Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby MarqFJA87 » Thu Jan 20, 2022 4:54 pm

While browsing the Japanese Wikipedia's NGE glossary article for whatever info it may have on the JSSDF (scroll down to this section and then go to the heading with "戦略自衛隊(J.S.S.D.F.)" in it), I came across a couple of interesting facts.

First, Nerv's descriptor of "Special Agency" (特務機関) exists IRL as the name of an Imperial Japanese Army unit that specialized in intelligence, covert ops, counterinsurgency etc. in occupied areas as well as "operational areas" (presumably referring to areas where military operations are being actively conducted).

Second, the JSSDF... well, read this passage (Google TLed and then refined by me)
Its military power is said to surpass that of the (ex-SDF) UN Armed Forces (because the armies of the major powers are nominally part of the UN Armed Forces), and it is positioned as the strongest army in the world.


The original passage is here, for those who are curious:
その軍事力は国連軍(旧自衛隊)をも凌ぐともされ(主要大国の軍隊が名目上は国連軍の一部であるため)、世界最強の軍隊に位置づけられる。


So apparently, the JSSDF surpasses in military power the collective assortment of UN Armed Forces units that were formerly SDF units; that's not implausible, given that Japan apparently had so little faith in the UN being able to protect it from China's continuing threat of militaristic expansionism (as evidenced by the war it waged with Vietnam) that it decided to throw Article 9 out the window and establish a brand-new military to replace the appropriated SDF.

However, it bugs me that somehow the SSDF is considered to be the strongest remaining national military force in the world despite the assertation that the respective armed forces of the "major powers" (presumably the US, Russia, China and EU) retain most if not all of their pre-UN autonomy. Said persistence of autonomy, incidentally, would explain how China was able to wage war against neighboring Vietnam over the Spratly Islands despite the assertation in the same article that the UN's appropriation of national militaries for itself had been enacted in the wake of the Second Impact via the "Valentine Peacekeeping System" (apparently either an alternate name for or a component of what we know as the "Valentine Treaty").

Now, all this assumes of course that the information from the article does indeed come from actual NGE materials (presumably supplemental books, possibly ones that are still in the Japan-exclusive territory) and not fanon that had been shoehorned there while none of the Japanese editors with actual knowledge of NGE lore were looking (I would greatly appreciate verification of the relevant passages' factuality). That being said, it does check out with already existing facts about Anno's nationalistic attitude towards WW2 and Imperial Japan, illustrated by some of his statements on NGE as well as his earlier work Gunbuster (conveniently listed on the EvaGeeks Wiki); specifically, he expresses resentment towards how the cultural trauma from Japan's defeat at the hands of the Allies (specifically naming the United States) had apparently led to widespread "stunting" of the Japanese people into a "nation of permanent children", and answers a question about Gunbuster's alternate future ("is it dominated by Russia?") by saying "There's a Japanese Empire. In the year 2000, the U.S. and Japan had a war, and Japan occupied Hawaii. Sorry."

I don't know about anyone else, but it seems to me that Anno had been stealthily trying to inject some of his nationalist fantasies into his works, with rather unrealistic outcomes at that (there are ways to plausibly portray Japan rising to become a hyperpower; AFAIK Anno didn't even bother trying to come with an excuse).

PS: I shamefully admit that I had somehow remained ignorant about the expressions of Anno's nationalism in NGE and Gunbuster until very recently; I actually knew about the "nation of permanent children" thing, but didn't realize it was tied to nationalistic sentiment until now.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby RussianRiz » Thu Jan 20, 2022 5:55 pm

The presence of nationalism in Anno's works is quite prominent, but honestly, I've never seen it as a nod to a revisionist agenda like in more recent works (I specifically remember Attack on Titan being banned from China for having a character based on a military accused of war crimes, an issue that was also controversial in Korea; disregarding everything that emerged later in the work that resonated more and more with such militaristic views). Shin Godzilla follows this move by Anno towards an appreciation of a more independent and self-sufficient Japan, but it doesn't sound like a piece of propaganda.

What I think is that perhaps the kind of education in Japan, permeated by a strong sense of discipline, and often criticized by neighboring nations for not revisiting the past with its due value, can end up captivating the population to this positive vision about of the national industry, and, with that, they also create a zeal for this industry applied to militarism. Kensuke, in the anime, is that kind of geek who memorizes the name of weapons and military vehicles, and to some extent uses it as a form of fun. Anno doesn't seem to be far from that. So, perhaps that's why he never bothered to make an excuse for it.

