandise drops to tell us! (Also, Ikuhara just let it slip in Newtype that he's working on a new project, help, help, help...) I've been busy as hell, especially where it regards archiving and making sure the vital Utena kibbles I've created stay shiny and chrome, but also, I have procrastinated constantly on this update, because I, like always, forgot to keep track of site changes as I did them, and the effort of getting all that stuff together just sucks! But it's getting done now. :D
This is a MASSIVE update, there are several projects of a ludicrous scale in here, I have spent hours just compiling it all, and should you try to 100% it, you'll spend hours in the process. And while you're at that, I'm working on archival scans of the original artbooks, as well as Newtype scans around Schell Bullet and Shounen Ou, the two major projects that the creative team did after the Utena movie. Both are INTENSELY gender. We need to see this shit.
Translations of Utena Stuff!
(The Bibliothèque & In the Mouths of Babes)
 |
Nagumo and I never stop! I scurried to finish this in time for the Utena weekly watch thread's September content post, and I managed it! Translated and scanlated, this absolute feast of Utena meta is full of character stuff, setting stuff, duel guides, episode guides, and more! The best parts are the interviews with the voice actors at the end, as well as the bonus Chu-chu Let's Make pattern at the back--that's right, this book came with a guide to making a Chu-chu. I absolutely made the Chu-chu. I'm considering making it a kit. (Also linked to in In the Mouths of Babes!)
 |
 |
Hint hint at some other cool stuff I haven't added to the site yet:
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!!
New Official Utena Artwork & Production Materials
(The Utena Gallery)
• The 2022 Cocollabo Chibis
In the series chibis section, I've finally added the scans of the 2022 Cocollabo chibis! Lookit these little guys! The same artist is currently dropping some new chibi merch!!
 |
 |
 |
 |  |
 |
 |
 |
The manga was published in Ciao! Magazine, which often featured a new full-color artwork, and little bonus paper goods called furoku. Though most of the artwork appears elsewhere in the gallery unobstructed, it's also featured here in its original form, alongside adorable little chibi notecards, holiday tags, and all kinds of other things! These are new scans by the furoku MASTER, hotwaterandmilk, and are hosted with blessing!
 |
• High Quality Production Materials!
A recent onslaught of auctioned production materials for the series resulted in a couple incredible grabs. Incredible misses, also, I tried to pay $4000 for a lot of finale materials and lost. These aren't going to be worked into the other sections of this gallery--they are very much their own thing, because we also have the context for them! These are NOT sketches for the cels, but pre-sketch efforts by junior animators (usually white), with the corrections (usually yellow) by senior animators. Between my purchases and those donated to me, these materials are easily over $5k in acquisitions. There are a few more donated shots I haven't sorted yet, so stay tuned for more of this!!
- Episode 6, "Nanami-sama, Beware!!" Production Materials
These are mine. I wanted the Touga ones, which are perhaps the WILDEST demonstration of what these materials are, with the junior shots essentially in an entirely different animation style, and the corrections having to uh, gently assert, that we are making doritos here. Each of these images took two scans, because of the size and shape of the sheets, and I made it so that the cels overlap properly as they're flipped through, with the final result animation shot also in the sequence. Because we actually also have the storyboards for this episode, I was able to name the shot numbers and everything!!!
This was a lot of work. I have taken these and uploaded the even larger versions to the Internet Archive.
 |
- Ep 23, "Qualifications of a Duelist" Production Materials
These were acquired and scanned by the amazing Thanatos_26. They were cleaned and adjusted to overlap with the added animation shot by me, and are hosted with permission! This set is mostly the sequence of Mikage crying, with a stray Utena!
 |
- Ep 26, "Miki's Nest Box (Sunlit Garden - Arrange Version)" Production Materials
These were acquired and scanned by the amazing Thanatos_26, with editing and the animation shots added by me. This great shot of Kozue displays the materials in the thumbnail down here well!
 |
- Added a couple more scans to the Italian manga's extras as donated by mint!!
- Moved JadeSabre's incredible Blink of Betrayal production materials to where they belong, with the rest!
- EXTENSIVE cross-linking of the artworks I have improved on or replaced, consolidated the locations of hosted larger files, rearranged shit to try not to take up all the disk space on earth, etc. The challenge is different people find the information differently, so I can't just rearrange everything to suit me. Redirects and double posts and duplicates of links exist, and will just have to continue to do so. Is it messy? Yes.
New Archiving Efforts! (And lots of cleaning up!)
