Posts Tagged ‘revolutionary girl utena’

This is a REPOST. The original article appeared at Ani.me

According to a recent interview in Kera magazine, the director of Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena, Kunihiko Ikuhara, will be returning to TV anime this year. After directing both magical girl series, Ikuhara stepped away from anime almost entirely, instead focusing on his serialized novel Nekomomo to Hanayome and the subsequent manga adaptation of the same for the last few years.

At this point it seems like it’d be an obvious choice to say that he’s going to be working on an anime adaptation of his novel, but that’s not official at all. Then again, it could be something entirely new, as the only clue he’s provided so far has been that the story will feature a teenage protagonist. Does this mean that he’ll be returning to his magical girl roots or will he stick with what he has been doing? I have no idea, but it’s already killing me to find out!

How about just one more hint? You don’t even have to speak it, I’m also good at charades!

No?

Fine.

Via ANN

You have to feel bad for any company that had to compete with the excitement that Funimation generated last night by announcing 17 new titles. Despite this, both Aniplex and Viz Media managed to get a little share of that love from fans by each announcing a new anime license of their own.

At their panel last night, Aniplex finally confirmed the license that has been rumored to exist for at least the last couple of weeks, Durarara. Premiering this past spring on Crunchyroll and helmed by the same team that created Baccano, the series has been a consistent topic of discussion every week as new episodes rolled out.

Armed with details, Aniplex told fans that the series would be seeing a DVD release in January 2011 in 3 sets and will come complete with a full English dub. No cast list was available at the time of the panel but Aniplex reps did confirm that the full cast would be announced at Otakon. Quick aside, way to give a story a couple extra weeks of life with minimal effort Aniplex!

Hosting their panels this morning, Viz Media and Production I.G also showed that they are still very much in the game with some announcements of their own. Viz Media was up first and announced that they will be simulcasting the new summer supernatural action series, Nurarihyon no Mago. The series premieres on televisions in Japan on Monday but I haven’t been able to find an exact time that it will be made available for fans in the US.

Closing things out this morning, Production I.G gave fans a nice little post script to the Utena TV license announced yesterday by Right Stuf. In their panel, it was confirmed that Right Stuf also has the license to the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie. Additionally, Production I.G also confirmed that they are currently involved in the live action Ghost in the Shell adaptation being worked on by Avi Arad.

Day 3 of Anime Expo isn’t over yet though! Even as we speak, eroge localizers Manga Gamer is presenting their panel and if anything new comes out of that I’ll be sure to post it up as soon as possible!

Alright, almost caught up. Just a couple more of these and I can move onto… the new summer anime season? Well, guess I can get by on a bit less sleep than usual.

For the last couple of days, Right Stuf has had their countdown running on their usual Coming Soon site leaving fans to wonder what was going to be coming down the pipeline today. Lucky day for fans, Right Stuf didn’t have one but two major announcements for the coming year!

Starting with the first series to carry the Anime no Chikara (Anime of Power) label , Sora no Woto was the first title announced this afternoon. Often referred to as ‘K-ON Joins the Army’ by snarky bloggers who still think it’s funny *cough*, the 12 episode series produced by A-1 Pictures (Black Butler, Moribito) premiered on Crunchyroll  in January to a lukewarm response by fans. While absolutely beautiful to look at, many fans lamented the terribly slow pacing and unoriginal character designs. There’s still a quiet charm to this series that puts it on par with other healing anime released by Right Stuf such as Aria the Animation or Piano: A Melody of a Young Girl’s Heart. The series will be released as one box set next year and will include the special DVD only episodes released in Japan!

Also announced at their panel today, Right Stuf has revealed their plans to re-release the entire Revolutionary Girl Utena TV series produced by JC Staff in 1997. All 39 episodes will be released in 3 box sets with remastered video and audio in 2011! The magical girl series has been in high demand with fans for years and now they will get to see it once again.

You know, the weekend is only halfway over but I’m just about ready to call this “The weekend of giving fans just about everything they could possibly ask for!”… eh, or maybe I can work on that title some more and get back to you.

Full press release below the cut

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Like most people there have been moments in my life where I’ve considered taking the plunge and getting married (never actually have luckily enough though). During those moments, like most anime geeks, I had thoughts pass through my head on how I could incorporate anime into the ceremony. So when an entry on the website Offbeat Bride came up featuring just that, it caught my attention.

A couple from Australia, Anli and Laura, did just that with their wedding putting it to Revolutionary Girl Utena and Portal themes. That’s why once I heard about it, I knew that I had to talk to this couple and find out more about the event.

So, when in the planning stages did adding Utena and Portal into the wedding come about? Was this something you had already been thinking about early or was it something one of you thought up along the way?

Laura: It was really important to us that the wedding reflected our personalities and interests, so for me geeky references were a must!

I am a really big fan of Shoujo Kakumei Utena (especially Juri *squee*) and Utena has played a big role in our relationship over the years, the first gift I ever received from Anli was a handmade rose seal ring ^^; (very cute) which she upgraded a few years later to another DIY ring made of actual silver) and when I snuck her into the prom I was wearing a rose bride gown she had made for me. That was why in planning our wedding, we decided to pay tribute to Utena.  As I’m such a big geek, I also added Aoi Hana and Strawberry Panic references.

We also love Portal, especially the companion cube! 

Anli: We knew early on that Hikari Sasu Niwa would be our processional song and that we would play lots of music from Utena and other anime during the reception (and also Jarrett Heather’s piano arrangements of Jonathan Coulton songs, including ‘Still Alive’ – swoon!). The Portal stuff was added fairly early on too as we admired the many companion cube cakes on the internet. We were both happy to add geeky references to the day while still keeping it recognizable as a wedding.

I saw all the themes you managed to get into the ceremony including your aisle theme, were there any elements that you wanted to get in but couldn’t for one reason or another?

Anli: I didn’t feel that we had to compromise anything important.  We had such a long engagement during which we saved aggressively and planned all the details that I think we fit in everything that we wanted to.

Laura: The thought of incorporating references into the actual wedding started with our engagement. Anli proposed to me by wrapping a gold Juri locket in foil and hiding it in a box of chocolates that she bought me to celebrate our 4th anniversary. I love that locket so much that I was determined to wear it on the wedding day. As it turned out, the gold clashed terribly with the coloring of my dream dress and that is when I got the idea to incorporate other items.

Were your friends and family supportive of doing something creative and different? Did anyone attempt to convince you go to a more “traditional” route?

Anli: Our friends and family were very supportive. Not everyone was familiar with all the different references but they appreciated the efforts we had put into the day. In the end, we still had quite a ‘traditional’ format, or as traditional as a non-legal ceremony was ever going to be.

Laura: It was also great to have friends there who knew the in jokes   Some of my favorite memories of the day are seeing our guests’ squee when particular pieces of music played, or when we made references in our vows. A lot of them were so subtle that they worked on two levels anyway, the fans went *squee* and the other guests enjoyed the instrumentals for example.

Thanks to Laura and Anli for taking the time to answer my questions!

Updated 11/2: Removed sentence containing inaccurate info.