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby MarqFJA87 » Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:55 pm

Oh I don't actually think that there's any historical revisionism being alluded to in Anno's nationalistic choices; not that's it's impossible, it's just a case of "extraordinary claims require equally extraordinary evidence".

And now that I think about it, Anno not bothering to come up with even a half-assed justification for Japan's inexplicable gain in power compared to the rest of the world seems to be yet another manifestation of his negligence of world-building. He basically constructs settings only as far as is minimally required for his work's plot and in a haphazard manner, before shifting all of his attention away from the setting and all into the plot and characters, regardless of any obvious issues that his approach creates.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby Axx°N N. » Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:42 am

I think a better claim for nationalism can be made in the case of Gunbuster, but I'm not sure I'd say placing your fiction in a setting where your birth country is a larger superpower than in reality actually, itself, constitutes nationalism. Speculative or alternative history isn't de facto propoganda, neither is being a military tech otaku any indication of political ideals.

As for Eva, I'm not sure there's any coherent nationalist sentiment going on when Japan's superpower status and prominence is in actuality totally meaningless because the world is actually run by an underground eschatological society who are, at that, headed by the rep. from Germany. What nationalist sentiment is being evinced when the JSSDF goes on a horrific slaughter campaign and attempts to slaughter the characters the series has gone through pains to build up as sympathetic?
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby orcot » Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:08 am

View Original PostRussianRiz wrote:The presence of nationalism in Anno's works is quite prominent



Is it? NERV are more or less complex good guys, it has a lot of Japanese characters but it's a Japanese story, the teachers constantly lies of what happenend during second impact. And people are treated in genral horrible whilst people "go hungry" to pay the eva repair bill the movies make a mockery out of that statement (seen how casual repair parts are spread over the world).

The point being Japan in the NGE universe isn't a paradise, also historically if your country is chosen to be the battle field you aren't the super power

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby RussianRiz » Sat Jan 22, 2022 8:49 pm

Regarding to militarism and promotion of national industry, yes, Anno makes such points very present. Shin Godzilla is quite a example. As I said earlier, it's not for a propagandistic purpose, but as a big amusement park. His passion for trains, aircraft and ships can be seen even in works that are not of the mecha genre.

One might say that this is why he does not become a propagator of a nationalist vision, but he has a rather unique interest in themes in this field, and the way he introduces this in his works translates how he visualizes these themes. But, of course, Anno never goes to the extreme of being an apologist of Japan. As the thread's creator mentioned, he often makes solutions that involve logical leaps, but that's not unlike what any Hollywood filmmaker would do.

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby UrsusArctos » Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:05 am

A lot of people are interested in tanks, aircraft, and warships just because they like the machines, not because they have any specific nationalistic or jingoistic purpose in mind. Anno lavishes detail on American and Russian military hardware quite a bit more than he does with anything Japanese. Heck, if you look at the ships being wrecked in Episode 08, most of them are Japanese to begin with, and it's the two World War II era American vessels that are instrumental in getting rid of Gaghiel. That's the attitude of a guy who loves military hardware, yes, but not that of a hardcore jingoist militarist.

View Original PostMarqFJA87 wrote:
However, it bugs me that somehow the SSDF is considered to be the strongest remaining national military force in the world despite the assertation that the respective armed forces of the "major powers" (presumably the US, Russia, China and EU) retain most if not all of their pre-UN autonomy.


Given that this particular bit of information comes from the Japanese Wikipedia page, I would consider it highly dubious unless it referenced a reliable source. The JSSDF is demonstrably powerful and has some very potent tools of destruction in its arsenal, but there's nothing to indicate that it's the strongest remaining military force in the world.

Yes, indeed, Anno did have his own particular brand of nationalism that manifest in Gunbuster, but Gunbuster was the product of a late-80s "Japan ascendant" phase when Anno hadn't lost any of his youthful exuberance, while Evangelion was produced deep in the lost decade of the 1990s with Anno in the depths of depression. I can't imagine Anno's views on nationalism not taking a thrashing in the process, and indeed they do.

