What are Hayao Miyazaki's thoughts on Eva?

[DevRei17]

Does anyone know or could anyone fathom what his thoughts are? The two have a history. Surely Miyazaki has seen and has an opnion of his former protege's most famous work, right?

[Electric Sachiel]

I recall reading somewhere that Miyazaki did indeed take a look at the Eva tv series and commented that he was really intrigued and enthralled with the psychological depth that Anno's characters had. If anything the attention to detail put into Shinji, Rei and Asuka's teen angst made the characters all the more real. A plus in Miyazaki's book.

Not so sure what Miyazaki thought of the NGE series from a visual artistic standpoint though.....

[Halicat]

I have no idea really, in a way I imagine it would appeal to him but I'd love to know myself actually. I had no idea Anno was a protégé of his?

[Azathoth]

I have no idea really, in a way I imagine it would appeal to him but I'd love to know myself actually. I had no idea Anno was a protégé of his?

Practically every big animator of Anno's generation worked under at least Miyazaki and Tomino. Anno worked on Nausicaa for sure and possibly some other things too; I believe there's an anecdote about Miyazaki taking him to task for overindulging his naval-warfare fetish during Nausicaa somehow, but I have no idea if it was true.

[Carl Horn]

Practically every big animator of Anno's generation worked under at least Miyazaki and Tomino. Anno worked on Nausicaa for sure and possibly some other things too; I believe there's an anecdote about Miyazaki taking him to task for overindulging his naval-warfare fetish during Nausicaa somehow, but I have no idea if it was true.

You're right that many prominent animators have been associated with Miyazaki and Tomino, but in Anno's case, the personal relationship is definitely closer and has been expressed on a number of occasions; Miyazaki and Anno took a special plane journey through the Sahara together in the late 1990s in a vintage plane, retracing the route of Antoine de Saint-Exupery (a book was written about their trip). Miyazaki spoke at Anno's wedding, and of course, Anno directed a short film exclusively for the Ghibli Museum.

[Xard]

OMG IT'S CARL HORN!

ahem, now when that's cleared...

You're right that many prominent animators have been associated with Miyazaki and Tomino, but in Anno's case, the personal relationship is definitely closer and has been expressed on a number of occasions; Miyazaki and Anno took a special plane journey through the Sahara together in the late 1990s in a vintage plane, retracing the route of Antoine de Saint-Exupery (a book was written about their trip). Miyazaki spoke at Anno's wedding, and of course, Anno directed a short film exclusively for the Ghibli Museum.

Yes. It's a well known fact that (or at least that's the picture I got ages ago) Miyazaki and Anno are good friends and colleagues.

Anno's Shiki Jitsu also happens to be the only live action film by Ghibli - something which would've never happened if it wasn't for the close relationships between Anno, Miyazaki and producer Suzuki I feel. I didn't know about the Sahara trip, but it seems like Anno made an indirect allusion to it in SJ, hah!

It's quite funny how close relationships between many of the "big names" of the industry are (well, industry is quite small, in the end): Oshii and Miyazaki share similar friendship, albeit I'm not quite sure if it's as close as the one with Anno.


If there's something I would've loved to know (now it's sadly too late) is if Anno and Satoshi Kon had anything to do with each other (Kon was Otomo's protege in the same way Anno was Miyazaki's but that's all I know about Kon's thoughts/relationship with industry people outside Madhouse)

[gwern]

Patrick Yip described it pretty thoroughly (apologies for the formatting, that's how the dude wrote although it makes me want to claw out my eyes) in http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1998-August/019965.html :

## I believe this is a "special edition" put out by Animage, one of the
## biggest promoter of Hayao Miyazaki, about "the grand meeting of the
## century". I have a feeling that Animage helped sponsor the trip.

There are pictures with them in a desert, along with a crew (something like
that), and then there is a picture with Anno sitting on a bench with "Laputa"
creator, and seemed like Anno is listening to what the "Laputa" creator is
saying. (I think this is an excellent picture, consider both of them have
certain status in Anime, exchanging ideas maybe?)

