Evangelion 2.0 CRC: Anno Interview

[Kendrix]

Yeah. The Lillith scene just made up for lack of episode 7 and got rid of a subplot that would've taken up too much room, and some gratitious Kaworu cameos reduced to cryptic dialogue wouldn't have made that much of a difference.

[Fallingtogrey]

Who knows?

[Kendrix]

So this is why there is a sudden "treaty" they have to follow then.

The treaty makes sense, tough - You know politicians. Episode 18 even has Misato lampshading how much destruction they could wreak if they wanted with 4 evas at their disposal - also, who doesn't love gratitous use of the numbers 3 and 4?

[Reichu]

also, who doesn't love gratitous use of the numbers 3 and 4?

[Kendrix]

and it doesn't only have 4, it has six point stars, and third eyes as well! And halos. Also, this poses a nice foil to the four assembled Children from the Q trailer. Third Eye = obviously Shinji, as for now, so Asuka is the "normal" one (She's the closes to normal in the remaining 3), Rei, being Rei, needs to get the most symbolic one (the star) so that leaves the circle for Mari.
Or wait, give me the pilot group pic sillhouettes. Maybe the signs on the floor are a clue. Also, gotta see where Shinji is standing... (As I remember from the "small details" thread, one of the silhouettes can be identified as Shinji from lack of skirt.)

[Sailor Star Dust]

To quote myself from elsewhere:

Actually, according to the storyboards for the Q Next Time Preview (Reichu mentions this), the 4 silhouettes with Kaworu are those 4 Reis (the -_- looking RiAO with those three little Rei-01s).

But this is getting rather off-topic for a thread about the Anno Interview. Each time I click this thread I'm hoping Number-kun posted MOAR juicy tidbits only to be disappointed.

[Kendrix]

To quote myself from elsewhere:



But this is getting rather off-topic for a thread about the Anno Interview. Each time I click this thread I'm hoping Number-kun posted MOAR juicy tidbits only to be disappointed.

We gotta pass the time somehow, don't we?

[Sailor Star Dust]

We gotta pass the time somehow, don't we?

Yes, but if you want to talk about speculation for Q, there are so many other threads to do that in. In here, it's just horribly off-topic.

[1731298478]

Here's a segment of the third part of the interview. I apologize for the lack of updates, and I'm afraid they're still going to be very irregular for a little while, but I don't want to leave things too long. I'll probably try to add shorter segments sporadically until I can fully focus on doing the translation again.

Many thanks to symbv for correcting the translation and providing further suggestions!

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Part 3 [First Segment]

なかなか異物として入っていかないマリ
" As a foreign element, Mari struggles to enter"

---マリのキャラづくりには、ずいぶんと苦労されたと聞いていました。
--- I heard that you had a very hard time with the creation of Mari's character.

庵野　そうですね。すごく難しかったですね。『新劇場版』を始めるときから絶対的な仕掛けとして「新キャラクター、女性のEVAパイロットをひとり増やす」ということを決めていました。そうでもしない限り、結局は同じ物語を繰り返すことになってしまい、大きく変われないのではないかという危険感を持っていたんだ。無理やりにでも新EVAパイロットという極端な異物を放り込まないと『エヴァ』は大きく変わらないだろうと。だから、最初は本当に強引にマリを物語内にねじ込んだ感じがあります。初期稿ではあまりに突飛すぎて物語に交わらず、マリの存在自体が浮いていましたね。アバンに出てくるだけで、あとはほとんど出番がなかったです。でもまあ、そのときは二本目は顔見せくらいの出番じゃないとアスカやシンジを描けないだろうと見込んでいたので、そのままにしていました。新キャラはストーリーがまるで変わる三本目から描けばいいかと。そっちなら入りやすいだろうし。いや、つくづく甘い見通しでした。
Anno: Right. It was extremely difficult. Ever since I started the new films I had decided on this "one trick" where I would increase the count of female pilots by one with a new character. I felt that there was a danger where, if I didn't do this, I would end up repeating the same story, and be unable to significantly change things. I felt that, even if I had to force it, if I didn't throw a new Eva pilot as an extreme, foreign element into the films, then Eva would not significantly change. At the start, I feel like I forcibly thrust her into the story. The early drafts were so erratic that, being unrelated to the story, Mari's very existence seemed to have no basis. Outside of the pre-title sequence, she practically did not appear at all. But because at the time I expected that, if she made more than a cameo appearance in the second part [2.0], I would be unable to develop Asuka or Shinji or someone else, I left things as they were. I figured that I should develop the new character from the third part [3.0] on, where the story would completely change. It would be easy to insert here there. Well, that was a thoroughly naive outlook.

