At Anime Expo Right Stuf/Nozumi Entertainment announced the acquisition of the rights to the 39-episode Revolutionary Girl Utena anime series.  Directed in 1997 by Kunihiko Ikuhara and based on the manga by Chiho Sato, Revolutionary Girl Utena is an allegorical, surreal, metaphysically challenging magical girl anime.  Director Ikuhara was heavily involved in the development of Sailor Moon S, and fans of the Sailor Moon series helped make Revolutionary Girl Utena a success here in the States when the first 13 episodes were released here on VHS in 1998 by Central Park Media.   Since the demise of CPM, the rights to the series have been in flux until the Right Stuf announced that it will release the series (with both English Dub and Japanese tracks) in three 13-episode DVD box sets in 2011.

 

 Right Stuf has also acquired the North American rights to Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie (aka The Adolescence of Utena), an 80-minute feature film produced in 1999 and also directed by Ikuhara.  The movie, which deals with themes from the series in very original and challenging ways, is even more daring visually than the series, and difficult enough to interpret that fans call it the “End of Utena” in reference to the philosophically opaque End of Evangelion,