Hideaki Anno's short essay on Gundam

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Hideaki Anno's short essay on Gundam

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Postby Xard » Sat Oct 12, 2013 5:30 am

This is taken from end of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's fairly stunning Gundam: The Origin's first volume "Activation". Origin is retelling of original Gundam by original anime's character designer and key creative person in general, making it Gundam equivalent of Haruhiko Mikimoto's Macross: The First or Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's Evangelion manga.

Points of specific interest for us Eva fans are hints at Anno's unease about Evangelion's impact and legacy on anime (the old cliche interpretation about how Eva brought era of "grand narratives" like those of Yamato or Gundam to end and shifted the focus towards characters, "plotlessness" and general increase in "post-modern" consumption habits has a lot going for it after all) and explicit wish to combat this trend and mentality in his "next work".

Given how this text was written in 2005 at dawn of Rebuild project my feelings about Rebuild being attempt at turning Eva into cohesive, grand SF narrative, turning back the clock so to speak, are strenghtened if anything.


Image

Celebrating the Revival of Gundam as Tale

The world of Gundam, drawn once again as a Tale - that, I believe, is the greatest significance of this manga.
Of course we also have here Mr. Yasuhiko's distinctive art, the indescribable charm woven by his gentle, delicate lines, the characters and mobile suits in particular. Yet I feel the greatest pleasure of this "Yasuhiko Gundam" lies in the resuscitation of a Tale lost among our memories of First Gundam.

It has already been twenty-five years since the broadcast of First Gundam.
I'm afraid the legacy of Gundam dwindled down to the mobile suits, in the form of plastic models as a business and military hobbyism. Even these mobile suits were summarized down to protagonist mecha, Gundam, so that friend and foe alike were all uniformly Gundams. One could say this was inevitable: the pivotal creation that made Gundam a classic and drives the franchise expansion to this day is, of course, the mobile suit, represented by the RX-78 Gundam, weapon bearing the elements of a character; and the way of the world is that characters are what ultimately remain with the audience.
It's not a bad thing. I simply find it unfortunate that the Tale that enveloped the worldview and ideas on war presented in First Gundam ceased to function as anything more than device for the mobile suit fantasy.

In recent years, in the world of anime and manga too, the hollowing out of mainstream culture and putative rise of subculture severely diluted and eroded the standing of the Tale.
Audience have come to need a work only as an escape from reality, as an comfortable dream, judging everything on the criterion of moe, while creators' intellectual paucity and the jumble of trivial touches have encouraged that structure. At the same time, TV-type mass consumption, which prizes instant gratification and simplistic results, laid the impoverished grounds of contemporary Japanese entertainment, giving rise to masses that can only respond with praise for superficial details and technical proficiency; with tears, laughter, fear, or some other outpouring of simple emotions; or with identifying and particularism.
And here we are, in this stagnant state of affairs. I am stuck here myself. It's embarrasing and frustrating, and I also regret that I contributed to it.
I want it fixed. The sooner, the better.

That is why I am so glad that Gundam, the animation brand with the largest market in the industry, is showing us here a true Tale through the medium of manga. I want as many people as possible to reconfirm and savor the essence and allure of Tales. I want this work's readers' receptivity to grow more fertile, more embodied.

Only Mr. Yasuhiko, I think, could have accomplished the task of reviving the Tale that is there in First Gundam.
I think this is because I sense a certain equipoise - in that Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the author who seconded diverging with the masses and business, who abandoned the anime industry and, as solitary manga artist, gazed at and depicted the livelihood of individuals and state society historically, finally returns to Gundam after steering clear for over twenty years.
And I sense a certain good grace. He decides to draw Gundam - well-known to the masses as a premier franchise of the plastic model and anime industries - not from weariness, not as expiation, nor to return to his roots, but in earnest, as a work of his own.
That is why we are able to sense from this work a Tale that is both true and distinct from First Gundam anime's.
I think that's fantastic. I think anew that I am able to read Mr. Yasuhiko's Gundam.

Finally, dear reader holding this book, I urge you to pick up Mr. Yasuhiko's other works as well. I sincerely wish for you to know better what Tales are to you, to touch and feel them again.

As for me, I'll do my best so that my next project will come across as a Tale.



Hideaki Anno, Gundam Fan
April 10, 2005



_________________________________________________

Sasuga Anno. It isn't quite "What were we trying to make here" but Anno essays of this type are as delicious as they are rare.

