I'm able to amuse and entertain the customers who pay to see [what I make]. If I put something in which makes them feel unpleasant, that's also done with their interests in mind. Commercial films are both works [of art] and products. You're creating for the people who watch them. I've always thought our job was [a part of] the service industry.

Hm.

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:Anno was cooler when he was depressed. You'd have to be really boring or really fat to form a fixation around eating of all things.

Or a lot like Rain Man here, and for Hideaki Anno, I thought that was something of a given, but not so much OCD a being slightly neurotic.

gwern wrote:Hm.

Penny for your thoughts?

Alaska Slim wrote:Penny for your thoughts?

Mostly just thinking about what Tsurumaki said in the Red Cross Book and at Otakon about EoE's ending, and a comparison someone on the EML drew to a Macross episode.

Alaska Slim wrote:"I don't know what to think, until I see what I say."

I get the feeling any coherent plan for these films or NGE may have been doomed from the start. Instead, it's a process. B)

Ah, it happens a lot in this business. The few people who don't make very many changes in this industry are Hayao Miyazaki and the late Satoshi Kon, as well as Alfred Hitchcock from the live-action arena, and a great many others. Those are just the few off the top of my head. They tend to put every creative thing in detail in their pre-production to the point where production is simply an assembly line creating the finished product. It's said that the rest of the creativity doesn't come around until post-production.

But a lot of other directors change lots of things throughout production. Andrew Stanton had his team reanimate entire finalized scenes to swap the rolls of the characters in PIXAR's WALL-E, the director of Coraline had two of the vocal talents trade characters they had auditioned and rehearsed for after they had already recorded half-a-day's worth of material, and the last production I was on re-shot an entire scene because the original location the scene too place in looked like crap in the editing room.

I must say working in the industry, having everything planned to the very last detail makes production much easier for all of us. But as a finished product, if the movies tells a good story it doesn't really matter how many things were changed throughout production. Just so long as the film makes a profit relatively quickly in the end, everything's alright.

The process of filmmaking is to adapt. It's very easy to plan the perfect film in your head but when it comes to actual production things just arise & get in the way.

Short of being one of the few filmmakers in the world who can demand it - there's about 20 of these people worldwide & one of them is sadly Michael Bay- stories naturally evolve during production. The final film rarely comes out looking like what you set out to make.
Been doing some work on a $30 million feature for this production house for the past few months and I can tell you the end product is going to be nothing like what they originally had in mind.

Anywho, Anno sounds like he's on the right track. If anything, what he says fills me with more confidence in Evangelion 3.0.

Well, if you plan out stuff from the beginning and rigidly follow the plan, it prevents you from using any better ideas you may have along the way.
Evolution is impossible without its own tiny amount of chaos and coincidence.

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:Anno was cooler when he was depressed. You'd have to be really boring or really fat to form a fixation around eating of all things.

I sincerely disagree. Eating is an important component of human bonding, and for me, focusing on small stuff like this is what makes Eva interesting.

1731298478 wrote:After a long hiatus, here's my attempt at the first half of Part 7 of the interview.

Just found this and thanks to 1731298478. I have some minor comments on a few lines of translation:

>初号までいったいどうなるか分からない、けれどひたすら面白くなるように常に変えていく。
>Until the first screening I don't know how it will end up; I do nothing but constantly change things in order to make it interesting.

I wonder if he meant 初号 as Shogoki (eva-01) instead of "first screening" (初号 can mean "first issue" of a magazine or a publication, but I have not seen it being used to mean "first screening")



---庵野さんを作家的に扱おうとする方が、『破』に下す評価に違和感があったんですが、今のお話でなんだか腑に落ちるような感じがしました。
--- Although I felt that trying to treat Anno-san as an author was out of place with an evaluation of "Break," I was somehow satisfied by what you said just now. [??]

腑に落ちる is the opposite of 腑に落ちない (hard to understand) but whereas 腑に落ちない is a traditional idiom, there is no tradition of the phrase 腑に落ちる. I guess it may be a relatively new coinage by removing the ない from 腑に落ちない to signify its opposite.

In this case, the translation would become like:
今のお話でなんだか腑に落ちるような感じがしました。
Having the discussion now I am feeling somehow it is possible to understand.



>その上で全体なカオスの中に監督が意図を持って、あるいは自然にコスモスができている。
>So, a cosmos forms in the midst of complete chaos, according to the intention of the director, or else naturally.

