Animazement - Friday - Utena Talk

Were you drawn into the world of anime by Sailor Moon, and did your curiosity about this art form lead you to discover Revolutionary Girl Utena? Kunihiko Ikuhara shares your experience. He directed episodes of the Sailor Moon TV series and the Sailor Moon R movie, work that established his career in the anime industry. However, "Sailor Moon was such a long series I got bored with it," Ikuhara said at a Friday Animazement panel. "I wanted to create something different."

The difference came when he found the manga of Chiho Saito at a bookstore. "I fell in love with it at first sight," Ikuhara said. "I was saying to myself, I've got to work with this lady' " Ikuhara went unannounced to Saito's home and convinced her to join him on a project - the animated version of Saito's Utena manga. "I think that Utena is my major masterpiece," he said.

"Is it okay for me to tell a really complicated story?" Saito asked fans who, in turn, had asked her about some of the complications inside the Utena tale of duels, love and a mysterious boarding school. Of course, the crowd voiced their approval, and Saito told them how the Utena manga was still a work in progress when she agreed to adapt the comic for animation.

"At the time I hadn't conceived the entire Utena universe," Saito said about her manga at the time the animation deal was reached. "I sort of improvised the main story line at the last minute. The plot of the TV version was Mr. Ikuhara's responsibility." Saito also asked how many of the fans at the panel had seen all of the Utena episodes - beyond the first series that was initially released in the U.S. - and only a few people raised their hands. She told the fans that there was a lot more to the Utena story beyond those first 13 episodes, and she didn't want to spoil the story for them.

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