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Anime Central - Day One - Kunihiko Ikuhara
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Kunihiko Ikuhara, the co-creator of the Revolutionary Girl Utena series,
continued his American tour with a trip to Anime Central, following his
Animazement appearance by two months. "America is a big place - I want
to see it all," he said about his visit to the Chicago area. Ikuhara said
the American anime conventions he had seen reminded him of similar Japanese
events of two decades ago, where fans and businesses got together. Nowadays,
fans have their own conventions such as Comic Market, while businesses
put on separate shows just to sell product, he said. |
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| Ikuhara likes listening to what fans want from a series, but he chooses
to take his own path when it's time for the major creative decisions. That
was the reason he wanted to move away from the commercially successful
Sailor Moon series he directed to create Utena, where "I wanted to express
some of the things I couldn't express with Sailor Moon." |
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Sailor Moon was a very commercial series, driven by the businesses
who wanted the original manga translated into anime, Ikuhara said. He wanted
to make something different, and he admitted the complex plot of Utena
doesn't have the immediate commercial appeal of Sailor Moon's high school
comedies. There's another difference between Utena and Sailor Moon. while
the Sailor Moon manga came before the anime, both forms of the Utena story
were developed pretty much at the same time. |
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| Utena and Sailor Moon both come from the world of Japanese high school.
Why are so many anime and manga series based on that world? Ikuhara said
the Japanese high school experience is and intense one because of examination
pressures. "It's a very cultural thing. Unless you've gone to high school
you can't understand. Japanese high school leaves a mark on you that remains
longer than the American high school experience." |
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