とにかく、いざ出番を増やすとなると、まるで入ってくれない。もう、出しようがなかったんですね。思ったよりも強固に『旧作エヴァ』はできていました。ストーリーにもドラマにも、なかなかこう、新しい要素を入り込ませる余地がない。旧作もその時点で思いつく一番いい方法を選択して作ってるので、ひとつ壊すと連鎖的に他の要素も壊れてしまって、結果的にはまらなくなっていくんです。
At any rate, when it came down to actually increasing her appearances, I couldn't fit her in at all. It just wasn't possible for her to appear. The original Evangelion had been more rigidly made than I had thought. There was no real margin for new elements to enter into the story or into the drama. I created the original series by selecting the best ways of doing things that I could think of at the time, so if I damaged one element, other elements would become damaged as part of a chain reaction. At the end, I started to get less and less interested in doing it.

これには手こずりました。十年以上前の作品ですが、やはり自分自身で作っているので、なかなか僕からは壊せないですね。自画自賛でなく、改めて「流れ」が良くできていたことを思い知らされました。『旧作エヴァ』は全体が僕の素直な気分と思いつきの書き送りで作られているので、理屈じゃなくでき上がっているんですね。なので、これは他者に、第三者に破壊を手伝ってもらおと。特に鶴巻にですね。あと、僕自身で以前と変わった部分です。そこで変えようと。いわゆる過去の、十二年前の自分との戦いでしたね。かなりの精神力が必要でした。
This was difficult to deal with. The work was more than ten years old, but still, I had created it myself, so it wasn't easy for me to damage. This isn't self-congratulation - I was forced to again recognize that the "flow" was very well constructed. The original Evangelion was entirely created from my unembellished feelings and my improvised writings, so it was not completed according to a theory. As a result, I thought I would get other people, outsiders, to help me destroy it - Tsurumaki in particular. In addition, there's parts of myself that are different compared to that time. So, I tried to change [Eva]. It was a battle with my so-called past self, my self eleven years ago. It took a great deal of inner strength.

---自分で自分の核を否定しかねない作業ですから、苦しさは推察できます。実際には、どんな風にしてマリを入れていこうとされましたか。
--- It's a process where you might end up repudiating your inner core, so I can imagine the pain involved. Practically speaking, how did you attempt to insert Mari into the story?

庵野　まずは人任せからです。自分からイメージを出していくことは極力避けようと。マリの外見のデザインは「イギリスのお嬢様学校に通っていて少しお姉さん的、動物好きもありかも」など、大まかな設定のイメージを伝えてからは、お貞（貞本義行の愛称）とマッキーに打ち合わせは任せて、僕は仕上がりをチェックするという感じでした。出すこと自体は決めていたので、かなり前からキャラクターデザインの打ち合わせは初めていたと思います。貞本もしばらくは四苦八苦と悩んでましたが、「メガネっ娘で、ロングでストレートな髪」とか、早めに方向性できていたと思います。ラフなデザイン自体、『序』の予告に間に合わせていますから。設定画として全体をまとめ直すときにまた悩んでいましたが、結果、いい感じにできてると思います。さすがは、お貞ですね。
Anno: To begin with, I left [certain things] to others. I tried to propose as little of her image myself as I could. I gave O-sada (Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's pet name) and Makki a rough impression of her settei: her outward design was to be that of a English private school girl, a bit "O-nee-san"-like, maybe with a love of animals as well, and so on. After that I left them to work things out; I felt like I would just check what they completed. I think, since it had been decided that [the character] would appear, the teamwork on the character design started at very early stage. I think Sadamoto struggled greatly [with Mari] for a while as well, but arrived in the direction of "a meganekko, with long, straight hair," and so forth, early on. After all, the rough design was ready in time for the preview at the end of "Prelude." He struggled with it again when the time came to gather and revise everything to produce Mari's settei images, but I think the result was very good, as you would expect from O-sada.

