Anime

[Galactus]

And the girl turning into a tree.

But there's a cowbell? And metaphorical recursion? Damn, it's been too long since I watched it. I agree it was very different in the aggressive intrusion of metaphorical elements into the plot itself, from memory, but for the rest, I'll take your word for it, it's a bit fuzzy and I don't think I still have (or want to watch) the ugly pixellized 100x78 realmedia files I got off internet, something like, oh, 12 years ago :)

Though I'm not too sure about it being so different from stuff like, again, FLCL, or Lain, except for the mood. In your face mindfuckery is cool in all those cases anyway. And it's works like that that actually help promote the media as able to produce things more mature than what people are led to think by the usually popular drivel.

Aaaanyway it's quite a nostalgia bomb. Not sure how current audience would feel about the ugly animation (as I remember it, might be wrong) or how dated the visuals would feel. (though I guess if you can tolerate the 2 minutes intro to the fights each and every episode, you won't care for that)

Are you talking about the TV-series or the movie? I'm mainly talking about the TV-show (which is less "bad acid trip" and more "extended weirdo metaphor".

And yes, there's a cowbell. There's also a scen where everyone is surrounded by toasters. And so on and so forth.

Lain isn't realy quite the same (and while good, it's far less interesting IMHO) it's a more straightforward techno-thriller, while Utena is working on a whole bunch of levels (one being 39 eps and the other 6 makes a difference ofc.)