Translation: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 booklet Interview

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Re: Translation: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 booklet Interview

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Postby bogusman » Tue Apr 27, 2021 4:56 pm

Awesome.
Thank you very much Riki ! This is useful.
Yea...

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Re: Translation: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 booklet Interview

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Postby Mr. Tines » Sat May 01, 2021 4:14 pm

From /a/, Toji VA Tomokazu Seki pamphlet interview

-What was your impression after reading the script of "Shin"?
I think Toji has become a cool adult. He was always a good kid, right? He is a manly man, and he is sensitive to other people's feelings. I'm glad to see that he has become a decent adult without losing any of the good qualities he had when he was 14. Back then in the TV series he's been seriously injured and has gone through a lot, so I'm glad he survived safely.

-Toji didn't make an appearance in "Q."
I was wondering is he would show up in some way but he didn't appear at all (laughs). At that time I was told "Next time Toji will also appear." In "Shin" Toji is an unlicensed doctor but I think the setting I was told about at the time of "Q" was a little bit different. As time went on the idea may have evolved.

-In "Q" his sister Sakura appeared instead of Toji.
We never got to appear together with Sakura in the end, but in "Q" Miyuki Sawashiro who played Sakura asked me if she should use the same intonation as my own Osaka dialect called "Ore-ben," since we were playing a brother and sister, and I gave her a lecture. Ms. Sawashiro asked me to say her line in the style mine, so I would read Sakura's line. It's a pretend "Ore-ben" (laughs).

-Seki-san and Sawashiro-san are both from the Kanto region.
I am an Edokko, born in Fukagawa. At the beginning of the TV series I was learning from a person from Kansai, but Mr. Anno told me "If the accent bothers you and makes it difficult to act, then just go with it." That's when I decided to split off into "ore-ben."

-How did you feel about the idea of being a doctor?
I don't know what Toji is doing exactly. I'm also the type of person who would rather try something I'm interested in on my own and ask someone for advice if I'm having difficulties. I can sympathize with Toji's situation because he had no choice but to become a doctor, but I wondered if he would ever be able to become one (laughs). I'm not sure if he's been in medicine up to that point, but he was always an athlete, so he might be good at athletic medical care. He would know what to do in case of a sprain or a broken bone for example. I don't think he'd be able to perform surgery though. For people who are feeling anxious, I think just having someone like him say "Everything is going to be fine," in a kind manner would be a kind of medical treatment. He is the spiritual pillar of his community and being a doctor is like a bonus, I think.

-It might be similar to Mr. Seki's "Ore-ben," which is his way of doing Osaka dialect.
If you must do something, you have no other options but to do it, right? As I played the role it crossed my mind that if I were in such a position, I might do it, even if I didn't know if I would last very long. I didn't have many scenes of doing medical treatment, though.

-How do you perceive Toji's personality?
If we're talking about similarities then I don't think we're alike, but I really understand his spirit. I feel like it would be nice to be a boy like Toji. Letting out my anger if I'm angry, but always realizing my mistakes and apologizing properly. He's a man who has absolutely no sense of cowardice. I think he is an example of an ideal male figure.

-By the way, have you ever played a role close to yourself?
Mr. Anno once told me that the role of Kaishonachi in "Oruchuban Ebichu" was the best fit for me (laughs). It's easier to play a role that is completely different from your own personality because you feel the gap between you and the role. There are often people who don't drink, but they are good at portraying drunks. I look at such roles dispassionately and study them. It's like the onnagata in Kabuki, where a man can look more feminine if he consciously imitates a woman's image. For example, when I played Toji I felt a sense of grace and masculinity that I didn't have, so it was easier for me to put that reality into my voice. At the same time I might have been influenced a little bit by the role of an ideal young man like Toji.