## You know what? I have seen the TV programme which has all those pictures
## in motion!! Of course it's on Japanese TV (TBS I think), and it's a
## 1.5 hour program on Miyazaki, how he started his anime work, how he
## got involved in the TV anime, then the movie, how he established the
## Chibli Studio, a look at the Studio and staff, a run-through of all
## his movie (Porco Rossa being the biggest box office hit) and depiction
## of some of his long-time helpers (one of them died recently). And near
## the end, I saw Miyazaki on a trip to study the nature: this time to
## Sahara - for the sand dunes, the sky, the few clouds, the wind and..
## the sea. He went inside a nomad's camp and chatted with the locals a
## little bit (through interpreter), he went out and looked at the dunes
## stretching to the horizon... and then he saw a figure in purple-red
## robe and sandals running towards him. Who is him?? And the figure came
## close, we saw his glasses, his mustaches and he is Anno!!
## True to the tradition of stressing spontaneity, even though if it is
## artificial, the Japanese TV loves to show things in chance and
## "surprise" encounter. Anyway...

## The time was March this year. They were in the western Sahara, in
## Morrocco near the border to West Sahara (former Spanish colony,
## claimed by Morrocco but disputed by an independence movement). And
## the programme described as Anno being substantially influenced by
## Miyazaki, and Anno in some ways acting like a "post-Miyazaki"
## figure, and the TV narrator gave an example:
## While in "Mononoke", Miyazaki stressed "Ikero", the will to live;
## Anno is not that sure, in "End of Evangelion" (which also
## showed in cinema last year), he asked, "then why are you living??"

## In the TV progam, we got to see Anno and Miyazaki walked over
## the dunes, and also they got to a beach which is in fact part of
## the desert (sand dunes already appear 100 metres inland). Anno
## was excited and used his camcorder (the one he used to film
## the real-life movie "Love and Pop"?) to film the waves hitting the
## beach while he ran along the coast.

## In an palace-lookin hotel in Marrakesh, the two guys sat together
## and had a few chats. Basically there are quite a few of polite
## words from each side, praising each other's works. But Miyazaki
## mentioned that he has also been influenced by Anno's Evangelion.
## The TV narrator then turned to show some of the commercials used
## recently for the video tapes sale of "Princess Mononoke". There
## at least 4 versions of them and they all use some grim real-life
## settings with grey or dark shadows abound, reminding me of the
## commercials for the EOE movie. One version has two cats fighting
## each other on a street corner. One has a small eel-looking
## animal struggling to move on a tarred road next to a parked car.
## One has a very little boy, some teeth missing, pick up from a
## hole he dug an object that looks like an insect's egg. He smirked
## and the last scene showed that he clasped his hands, and then
## a squeezing cracking noise. The last one has a close-up on a
## baby's head being breast-fed, so that we can only see the baby's
## head and a half-exposed breast, all in dark shadow.
## I can't help feeling that those images are influenced by some
## of the real-life filming by Anno. The sharp and bright colour
## and hope despite destruction from "Mononoke" does not immediately
## relate to those grim images from the video-tape commercials.

[symbv]

I see my name mentioned here... Wow, that was SO LONG TIME AGO!!
Amazing... Internet indeed is perfect storage dump. I even forgot that article...

[gwern]

Your name is mentioned...?

/checks profile, see former Tokyo

Wait, are you Patrick Yip? Yip==symbv?

/mind is blown

[symbv]

Patrick Yip is my name. I was active in Evangelion ML from 1997 to 2000 and did some translation including the Red Cross Book (I think I was the first to do the translation) until EoE (and what happened around it) hit me so bad that I gave up watching anime and manga for ten years and came back to anime/manga only last year (check my sig for reason) Cheers! :)

[gwern]

Well, you don't need to summarize what you did on the EML to me! I'm reading through it (up to April 1999) and your RCB and EoE translations are still fresh in my mind. (As well as other contributions; a search for 'Patrick Yip' will turn up a number of emails in http://www.gwern.net/otaku ...)

