Revolutionary Girl Utena is a Japanese anime television series created by Be-Papas, a production group formed by director Kunihiko Ikuhara and composed of himself, Chiho Saito, Shinya Hasegawa, Yōji Enokido and Yūichirō Oguro. The series was produced by J.C.Staff and originally aired on TV Tokyo from April to December 1997. Revolutionary Girl Utena follows Utena Tenjou, a teenaged girl who is drawn into a sword dueling tournament to win the hand of Anthy Himemiya, a mysterious girl known as the "Rose Bride" who possesses the "power to revolutionize the world".
Yugi Mutou is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga series created by Kazuki Takahashi. Yugi is introduced as a teenager who is solving an ancient Egyptian puzzle known as the Millennium Puzzle, hoping it will grant him his wish of forming bonds. After solving the Puzzle, Yugi revives an ancient spirit initially known as Dark Yugi; his true identity is later revealed to be a pharaoh of Ancient Egypt named Atem. Over the course of the series, Yugi forms friendships with the supporting cast, interacts with Atem, and learns about his past. Besides the original manga, Yugi has also appeared in anime adaptations, films and video games based on the franchise. His ace duel monster card is the "Dark Magician".
Kunihiko Ikuhara, also known by the nickname Ikuni, is a Japanese director, writer, artist, and music producer. He has created and collaborated on several notable anime and manga series, including Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Penguindrum, Yurikuma Arashi, and Sarazanmai.
Duel Masters is a media franchise consisting of a manga, several anime series, a trading card game and several video games. It was originally associated with Magic: The Gathering, in which its cards are utilized within the manga. The original manga, accompanied with its sequels, sold 4.5 million copies in Japan.
Tactics is a Japanese manga series written as a collaboration between Sakura Kinoshita and Kazuko Higashiyama. It was serialized in Comic Blade Masamune. Kinoshita supplied the character "Kantarou", and Higashiyama supplied the character "Haruka". While the manga was previously licensed for released in English in paperback by both ADV Manga and Tokyopop, the manga was only available in English in digital format on JManga for two years before it was no longer accessible.
Attack No. 1 is a Japanese manga series by Chikako Urano. It became the first televised female sports anime series in the shōjo category.
Penguindrum, known in Japan as Mawaru Penguindrum, is a Japanese anime television series produced by Brain's Base. It was written by Kunihiko Ikuhara and Takayo Ikami, was co-directed by Ikuhara along with Shouko Nakamura, and was broadcast in Japan from July through December 2011.
The Pet Girl of Sakurasou is a Japanese light novel series written by Hajime Kamoshida, with illustrations by Kēji Mizoguchi. ASCII Media Works published 13 volumes between January 2010 and March 2014. A manga adaptation illustrated by Hōki Kusano was serialized ASCII Media Works' Dengeki G's Magazine and Dengeki G's Comic.
A Town Where You Live is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kōji Seo. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from May 2008 to February 2014 and the chapters collected into 27 tankōbon volumes. The series follows the daily life of Haruto Kirishima as he becomes enamored with Yuzuki Eba.
Yurikuma Arashi is a Japanese yuri anime television series produced by Silver Link and directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. The series was first announced via a website in August 2012, where it was referred to as the "Kunihiko Ikuhara/Penguinbear Project." The series first aired in Japan between January 5, 2015 and March 30, 2015 and is licensed in North America by Funimation. A manga adaptation illustrated by Akiko Morishima was serialized in Gentosha's Comic Birz magazine between February 2014 and April 2016 and has been licensed in English by Tokyopop under the title Yuri Bear Storm. The name appears to be a reference to Akira Yoshimura's novelization of the Sankebetsu brown bear incident, The Bear Storm, though any more concrete link besides the presence of human-attacking bears is only speculated.
Adolescence of Utena is a 1999 Japanese anime film. It is a follow-up to the 1997 anime television series Revolutionary Girl Utena, created by the artist collective Be-Papas. The film is directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, written by Yōji Enokido based on a story by Ikuhara and produced by the animation studio J.C.Staff. An English-language dubbed version of the film produced by Central Park Media was released in 2001 as Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie.
In anime and manga, the term "LGBTQ themes" includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender material. Outside Japan, anime generally refers to a specific Japanese-style of animation, but the word anime is used by the Japanese themselves to broadly describe all forms of animated media there. According to Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin, the fluid state of animation allows flexibility of animated characters to perform multiple roles at once. Manga genres that focus on same-sex intimacy and relationships resulted from fan work that depicted relationships between two same-sex characters. This includes characters who express their gender and sexuality outside of hetero-normative boundaries. There are also multiple sub genres that target specific consumers and themes: yaoi, yuri, shoujo-ai, shonen-ai, bara, etc. LGBT-related manga found its origins from fans who created an "alternative universe" in which they paired their favorite characters together. Many of the earliest works that contained LGBT themes were found in works by dōjinshi who has specifically written content outside the regular industry. The rise of yaoi and yuri was also slowed due to censorship laws in Japan that make it extremely hard for Japanese manga artists ("mangakas") and others to create work that is LGBT themed. Anime that contained LGBTQ content was changed to meet international standards. However, publishing companies continued to expand their repertoire to include yuri and yaoi, and conventions were created to form a community and culture for fans of this work.
Sarazanmai is a 2019 Japanese anime television series created by Kunihiko Ikuhara and jointly produced by MAPPA and Lapin Track. The series aired on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block from April 11 to June 20, 2019 for eleven episodes, and follows three middle school students who are transformed into kappas in order to collect shirikodama, mythical balls located in the anus that contains the physical manifestation of one's desires; Ikuhara broadly developed the series as a story about yōkai for an adult audience.
Be-Papas was a production group founded by anime director Kunihiko Ikuhara. Its membership consisted of Ikuhara, manga artist Chiho Saito, animator and character designer Shinya Hasegawa, scriptwriter Yōji Enokido, and planner Yūichirō Oguro. Ikuhara founded Be-Papas in 1996 to create Revolutionary Girl Utena, an original anime he conceived following his departure from Toei Animation, where he worked as a director on the anime series Sailor Moon. The group also created Revolutionary Girl Utena's 1999 film sequel Adolescence of Utena.
World of the S&M, released in English as The World Exists for Me, is a 2001 Japanese manga series. The series is written by Kunihiko Ikuhara with Seinosuke Ito and illustrated by Chiho Saito. The series is Ikuhara and Saito's second collaboration following the anime and manga series Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Shinya Hasegawa is a Japanese animator and art director. He co-created the 1997 television anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena and its 1999 film sequel Adolescence of Utena as a member of the production group Be-Papas. He also worked as an animation director on the 1995 television anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