-What did you think about being married to the class representative?
There have been many different iterations of the "Eva" series made so far, and the fate of the characters has taken many twists and turns. When the atmosphere in the TV series gave off strong vibes of the beginning of love right before Toji got in the Evangelion it felt like a death flag for him. Ultimately he didn't die, and I think it would have been nice if their feelings at that time had come to fruition. Toji married the girl in his class he loved the most, and they have a baby. They survived the catastrophe, and their home is filled with the atmosphere of a happy family regardless of their poverty. On top of that, the people around them adore them. I'm really glad that they're happy. Junko Iwao who plays Hikari was also concerned about the relationship between the two in the TV series, so I think she's happy that everything came together the way it should (laughs).

-Ms. Iwao told me you were recording together.
We were together. On the set of the "Shin Eva" series I often recorded alone, but Toji and Hikari were together. Even though we had grown to 28 years of age and were now a married couple, I didn't feel uncomfortable at all and was able to act as if she was my "Inchou." If Toji had married Asuka I would've been like, "Huh, so that's what happened!?" I'm sure I'd be surprised and confused. With Class Rep I felt like he has settled down where he belongs.

-Was there anything you paid special attention to in the scenes where you and Shinji talk together?
I didn't record with Ms. Megumi Ogata, but those scenes left a strong impression on me. It's a strange feeling. I've aged, and he's still the same 14-year-old he was. When you get older, you may not be aware how much your body has changed. I don't lead a regular lifestyle of a salaryman in my particular line of work. When I meet my classmates from junior high at a reunion, I was amazed at how old they've become. Shinji and Toji are the opposite. Even though Toji became an adult, Shinji's appearance hasn't changed at all. When I first saw Kensuke I felt that kind of difference as I did between my classmates. But since we're all the same on the inside you just have to start a conversation to realize you're able to talk normally.

-Do you see any difference when facing 14-year-old Shinji and 28-year-old Hikari?
Surprisingly unlike with my old friends time didn't matter much in here and I was able to go back to the way I used to feel with ease. I didn't have to think that much about it. I don't think you need to go through the exact same process when you talk to a girl who has become your wife, it's a bit different because we've already become a family. With Shinji even though I haven't seen him in a long time the moment they started talking I felt like I was back at junior high right away.

-Have you thought about what has happened to Toji and how he had lived his life over the past 14 years?
I had a rough idea that he formed a kind of volunteer group of young people who worked together to help the local community and aid the people in their reconstruction efforts after the catastrophe. I wonder if that's how he became the Toji of today.

-Finally, looking back on your work for Evangelion, do you have a message for the readers of this pamphlet?
When the TV series started 25 years ago I remember getting into a fight with Maya's VA Miki Nagasawa, saying "This is not interesting, it'll never become popular" (laughs). Well, whatever I think won't become popular usually becomes very popular. That's exactly what happened to Eva. The fact that I was able to be involved, even if just by accident, in an anime work that has been loved and generally recognized by everyone for such a long time, and that I was able to be involved in this work until its conclusion 25 years later, is a big deal for me. I also had a lot of fun working with Mr. Anno and the rest of the staff on the final postrecording, and I'm very happy I was able to feel a part of the seriousness of the production.
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Re: Translation: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 booklet Interview

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Postby Kendrix » Sat May 01, 2021 5:15 pm

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:I was wondering is he would show up in some way but he didn't appear at all (laughs). At that time I was told "Next time Toji will also appear." In "Shin" Toji is an unlicensed doctor but I think the setting I was told about at the time of "Q" was a little bit different. As time went on the idea may have evolved.


I wonder what difference that might have been - a different job or just a different look for the survivor village - some speculated that the "place of hope" originally looked like the walled fortressy place in that one calendar illustration but only received its current 'look' later, inspired by how Anno's wife & friends forced him to take a vacation after his post-Q burnout.

Who knew the designated class clown would end up all respectable? He always did have a good heart tho, being able to swallow your pride & apologize when you effed up is an important skill many ppl don't master well into old age

I feel like with Kensuke it's more expected since he was always getting his hands on secret info. I'd always figured he'd do well as a programmer - he ended up a mechanic so I guessed near enough. Hikari having or working with children should also not be too surprising with how she always kept her classmates in check like a mother hen.
I didn't see Doctor!Touji coming but that's probably part of the point, you can't always know what the future throws at you but that doesn't mean you can't end up having a good life even if it isn't exactly what you dreamed of as a kid. He ended up living in a world that needed Doctors more than basketball players.