Speaking of which, did you ever translate beyond Air? I have the three-parter for that, but nothing else.

Another email of yours I found interesting was http://lists.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1998-March/011349.html but no doubt you no longer have the documents about that.

[symbv]

Well, you don't need to summarize what you did on the EML to me! I'm reading through it (up to April 1999) and your RCB and EoE translations are still fresh in my mind. (As well as other contributions; a search for 'Patrick Yip' will turn up a number of emails in http://www.gwern.net/otaku ...)

Just in case some other EGF-ers wondered who the heck this PY chap is

I guess everything I wrote, warts and all, is kept somewhere in the archive. Internet is amazing -- I hope I did not write something really bad then....

Speaking of which, did you ever translate beyond Air? I have the three-parter for that, but nothing else.

To be honest, I did not even remember I translated Air... I don't think I ever translated the whole EoE -- it would be some achievement that I should be able to remember :)

Another email of yours I found interesting was http://lists.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1998-March/011349.html but no doubt you no longer have the documents about that.

I still keep a bunch of EVA research books that I bought back in the Eva fever days in the final years of last century but I cannot recall which book I meant in that mail or if I still have it :p

[C.A.P.]

Wow, Miyazaki flat out admitting he was influenced by Evangelion, and it's confirmed sy is a legend among legends in this fandom.

What a way to end a Monday!

[symbv]

Even the legendary and extremely popular novelist Haruki Murakami said he was influenced by Evangelion I believe. This anime did have a general social impact in Japan, at least in the area of popular culture (anime, manga, novels, art design etc).

[Xard]

Even the legendary and extremely popular novelist Haruki Murakami said he was influenced by Evangelion I believe.

woah that's awesome

[soul.assassin]

Patrick Yip is my name. I was active in Evangelion ML from 1997 to 2000 and did some translation including the Red Cross Book (I think I was the first to do the translation) until EoE (and what happened around it) hit me so bad that I gave up watching anime and manga for ten years and came back to anime/manga only last year (check my sig for reason) Cheers! :)

This post made my day, and damn, everything has come full circle, after almost a decade. We should be very thankful for you; most of what we have today wouldn't be possible without the efforts of a few fans. :)



@To the rest: I once used to exchange email with this legend, back when I was then a Japan nutcase trying to set up a Eva fansite with an annotated version of the RCB, and he was then working for ING.

[gwern]

Even the legendary and extremely popular novelist Haruki Murakami said he was influenced by Evangelion I believe.

Sauce please!

(Now that you're around and not a ghost of emails in an archive from 2 decades ago, I can finally indulge in all the replies and comments I want to!)

[symbv]

Sauce please!

Sorry no source... It is in an article I read some time ago but I could not even recall which magazine it was on...

[Sailor Star Dust]

EGF explodes, film at 11!

and it's confirmed sy is a legend among legends in this fandom.

I'm glad I kept quiet about it so symbv could speak up for himself--although he hinted at it a few times in different threads (eg: saying how he translated the Red Cross Book and that "Instrumentality of EML" thread).

Anyway, I also would have loved to know about this:

If there's something I would've loved to know (now it's sadly too late) is if Anno and Satoshi Kon had anything to do with each other (Kon was Otomo's protege in the same way Anno was Miyazaki's but that's all I know about Kon's thoughts/relationship with industry people outside Madhouse)

And I wonder if that Anno and Miyazaki TV special is available anywhere online...? Probably not, but.

[Eric Blair]

it's confirmed sy is a legend among legends in this fandom.

And to think the reason why I met him was because of our mutual respect for Retake and Asuka fann-ness.

Come to think of it, every time I met someone who turns out to be a "Legend" in a branch of the fandom, it's been because of Asuka or Retake related shenanigans...