Dr. Nick: I'm just going to broach this topic very briefly since the Commentary Project has unfortunately never had any real Ikuhara experts on board (nor any Ultraman experts either, which is a huge flaw), but it's a well-know bit of industry lore that Anno and the Revolutionary Girl Utena director Kunihiko Ikuhara are good friends, and it's been rumored that Anno based Kaworu more or less on Ikuhara. Ikuhara's own take is that he wasn't the inspiration for the character, but the public bath scene was based on a particular situation with the two of them at an onsen.