My translation would be like:

And on top of that there is the intention of the director in the midst of the overall chaos, or a cosmos forms naturally.

symbv wrote:I have some minor comments on a few lines of translation:

Thanks very much symbv!!! I added your corrections to the original post.

symbv wrote:I wonder if he meant 初号 as Shogoki (eva-01) instead of "first screening" (初号 can mean "first issue" of a magazine or a publication, but I have not seen it being used to mean "first screening")

I was confused by it. My only thought was that it was an abbreviation of "初号試写". Anno used 初号試写 before in the interview, and Tsurumaki used it as well, so I thought, maybe that was the meaning.

I re-worded the sentence a bit:

初号までいったいどうなるか分からない、けれどひたすら面白くなるように常に変えていく。
Although I don't know how it will end up, I do nothing but constantly change things in order to make it interesting [right] up until the first screening.

Do you think this sort of approach is right?

If Anno and his staff used 初号試写 before, then 初号 could well be his way of saying the same thing in short. And the new translation sounds right too.

Here is my attempt at the remaining part of the seventh section of Anno's interview. Thanks to Reichu for the source material and symbv for all his past help. I wasn't sure about a number of things in this part, including the tense changes in the third last paragraph and some of the technical terms, so please forgive any mistakes, and thanks in advance for any suggestions or corrections.

Edit: I added corrections from symbv; thank you very much symbv!!

------

Part 7 [Second Segment]

---確かに今回の『破』はおっしゃるとおりにでき上がっていて、ものすごく短い時間の中で本当にいろなことをやっていて、いろんな方のアイデアやデザインがぎっしり詰まっている感じがします。どうですかご自分で見て、そうした圧縮感みたいなものは。
--- Certainly I have the feeling that "Break," being created as you said, and really doing a variety of things in an incredibly short amount of time, tightly packs together ideas and designs from a number of different people. Watching it yourself, how do you find a work with this sort of sense of compression?

庵野　そうですね。かなり圧縮してますよ。その圧縮具合がまたいいのかなと思ってます。
Anno: That's true. It is quite compressed. I do wonder if it's still okay [being in] that compressed state.

---短い時間でいっぱい楽しめるところがいい。リピーターが増えた理由のひとつには、それがあるかなと思ったんです。
--- A good aspect is that you can enjoy many things in a short period of time. I thought that might be one reason the number of repeat viewers increased.

庵野　情報、かなり詰め込んでますね。一度で処理しきれず、もう一回観ても刺激があるように作り手としては意識しています。マッキーもこれだけの分量で二時間を切っているのがすごいと言ってましたね。
Anno: [The film] is fairly well packed with information. As a creator, I'm conscious [of the fact that] even if [someone] sees the film again there is still something stimulating, as [everything] cannot be processed in one go. Makki, as well, said that it was amazing to include so much in under two hours.

---いっしょにオールラッシュを拝見したとき、「どこか切れるところないですか？」と聞かれた記憶がありますが、そんなに切ってないですよね。
--- When I watched the "all rush" [*] with you, I remember you asking me, "Isn't there somewhere we can make a cut?" However, [the final film] wasn't cut.

[*] "All rush": The test run of roughly edited film without any voice, soundtrack or sound effects.

庵野　いえ、あのときよりかなり短くなってます。細かく詰めて、１コマでも無駄をなくそうとコマ単位で切ってるんです。オールラッシュから定呎出しまで自分の原画机でも毎日チェックしてましたね。
Anno: No, [the final film] is shorter than it was at that time. Condensing it, I was cutting frames individually, trying to streamline [the film] even by only a single frame. From the "all rush" time until the film reached its predetermined length I checked it on my genga [*] desk every day.

[*] "Genga": Key animation sketches.

---シークエンスとしては、落としてないですよね。
--- [But] no sequences, as such, were cut [after that point].

庵野　シークエンスとしてすでに落としたバージョンのラッシュを見てもらったんだと思います。いつかのシーンはアフレコのときから公開時には落とす予定でしたから。それは上映呎の長さのこともあるし、あとはもうスケジュールが間に合わないという事情もあるし、です。
Anno: I believe that sequences as such had already been cut in the version of the rushes that I had you look at. [I asked you] because I expected that I would drop a few scenes from the theatrical version following voice recording. Some had to do with the length of the film's running time, and the rest with no longer being able to finish on schedule.

