Atropisomerism, a stereochemical property resulting from restricted rotation around a single bond where the steric strain barrier is high enough, has been the subject of much attention in organic chemistry. Well-studied biaryls, along with several classes of atropisomeric compounds including ortho-substituted anilides, N-arylimides, and diaryl ethers have been identified and their stereoselective synthesis has been explored. [1,2] In particular, axially chiral biaryls have been well studied because they provide an effective chiral environment for asymmetric reaction when they act as chiral ligands of metal catalysts or organocatalysts. Moreover, axially chiral anilides are utilized as useful chiral building blocks for N-heterocycles with axial-to-center chirality transfer.[3] In contrast to the above atropisomers whose rotationally-restricted single bond is directly connected to one or two aryl group(s), atropisomerism in acyclic p-systems such as 1,3-dienes [4] and a,b-unsaturated carbonyl derivatives have rarely been studied. To the best of our knowledge, there is only one example of the optical resolution of a,b-unsaturated carboxylic acid derivatives. Mannschreck and his co-workers reported the optical property of atropoisomeric thioamide derivatives of acrylic acid.[5] However, atropisomerism of a,b-unsaturated amidine derivatives, which would be potential synthetic precursors for heterocyclic compounds, is unexplored. We envisioned that highly substituted amidines 1 would provide a comparable stable atropisomer on axial chirality around a C2ÀC3 single bond (Figure 1). Herein, we report the optical resolution of atropisomeric a,b-unsaturated amidines and a novel stereoselective synthetic method of a,b-unsaturated amidines with bulky substituents.At the outset of this study, we considered the preparation of steric hindered a,b-unsaturated amidines. We thought that efficient synthesis of 1 by a coupling reaction to make a C2ÀC3 single bond or direct addition or substitution reaction to introduce a bulky substituent would be difficult. To achieve stereoselective synthesis of a,b-unsaturated amidines, we focused on the cascade reaction, consisting of [2+2] cycloaddition and successive electrocyclic ring-opening reaction (cycloreversion) of nitrogen-substituted alkynes and imines (Scheme 1).[6] The cascade reaction corresponds to formal aza-enyne metathesis. In the [2+2] cycloaddition, the repulsive steric interaction of bulky substituents on both substrates would decrease owing to the linear geometry of the alkyne substrate. We expected that cycloreversion of the resulting azetine intermediate 2 would proceed in a geometrical selective manner. As a related study, cycloreversion of cyclobutenes has been well explored to give the corresponding 1,3-butadienes. [7,8] In the thermal cycloreversion of fourmembered rings, the geometry of the product is ruled out by conrotatory rotation of the s-orbital of the central single bond and torquoselectivity (inward vs outward rotation in the conrotatory rotation). The torquos...