Evangelion shows Anno beating up quite a few of his more naive nationalistic views. Had Anno produced something Evangelion-esque during the Gunbuster Era, the Evas would have been JSSDF property and the JSSDF would've been the world's supreme force for good, Seele would have been Japan-based and genuinely in search of human enlightenment, and Gendo would have been like Toji Suzuhara(Toji's namesake) in Ryu Murakami's Ai to Gensou no Fascism. In contrast, the JSSDF is either out of the loop, incompetent or hopelessly ineffective, and the one time they are genuinely dangerous (in End of Evangelion) they are being used as tools of Seele and the Japanese government. Gendo Ikari isn't a gruff hero like Captain Nemo in Nadia, the Captain of the Excelion or Coach Ohta in Gunbuster. He's a sinister schemer working under a shadowy religious cabal that's manipulating things towards its own ends - he and Nerv are on the side of the villains in Murakami's book, and Gendo's ultimate reasons for subverting Seele's grand scheme are not idealistic or nationalistic, but deeply personal. Noriko Takaya could find personal growth and fulfillment while saving Earth from Space Kaiju in the name of the Emperor, but there's no room for anything remotely like that for either Shinji or Gendo in Evangelion's universe.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby OutlawThirds » Sat Jan 29, 2022 11:51 pm

What nationalist sentiment is being evinced when the JSSDF goes on a horrific slaughter campaign and attempts to slaughter the characters the series has gone through pains to build up as sympathetic?


Bingo. The JSSDF are ineffectual at best (ep1) and war criminals at worst (they don't just occupy NERV HQ, they attempt to exterminate NERV, including-nay especially- the children.) I can't speak to his other works, but in Eva the JSSDF don't shine a positive light on national militaries, instead depicting them as stooges willing to follow any order no matter how horrific or cruel.

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby MarqFJA87 » Sat Feb 12, 2022 6:52 pm

Someone that I know and whose judgement I trust had a lot to say on the subject of Anno's nationalism, so I'm quoting the long message that they sent me. Certain people may be very offended by some of the facts laid within, finding them to clash irreconcilably with the reality that they built in their heads; all I can say is that I've been there back in 2004, when I essentially had my world turned upside and was forced to question almost everything that I had ever been taught since early childhood. It's scary, and it's difficult, but the truth isn't always pleasant nor easy to swallow.

----

If we're trying to ascertain Anno's positions, it's probably more useful to look at Anno's statements beyond Eva, and other works, particularly Shin Godzilla.

This is a subject I've been interested in quite a while, ever since I noted gwern made this conclusion on his source anthology:

the influence of earthquakes on people, connections to Aum Shinrikyo⁠, garbled information about suicide attempts, Anno’s conservative nationalist views or philosophy of “poison”


I’ve long said Anno’s nationalism86 and anti-American subtexts have been ignored, but I’m still amazed by some of the subtlety. No wonder I missed everything but the basic ‘imperial Japan in space’ subtext:


SPOILER: Show
While more ‘military hardware otaku’ than any kind of real right-wing nationalism like Shinzō Abe, Anno’s views tend to lean conservative, nationalist, & anti-American.

This leaning colors some of the earliest Gainax works (see the descriptions of their earliest projects in “Otaking” or Notenki Memoirs), appears in conversations discussing America (eg. “Please Listen To Me, Mr. Anno!”) or his fictional depictions of the USA (eg. Shin Godzilla), subtle allusions to Imperial Japan/​​WWII (Kritik der Animationskraft’s Gunbuster analysis is particularly interesting) & admiration for works such as Okamoto’s Battle of Okinawa⁠, collaborations with the JSDF (like his 1999 training video), etc.

The overall effect is a mix of 1960s student movement/​​anti-base activism, anti-pacificism⁠, and American military envy.↩︎


Gwern is, of course, one of the most qualified people when it comes to those sources, so I take his conclusions very much in consideration.
SPOILER: Show
In the 80s, otaku works made up for a lack of Japanese national objectives. They had big themes: law, or justice, or a kind of nationalism. Works like Space Battleship Yamato or Gundam can be analyzed as a kind of supplement.

DM: And young people no longer need that?

HA: They don’t need narratives, they don’t need objectives. They need communication. I think they want a kind of entertainment infrastructure, a way to kill time and chat on the internet. Maybe otaku entertainment is now only a kind of platform. From this point of view, otaku works since the 1990s represent a long history of Japanese losing their grand narratives. With a few very minor exceptions, Japanese otaku works today have no themes, no political implications; but this lack of political meaning has political meaning.


Anti-western views:
SPOILER: Show
Omori: However, [Ryu] Mitsuse-san is more governed by something like an Eastern sense of the transience of things, but the world of Evangelion is more along the lines of Western civilization……

Anno: I dislike Western civilization. I don’t place much trust in Western civilization.