ラッシュ見た後は、とにかく無駄というか不必要な箇所が気になるんです。なので、参考にしたく「観ていて不要なシーンとか、ここ長いな、とか感じませんでしたか」みたいなことを総務の女性やキングレコードの相当者とか、なるだけ初見に近いスタッフに聞いてまわりました。自分としては細かく何度もラッシュを見てるので、そういったドラマの流れの感覚が麻痺して近視眼的になってたりもするんです。最初から通しで観てやっと気づくことも多々ありますから。画はまだ画コンテ撮だったり、レイアウト撮だったり、ラフ原撮くらいの状態のラッシュなんですが、そこにキャラの声が入ってやっと気づくこともあります。
After watching the rushes, I noticed parts that were somehow or other pointless or unnecessary. So, wanting to consult [with others], I went around asking staff members who came as close as possible to first time viewers - the women in administration, for example, or the equivalent King Records people - if, watching it, there were scenes that seemed long or unnecessary to them. Going through the rushes in minute detail so many times, I became short-sighted and had no sense of the flow of the drama. There are many things you finally notice watching [something] through from the beginning. The images of the rushes were made up of storyboard images, layout images, and rough genga that had been photographed, but there were also things I finally noticed when the character's voices were added to them.

レイが教室の掃除で雑巾を絞っていて、それをシンジが観ている。その後エレベーター内でレイとシンジだけになったときに「なんか、お母さんって感じがした」というシーンがそうです。その前のシーンでシンジはアスカといっしょにいて、アスカは少しだけ彼に心を開いた感じを受けます。その直後にシンジとレイの話には持っていけなかったんですね。シンジの心理状態に一貫性がなくなってしまい、ここはそのままアスカ押しで進まないと流れがバラバラになってしまうんです。シンジと絡む話なので大丈夫だろう、と思っていたんが、あれだとシンジの心境自体が散漫になり過ぎてました。
A scene like this was where, after Shinji watches Rei wringing a cloth while she is cleaning the floor of the classroom, the two are alone in the elevator and he says, "you seemed like a mother." In the scene before that, Shinji was together with Asuka, and you got the feeling that Asuka opened her heart to him just a little bit. I couldn't have Shinji and Rei's conversation come directly after that. Shinji's state of mind becomes incoherent; here if we do not keep focusing on Asuka to move the story onwards, the flow will end up coming apart. I had thought that since they are all episodes involving Shinji so it should be okay, but if I kept it like that Shinji's mental state itself would have become too distracted.

そのあたりは恥ずかしながら、アフレコ後、画に声が入るまでわからなかったです。声は、感情表現に際しとても重要、という当たり前のことを改めて知らされました。それはレイとシンジにとって重要なシーンだったので、他の場所への入れ替えも模索したのですが、どうもうまく収まりませんでした。シーン呎も少し長かったですし、考えた結果、まるごと落とすことにしたんです。
It's embarrassing to say, but I didn't understand that until the voices were added to the images after voice recording. I was reminded again of the obvious fact that voices are extremely important for expressing emotion. Because that was an important scene for Shinji and Rei, I searched around for another place where I could substitute it, but it just wouldn't fit properly. The duration of the scene was also a bit long, and, after thinking about it, I cut it entirely.

Anno wrote:Shinji's state of mind becomes incoherent

yeh

well, it's good to know he's thinking about these sorts of problems, I guess

1731298478 wrote:Here is my attempt at the remaining part of the seventh section of Anno's interview.

Thanks 1731298478 !!

1731298478 wrote: I wasn't sure about a number of things in this part, including the tense changes in the third last paragraph and some of the technical terms, so please forgive any mistakes, and thanks in advance for any suggestions or corrections.

Not sure which parts you are not sure (except those with question mark) ? I looked at the third last paragraph (the one started with "ラッシュ見た後は") but not sure which tense changes you are not sure.

For technical terms, I think we can put at note that "genga" in "genga" or "genga desk" means "key animation sketches". "All rush" is the test run of roughly edited film without any voice, soundtrack or sound effects. If you have other technical terms you are not sure, perhaps I can help...

---確かに今回の『破』はおっしゃるとおりにでき上がっていて、ものすごく短い時間の中で本当にいろなことをやっていて、いろんな方のアイデアやデザインがぎっしり詰まっている感じがします。どうですかご自分で見て、そうした圧縮感みたいなものは。
--- Certainly I have the feeling that "Break," being created as you said, and really doing a variety of things in an incredibly short amount of time, tightly packs together ideas and designs from a number of different people. Watching it yourself, how do you find a work with this sort of feeling of compression? [?]

圧縮感 - Sense of compression, or Feeling of compression. Either is fine.

