Monthly Animage July 1996 issue, Hideaki Anno and Yuko Miyamura
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Animage(AM)
Hideaki Anno
Yuko Miyamura
Previous article (3/6)
I want to be told, "What are you, stupid?" #3 (Return to Reality)
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It was a failure, episode 1
AM
What's the difference between fans who are OK with it and fans who are not OK with it in episode 25 and 26?
Anno
It's the way they cling to it...
AM
Is it wrong to live by clinging?
Anno
I think it's better than dying.
AM
But the fact that it's just an animation on TV is shameful, yes?
Anno
The fact that it is being used as a refuge is shameful.
It's a negative thing that it's only a place to escape to.
I guess I had a desire to change that into something positive.
I may have used the wrong method, but I'm not lying about my feelings.
AM
That's, for example, the most memorable line in the first episode, 'Don't run away."
That mood dominated the first episode, and I think it dominated the impression of "Evangelion", in my opinion.
Anno
It's an obsession itself.
Even if I try not to think about it, it pops up in my head, and I made it because I was caught up in an idea that I couldn't get rid of by my own will, so impatience and things like that appear on the screen.
That's especially true for the first episode.
The first episode was a failure.
AM
Because the obsession came out too much?
Anno
That's part of it, but I put in so many things that I think the first episode was three minutes too long when I was cutting it.
Anyway, I realized it perfectly during the post recording.
Big mistake.
After that, I was in a hurry.
I wanted to die when I saw the rushes (preview).
AM
When I watched the first episode, there were many scenes where the way each word was chosen and the way it was chosen were so close to each other that if a redundant line came here, the world would collapse at once.
For example, you never let Gendo speak any more than he has to.
I'm really impressed with the choices you made.
Anno
It's no good at all. Also, overwhelmingly, it didn't beat Gundam (First) in my mind. Unfortunately, it couldn't beat the first episode of Gundam.
AM
I felt that you were trying very hard, very carefully.
Anno
To put it another way, I spent a lot of time on it, and this is what I got. Anyway, I couldn't do it well on my own part. The pictures and other things were already fine. My part, the script, the structure, and other parts were a disaster. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. I didn't want the staff to feel this way again. That's all.
AM
From that moment on, "Eva" became a live show.
Anno
From the beginning, I wanted to do it like a live show. Until then, I thought I'd take it more easy, because it was television. Then, I couldn't take it easy anymore. I realized that I couldn't let the staff feel this way again. I completely reworked the second episode in the middle.
(Turning to Miyamura) It was all a mess, wasn't it?
There were a lot of cuts, lines were replaced, and there was a lot of fuss, wasn't there? After the post recording script was finished, we changed a lot of things, including the lines. The structure was kept the same, but the details and dialogues were changed, and the cuts were increased.
But it still didn't work. I thought, "This isn't going to be interesting." Until I saw the first rush (preview), I didn't know what I wanted to make. I thought the script was not good enough, but I was so naive that I thought I could make it work.
I thought the script was not good enough, but I did it with a naive feeling that I could make it work. Then, I couldn't make anything of the first episode. It was a huge failure.
AM
You tried to make up for it in episode 2. At what point did it seem to get back on track?
Anno
Well, when we finished the second episode, it was already OK during the recording. The dubbing was almost perfect.
AM
There are a lot of feedback scenes in episode 2, aren't there?
Anno
Episode1 and Episode 2 are one story. It was tough. The other episodes were all tough, but episodes 1 and 2 were the toughest.
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つづく