I felt like it was really those two that saved Shinji. I got the sense that he was really moved by their example. Forget all those cheesy sword fight manga speeches, THIS is the power of friendship.
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Re: Translation: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 booklet Interview

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Postby pwhodges » Sun May 02, 2021 2:19 am

View Original PostKendrix wrote:He ended up living in a world that needed Doctors more than basketball players.

In any case, having had plenty of opportunity to observe medical students I can assure you they are just as likely to be sporty as any others.
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Re: Translation: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 booklet Interview

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Postby ElMariachi » Sun May 02, 2021 5:13 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:I wonder what difference that might have been - a different job or just a different look for the survivor village - some speculated that the "place of hope" originally looked like the walled fortressy place in that one calendar illustration but only received its current 'look' later, inspired by how Anno's wife & friends forced him to take a vacation after his post-Q burnout.

There are a couple of lines in the script that may hint that such big cities still exist and that Villga-3 is an outpost : when they first arrive, Touji explains to Rei Q that Kredit helps Village-3's commerce with other villages (not supplying, commerce, which means that there's still enough civilization to have commercial exchange), Kensuke mentions that Village-3's "key industry" is agriculture (probably referring to the commerce it does with other villages), and Touji later tells to Shinji that he had to do some things he's not proud of for the sake of his family, which implies that most of humanity wasn't flash wiped out by Third Impact, but that there was a breakdown of civilization and anarchy until WILLE put some order to it.

Touji also mentions that Kensuke helped them a lot to settle down in Village-3, which wouldn't make sense if he was still in his teens (there must be survival specialists in WILLE and Kredit to help them), but makes more sense if it was later in their life when they were adults and decided, with other people desiring to move from whoever they were to a new place closer to nature, to found a new settlement with the help of a now experimented Kensuke (his WILLE jacket that Asuka wears means that he was part of the organization at some point). Kensuke also mentions that there's a laboratory in red territory conducting restoration experiments led by someone called Claudette (a French name, although not very used nowadays), which might be the official purpose of Village-3.

So there are definitively other settlements around, and still enough civilization to have commerce between those settlements.
And nothing tell us that none of those settlements aren't bigger than Village-3, after all prior to be able to fly, the Wunder and its fleet had to moor somewhere for reparation/modifications/resupply, and all those heavy helicopters seen ressuplying the fleet at the beginning of Q must also come from somewhere.


View Original PostKendrix wrote:I felt like it was really those two that saved Shinji. I got the sense that he was really moved by their example. Forget all those cheesy sword fight manga speeches, THIS is the power of friendship.

I think it was a collective effort:
  • first there's indeed Touji and Kensuke being alive and happy and not changed that much despite everything they got through and that they don't hate him (I think that it's seeing Misato transformed into that cold person and thinking that she hates him is what destroyed him), I loved the part where Touji's VA said that they imagined that he and Kensuke managed to talk to him as if they were all 14 years old again. There was always a gap between Shinji and his friends in that they couldn't really understand the hardships he got through by piloting, but after all the hardships they had to go through in this new world, they now can better understand his pain and offer more than platitudes.
  • then there's Rei Q for explaining to him that they are kind with him because they are his friends (Shinji has on average a lot of trust issues and always think that people aren't honest or have ulterior motives, Rei Q being a completely innocent person helped him see that their kindness was genuine)
  • and there's also Asuka, for not giving up on him, forcing him to eat so he won't just die until he recovered the will to live, and also giving him food for thought on how to be a better person and how to find atonement by asking him to reflect on why she wanted to punch him (N3I was so wide-reaching and nebulous and whose fault it was that it's impossible to take a life lesson from it, the Bardiel fiasco on the other hand, that's something where his fault is evident and from which he can draw lessons)
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