I'm genuinely happy Anno is happier in 00s and I don't mind relative lack of author tract in Rebuild so far (even if is what largerly led to greatest heights of creative genius in original Eva) but I wish he'd give me more chances to relinquish in statements that combine his barb and keen head/writing pen a la Mamoru Oshii more often, especially since with Anno there's always that self-deprecating, borderline self-hating quality that is lacking in Oshii's pompousness:

Audience have come to need a work only as an escape from reality, as an comfortable dream, judging everything on the criterion of moe, while creators' intellectual paucity and the jumble of trivial touches have encouraged that structure.



A bit that really stands out for me is this:

At the same time, TV-type mass consumption, which prizes instant gratification and simplistic results, laid the impoverished grounds of contemporary Japanese entertainment, giving rise to masses that can only respond with praise for superficial details and technical proficiency; with tears, laughter, fear, or some other outpouring of simple emotions; or with identifying and particularism.


This reflects the general experience of reading 2ch or 2chan in general so well it isn't even funny. While I do not wish to suggest crude stereotyping is good or deny lack of thoughtful commentary and posts in Japanese subculture fandom are non-existent this is the general mentality has something infantile and emotionally simplistic about it - and when not and fans instead launch into tirades of expertise it tends to be "technical proficiency" Anno mentions here. Detailed, obsessive talk on mechanical design or identifying sakuga animators. There is, however, little in way of grander criticism or analysis. For good and for bad the culture of blogging is not as strong as in west and forums are pretty much non-existent. There's limited degree of highly specialized discussion and analysis can take place in grand stream of ancient BBS threads for a series and anonymity renders bringing forth personal, wide ranging viewpoints and theories quite moot.

But in general I think this is cultural issue, perhaps even better characterized by flat binaryness of public discourse on films and anime I face on twitter and futaba semi-daily.

Anno: What it boils down to is, society only sees the numbers. When it comes to movies too, there’s a need to apply either of two labels, either that it was interesting or that it wasn’t.

and you have no idea how often I see it all boil down to whether something is "omoshiroi"/omoshironakatta". It's all about being omoshiroi and curiously I see otaku often struggle or not see point of going further than that. I wouldn't say intellectual level of discourse is any higher on place like /a/ but in general worth of title is not so heavily linked to singular concept and if needed to average anon is more than willing to dish out list of distinctive reasons why Eva is piece of shit.

But anyway, leaving the willy-nilly of articulated reply behind it's the "outpouring of simple emotions" and its dominance over discourse that really stands out in Japanese internet sphere to me most often. Whether it's idols or anime the average otaku communicates in UWAAAAAHHHs, hidoi wwwww's and endless string of similar low-information, easily replicable replies.

It mixes with the general collectivist streak in Japanese culture I find at best amusing and at worst annoying. Streak which leads to small "reaction screens" in pretty much every fucking program there is (they let audience know how to feel about the footage, generally speaking, by seeing how all those famous talents react - it seems innocious detail at first but it's actually telling sign of huge cultural divide) and gleeful, joyful habit of orienting oneself as small part of mass experience.

Idiocy of Nico Nico Douga and youtube comments may be shared but the way of expression is somewhat different. If someone makes clever comment or funny remark on NND 99% of posters WILL jump to repeat it, thus partaking in the experience. This same exists to lesser degree in Japanese language youtube comments when possible. You don't see this happening in English language posts because 20 different guys writing "ha, he said penis" in a row just comes off retarded.


But I'm seriously losing my focus, let me cap this off with this: I think I understand what Anno means here. -o-;

As for me, I'll do my best so that my next project will come across as a Tale.


Ha. Rebuild might really be "anti-Eva" after all, but not because of "selling out" and becoming easy blockbusterfest with slutsuits and all the way people whined pre-Q but in far more radical manner. I think I've brought this before on Rebuild subforums but I really do think the most significant change in Rebuild is how much more seriously it's science fiction story* and how it's been structured as clear narrative with Shinji as active protagonist and Gendo as antagonist figure pulling the strings of fate. Just think of the film series's explicit embrace of the most classical of all Japanese narrative forms: Jo-Ha-Kyu. It's as if Godard went and did narrative film perfectly loyal to Aristotlean theory of drama.



*SciFi elements in original Eva mostly come off as empty symbols or handy metaphors likeinfamous appropriation of judeochristian symbolism to me. Anno obviously didn't care as can be seen from the way about how much crucial SF settei was first eradicated from narrative and then added back as afterthought in Classified Information years later or from his "how can this be considered SF, srsly" puzzlement at receiving Japanese equivalent of Nebula Award for Evangelion.


last but not least in case tags are puzzling you I decided to start tagging threads created by me with "Xard" from now on so I can easily find them all, no matter how far back they've fallen in terms of pages :lol:
Last edited by Xard on Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Hideaki Anno's short essay on Gundam

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Postby Mr. Tines » Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:42 am

I'm pretty certain Anno talking about "the Tale" has been cited here before now -- probably just buried somewhere in the depths.