庵野　いえ、あのときよりかなり短くなってます。細かく詰めて、１コマでも無駄をなくそうとコマ単位で切ってるんです。オールラッシュから定呎出しまで自分の原画机でも毎日チェックしてましたね。
Anno: No, [the final film] is shorter than it was at that time. Condensing it, I was cutting frames individually, trying to streamline [the film] even by only a single frame. From the "all rush" to the [point where the] length of the film was settled, [?] I was checking [material] at my genga desk every day.

Perhaps the kanji of 定呎 should be 定尺 instead? (and my guess is 上映呎 is actually 上映尺, and シーン呎 is シーン尺)
定尺 means "the predetermined length (of the movie/episode/program)". My translation would be like:

From the "all rush" time until the film reached its predetermined length I checked it on my genga desk every day.

レイが教室の掃除で雑巾を絞っていて、それをシンジが観ている。その後エレベーター内でレイとシンジだけになったときに「なんか、お母さんって感じがした」というシーンがそうです。その前のシーンでシンジはアスカといっしょにいて、アスカは少しだけ彼に心を開いた感じを受けます。その直後にシンジとレイの話には持っていけなかったんですね。シンジの心理状態に一貫性がなくなってしまい、ここはそのままアスカ押しで進まないと流れがバラバラになってしまうんです。シンジと絡む話なので大丈夫だろう、と思っていたんが、あれだとシンジの心境自体が散漫になり過ぎてました。
A scene like this was where, after Shinji watches Rei wringing a cloth while she is cleaning the floor of the classroom, the two are alone in the elevator and he says, "you seemed like a mother." In the scene before that, Shinji was together with Asuka, and you got the feeling that Asuka opened her heart to him just a little bit. I couldn't have Shinji and Rei's conversation come directly after that. Shinji's state of mind becomes incoherent, and if the focus on Asuka doesn't continue here [?], the flow ends up falling apart. Since it involved Shinji, I had thought that the conversation was probably okay [to remain], but when it was there, Shinji's mental state became too diffuse.

ここはそのままアスカ押しで進まないと流れがバラバラになってしまうんです

My translation:
Here if we do not keep focusing on Asuka to move the story onwards, the flow will end up coming apart.

Anno was talking about the general situation for the next sentence.

シンジと絡む話なので大丈夫だろう、と思っていたんが、あれだとシンジの心境自体が散漫になり過ぎてました。

My translation:
I had thought that since they are all episodes involving Shinji so it should be okay, but if I kept it like that Shinji's mental state itself would have become too distracted.

Thank you for the corrections symbv!!

symbv wrote:Not sure which parts you are not sure (except those with question mark) ? I looked at the third last paragraph (the one started with "ラッシュ見た後は") but not sure which tense changes you are not sure.

Ok, I probably just worried needlessly about it.

symbv wrote:For technical terms, I think we can put at note that "genga" in "genga" or "genga desk" means "key animation sketches". "All rush" is the test run of roughly edited film without any voice, soundtrack or sound effects. If you have other technical terms you are not sure, perhaps I can help...

Ah, thanks. I have some sense of the meaning, but I don't know very much about the animation process. I might have to ask you some questions in the future, if you don't mind! Thanks also for explaining "定尺".

symbv wrote:Perhaps the kanji of 定呎 should be 定尺 instead? (and my guess is 上映呎 is actually 上映尺, and シーン呎 is シーン尺)

I was a bit confused by this! In the interview they use the character 呎, not only here but in other parts, but I think the meaning and reading is the same as 尺. I did assume that 上映呎 was the same as 上映尺 and so on, but I don't know why they used 呎 instead of 尺. The character 呎 seems very unusual. Maybe they liked the style of it better?

symbv wrote:Here if we do not keep focusing on Asuka to move the story onwards, the flow will end up coming apart.

Anno was talking about the general situation for the next sentence.

Thanks for these explanations as well. Now that part makes more sense.

1731298478 wrote:I might have to ask you some questions in the future, if you don't mind!

No problem. Any thing I can be of help!

1731298478 wrote:I was a bit confused by this! In the interview they use the character 呎, not only here but in other parts, but I think the meaning and reading is the same as 尺. I did assume that 上映呎 was the same as 上映尺 and so on, but I don't know why they used 呎 instead of 尺. The character 呎 seems very unusual. Maybe they liked the style of it better?