Here Anno how only Japanese animation can express the Japanese psyche. Amazingly, he is not interested in live action remakes and even implies he won't cooperate with Western directors - though I suppose you could argue this is because of inability, not outright refusal. Maybe this could mean we'll never see a Western adaptation of Eva after all:
SPOILER: Show
“Only Japanese animation really explores our interior world and emotions. Japan is probably the only country that makes animation for adults as well as children.” It’s the differences in approach to animation between Japan and the West that makes Anno reluctant to collaborate on international projects. Neither is he interested in live-action remakes of his work. “The mental structure is too different between Hollywood and Japan,” he says. “There may be some Japanese film-makers who can collaborate with Western creators, but I’m not one of them.”


Now, this is just stuff I pulled from Gwern's, but I understand that, by themseelves, these quotes aren't sufficient, and can point at different things. However, there are more sources that are far more conclusive:

Anno seems sympatehtic to the mainstream Japanese nationalism view that blames an allegedly paternalistic relationship between the United States and Japan post-WWW. Worth mentioning is that this is a view shared by nationalists in most countries in the US' sphere of influence, namely Latin America but of course also Japan and South Korea.

SPOILER: Show
Anno understands the Japanese national attraction to characters like Rei as the product of a stunted imaginative landscape born of Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. “Japan lost the war to the Americans,” he explains, seeming interested in his own words for the first time during our interview. “Since that time, the education we received is not one that creates adults. Even for us, people in their 40s, and for the generation older than me, in their 50s and 60s, there’s no reasonable model of what an adult should be like.” The theory that Japan’s defeat stripped the country of its independence and led to the creation of a nation of permanent children, weaklings forced to live under the protection of the American Big Daddy, is widely shared by artists and intellectuals in Japan. It is also a staple of popular cartoons, many of which feature a well-meaning government that turns out to be a facade concealing sinister and more powerful forces.


Shin Godzilla I think is a more transparent case study. One might look at the initial government squabbling and think the movie is critical of the Japanese government. In fact, I'd argue the movie has Japan applying its intelligence and skills as a main theme. The government is portrayed in a sympathetic light and even all of its bureaucrats and technocrats are ultimately working hard to respond to the crisis - and the succeed at the end. I suppose this is an aftershock of the Fukushima disaster. You even have a lot of lines outright saying that Japan needs to stand up for itself against, particularly, the US and the UN. The interim PM outright laments American interference, and another protagonist outright says "Post-War Japan is a tributary state". The real-world JSDF is portrayed favorably in the movie, and not just for Anno's recurrent mil-otaku tastes. The movie was made in direct cooperation with the JSDF itself, and even the officers you see in the movie were the real-world staff. I think Anno is saying Japan can and should take the initiative to do better, not attacking the government as a lot of Western critics interpreted.

In fact, while a parody of the Japanese government and military might be negatively received or ignored by them, the then-Japanese prime minister, right wing nationalist Shinzo Abe, openly praised the film.

SPOILER: Show
The film has a “soft nationalism” at its core, said Mark Schilling, a film critic for the Japan Times newspaper. “There’s a sense that ‘We Japanese have to do this ourselves; we can’t rely on the Americans to help us,’ ” he said.

Abe has endorsed the film. “I heard that the chairman of the Joint Staff Council and members of the Self-Defense Forces appear in the film and are depicted as being very heroic,” Abe told a military gathering this month. “I think that [Godzilla’s] popularity is rooted in the unwavering support that the public has for the Self-Defense Forces.”

The film can be seen as marking something of a new level in Japan’s postwar recovery, 71 years after its surrender, analysts say. Japanese people can come out of the movie theater and feel proud to be Japanese.


In fact, I think that article illustrates this quite well. Not only Abe (a lot of people forgot he is no longer prime minister), but his successor Suga says the same. Both are part of the nationalist, conservative right-wing LDP that has governed Japan uninterruptedly for the last 67 years. Both are part of the Nippon Kaigi nationalistic and imperialistic revival not-so-secret society. Of course, it is also extremely successful among the Japanese public and critics, contrary to mixed Western reception.

I''d also mention that Shin Godzilla was made possible through significant political pull - remember Anno has a lot of social prestige now as Miyazaki's more or less appointed successor. SG features many Japanese A-listers. I have heard Anno goes into a lot of detail for this in The Art of Shin Godzilla (essentially a CRC), but that book is sadly untranslated.

