Touga Kiryuu (桐生 冬芽 , Kiryū Tōga) is the Student Council President at Ohtori Academy and a duelist who wears the Rose Signet ring.
Touga in the anime[]
Touga is Ohtori Academy's arrogant and handsome Student Council President who is known to be "the biggest playboy on campus" as he is seen hanging out with every girl outside of school or in the garden house and there are also rumors saying that he has broken many girls' hearts as mentioned by Wakaba Shinohara (Episode 3). His desire to be powerful drives him to commit cruel, unscrupulous actions and he is the only regular Council Member who deliberately involves himself in Akio Ohtori's plans, and the only person besides Akio himself (in the anime's first arc, before Akio appears) who causes Utena Tenjou to doubt herself. Despite his talent and intelligence, Touga eventually realizes that he's nowhere near as influential as Akio or as strong as Utena, and this causes him to change his ways as he tries to discover a new method to gain power.
Although he says that he wishes to be noble, he has little empathy towards anyone, and his powers of manipulation are second only to Akio. He also shares his playboy attitude and has many female lovers throughout the series. He is the childhood friend of Kyouichi Saionji, although their relationship took a turn for the worse at a point in their childhood that is the centerpiece of their respective personal journeys.
However, toward the end of the series, Touga's façade of chivalry is replaced with an apparently truer concern for Utena, to the extent that he very subtly attempts to substitute his head for hers on Akio's chopping block. Touga also confesses to Utena that he loves her.
Touga in the manga[]
The manga portrays Touga with a more obvious and definite personal love for Utena Tenjou. He vows to serve her when she defeats him in their second duel, and tries his best to protect her from the machinations of Ends of the World. In the anime, this does not happen until the end of the series, and Touga's concern for Utena is far more ambiguous. Also, at the end of the manga where everyone in the academy had forgotten Utena ever existed, Touga was the only one besides Anthy Himemiya to have remembered Utena and able to wish Anthy luck hoping that she can find Utena and bring her back.
Touga in Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie[]
In the movie, Touga's significance is amplified and his bad traits completely removed. He is not a flirtatious, over-confident playboy, but a man who sees, knows and loves Utena Tenjou. He is her childhood love and a significant figure in Utena's psyche, and his seeming abandonment of Utena is the reason for her wish to become a prince. But as the movie progresses, Touga is revealed to be a ghost, who died to save a young girl (Juri Arisugawa) while he was with Utena. Near the end of the movie, Utena's repressed memory of his death is uncovered and she accepts it as his spirit leaves Earth and he vanishes.
In the movie adaptation only, Touga is shown to have suffered from child abuse as he tells Shiori Takatsuki about having been "sold" to an older man for sexual purposes.
Trivia[]
- The name Touga means "winter" (冬) (tou) and "bud" (芽) (ga).
Gallery[]