The fact is that 呎 is not a common kanji in Japanese and when used almost always means "feet (distance unit)" but for "feet" nowadays usually フィート is used; on the other hand, 尺 is common kanji that needs to learned at school and for length of something as in 上映尺 the right kanji to use is 尺 but perhaps they just use the two kanji's interchangeably -- still an odd choice because 尺 is a simpler word (not to say more correct).

Reading about Anno recognizing the fact that the movie is impossibly packed for it's running time, not to mention that it more often than not conveys things in a sleight of hand way, actually reassures me as far as him knowing what he is doing goes. I guess this is a good thing.

Wow, to think that he went as far as correcting it practically frame by frame... This guy must really love his work.
And yeah, this very great information density is something I love about EVA. It's like there's an entire universe in there. You have to overload the viewvers a bit, I think.It's like something the guy at my preparatory math course said: You have to be confused before you can understand stuff.

Oh, and while we're at it, I think it was the right choice to cut that scene...
Cuz it doesn't really work if you've seen the original series. Because your first reaction to it is "cute ~<3", which later creates teh slightly disturbing realization when you rewatch the show. The cute part will be lost cuz ppl will immediately catch the Yui allusion, (Which is bad cuz it impedes you from telling what the characters, who don't know this yet, are feeling at the moment) and the jarring rewatch effect is also diminished since you never went "cute ~<3" in the first place.
Also, you woundn't get Rei's irritation/strong reaction if you don't have the ep 14 line of her lamenting how she can't have kids.
It's main purposes, despite the afore mentioned fridge horror/messing with the audiences heads are:
a) Yui allusion
b) Showing that Rei has developed teh warm fuzzy feelings in time she was out of focus or reminding us that she had them
c) Showing us Rei's inexperience at contact with humans: She can't even really discribe what she feels/thinks of her surrogate father even tough it's fairly obvious that he's very important to her - just the episode before, she associated him with "clear and agreeable water", but she can't express that.
d) Show Rei's character developement - She is beginning to act like a normal teenager and blush/get nervous when a boy compliments her
e) Show Shinji and Rei bonding/interacting/sort of clumsily flirting

All of these are already sufficiently taken care of by new scenes in Rebuild:
a) We already have Shinji's scent comment/the dinner scene with Gendo for Yui allusion stuff
b) Rei never went out of focus in the first place in Rebuild
c) This is shows when she responds to Asuka's question about Shinji the same way she did to Shinji's question about Gendo: "I don't know". of course, Asuka, unlike Shinji, wouldn't be satisfied untill she got a proper answer...
d) The "she's starting to act normal" is already done with the "Did she just say hello?!" scene and lampshaded when Ritsuko and Misato converse about it.
e) This is taken care of by the aquarium scenes, the classroom conversation about her bruised fingers etc...

so the scene wouldn't have added much more new stuff - and it would take lots of time to set it up. Not only the scene itself with all its time consuming awkward silences, but the needed scene before, where Shinji has to actually observe her cleaning stuff.

Here's my attempt at translating the eighth part of the interview. I believe this is the shortest section of the interview, with the ninth section being the longest. Please forgive mistakes. Corrections and suggestions are very much appreciated.

------

Part 8

シンジが大人に近づくために必要だった新しいシーン
"New scenes necessary in order to bring Shinji towards adulthood"

---アフレコのとき、ケーブルカーのシーンなど２バージョン録ってましたが、あれは縮めることを前提にした保険でしたか。
--- During voice recording, two versions of scenes, for example the cable car [i.e. the NERV tram] scene, were recorded. Was this [a kind of] insurance based on the assumption that there would be cuts?

庵野　保険でもあったんですが、結局、切ることにしました。作業もレイアウトまで進んでたんですが、ラッシュで通して見たときに、アスカが孤立してひとりでゲームをしている、加持が出てきてミサと知り合いであることを観客に伝える、シンジと加持の出会う、という情報以外なかったんですね。ワンシークエンスに一斉に詰め込んだわりに、必要な情報は薄いと。なんだか、そのためだけのシーンになってました。これは脚本のミスです。鶴巻は「シーンに意味がない」と言ってしまった。初期の脚本での画コンテだったので、まだTVシリーズの第八話のイメージを引きずってしまい、ミサトを入れたのが良くなかったと思います。しかし、ここを切るとシンジたち三人組と加持の出会いが水族館までなくなってしまい「いつ知り合ったんだ？」となってしまう。けど、いろいろと判断してカットしました。
Anno: It was among other things [a kind of] insurance, but in the end [that scene] was cut. Work [on that scene] progressed to the layout stage, but when I watched the rushes through, the only information there was Asuka playing a game by herself, Kaji appearing and [the film] communicating to the audience that he knows Misato, and the meeting between Shinji and Kaji. I thought the amount of essential information was slight, considering just how much was being crammed into a single sequence. That was the only purpose of the scene. This was a mistake of the script. Tsurumaki said, "this scene makes no sense." Because it was storyboarded from an early version of the script, it was still forcibly including the image [of the meeting] from episode 8 of the TV series. I thought it wasn't very good to include Misato there. However, when that scene was cut, Shinji and his friends ended up not meeting Kaji until the aquarium, [and you end up asking,] when did they get to know each other? However, for a number of reasons, I cut it.