しかし、性格はなかなかまとまらずかなり苦労しました。レイ、アスカとエキセントリックなキャラが存在する上に、普通のキャラとしてはすでにヒカリがいて、最初は消去法からのスタートでした。まずは取っ掛かりとして、今までにない性格や外見から作っていこうと。「作画が大変なのでこれまで避けていたメガネをアイテムとして出す」とか分かりやすい部分から作っていました。でもこれだけだと、新キャラではなく、レイやアスカではない「ｎｏｔ」キャラにしかならないんです。キャラの配置も含めて旧作は非常に強固にできていましたね。うかつにマリを入れるとドラマやストーリーや全体のバランスが崩れてしまうんです。変化を目指しても、ただ旧作と違うというだけだと、結局は以前のものへのカウンターでしかなかったり......
However, there were some difficulties as her personality wasn't coming together. Things started with a process of elimination. There was already a "normal" character in Hikari, and "eccentric" characters in Rei and Asuka. First off, [we] tried to take those personality characteristics and aspects of appearance that had not been yet been used in Eva as a starting point. She was made up of simple elements; for example, "she wears glasses as an accessory, which we had avoided using up to this point because they were hard to animate." Yet if this were all, she wouldn't be a new character, only a "not" character - whatever Rei, Asuka, etc., weren't. The positions of the characters in the original work were also extremely rigidly constructed. If Mari were to be inserted carelessly the drama, the story, and the balance of the whole would completely fall apart. Although I was aiming for change, if it was only different from the original work, in the end it would be nothing but a "counter" to what had come before......

---確かにそれはそうですね、カウンターということは、同じ価値観に取り込まれてるということが前提になりますからね。
--- That's surely the case, as being a "counter" means that it becomes a premise in which the same sense of values is incorporated.

庵野　そうなんです。いや、難しいですね。二〇〇八年二月十五日付の脚本第１３ａ稿までは、「マリのアバン後の出番を早めて増やし、もっと印象づける。そのために落下天使戦でマリがエヴァの戦闘現場の指揮をとり、嫌がるアスカといっしょうにプラグに入る」というアイデアだったんです。そこでマリがアスカをかばい、アバンのケガが悪化してしまって、ラストの再登板までずっと入院してるという段取りだったんですけど、挫折しました。やはりワザとらしくてしっくりいかないんですね。かといって出番をそのまま続けるとシンジと絡ませるエピソードが必要となり、そのためアスカの影が薄くなり過ぎて、彼女が３号機に乗るエピソードが生かされない。おまけにマリとシンジのエピソードもなかなか「これだ！」というのが出てこない。それにマリを誰も知らないというのは作劇上、会話が膠着してしまうので、「ユーロでのアスカの先輩」と設定したんですが、そうするとアスカの孤立感が薄まって、これまた良くない。と、まあバランスが積み木崩し的に壊れていくんですよ。
Anno: Right. Well, it's difficult. By the draft of February 15 2008, draft 13a, I had the idea that "Mari's appearances following the pre-title sequence will come sooner, be more numerous, and be more impressive. To that end, Mari will take charge of the battlefield during the fight against the falling angel, riding with Asuka, who hates the situation, in the entry plug [of Unit-02]." Then Mari covers [庇う] for Asuka, but a wound she received during the pre-title sequence grows worse, so she is hospitalized until she reappears again in the last scene. That was the plan, but it didn't work out. It seemed artificial, and didn't fit. On the other hand, if Mari continued to to appear, scenes which related Mari to Shinji would become necessary, and because of that Asuka's presence would become too far reduced for the scene where she pilots Unit-03 to be allowed to remain. On top of that, scenes between Mari and Shinji where I felt "this is right" were not coming easily to me. Furthermore, as the screenplay had nobody knowing Mari, the conversations did not go anywhere. So, I made her a senior schoolmate of Asuka's from Europe, but then this weakened the sense of Asuka's isolation, so that was again no good. At that point the balance [of Eva] was coming apart like a tower made of toy blocks.

