 Kunihiko Ikuhara,
the creator of the Revolutionary Girl Utena series, was in a playful mood
when he spoke to fans on Saturday at Fanime Con. "I'm happy to see there
are so many cute girls in the audience," he joked to a group that included
several people in Utena costumes. When Ikuhara added "By the way, I'm single,"
the females in the audience cheered. And a lot of Ikuhara's answers to
fan questions were short and to the point. Why did he move to the U.S.?
"It's a secret." Why is the Mickey character always timing events with
a stopwatch? "It's a secret." Is one of your goals to confuse people and
stretch their brains? "Of course." Are you trying to say something with
Utena? "I'll leave that up to you." And what happened to his singing career?
"I got very discouraged." |
 On the other
hand, encouragement is what Ikuhara offers to aspiring manga artists. When
he was asked about Utena doujinshi, he said "Sometimes there are really
good artists. It's very rare, but sometimes I would get in contact with
them and refer them for work. I tend to like young artists who don't have
pre-established careers. When people send their artwork to me, I always
look at them." Of course, Ikuhara has collaborated with artist Chiho Saito
on the Utena manga, and they're working on a new manga project. (Was he
kidding when he said the title would be "The world of S&M?" We're told
he wasn't.) |
 Ikuhara does
not kid around when he speaks about one of the major influences on his
career, the late Japanese artist Shuji Terayama, the stage writer and director
whom Ikuhara idolized. Ikuhara said that Terayama was a revolutionary figure
who mixed art and politics, and he always wanted to work with Terayama,
but he died before Ikuhara had that chance. So Ikuhara settled for the
next best thing; he hired one of Terayama's collaborators, the composer
JA Caesar, to write the music for the Utena films. |