---水族館でシンジと加持が初対面というのは、意外と気づかなかったです。
--- Suprisingly, I didn't notice that Shinji and Kaji first met at the aquarium.

庵野　それはTVシリーズを知ってるからですね。観る前から、そういうイメージができているので、ある程度は流れで観てしまうんですが、TVを知らない人だと、やっぱり引っかかると思います。なので、本来シンジたちと加持の出会いは必要なシーンなので、『２．２２』では画コンテから作り直して追加しています。
Anno: That's because you know the TV series. You had that image in mind before watching [the film], so to a certain extent you saw it in that way, but I think someone who didn't know the TV series would definitely have caught it. So, because the initial meeting between Shinji and his friends and Kaji is an essential scene, we remade [the meeting] from the storyboards upwards and included it in 2.22.

---浄化プラント、水族館っぽい新しいシークエンスにのウエイトを多くとってますが、特別な意図があったのでしょうか？
--- The new aquarium-like sequence at the water purification plant takes on much of the weight of the [character?] depictions, but was there a special intention behind it?

庵野　シンジが知らなければいけないことを描くということですね。それは「世界の広さ」みたいなものかなと。具体的には、海と空と土です。ずっと学校や街の描写ばかりだと、そうした広がりがどうしても出てこないんです。それと赤い海になったの世界は、実際にどうなってるのか、少しは描写としても入れておきたいなと。
Anno: It was to depict something Shinji had to know about. Something like "the enormity of the world." [I wanted to depict] the sea and the sky and the earth, in a concrete way. If only the school and the city were depicted the whole way through, then that extensity would never emerge. As well, I wanted to put it in as a partial depiction of what really happened to the world to make the seas red.

---土というのは、加持との畑いじりのシーンです。
--- For the earth, there's the scene where he's gardening with Kaji.

庵野　そうですね。今回も加持にはシンジの見聞を広げる大人の役を担ってもらっています。本来は親がやること、大人に近づく通過儀礼的なことを加持が代わりにしているわけですね。あの畑でシンジが土をいじるという芝居は後からつけ足しました。最初のころのシンジは、作画の面倒さも手伝って加持とスイカを見ているだけで、草むしりに参加してなかったんですね。けど、『序』の公開後に取材で嫁さんたちと山形へ行ったときに、久しぶりに自分で山菜採りをしてみて、「やはりこういうシチュエーションがシンジにいるな」と感じたんです。そのとき、忘れていた土の匂いを思い出した。その実体験からシンジの草むしりを足しました。子どものころはよくやっていたのに、大阪、東京に出てからはまるでなかったですね、草むしりとかが。最近鎌倉に住むようになってまた、土と接する機会が増えました。こういう経験ができるのも、嫁さんのおかげですね。心底、感謝してます。
Anno: Right. This time as well, Kaji takes on the role of the adult who broadens Shinji's knowledge. Kaji does the rite-of-passage type things that bring [a child] closer to adulthood and which one's parents would do in a normal situation. The action of Shinji touching the earth in the [watermelon] patch was added afterwards. At the earliest point, due partially to the difficulty of the sakuga, Shinji only looked at the watermelons with Kaji; he didn't help out with the weeding. However, after the premiere of "Prelude," I went to Yamagata to collect information with my wife and her friends. For the first time in a long time I gathered up wild plants to eat, and I felt that this was of course the sort of situation that Shinji needs. I remembered the scent of the earth, something I had forgotten. It was owing to that real-life experience that I added Shinji pulling up the weeds. Although I pulled up weeds often when I was a child, after I went to Osaka and Tokyo, I no longer did it at all. Recently I moved to Kamakura, and once again my opportunities to come into contact with the soil have increased. It's owing to my wife that I've been able to have this sort of experience [again]. From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful [to her].

It is great to know that again Anno's happy marriage has made him look at individual's relationship with the greater world in a much more concrete and positive way.

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