[Sailor Star Dust]

This makes me love Anno even more, especially how he forced himself to change Eva. (I like how he uses "boku" just like a certain in-show avatar of his... SO MOE~)

[Stryker]

Goes to show that even though change is necessary on some (or if your radical like me, most) occasions, it isn't easy to accomplish, especially if your doing big leaps like what Anno did with a new character. Although, I now have more respect for Mari. But.. from how Anno said it, it almost seemed that the character was rushed to be put in, especially with Anno saying that she will be better explained in 3.0 (which, to me, is like confessing that he rushed her).

[evafanatic]

Man, I feel for Anno. He seems like he had(and probably still has) a rather tough time developing Mari. But from this segment alone you can see he does his job with a certain level of diligence and I'll applaud him for that.

And with that said, I thought Mari's character couldn't have been handled any better in 2.0 even though it was a tad rushed.

[Warren Peace]

Wonder if we'll see any of these abandoned concepts return for Q? I thought this was the most interesting:

... Mari will take charge of the battlefield during the fight against the falling angel, riding with Asuka, who hates the situation, in the entry plug [of Unit-02].

So she would have played the role of Shinji from episode 7, fighting with Asuka for control of Unit-02?

[symbv]

First of all, many thanks to 1731298478 for translating the interview. It must have been a lot of work to go through the conversation and come up with the right translation that conveys the mood and meaning, however subtle, of what Anno said.

I just want to see if I can contribute a bit in perfecting the translation. Most of them are pretty minor, and please do not take it as any criticism of the quality of translation, which is very high indeed.

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『新劇場版』を始めるときから絶対的な仕掛けとして「新キャラクター、女性のEVAパイロットをひとり増やす」ということを決めていました。

Ever since I started the new films I was unconditionally determined to increase the count of female pilots by one with a new character.

I think 絶対的な仕掛け here has the meaning of being the "absolute trick", "the one trick" which conveys the idea that a new female EVA pilot character is in Anno's mind the one thing that would make all the differences in the new movies.

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結果的にはまらなくなっていくんです

In the end, it wouldn't work. [?]

はまる means get hooked, get interested. So I would interpret this sentence as "At the end I started to get less and less interested in doing it".

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出すこと自体は決めていたので、かなり前からキャラクターデザインの打ち合わせは初めていたと思います。

I think, as the fact that [the character would] appear [?] had itself been decided, the arrangements concerning her design were underway from an early stage.

This looks a bit long-winded. Since 打ち合わせ already appeared only just a few sentences before in Anno's dialogue, perhaps we can keep "work on" as the translation for 打ち合わせ. And 出すこと自体は決めていたので can be translated straightly as "Since it had been decided that [Mari] would appear" without translating 自体.

Perhaps like this?
I think, since it had been decided that [the character] would appear, the teamwork on the character design started at very early stage.

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設定画として全体をまとめ直すときにまた悩んでいましたが

He was worried again when the time came to gather and revise everything to produce Mari's settei images

I think 悩んでいました does not mean he was worried. More like he was being indecisive or in a struggle about whether to change things or not. I would translate it as "He struggled with it again..."

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「作画が大変なのでこれまで避けていたメガネをアイテムとして出す」とか分かりやすい部分から作っていました。

She was made up of simple elements; for example, "she wears glasses as an accessory, which we had avoided using up to this point because they were hard to animate."

