Episode 33: The Prince who Runs through the Night

Himemiya pulls strings to get Utena into bed with Akio, amid flashbacks.

This is a summary of episode 33 of the anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena.  You are welcome to link to it, but not to repost it elsewhere.  For more information, and other episode summaries, see the index.

The episode opens with the story of the orphaned princess who decides to become a prince, as we've seen many times, but this time the visual is the lights of a fairground instead of the images that usually accompany this narration.  Himemiya is looking at the stars in the planetarium.  She talks on the phone to someone, saying that she didn't feel like looking at the real ones tonight, and asking if he got tonight's batch of roses.  From the preview for this episode shown at the end of the last one, we have the idea that Himemiya asked Utena to deliver a bouquet of roses to Akio.  Then we see Utena, out of uniform, in what appears to be a hotel room, talking to someone about how much fun she had today.  The carnival lights are visible out the window, and there's a bouquet of roses on a chair.

Apparently a flashback:  Akio is riding in his car and listening to a quiz show on the radio.  They draw his postcard and phone him up to ask him "what is something eternal"; but instead of answering, he says he has to go do his job.  He drives up to where Touga is talking to Saionji (the boy who wanted something eternal), and does the "show you the End of the World" routine.  There follows a recap of episode 25.

Next come recaps of episodes 26, 28, and 29, interspersed with brief scenes of Akio in his car and Utena in the hotel room, watching TV, babbling about inconsequential things, playing Othello/Reversi, washing her hair, and eventually going to bed, not alone - and we don't see or hear whom she's with until the very last cut when we recognize Akio's dark-skinned fingers intertwined with hers.  At the end, we've apparently caught up to the present time, because she's riding with Akio as he talks on the cellular phone to Himemiya in the "did you get the roses" conversation.

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