#kunihiko ikuhara
Not MGLN content, but I found this video of Masami Okui and Nana Mizuki singing Rinbu Revolution, the opening for Revolutionary Girl Utena. I didn’t want it to get lost, so I’m posting it here for others to enjoy.
rewatching utena is so crazy cause I will be minding my business diligently then all the sudden it is the manwhore vs. kangaroo boxing match .. . AWEOAOFOOO FLEMAMDOAIAOOOOOO HNGNNG. . pls
Hey yuri fans! Yuri Kuma Arashi’s final episode aired today (March 30th)! If you were interested in watching it, but wanted to wait until you could watch it all at once, now is your chance to never give up on love!
This is an anime about bears, ladies and love! Its director is Ikuhara Kunihiko (director of Revolutionary Girl Utena and Mawaru Penguindrum), with character design and inspiration from Morishima Akiko (yuri mangaka; author of Hanjuku Joshi, The Conditions for Paradise, and many others).
It’s trippy! It’s symbolic! Bears eat people!
It’s cute! It’s tragic! And best of all, it’s straight-up dripping in yuri!
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I’m skimming through the Starting Guide - the interview with Ikuhara and Morishima is really interesting.
He knew her manga (he keeps up on both yuri and BL manga regularly) and contacted her on twitter back when he was pulling together the Penguindrum manga anthology, asking her to submit to it. She is a longtime massive fan of his, to the point that she actually initially turned down his offer to work together on Yurikuma simply because she was terrified she would fail and “ruin everything” if they worked together, and she said she couldn’t have handled it if an Ikuhara show was ruined for her because she loves his shows too much. She isn’t sure she would be a mangaka if it wasn’t for Ikuhara - when she was 19, she read an interview of his that made a massive impression on her. She respects him as a creator in general - while she enjoyed reading manga and watching anime in general when she was young, his work was what made her really consider how a story is actually made, and it inspired her a lot.
Some standout points… I’ll probably translate this at some point properly, but until then…
So I’ve rewatched the new trailers for Sarazanmai over and over! It’s interesting to see a combination of animation and live footage.I love the music, and the underlying tone of sadness, and the characters talking about their views on connections, I feel like you get a good grasp of their general outset. And of course already feeling that Ikuhara vibe. Weird street signs, towers having significant meaning, people unable to connect with society. I can’t wait for spring!
What do you think of when you think of magical girl anime? Maybe you think of a lighthearted classic magical girl, like Sailor Moon. Maybe you think of something more modern or darker, like Madoka Magica. But no matter who you think of, odd are they share the following characteristics: light skinned, slim, and come from a typical background.
But the magical girl genre can be more than that. It’s a genre about people who use magic or hyper-advanced technology to become so much more than they typically are. That doesn’t have to be limited to just your typical anime pretty girl. Fortunately, there are anime that have expanded their reach and shown a more diverse vision of what the magical girl genre can be. That was the subject of Ninapedia’s panel “Diversity in the Magical Girl Genre”. Here are some of the anime she listed which embraces a more inclusive vision of magical girls:
PreCure: This is a long running magical girl franchise with, through its various iterations, has included a very diverse cast. There are characters which are LGBT, characters with a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds, including a biracial magical girl, characters with atypical family backgrounds, such as divorced or interracial parents, and characters which mental health issues, such as PTSD. Even the boys get in the act, with one of them, who identifies as a boy, publicly wearing a dress because he thinks it look pretty.
PriPara: This is a magical idol show with an impressive variety of body types. This show features a magical girl who is fat, but she isn’t shamed or excluded. It features adult magical girls, which is daring given Japanese cultural attitudes towards older women (look up the term “Christmas cake” if you’re unfamiliar). It also features a trans characters and a boy and a girl who cross-dress.
Revolutionary Girl Utena & YuriKuma Arashi: Ah, Kunihiko Ikuhara. If there’s a go-to person for works that deconstruct the magical girl genre, it’s Ikuhara. And as you would expect, that means lots of diversity. Both UtenaandYuriKumaare full of queer characters (heck, YuriKuma’sname translated to English is “Lesbian Bear Storm”), and rampant subversion of gender norms. Also, the character Anthy in Utena is a rare example of a magical girl whose skin is a truly dark color, without it just being a lighter skinned person with a tan.
But these are just a few of the series Ninapedia mentioned, and she went well beyond just anime. There is a large amount of non-anime magical girl projects with diverse casts (such as Emara: Emirates Hero & Steven Universe), as well as numerous indie media projects. So look around and you’ll be rewarded by the wide variety of viewpoints you can find in this one genre.
- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger
“How vexing. You aren’t permitted to duel without a sword…”
ア ♡ ア ♡ ア ♡ ア
~Otterly Sexy~