There is also this statement from him about how he wanted this to happen. It could be argued that he may have changed his mind during the interim, but as far as I know there's no conclusive evidence of this.

SPOILER: Show
ANNO: I wrote a lot of things. The main thing was that I was aiming to make Eva into a Gundam, or a classic. One of the ideas was to create a new series under the title of Evangelion as part 2. My ideal was to create "G-Evangelion".

Do you mean a work that turns over the very concept of Eva, like G Gundam did in the past?

ANNO: Yes. Gundam did quite well with "G". It had a breakthrough with "W", but went downhill a bit with "X". Then "S" was the big breakthrough, and it continued. That's the ideal scenario (laughs). Before that, there was "V" though.

So the note was not about the content of your work, but rather about your business concept.

ANNO: That's right. It's not so much about business as it is about the future of the animation industry. I don't like to call anime "content," but when I think about business, this term is less misleading than calling it a product, so I call it "content" here. When you think of animation as content rather than a product, I think that animation content other than kids' content is currently on the point of not progressing well.

In terms of kids' works, there is a full range of content such as "Anpanman," "Doraemon," "Pocket Monsters," and "Crayon Shin-chan." The products are constantly being updated, and I think they're working well. Many of the works have already been running for more than ten years and still seem to be doing well in the future. I think this line will continue. However, when I think about it as my concept of animation, I worry about the fact that there is only "Gundam" at the moment.

That's an issue I've been thinking about myself. I worry that there are so few character goods that span a long period of time.

ANNO: Right. I wondered what would happen to the anime industry if it continued to have only "Gundam". Even in tokusatsu, which is said to be an industry that is losing ground to newcomers, there are "Kamen Rider", "Ultraman", and "Super Sentai" to support it. This has been going on for thirty or forty years. The great thing about "Super Sentai" in particular is that it has been renewed every year without stopping. This is not the case with "Ultraman" and "Kamen Rider," but in the end they have become a steady line that continues to this day.

The tokusatsu industry is supported by these three, but the anime industry I'm involved in has only one support, which is Gundam. "Space Battleship Yamato," which was intended to be a steady line a long time ago, has not been able to be realized due to various reasons.

The only other anime that I can think of that can be made into a steady line is "Macross".

ANNO: Macross is doing well, but it hasn't yet reached the point where it is accepted by the general public. Ghibli anime is also becoming more popular, but I feel like I'm watching Disney anime, so it's hard to say it's a steady line. After all, Gundam is the anime goods that office workers can put on their desks at work. If it's a Gundam mobile suit, even if others see it, they can just think, "He likes Gundam." It's not just for nerds, it's an anime that's approved by the general public. That's the great thing about that work.

There aren't many other anime goods that you can put on your desk at work. That's why I want there to be as many contents other than Gundam that support the animation industry in a different category than Ghibli, or Hayao Miyazaki now. That's one of my main motivations. Eva is an anime goods that you can barely put on your desk at work. So, I want the new "Evangelion" to continue ten or twenty years from now. I hope that young people, not me, will be able to do it one after another on their own.

I see. So the desire to develop "Eva" into something like that was a major motivation for you before "Rebuild of Evangelion", wasn't it?

ANNO: That's right. I hope that Eva can help as one of the contents that support the entire anime industry. If there was anything else, anything would have been fine, but objectively speaking, "Evangelion" has the highest potential. It's a work that you can go ahead with as you like without worrying about the original rights or other troublesome circumstances.


You might remember many other statements he gave in this light, even expressing lament at competition from Taiwan. What did surprise me is that he has had this project for 20+ years now, an information we only recently found out after 1.0 CRC started getting translated.

I'd say however, there isn't much pointing at Anno having a more progressive or conservative stance on social issues, though. But he very much a nationalist - he is openly advocating for Japanese interests and autonomy. He might not be a politican (yet?!?), but he seems to like using his works as a platform for that. Again, I can see parallels all over the world. Anno created the Rebuilds, initially, as a way to revigorated the Japanese cultural industry - if he didn't care about it specifically, there'd be no reason he would be sponsoring Japanese creators through projects like AnimatorExpo. Of course, there isn't anything indicating outright chauvinism and racism like Sadamaoto, but I think we need to remember that this, is after all, a 60-year old Japanese businessman, and the reactions he gets from some people, which are his intended public, probably speaks more for his intentions and stances than what the average Western liberal-leaning fan might think, included but not limited to this forum. One only needs to look at the still widespread notion that "Anno hates Otaku", omnipresent in the West but not so much in the Japanese fandom, for another example.

