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Utena/Penguindrum's Kunihiko Ikuhara Reveals Next Anime's Studios, Title, 2019 TV Debut
posted on by Egan Loo
The official website and Twitter account for the next anime from director Kunihiko Ikuhara launched on Tuesday. According to the teaser video on the site, the original television anime Sarazanmai will air in 2019, and the studios MAPPA (Yuri!!! on Ice, In This Corner of the World, Rage of Bahamut Genesis) and Lapin Track (Yurikuma Arashi) are producing it. The video's description credits "Ikunirappa" for the original story; the original story of Ikuhara's earlier Yurikuma Arashi anime was similarly credited to "Ikunigomamonaka."
The teaser promotional video above first debuted during the Niconico Live streaming of the first 13 Revolutionary Girl Utena episodes, which ran from Monday to Tuesday. Different versions of the video will also run during the later Utena streaming marathons on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The tagline in the video and on the website reads, "Don't let go, desire is your life."
Ikuhara is perhaps best known as the director of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime, a 1997 series he co-created with the Be-PaPas creative group, which consisted of him, writer Yoji Enokido, animator and character designer Hasegawa Shinya, manga creator Chiho Saitō, and producer Yūichirō Oguro. Before Revolutionary Girl Utena, he worked at Toei Animation, where he directed Sailor Moon R, S and SuperS. After Revolutionary Girl Utena, he did not direct another anime series until Mawaru Penguindrum in 2011. Until now, his most recent directorial work is Yurikuma Arashi in 2015.
MAPPA had posted an August job listing that revealed that it is recruiting staff for a new work by Ikuhara.
Source: Comic Natalie
