Axx°N N. wrote:Or that two people can't be miserable but quite attached!

Or that, yep.

C.T.1290 wrote:And Anno wants those people to just move on.

I don't think this common attribution of intent to Anno has any textual (or otherwise) evidence to back it up. Anno is supportive of fan culture. He utilized ideas from, and has praised, doujinshi of his works that veered from his own intent. He once blithely commented in an interview in a yaoi magazine, to paraphrase, "ah, yes, before Kaworu was introduced, many doujinshi paired Shinji and Toji. Now, not so much." He didn't say it with an air of disapproval, and he didn't frame these people as being erroneous, or suggest that those then moving on to pen Kaworu x Shinji should instead "move on" completely. This feels like an attitude of the (western) fan community projecting its opinion onto Anno as a retroactive word of god.

As Anno is someone who has himself penned doujinshi, and is very clearly within the otaku subculture, I wager he has a clear perspective that the canon works and the life they live in fan communities are distinct, symbiotic but separate realms. I don't really read anything in Thrice that even begins to approach being some kind of invective to abandon that world and that way of interacting with media. What I do recognize are therapeutic diagnoses of unhealthy ways to relate to the self and others on an interpersonal level, yes, but I don't see how that gets conflated into "abandon otakudom and Eva fandom," especially not when theater-goers are offered memorabilia upon entrance and exit.

If Anno were seriously calling for the abandonment of Eva fandom because in his eyes it's some kind of mental roadblock, the last thing he'd do is release a BD with a new short film, a book of interviews and genga, and keep parent brands like Radio Eva alive. One of the very first merch releases after Thrice released was a reprint of Evangelion Millennials, which has Shinji and Asuka holding hands on the cover. To this day you can walk into the several dedicated Evangelion stores and walk out with figurines where Shinji and Kaworu are giving each other bedroom eyes. If Anno were taking some principled stand against otaku culture, he wouldn't be one of its key profiteers and allowing his brands to clearly cater to certain fan interests.

I'd wager actual money that if you asked him if people should stop "shipping" Asuka and Shinji, he'd say no and that that's their fan prerogative. I'd also be willing to bet money that he indulges in some kind of fandom headcanon that is contradicted by official canon of the various properties he loves. I don't think he views pillars of fandom like doujin markets to be the big bad of the world. And I don't think he'd leave so much of Thrice and its relationships open-ended (see: the various disagreements on if Shinji & Mari or Asuka & Kensuke are even romantic) if he didn't want people to extrapolate from it how they preferred.

for once I completely agree with you.

This talk about how 'its all a deconstruction' is pretentious snobs wanting the thing they like to be 'pure' and 'above' other shows so they can rationalize their like of the show with dismissive attitude towards the larger genre.

See also the quotes I've compiled here. He is "considering not condemning". Commenting on a culture from inside the building as someone who's part of it rather than raising the middle finger from the outside.

There's a difference between some boomer complaining about kids being on their phones too much vs a long time internet user having a nuanced take of, say, the negative cultural impacts of the transistion from forums to hashtags as gathering places.

or someone who dismisses the whole fantasy genre as immature vs a fantasy fan who points out some issues because they want the genre to be even better

it was left "up to the interpretation" on purpose. not just because nerding out & making doujins & fanworks is part of the fun, but also because it actually fits with the thematic closure that, the pilots are now free & can have whatever future they want.
If he'd thought it was that important to show who ends with whom he would've shown it.

that wont stop me from making a long essay about how ReiShin is actually end game

+1 to both of the above.

Anno is, at the end of the day, a giant nerd, and the notion that he categorically hates his kin there is laughable.
It's the same story for us here - we're all in the Eva hole enough to spend literal thousands of posts discussing it, but I do not believe for a second that there is anyone here who has never come across someone posting about Eva in a way that made you think jesus christ, take a chill pill or fifteen.
I know I have, more times than I care to count.

Axx°N N. wrote:I don't think this common attribution of intent to Anno has any textual (or otherwise) evidence to back it up. Anno is supportive of fan culture. He utilized ideas from, and has praised, doujinshi of his works that veered from his own intent. He once blithely commented in an interview in a yaoi magazine, to paraphrase, "ah, yes, before Kaworu was introduced, many doujinshi paired Shinji and Toji. Now, not so much." He didn't say it with an air of disapproval, and he didn't frame these people as being erroneous, or suggest that those then moving on to pen Kaworu x Shinji should instead "move on" completely. This feels like an attitude of the (western) fan community projecting its opinion onto Anno as a retroactive word of god.

I agree. Anno doesn't really mean that the audience/fandom needs to "move on". As you said, Khara continue to release more information about Rebuild (like -46h).

There is a real concept of "move on" for the characters in 3.0+1.0, but I really doubt Anno wants to say the audience needs to move on from the frachise (at most, it's about himself). After all, Anno has said he wants the Eva franchise to continue.


This interpretations that Anno is saying fandoms need to move on is partially based in an old "theory" that Anno dislikes Otaku culture. I think this theory existed since EoE.