EDIT: Added a missing quote from/about Abe in the middle.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby UrsusArctos » Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:36 pm

View Original PostMarqFJA87 wrote:
I'd say however, there isn't much pointing at Anno having a more progressive or conservative stance on social issues, though. But he very much a nationalist - he is openly advocating for Japanese interests and autonomy. He might not be a politican (yet?!?), but he seems to like using his works as a platform for that.


This has nothing to do with wanting a political career - I personally find the idea of Anno as a politician to be absurd! Anno is an artist, and artists have expressed their personal political opinions in works since the stone age.

FYI, feelings that Japan is overdependent on the United States span the entire Japanese political spectrum, and aren't a solid indicator of whether one leans left or right.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby MarqFJA87 » Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:50 pm

UrsusArctos wrote:This has nothing to do with wanting a political career - I personally find the idea of Anno as a politician to be absurd! Anno is an artist, and artists have expressed their personal political opinions in works since the stone age.

I guess the fact that the "might not be a politican (yet?!?)" part was a actually joke wasn't obvious enough. Maybe I should've edited that out.

FYI, feelings that Japan is overdependent on the United States span the entire Japanese political spectrum, and aren't a solid indicator of whether one leans left or right.

While it may be true that the sentiment is common across the Japanese political spectrum, the right wing is significantly more overt and assertive about it, and its attitudes (both openly spoken and not) align with what had been pointed out about Anno's colleague Sadamoto's chauvinism and racism, which ought to reflect on Anno's character (who you choose to associate with says a lot about yourself, you know?). Either way, it's just one aspect of Anno's mindset that were mentioned in the above long tract; being laser-focused on it just glosses over the rest of what had been said.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby UrsusArctos » Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:10 pm

View Original PostMarqFJA87 wrote:While it may be true that the sentiment is common across the Japanese political spectrum, the right wing is significantly more overt and assertive about it, and its attitudes (both openly spoken and not) align with what had been pointed out about Anno's colleague Sadamoto's chauvinism and racism, which ought to reflect on Anno's character (who you choose to associate with says a lot about yourself, you know?).


Does it necessarily mean that you know the opinions of your associates, or condone their worst opinions and actions? Do you have proof that Anno knew and accepted Sadamoto's racist and bigoted opinions, and undoubtedly harbors similar opinions himself? Does it occur to you that (Gunbuster essay aside) the things that you've selected as proof of Anno's nationalism are being interpreted out of context and in the worst possible light?

What if you unwittingly associated with someone who turned out to be a bad person or had a friend who went downhill, and then landed up being lumped together with them - would you be happy to say "who you choose to associate with says a lot about yourself, you know?" if you were the one suffering from unfair judgment? Should I judge you on the basis of what your friend wrote, and which you quoted, even if it's your friend's opinion and not yours? By your logic, if I were a medieval Inquisitor and a friend of yours was proven guilty of heresy or witchcraft, I should have you arrested and pronounced guilty on the same charges even if the proof of your involvement was questionable.

So don't be so hasty to judge Anno as "anti-American", or lump him in the same "racist, bigoted chauvinist" category as Sadamoto. Yes, Gunbuster suggests that he might have been deep in that category during his youth, but I've made my point that Evangelion shows a very different person, one who has grown out of the follies of youth and learned more about the world in the meantime. To simply characterize Anno as an Uyoku Dantai is to throw out all nuance and growth and to suggest that his current, 60-something self is no better, no wiser and no more mature than his 27-28 year old self.

If you truly want to make the case that Anno is some kind of America-hating, foaming at the mouth Japanese nationalist, show clear proof that he has supported or condoned something truly vile, or tweeted something repugnant like Sadamoto. Show beyond doubt that he's still the same immature boy that he was during his Gunbuster days. (And if he was truly so vile, I think most of us would be swift indeed with our condemnation)

Either way, it's just one aspect of Anno's mindset that were mentioned in the above long tract; being laser-focused on it just glosses over the rest of what had been said.


