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I've been watching Star Driver recently -- aiming to finish it off tonight just finished it, in fact -- and it's got me thinking about something.
After they both worked on Utena together with the rest of Be-PaPas, Ikuhara has since worked on other things (e.g. Mawaru Penguindrum, Yuri Kuma Arashi, Sarazanmai) and Enokido has also since worked on other things (e.g. Melody of Oblivion, the abovementioned Star Driver, Captain Earth).
There's been speculation before in Utena fandom, particularly in response to people acting like Ikuhara made the show singlehandedly, about how much Enokido's writing may have contributed to Utena being as good as it was. I recall that this speculation involved discussing the flaws in Penguindrum and YKA (Sarazanmai hadn't aired yet at the time) and thus what strengths and weaknesses Ikuhara has as a director. That said, I don't think there was much if any discussion of Enokido's post-Utena work or his strengths and weaknesses as a writer for anime based on that.
Basically, I'm wondering what people think of Ikuhara's post-Utena works versus Enokido's post-Utena works, what people prefer and why, and what credit we should assign to whom for Utena being what it was. Right now I suspect the specific combination of Ikuhara and Enokido did the trick to a big extent, and I think the influence of other project members like Saito probably helped as well.
To anyone who's watched any of the shows I mentioned here: what do you think?
After they both worked on Utena together with the rest of Be-PaPas, Ikuhara has since worked on other things (e.g. Mawaru Penguindrum, Yuri Kuma Arashi, Sarazanmai) and Enokido has also since worked on other things (e.g. Melody of Oblivion, the abovementioned Star Driver, Captain Earth).
There's been speculation before in Utena fandom, particularly in response to people acting like Ikuhara made the show singlehandedly, about how much Enokido's writing may have contributed to Utena being as good as it was. I recall that this speculation involved discussing the flaws in Penguindrum and YKA (Sarazanmai hadn't aired yet at the time) and thus what strengths and weaknesses Ikuhara has as a director. That said, I don't think there was much if any discussion of Enokido's post-Utena work or his strengths and weaknesses as a writer for anime based on that.
Basically, I'm wondering what people think of Ikuhara's post-Utena works versus Enokido's post-Utena works, what people prefer and why, and what credit we should assign to whom for Utena being what it was. Right now I suspect the specific combination of Ikuhara and Enokido did the trick to a big extent, and I think the influence of other project members like Saito probably helped as well.
To anyone who's watched any of the shows I mentioned here: what do you think?
