While Utena is rather extraordinary, her best friend is the unexceptional Shinohara Wakaba. She earns average grades, she isn’t particularly involved with any clubs, and she isn’t particularly popular. The only thing that sets her apart from the rest of the student body is her friendship with Utena. She cares a lot about Utena and even helps her regain her way when she loses her confidence. She doesn’t understand everything about Utena’s situations, especially since she doesn’t know about the duels, but she supports Utena anyway.

Still, as Utena gets pulled deeper into the duels, she becomes distant with Wakaba and she gets jealous. Mostly she turns her anger on Anthy, who she already resents because her crush, Saionji, is obsessed with her. She also reveals that she is jealous of Utena and the other “special people” who make her feel bad about her self in comparison. She joins the Black Rose Duelist and fights Utena with the goal of killing Anthy, but she loses and she has no memory of the duel.

Utena sees Wakaba as a friend and doesn’t care about her social status. She cares about Wakaba and even ends up in the duels when she challenges Saionji to a duel after he posted a private love letter Wakaba wrote to him where everybody else could read it. Wakaba was heartbroken and embarrassed when she saw people reading her letter, so Utena challenged the person who hurt her friend to a duel. He saw that she had a rose seal ring and believed her to be challenging him to an official Rose Bride duel. He accepts the challenge and she is officially pulled into the duels. Wakaba is the catalyst which drives her to her destiny.

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