Penguindrum

Mawaru Penguindrum is an original anime directed and written by Kunihiko Ikuhara, who also worked on Revolutionary Girl Utena, with "family" as its theme. The original creator "Ikuni Chouder" is a pen name of the creative group centered around Ikuhara.

Throughout the story, Kenji Miyazawa's Night Train to the Stars is frequently quoted and serves as a motif for the narrative.

The characters' birthday of March 20, 1995, and the date of the subway terror attack depicted in the story precisely match the date of the real-world sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The fictional "TSM Ogikubo Line" largely overlaps with the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, leading some to point out that the sarin incident may have been one of the motifs for the work.

Director Ikuhara has said that he felt uncomfortable with turning descriptions reminiscent of the 1995 incident into an unrealistic fantasy, and he was uncertain until the end about what distance to maintain in depicting it.

According to the English Wikipedia article, the characters Watase Shinjiro and Ogino Momoka are said to reflect a doctor named Ikuo Hayashi who carried out the sarin attack, and a female student who witnessed him just before the incident.

At the 15th Japan Academy Prize for Animation (Fiscal Year 2011), the work was selected as a recommended work by the selection committee. It was also nominated for the 43rd Nebula Award Media Division in 2012, and in 2019, Polygon selected it as one of the best anime of the 2010s.

Many of the ending themes are performed by the voice actresses (Miho Arakawa, Yui Watanabe, and Marie Miyake) who voice Himari, Hibari, and Kohri respectively, as an actual unit called "Triple H", credited under the in-story idol unit name "Double H".

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the broadcast, a two-part theatrical film "RE:cycle of the PENGUINDRUM" was released in 2022, combining a reorganization of the TV series with new content.