[Books] Shizo/Parano

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NAveryW
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Postby NAveryW » Thu Feb 26, 2015 7:31 am

I'm just re-noticing this thread and consequently I'm just noticing Numblr's Tumber translations. The most interesting part to me is this:

Takekuma: Do you dislike people?

Anno: Umm. Well, before people, I dislike living things. I don’t like animals either. The fact that I don’t eat meat or fish is probably also due to disliking [living things]. I think, how can I eat something so disgusting? [Though] that’s still not a clear answer [to the question].

Oizumi: What about plants?

Anno: Well, I dislike [plants] too. Really.

Takekuma: So, you gravitate towards mecha, for example.

Anno: Well, I think that’s why I like mecha.

Takekuma: Have you been troubled by your dislike for human beings, or your inability to draw images of living things?

Anno: Umm… It causes difficulties, since I can’t do my job [because of it]. Since I have no interest in human beings, of course the hardest thing [for me to do is create] a human drama.


I'm immediately reminded of the bit in Welcome Back for an Extracurricular Lesson, Sempai! where we see pictures Anno painted in his youth, and the remark that there aren't any people in any of them. He did a big ol' still life of some fruit, though...
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Postby Reichu » Thu Feb 26, 2015 4:04 pm

This certainly explains Anno's obsession with ships and etc., but it also makes NGE look like a bit of a contradiction, considering it's an excellent character drama that has living beings in place of the standard robots.

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Postby Guy Nacks » Thu Feb 26, 2015 7:35 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:This certainly explains Anno's obsession with ships and etc., but it also makes NGE look like a bit of a contradiction, considering it's an excellent character drama that has living beings in place of the standard robots.


Maybe by separating himself from the rest of humanity, he's able to look at people through more analytical eyes?

This all being said, I don't think Anno is completely antisocial. He's claimed that his biggest regret was not finishing college and that he met his best friends there...I mean, the guy had friends, so he couldn't have been ambivalent toward all of humanity.
Among the people who use the Internet, many are obtuse. Because they are locked in their rooms, they hang on to that vision which is spreading across the world. But this does not go beyond mere ‘data’. Data without analysis [thinking], which makes you think that you know everything. This complacency is nothing but a trap. Moreover, the sense of values that counters this notion is paralyzed by it.

And so we arrive at demagogy. - Hideaki Anno, 1996

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Re: [Books] Shizo/Parano

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Postby FelipeFritschF » Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:49 pm

An inactive forum member just told me on Discord about this stuff from the books, he has them and obviously speaks Japanese. Please note these are of course just his recollections. He says he might translate the text itself in the future so I wouldn't suggest using it as source yet. If we have the full text translated I'll add it on the wiki.

- After TV Series ended there would be two Evangelion films. One would be directed by Anno and would be the full, proper ending for the series. The second one would be directed by Tsurumaki and would be entirely separate work taking the franchise in different direction, sorta like Gundam AUs.

- GAINAX spent time brainstorming all kinds of crazy ideas. Asuka being a werewolf was one of the out of the leftfield ideas suggested for Tsurumaki's film. Asuka was never going to turn into werewolf in the NGE continuity we know and there were no plans for such foolishness either.

- This was to be Tsurumaki's debut as director but he couldn't handle it, coming to the (sensible) conclusion that Eva was Anno's child and only Anno could do "real Eva".

- two-film deal was retooled into D&R compilation of tv series for newcomers + End of Evangelion- Anno was so burned out and exhausted having created EoE he didn't have the life in him to do more Eva immeaditly afterwards. Hence the idea of 2nd spinoff/reboot film was cancelled entirely and Eva as a franchise fell silent (this is not actually from schizo and parano, as he later corrected himself)

-This shows Eva was supposed to operate in proper franchise mode from the very beginning, but Anno was so burned out by the time EoE came out the franchise basically went involuntarily dormant.

-Anno was actively trying to make Eva into a larger franchise before EoE, and in the early 00s, which would eventually give rise to the Rebuilds

-Gainax was still unable to keep its financial health, as we also know from other sources

-Upper management and King Records were paying the animators and other staff very poorly or not at all and Anno actually shared his royalty money with them. Also mentioned in the original Diamond article with Anno about Gainax last year and not present in ANN's synopsis: https://diamond.jp/articles/-/224881?page=3

-Anno's frustration with this probably motivated him to redo Eva in the future without executive constraints

- For instance, the producers were reliefed Anno chose Christian imagery instead of Buddhist because of fears with association with Aum Shinrikyo.

- Schizo and Parano follow a format of loose conversation compiled and re-edited as interviews. Anno was also involved in other such books.

- Schizo & Parano were timed for release around the time Death & Rebirth came out.


Here is the original chat log The first four and last bullet point are copied straight from it, I re-edited the rest. My messages are in normal text, his are in bold. A third inactive member's is in italics:

Is there anything interesting you found there that wasn't already translated?