View Original PostXard wrote:*SciFi elements in original Eva mostly come off as empty symbols or handy metaphors likeinfamous appropriation of judeochristian symbolism to me. Anno obviously didn't care as can be seen from the way about how much crucial SF settei was first eradicated from narrative and then added back as afterthought in Classified Information years later or from his "how can this be considered SF, srsly" puzzlement at receiving Japanese equivalent of Hugo Award for Evangelion.


Maybe not by that stage, but since then there have been a whole bunch of Hugo winners that merit "how can this be considered SF, srsly" far more than NGE *cough* Best Novel of 2001 *cough*; indeed sufficient of the "crucial SF settei" "eradicated from narrative" was still there by implication because the whole thing was cast in the language of SF and could be read directly as such in the millennial zeitgeist of the genre at that time; only the irrelevant details were gone (what does it matter where on the scale from Arisian to Thrint the Forerunners were -- the important thing was they left some Transcendent seed-tech).

Also the Nihon SF Taisho Award is closer to the American Nebula (being decided by the SF Writers' Association); the Seiun Award, being a popular vote of the fans at the Japan SF Convention, is closer to the Hugos.
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Re: Hideaki Anno's short essay on Gundam

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Postby Xard » Sat Oct 12, 2013 7:13 am

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:I'm pretty certain Anno talking about "the Tale" has been cited here before now -- probably just buried somewhere in the depths.


Well that's possible though I don't remember Anno seeing comments on the question, but the essay itself as a whole almost certainly isn't. I haven't seen this translated at all before Vertical Inc. started releasing Gundam: The Origin volumes this very year in USA. In fact I just transcribed the essay as is from end of the volume I received couple of days ago (I wouldn't italize words like that otherwise).

I don't know if this fits gwern's Anno/Eva archives but in any case I think it's very good writeup honoring what is, going by what I've now read, damn good manga that is in lovable contrast to Sadamoto's doodling superior to anime original in pretty much every respect.

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:Maybe not by that stage, but since then there have been a whole bunch of Hugo winners that merit "how can this be considered SF, srsly" far more than NGE *cough* Best Novel of 2001 *cough*


Awww, maybe I'm just old school with my SF reading habits but Hugo Award still had currency for me. That's just depressing :(

Having said that, calling SF Taisho Award Hugo-equivalent was plain mistake from my part and fixed accordingly. This isn't first time I mix up Seiun Award and SF Taisho with their western counterparts (and it definetly doesn't help "Seiun" means Nebula in Japanese, literally). Hopefully this was last.

Seiun Awards have kept their general reputation for what it's worth rather well - though slippage in definition of SciFi arguably exists to some extent. Of course given ambiguity of the term SF in the first place this isn't that surprising.

(then again Madoka CAN be treated as scifi)

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:indeed sufficient of the "crucial SF settei" "eradicated from narrative" was still there by implication because the whole thing was cast in the language of SF and could be read directly as such in the millennial zeitgeist of the genre at that time; only the irrelevant details were gone (what does it matter where on the scale from Arisian to Thrint the Forerunners were -- the important thing was they left some Transcendent seed-tech).


Well sure. I'm not claiming Eva isn't science fiction (ditto for Anno, from context it was just more of his self-depracement and disappointment Eva didn't end up as new Gundam after all) which would be just lunatic thing to do. I just mean that the, uhh, "science fiction-y" aspects of series got underplayed in importance and focus in favour of soul searching navel gazing and with remainder went in with "metaphor first, settei second" attitude.

The contrast is striking when you put Gunbuster or Nadia, latter of which in terms of SF settei is quite close to Eva in more than few places, next to Eva. The attitude Rebuild has to its SF elements seems closer to "traditional" GAINAX style than whatever-the-hell-guess-it game original Eva was so fond off. Leaving FAR would've been unthinkable in Nadia or Gunbuster for example.

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Postby Fireball » Sat Oct 12, 2013 4:48 pm

I find it a little wonky to read things about instant gratifications and then you watch Rebuild with all these new EVAs and soulless characters and Impacts and timeskips being thrown around like cheap plot devices. For the sake of Final I'll hope for a Tale though.
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Postby Xard » Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:27 pm

View Original PostFireball wrote:soulless characters


wat

Final is just the conclusion: the story either is there already or isn't and to be frank I think one has to be blind not to see as is, especially as Eva fan who's also familiar with original.

