Ikuhara, Kunihiko
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Wikipedia-Article "Kunihiko Ikuhara"
Kunihiko Ikuhara (幾原邦彦 Ikuhara Kunihiko) (December 21, 1964 - ) is a creative artist associated with several Japanese anime and manga. He studied graphic design at the Komatsu City College, and joined Toei Animation in Tokyo after graduating. He's most famous for his role in creating and directing Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Ikuhara graduated from Komatsu City College, majoring in graphic design, and joined Toei Animation (then Toei Douga) after his graduation, in 1986. He worked as Assistant Director to Junichi Sato for several years, on anime such as Maple Town. His most notable work with Toei, however, was on the anime rendition of Sailor Moon. Ikuhara personally directed many episodes of the series over the course of its run, and took over the position of series director from Junichi Sato during the second season, Sailor Moon R. Ikuhara also directed the first Sailor Moon theatrical movie, also called Sailor Moon R; that, and several TV series episodes directed personally by him (such as 110 and 111, the "Marine Cathedral" episodes of the third season) are considered by many fans to be particularly notable.
Ikuhara left Toei Animation in 1996 to form his own creative group, Be-Papas, consisting of himself, manga artist Chiho Saito, animator Hasegawa Shinya (animation supervisor for Neon Genesis Evangelion), writer Enokido Youji, and producer Okuro Yuuichiro. Be-Papas produced the anime and manga series Shoujo Kakumei Utena.
Though Be-Papas collaborated together to produce Utena, Kunihiko Ikuhara had much more influence on the anime, which he directed, than he did on the manga, which was drawn by Chiho Saito. (Notably, Ikuhara also recruited composer J.A. Seazer to contribute to the soundtrack, providing much Utena's more distinctive music.) The series was a success, winning the "Best Television Series Award" and the "Kobe Award" at Animation Kobe '97, and the group proceeded to work together to produce an Utena movie (and accompanying manga, again drawn by Saito): Adolescence Mokushiroku (translated "Adolescence Apocalypse"; the official English title is Adolescence of Utena, though the movie was released on DVD in the United States as "Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie"). Ikuhara also helped supervise the production of several other Utena-related works, including the Sega Saturn video game and the stage musical; in addition. The movie was released in 1999; Be-Papas disbanded after that project.
Post-Utena works of Ikuhara's include the manga The World of S&M in cooperation with Chiho Saito, the manga Schell Bullet with Mamoru Nagano, and the Schell Bullet-based concept album Thanaphs 68 with several other artists. He also partially supervised the production of the English dub of the Utena movie. Ikuhara lived in Los Angeles for two years, taking English language classes and film courses at the American Film Institute.
Ikuhara has been known to attend anime conventions and similar events, give interviews, and provide commentary tracks for the DVD releases of Utena. However, in such public events, he has a tendency to make comments that alternate between sublime, ridiculous, and just plain evasive, especially when asked probing questions the more mystifying aspects of Utena. The implication is that he wishes to leave interpretation of his works open to the audience. Ikuhara (whose nickname is "Ikuni") is known to like cats and flirting with women (the latter habit is even referenced, as a studio in-joke, on a test paper in one episode of Sailor Moon).