分かりやすい部分 is not really equal to being simple. It is more like "easy to understand" (which could be complex to create or draw). Perhaps "We started from the easy-to-understand elements" or "easily understandable elements" ?

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カウンターということは、同じ価値観に取り込まれてるということが前提になりますからね。

A "counter" is premised upon the adoption of the same conception of values [as what it is opposing]. [?]

I would translate this as

As being a "counter" means that it becomes a premise in which the same sense of values is incorporated

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[1] "Kabau" could mean "look out for," "protect," "stand up for," "cover for," "take under one's wing." Maybe this involves "covering for" Asuka being in the entry plug? Or something else?

かばう【庇う】 can mean any of the above. It seems just by reading Anno's words that Mari covered for Asuka and took damage instead. This is a common way of using かばう, for example when one person took punishment for another even though he/she did not break the rule or when one person covered for another person about to be hit by a car and was injured instead. If that is really the case, then the translation of "look out for" perhaps needs to be changed to "cover for".

OK, now I took one more spoiler attack of Rebuild......

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それにマリを誰も知らないというのは作劇上、会話が膠着してしまうので

Furthermore, as Mari didn't know anyone, I was struggling to script her conversations.

As the particle after Mari is を, the sentence means "Nobody knew Mari" instead of the other way round. And there is 作劇上 to translate as well. For 膠着 it means a kind of deadlock (for the conversation).

I would translate it as
Furthermore, as the screenplay had nobody knowing Mari, the conversations did not go anywhere.

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「ユーロでのアスカの先輩」と設定したんですが

So, I made her a classmate of Asuka's from Europe

Very small thing, better use "senior schoolmate" for Senpai 先輩 I think.

[Sachi]

This is not a thread to discuss the quality of the NTE series. Take that someplace else.

Thanks.

[1731298478]

I just want to see if I can contribute a bit in perfecting the translation. Most of them are pretty minor, and please do not take it as any criticism of the quality of translation, which is very high indeed.

Thanks VERY much for this, symbv! There are real limits to my understanding of Japanese, so it's a major help when someone critiques the translations.

I think 絶対的な仕掛け here has the meaning of being the "absolute trick", "the one trick" which conveys the idea that a new female EVA pilot character is in Anno's mind the one thing that would make all the differences in the new movies.

I had never seen this expression "absolute trick" before this interview. When I searched for it, I had the impression of it as a kind of technique that could be used regardless of the circumstances, so I thought the sense might be, "I will use this trick, no matter what." So, that's why I used that translation. But I didn't feel confident in my understanding. It makes a lot more sense to understand it as "the one trick."

Anyway, I will go back and change the translation in accordance with your corrections a bit later today. I apologize for spoiling you, although fortunately in this case, as Xard mentioned, the events Anno talks about here were later eliminated from the script. Thanks again, symbv!

[Sailor Star Dust]

This is what Rebuild needed, to be honest. A summary of each movie. Final could have been vague, but 1.0 should have been very concrete and 2.0 and 3.0 should have had clear plans.

To clarify on this point, they did have outlines for 1.0 and 2.0 (hell, another part of the Complete Records Collection they mentioned were worked on back to back: http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?p=399646#399646 ). For all we know, what's possibly taking 3.0 so long is it's more back-to-back planning alongside Final.

While Tsurumaki freely admits that the first of the four film installments--slated to hit theaters in Japan sometime mid-2007--will run like a digest of the TV series, employing key scenes to bring viewers up to speed on the basic story and setting, no one is very willing to speculate on the content of the second, third, or final films.

"Frankly, it just got too chaotic," Tsurumaki comments on the brainstorming sessions that were initially meant to provide an overall plot outline and final resolution to the story. "We're all working from the assumption that we weren't able to reach our destination with the original TV series, but the exact nature of that "destination" is still unclear to everyone on the staff. Since we're going to all the trouble of making these new productions, we'd at least like to take the story as far as we took it back then, but it's been an uphill struggle so far. I get the feeling this project is going to be a very unstable project--in a lot of ways."

