Just because a manga is a horny manga doesn't mean the same type of horny has to apply to every part of it. The fact that the horniness in this manga remains grounded in "lmao why are female villains so sexual" combined with the (downplayed) internal conflict of Utena being obsessed with the genre yet messing with it herself keeps it a step above.
I tried watching the anime for the first time today. It was unwatchable. This isn't even about animation; the people who did the storyboarding and series composition are just utterly incompetent. Spending an extra gushillion dollars on very drawn-out, smooth, detailed cuts of frankly boring shit and making it take way longer to adapt has to be made illegal or something. Like, this is the kind of manga that would do well adapted into one of those anime with effectively 500 unique frames an episode.
SHAFT wouldn't have done this so dirty, but they're high on monogatari bucks and we're never getting another pani poni or puni poemy ever again