I wasn't interested in replying to anything else, and frankly I needn't have bothered to continue this discussion in any part. I choose to focus on what I want to reply to, as does everyone else on this forum.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby Axx°N N. » Mon Feb 14, 2022 3:40 pm

View Original PostMarqFJA87 wrote:Someone that I know and whose judgement I trust had a lot to say on the subject of Anno's nationalism, so I'm quoting the long message that they sent me. Certain people may be very offended by some of the facts laid within, finding them to clash irreconcilably with the reality that they built in their heads; all I can say is that I've been there back in 2004, when I essentially had my world turned upside and was forced to question almost everything that I had ever been taught since early childhood. It's scary, and it's difficult, but the truth isn't always pleasant nor easy to swallow.

This warning had me expecting that you were going to lay out how Anno is secretly a new age Yukio Mishima. :emogendo:

As Ursus said, feeling that Japan is overdependent doesn't immediately pin someone on the political spectrum. I don't even think "I dislike Western civilization" could reliably pin someone in Western civilization as being libertarian, anarchist, socialist, etc. Neither does openly advocating for Japan's interests and autonomy; that's not strictly nationalist, and is more accurately "populist," which describes some despots but also applies to FDR. What is Anno supposed to want instead, that Japan languish? Isn't wanting the best for your country just common-sense?

"And the reactions he gets from some people, which are his intended public, probably speaks more for his intentions and stances than what the average Western liberal-leaning fan might think" includes, by your own words, a majority of Japanese theater-goers; are they nationalistic for their approval?

Anno's not unique in these kinds of sentiments or themes, they run the entire anime world. Oshii & Konaka jump to mind, but it's extremely prevalent and it doesn't indicate right or left; Miyazaki, Anno's close friend & semi-mentor, was a communist.

As for directly working with the JSSDF, this is probably similar to how any American film that wants to lease military vehicles for use as props needs to let the government run through their script and approve it entirely. Here's an article: https://www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD ... hollywood/
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby UrsusArctos » Tue Feb 22, 2022 11:44 am

^You raise a number of good points and observations here, and I'm with you.

View Original PostAxx°N N. wrote:Anno's not unique in these kinds of sentiments or themes, they run the entire anime world. Oshii & Konaka jump to mind, but it's extremely prevalent and it doesn't indicate right or left; Miyazaki, Anno's close friend & semi-mentor, was a communist.


If Miyazaki is a communist, he is one in the old, social-democratic sense. There's nothing at all in his works that suggests a Soviet-style ideological communist.

And indeed, Oshii is an interesting example, because he's pro-Japanese but very strongly Christian, with his version of Ghost in the Shell borrowing heavily from Christian themes rather than Japanese Buddhist themes like the original.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby RussianRiz » Wed Feb 23, 2022 9:21 am

Actually, as AXXºN described, Miyazaki was a communist. Until the 90s, more or less. Today he would be best described as a social democrat, or left-wing environmentalist. The fall of the Soviet Union deeply shook his beliefs in the socialist system.

There's this excellent video on the subject.

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby Zusuchan » Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:04 am

UrsusArctos wrote:And indeed, Oshii is an interesting example, because he's pro-Japanese but very strongly Christian

Isn't Oshii like formerly Christian?

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby UrsusArctos » Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:41 pm

^ Have to look it up, I thought he was still deeply influenced by Christian beliefs and that this shows with his version of Ghost in the Shell (Where is Chee when an Oshii discussion needs him?)

View Original PostRussianRiz wrote:There's this excellent video on the subject.


Quite interesting! I stand corrected.
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby Zusuchan » Sun Feb 27, 2022 3:55 am

Being influenced by Christian beliefs and using Christian iconography doesn't necessitate being Christian, I'd say. There's no reason leaving the faith behind should also go with a disinterest in some of its particulars. Anyway, I'm fairly certain Oshii used to be Christian and even thought about being a priest, but lost his faith sometime before Angel's Egg at the latest, with that film somewhat inspired by his loss of faith. I could ask chee just to be sure, though.

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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism B/

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Postby Alaska Slim » Fri Mar 04, 2022 9:33 pm

FTR, Anno mentioned being a cadet in the JSDF, and coming to Florida to see the Space Shuttle

It's in this interview from 1987, happens just after the 8 minute mark, but I can't find the *properly* subbed version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzdQvO_it_E
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Re: Nerv, the JSSDF, and Anno's nationalism

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Postby C.T.1290 » Tue May 23, 2023 12:25 am

I was under the impression that Anno hates Americans in particular, same as Miyazaki. Unless, if I’m mistaken.
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