And Anno had plans to remake the series as far back as 2003 (right around the time Renewal was happening in Japan...Hmm...), according to a convention where Tsurumaki was at. (EvaMonkey either attended it or heard the information through a valid source, I forget which.)

Actually, if there's a point of Complete Records Collection that does go more into the scheduling and planning of the films (I doubt there's much said about 3.0 and Final, but...), that'd be great.

[1] "Kabau" could mean "look out for," "protect," "stand up for," "cover for," "take under one's wing." Maybe this involves "covering for" Asuka being in the entry plug? Or something else?

かばう【庇う】 can mean any of the above. It seems just by reading Anno's words that Mari covered for Asuka and took damage instead. This is a common way of using かばう, for example when one person took punishment for another even though he/she did not break the rule or when one person covered for another person about to be hit by a car and was injured instead. If that is really the case, then the translation of "look out for" perhaps needs to be changed to "cover for".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this whole section regarding the scrapped (storyboard) sequence of Mari and Asuka working together in the Entry Plug (of Eva-02?)? Or does it actually refer to the final film product of Mari compared to Asuka? (Edited to avoid spoilers...)

二人でお疲れ様でした!!

_____________________________________________________________

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS!
We'll be waiting for the rest, even if it takes a while. All of this is very insightful.

Mod note: The rest of this post has been moved here.

[symbv]

@Kendrix, perhaps you may want to heed the mods' advice about posting in this thread....(the bold red text post above)

I had never seen this expression "absolute trick" before this interview. When I searched for it, I had the impression of it as a kind of technique that could be used regardless of the circumstances, so I thought the sense might be, "I will use this trick, no matter what." So, that's why I used that translation. But I didn't feel confident in my understanding. It makes a lot more sense to understand it as "the one trick."

Well, "absolute trick" is the literal translation and I also think it sounds unnatural. It is just that 仕掛け carries the meaning of "trick" so I just thought it may need to be included in the translation somehow. In fact, the expression in Japanese 絶対的な仕掛け is also new to me, so I wonder whether it was a term coined by Anno. If it was, then translating it as "absolute trick" may not be that awkward (because the original Japanese would also sound odd to native speakers).

I apologize for spoiling you, although fortunately in this case, as Xard mentioned, the events Anno talks about here were later eliminated from the script. Thanks again, symbv!

Oh, you really did not need to apologize because of at least 2 reasons
1) I thought I was spoiled at first and wrote that sentence about spoiler attack, but later I realized that Mari covering for Asuka plot was not used when I read the original text more closely. But I forgot to remove that sentence in the post;
2) I do not really mind spoiler. I came to this thread (in Rebuild section) in the full knowledge that I may be exposed to Rebuild material. I may not want to read a full-blown spoiler or detailed screenplay, but knowing bits of Rebuild is ok. I had already got some tidbits from other threads (not even in Rebuild section) in the last few months. Anyway, given it would be rrrreeeeaaaallllyyyyy lllloooonnnngggg time before I will watch Rebuild (I am not going to watch any Rebuild at least until after 3rd movie is out) I am prepared to be exposed to some spoiler anyway.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Okay guys, you want to debate about Rebuild some more, do it in here: http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=7773

Stay on topic (eg: DON'T debate about Rebuild's quality in this thread) or your posts will be deleted.

[Kendrix]

Me was just answering to stuff above and most of that posting was topic.
But forget it.
To get back to topic, It's a sign of professionality that Anno did not try to insert a spdecific type of character, but thought about what sort of character would help him move the plot.

they had to make Mari up from scratch, of course they thought about different possibilities - I wonder if one of these is going to cover how Anno came up with Mari's finished role and personality, (Tsurumaki says it was Anno's last rewrite that did the trick) since the Mari we all know and love has little in common with the deadly serious/middle-of-the-social-series prototypes.