The Ability to Think and Attraction

Those "thoughts" about a piece of work are, for the viewer, a bit of a sophisticated way of enjoying it. After viewing a piece of work, that work is assimilated in the viewer’s head through thinking, "Did that mean this?" and "Is that right?" and will go on to become the building block of thought. Being able to come across works that can be contemplated is an irreplaceable encounter.

However, recently I feel that these encounters are scarce. I wonder if I’m just imagining this?

Development that proceeds conventionally and as a pattern. Direction that is composed for the sake of convention. The audience member predicts the situation that will occur next and there is generally no need for the story to go out of that frame. Stable works that don’t disappoint to compensate for a weak element of surprise.

You can think of these as the trends of recent works. Certainly, if that’s so, there is no intention to stray very much from the mark. The viewer can also watch without worrying. However, at that point, there is almost no room for the audience’s "thoughts."

Thinking requires effort. When anime is thought of as "entertainment", I’m not denying that there is also a policy that the audience not be made to use unnecessary effort. Works that are just to been seen and enjoyed. Those are also probably necessary. However, weren’t there too many of those types of works? Among those, "Neon Genesis Evangelion" was clearly a work that could be thought about. While keeping its entertainment value as a piece of work, it also offers enjoyment that the audience thinks about. The Eva Boom that you all know about proves that. Everyone is starving for thinking.

And the story pregnant with riddles concluded, for many of the audience members, still pregnant with those riddles. There were also fans who screamed, "I was betrayed" by that ending. However, this is also certain proof that Eva draws people in.

This book is a collection of scripts for "Neon Genesis Evangelion." Excluding the stories whose scripts Anno handled directly, the scripts traced the following process in reaching the point of definitive drafts. First, Anno prepares an idea memo for each episode. The screenwriters write a script based on that memo and go through staff meetings that center on the director. On behalf of the staff, the screenwriters go through the second and third drafts. And then Anno directly corrects and revises the finished script and it is completed. As you’ll understand if you see the text, in scripts that are completed this way, the directions regarding the screen image are meticulous and the action and staging are quite concretely depicted. Therefore, the storyboard that is written in characters (letters), that is, the "wordboard-al" hue is also strong.

This book includes the definitive drafts that the director revised and corrected almost entirely as they are in order to emphasize the source material. There are annotations in the margin about the parts where there are major changes in the final films.

In reaching the film’s completion, it might also be interesting to try reading about things like how the drama was put together and corrected and how the implications continued to change.

 

Translator's Notes

- "kata doori, oyakusoku doori": literally translated this means "(exactly) in the way / according to the form, (exactly) in the way / as promised". Reading the kanji used, it stresses the "form" - pattern / model / type of the film and the "promise / appointment" of the goal. The honorific "o" used before "yakusoku" changes the basic meaning of the word in this case to "convention". One dictionary had this listed as "fanon = fan + canon" with specific references to SF, Fantasy and Anime genres.

- "uragiru" is used twice in this article. Once in its typical usage - that of "to betray." The other usage is more idiomatic and means "disappoint"; it is used with this meaning in the passage referring to works that lack any surprise, but won't "betray" - disappoint - the audience either

- The final note is in regard to the screenwriters and the process. The Japanese used in this case was "ikou wo ukeru". The literal meaning in "accept the intention/view/wish of~" but is used idiomatically to mean "on behalf of S.O." So in this case, the screenwriters used the input and results that came out of the staff meetings (accepted the wishes of~) and folded them into the next drafts.