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Postby Fireball » Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:42 pm

View Original PostXard wrote:wat

Hello my name is Mari and buy my figures!

View Original PostXard wrote:Final is just the conclusion: the story either is there already or isn't and to be frank I think one has to be blind not to see as is, especially as Eva fan who's also familiar with original.

It's there and yet Rebuild is anything like The Origin that follows the original very close with a few sensible changes and additions to enhance the experience. I dare to say since Q the comparison is completely out of the window and unless Final delievers, Rebuild will always feel more like a poor imitation than an actual improvement.
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Postby Xard » Sat Oct 12, 2013 7:12 pm

View Original PostFireball wrote:Hello my name is Mari and buy my figures!


Mari's even in worst case exception to rule.

View Original PostFireball wrote:It's there and yet Rebuild is anything like The Origin that follows the original very close with a few sensible changes and additions to enhance the experience. I dare to say since Q the comparison is completely out of the window and unless Final delievers, Rebuild will always feel more like a poor imitation than an actual improvement.


I'm not making direct comparisons between the two. The point about story focusedness over characters or whatever is far more abstract and general and it's not like such works have disappeared entirely. Nor did I ever claim Rebuild will be improvement even if it succeeds in whatever its aims are. I haven't considered that possibility once since the project was announced, given Eva's in general unshakeable status as my all time favourite anime. It doesn't follow from turning the clock backwards per se. What follows is fundamentally different focus but that doesn't determine on its own worth of work in total.

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Postby drinian » Sat Oct 12, 2013 7:47 pm

I agree with Xard that the films have been far more focused on conventional narrative structure than the original series, and that's probably intentional. (Great post, BTW, I think this might be the first time in years I've been motivated to comment on-topic).

That being said, the most remarkable thing to me about Q is that the characters are so well-established by this point that there isn't much character development happening at all. Because they're so well-known, Q becomes a bit like EoE, where things happen, but people don't change.

On the surface, this might not make sense: of course they've changed; there's been a timeslip! But really, when you think about it, aren't all the characters essentially acting as you would expect, given the new circumstances they've been placed into?

I don't think that this is a bad thing if he's really trying to create a capital-T Tale. Many of the classic grand narratives have characters that are largely archetypal in nature. Evangelion has always been somewhat a novel of ideas -- I'm not sure what the analogous term would be for video -- and orthodox character development is not necessarily a requirement.
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Postby Fireball » Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:01 pm

Mari is hardly the exception. Asuka is light years away from the depth she had in the series. ReiQ is a blanket who has to learn how to hold a fork properly and there is a complete crew of strangers introduced we know nothing about and served nothing of actual value.

View Original PostXard wrote:What follows is fundamentally different focus but that doesn't determine on its own worth of work in total.

I see no fundamental different focus. It's still all about Shinji, even more so now, but unfortunately everything else falls pretty flat along the way and no new plugsuits or four armed Evas are going to make up for it.
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Postby drinian » Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:16 pm

View Original PostFireball wrote:ReiQ is a blanket who has to learn how to hold a fork properly

On this particular subject, there is a logical explanation that makes sense in the context of the narrative: Rei has been cloned so many times over the intervening years that her soul has been diluted down to virtually nothing.
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Re: Hideaki Anno's short essay on Gundam

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Postby cyharding » Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:20 pm

View Original PostXard wrote:Well that's possible though I don't remember Anno seeing comments on the question, but the essay itself as a whole almost certainly isn't. I haven't seen this translated at all before Vertical Inc. started releasing Gundam: The Origin volumes this very year in USA. In fact I just transcribed the essay as is from end of the volume I received couple of days ago (I wouldn't italize words like that otherwise).


Actually, I posted the essay back in April, and I also placed the essay in the wiki as well around two weeks ago. But I'm glad that you brought it back into the forum consciousness. It's a real good essay.

I do get the feeling that Gundam the Origin along with the 2004 reimagining of Battlestar Galactica were his inspirations for doing the Rebuild movies as they showed him that one could go in a different direction if one decides to to an updated version of a well known franchise.
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Postby kuribo-04 » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:56 pm

View Original PostFireball wrote:Asuka is light years away from the depth


Well, this is a series of four films. Knowing what is essential in a 6 or 7 hour film experience is the mark of a good director. Asuka is simpler, and I was disapointed, but now I'm OK with it.
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