Just as Ikuhara described, Be-Papa's office is a one-room area housing three desks and lined with bookshelves filled with manga, videotapes, art books and production material. While filling out paperwork for his move to the US, which is in fact why we hurried from the station, Ikuhara picks up a velvet-covered photo book of the eccentric band Malice Mizer. Malice Mizer is famous for dressing up as European aristocracy with a goth lilt.

"I didn't know who Malice Mizer were, but Mana said she's a fan of 'Utena.'" Mana, a member of the band, was fascinated by the visuals and direction of "Utena" and had asked Ikuhara to direct a promotional video. Since those outside of the anime industry have recognized Ikuhara's directorial skills, he's decided to try non-anime projects in the US & Japan. He tells me of the proposed project of the cross-dressing musician/performance artist, then goes on to explain that he had to refuse the offer because he already decided to go to the US by the time they approached him.

Ikuhara finishes the paperwork quickly, and we migrate to a coffee shop in the neighborhood to conduct the actual interview. Along the way to the coffee shop, Ikuhara points at a building, "JC Staff used to be here. They're not in this building anymore." JC Staff is the animation company that did the animation production for the "Utena" TV series and "The Adolescence of Utena" movie, as well as other noted titles such as Gainax's "Kareshi Kanojo no Jijyo" and Kadokawa's "Sorcerous Stabber Orphen."

The coffee shop is evocative of a café in some small European town, replete with wood paneling on the walls, hardwood floors and short, stumpy chairs. I'm starting to draw parallels between the European design of Ikuhara's professional environment and the definitively European style of "Utena." We sit in the corner table, order drinks and finally start the tape recorder. With the paperwork complete, Ikuhara is far more relaxed. He's still slightly nervous about going to the US and asks about driving a lot, which he's going to have to start practicing again. He's what they call a "paper driver" in Japan - he has a license, but hasn't driven in over 10 years. I assure him that I would be more than willing to help him practice driving in parking lots of supermarkets and other open areas.

For someone who adorns pictures in poses that even a super model wouldn't strike - someone with yellow streaks in his hair, and who dresses in audaciously bright clothing - Ikuhara comes across as a very down-to-earth person. He's a creative person, but also a businessperson, a duality responsible for his being able to both direct and produce "Utena" - a skill that allowed him to leave a highly successful anime company and turn "Utena" into an independent hit. Overall, though, he is extremely laid back - except, of course, about coming to the US, which frightens him. He's not going to back out of the trip because he's already made the decision, but he worries nonetheless.

Once the actual interview starts, he's back to exercising the same kind of iconoclastic self-confidence that branded his personality on his North American convention rounds with "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" manga artist and Be-Papas partner Chiho Saito. Their rapport became legendary. When recounting the first time Ikuhara, who had fallen in love with Ms. Saito's work and desperately wanted to turn it into anime, approached her about the "Utena" project, he claims to have been greeted with inhospitality. "I went to her house," Ikuhara explains. "But she slammed the door in my face. So I was persistent and kept going back." "That's not true. I always ask guests in," Saito retorted. Ikuhara also made many a girl (and some guys, I'm sure) swoon when he mentioned he'd be looking for a girlfriend in the US. He is a bishounen type - thin, big eyes, long slender fingers. It's no wonder that fans of series like "Utena" find him intriguing.

At the conventions, fans that expressed their adoration of "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" by cosplaying as Utena characters received Ikuhara and Saito warmly. "There were a lot of cute girls overall," Ikuhara says of the North American cosplayers. At Animazement in Raleigh, North Carolina last year, Ikuhara remembers a group of "Utena" cosplayers suited up as the entire cast of the student council of Ohtori Academy. Autograph sessions of Ikuhara and Saito, and even the stages of the masquerade at Anime Expo, were flooded with rose brides and duelists.