(The Bibliothèque, Historia Arcana, & the Internet Archive)
• Hardcore of Utena, Supplement Limited Edition
This 44-page smaller form (B5) booklet was a bonus for those that picked up the two volume Hardcore of Utena in person at Comiket 84. The rest of course is also working in progress, but I had these scans for a while. It's mostly sketches from the game booklet, and some better versions of the production art sketches from Art of Utena. As with all efforts like this, even larger copies of the same scans can be grabbed from the Internet Archive!
• New Utena Magazine Articles & Clippings!
- H! Rockin' On Japan, July 1999: The iconic interview with Chiho Saito and Mitsuhiro Oikawa! Yeah, the one that got translated right away within this update!
- Theater Magazine Chimaera , July 1999: !! NSFW/NUDITY !! This magazine has content ABOUT THE 1999 MUSICAL WITH THE MACHINE GUNS. Also stuff about the movie! Also stuff about theater!!
- Novel June, May 1998: This interview with Ikuhara has actually been translated! I didn't know that when I scanned it. But that's how I learned!
- Continue, Vol 41, August 2008: This is a VERY long interview with Ikuhara and Saito, published around the time of the remaster of the series. Very curious what's in here!!!
- Studio Voice, October 1998: This is the first time the iconic image of Military Outfit Utena appears, and it turns out to be inspired by a fashion label!
...and last but not least, the big three and our efforts to collect up the press around the release of the show! Tons of neat spreads and such in here!
- Animedia Magazine, August 1997, September 1997, November 1997 (donated by hotwaterandmilk!), January 1998 (donated by hotwaterandmilk!)
- Animage Magazine, September 1997 (donated by the Anim'Archive!), November 1997 (donated by Clarice!), December 1997
- Newtype Magazine, January 1998, February 1998, March 1998, and April 1998. Obviously the January issue has lots to chew on, but I stuck it out catching Utena articles into April!
- The complete set of 1997 Newtype Magazines with covers, ToCs, and of course, any Utena-specific ANYTHING has been uploaded to one archive at the Internet Archive. Of course, they can still be viewed at their permanent spot in the Bibliothèque, also! But this makes it easy to download the whole thing.
- The scanlation projects I've done have been gathered in The Bibliothèque, with necessary cross links and redirects scattered about the rest of the site, such as from In the Mouths of Babes.
- The storyboards hosted in the gallery have also been uploaded to the Internet Archive!
- Historia Arcana's zips have been switched to Google Drive, with links to anything >10 years old also available at the Internet Archive.
Utena Soundtrack and Audio Stuff!
(Audiology)
• I, Revolution Pharsalia <<Bonus Disc>>!!
Yet another new find in the world of small bonus material given as a purchase privilege! Thanks to JadeSabre, we now have the bonus disc given to people who purchased OST 10 and 11 simultaneously thru DiskUnion. The disc is now listed in both albums!
• Cyberteam in Akihabara VS Revolutionary Girl Utena audio drama!
- Thanks to @hotwaterandmilk on Tumblr, we now have this audio drama mini-disc dropped with Animate magazine in August 1997 to mark the films' simultaneous releases.
• New At Times, Love... lyrics!!
- Xenofem's translation of At Times, Love... from the OCT 8 has been added to the lyric comparisons! There's an effort made to have the lyrics be singable in time with the original, COOL HUH??
• OST 5's Liner Notes, Translated!!!
- We have waited long, haven't we? But thanks to SevenTenEleven, we have the exhaustive liner notes of OST 5 translated! These are comments by Yoji Enokido, Yuji Mitsuya, and Shinkichi Mitsumune!
• Added some cross-matches to the At Times, Love... information on OST 8, to include the Her-Day mix and note that the song also appears on the Starmania album. This is the result of an effort to once again find the humming version that follows the scene in the movie. No, it's not here. Also lots of minor code/typo corrections throughout.
New in The Doujinshi Gallery:
• [R-RATED & TRANSLATED] Intrepid Japanese student May on Bluesky tackled a translation & scanlation of our H-doujin, Delicate! (Original here.) While this one does depict sex, it's mostly soft lesbian uwus!
• [R-RATED & TRANSLATED] The translation & scanlation circle lillilicious long ago translated the manga L'oiseau Blew, it is now cross-posted here per their general permission, mostly because I keep getting confused about it sitting there on my drive without being uploaded.
• [VERY R-RATED] Seal - Donated by our amazing community moderator teasot, this absolutely beautiful DEAD FUCKING DOVE was a tough call for us, but the artwork, production, and general sensitivity around the subject matter--Touga and Nanami--made us err on the side of sharing. It's an artifact of an era and a way the fandom in Japan engaged with the material of the show!
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.