-Almost none of this kind of interesting stuff is translated
i mean
that IS interesting but trivia in the truest sense
it' pretty inconsequential
and also covered elsewhere
no I think this is important
well, I brought this up just because I saw that werewolf misunderstanding there in the text
As I recall wasn't the Tsurumaki film going to be made at Sunrise?
This shows Eva was supposed to operate in proper franchise mode from the very beginning, but Anno was so burned out by the time EoE came out the franchise basically went involuntarily dormant.
or was that also a gainax project?
so the whole meme about Anno turning into George Lucas greedy hack between 96 and 2006 and launching Rebuild as money making machine?
It's complete nonsense
there were plans for more eva from the get-go
and Anno reconnected with the franchise around 2001-2003 when NGE2 vidya came (where CI are from) went into development
and this in turn led fairly directly to Anno planning Rebuild
As I recall wasn't the Tsurumaki film going to be made at Sunrise?
It might've been Sunrise.

Or I.G. maybe?
no word about it being GAINAX project for sure, anyhow
IG probably yeah
I recall that producer saying that farming out Eva projects to other studios was the initial plan to keep gainax financially solvent
Anyway, these sort of behind the scenes production circumstances do not really change how we understand the work on the screen for sure
va as a brand etc.
this is affected very much by this kind of info

(referring to the ANN article making a synopsis out of Anno's recent interview regarding Gainax)
what is not mentioned here is that Anno actually split his own royalties and other gains from Eva between the whole staff at the time

the suits were not giving animators anything

so Anno took his own personal earnings as original creator, director etc.
and gave it to the staff
that's the sort of guy Anno is

Anno was broken by that experience and Otsuki wanted to give him chance to prove what he can do without suit restraints

there's hilarious bit in Schizo or Paranoid in from 90s
when he saw first ep of Eva
not long after Aum etc.
basically the guy sighed in relief Anno had gone with Christian imagery instead of Buddhist one
hahahahahah
Eva was too close to Aum as it was


He didn't really write it
This is a format called 対談
"taidan", meaning literally just conversation
it's very common book/interview/discussion format in Japan which is not really used anywhere near as much in the west
so you would have Artist A and Artist B meet and in some loosely moderated and afterwards edited format their exchanges would become a book in itself
Both schizo and parano are taidan books
about half of which are Anno discussing/being interviewed, other half is Anno's staff & other Eva related persons being interviewed about Anno
so saying Anno is the "author" (although that is indeed how these sort of books are credited in Japan) is misleading



argh
oh wait
wait
I just realized
the info about 2nd film being cancelled and Anno being too burned out post-EoE at least must come from some other source I've read
Schizo & Parano were timed for release around the time Death & Rebirth came out
production on EoE had not even finished yet
when the interviews were done or when the book came out
you can see it in the text too, there's a lot "well let's see how everything ends" "I haven't yet decided on this" kind of statements there by Anno and staff
I wrote in reply to that old "Yamashita wanted to turn Asuka into a werewolf" text on the wiki page. But was the source for that info Schizo and Parano, I need to recheck this



anyway, I did check schizo and parano. Searched for all instances of "Asuka" (in katakana) and also the kanji for wolf
as suspected the source was not in these two
currently wracking my brain what it was then
maybe that 2001 Anno book? But that doesn't have many Eva discussions...
https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/419 ... bl_vppi_i3
I own a physical copy of this
It is also taidan book, much bigger than those two
it is Anno discussing with all kinds of playwrights, theatre actors, visual artists etc. about this and that
some are about his own work but it's mostly about things like Theatre with big T or the work of these other people
There's some Eva stuff here too but

2020年の再放送からアニメーション制作がタツノコプロ単独に変更されている。
so apparently Eva is being rebroadcast in Japan again
but now the production credit has changed from GAINAX to Tatsunoko Pro alone
brutal

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Re: [Books] Shizo/Parano

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Postby robersora » Sun Apr 05, 2020 6:46 am

- After TV Series ended there would be two Evangelion films. One would be directed by Anno and would be the full, proper ending for the series. The second one would be directed by Tsurumaki and would be entirely separate work taking the franchise in different direction


I heard of that idea, I think from a Tsurumaki interview (don't quote me on that). It was supposed to be Winter and the children would have to defend the city piloting Eva's in a much more biologically merging kind of way. It has some parallels with the concept of Attack on Titan.

GAINAX spent time brainstorming all kinds of crazy ideas. Asuka being a werewolf was one of the out of the leftfield ideas suggested for Tsurumaki's film. Asuka was never going to turn into werewolf in the NGE continuity we know and there were no plans for such foolishness either.

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Re: [Books] Shizo/Parano

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Postby Reichu » Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:04 am

The "Asuka turning into a werewolf" thing is from Yamashita's movie concept. In the double-page spread that's in the book, Asuka looks very, very strange, and it's easy to deduce that her encounter with Fortune in the included excerpt of the story left her 'mentally contaminated' (i.e. a "werewolf" according to Yamashita's crazy troll logic).
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