Statements by Evangelion Staff 2
Document of Evangelion 1993↔2003
Document of Evangelion 1993↔2003 Source: NewType USA, April 2003 issue
Neon Genesis Evangelion left an intense impression on us. But have we said all there is to say about it? Have we forgotten how much it moved us when we first saw it? Now, after a long silence, Eva has begun to stir once again… Even after all these years, it hasn't faded. The creative staff is finally ready to talk about it. Here we reveal previously unseen details about the “Neon Genesis Evangelion Renewal Project,” with reports and comments from people involved in this major new project.
After seven years, they have run the race and now find themselves back at the start Ten years have passed since planning for Neon Genesis Evangelion first began in 1993. While the series aired, the staff was hard-pressed to meet the tough production schedule. The result of their efforts created a boom so large it was called a “social phenomenon.” After it was over, they probably needed some sort of cooling off period.
Along with Hideaki Anno, one of the key players in the boom was Toshimichi Otsuki from King Records. We asked him his thoughts on Eva after all this time.
“I feel like I've finally reached my goal. For the seven years after Eva first started airing on TV, it's been at the heart of everything I've done. It's like I'm bound to it, for better or for worse. And now seven years later, I feel like I'm finally standing at a new starting point.”
“A new starting point” seems to imply a sequel or a new series.
“I've thought about that, and it would be nice to do it if I could sometime in the near future. But Eva isn't mine. It's Hideaki Anno's baby, so I don't have a say in it. I can only hope that people watch the DVD with a fresh perspective and come away with a positive impression. If that happens, then maybe Anno and I can do something together again. So please, tell me what you think of it.”
Eyewitness Testimonies
Presenting the staff of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Newtype Japan was determined to find out everything they'd seen and experienced during the making of this anime landmark.
Question What is your most lasting impression about working on Eva? What made you the happiest about working on Eva? Conversely, what was the hardest thing about working on Eva? With the “Renewal” edition soon to be released, are there any episodes in particular you'd like to rewatch? If so, why? What was your favorite character and/or mecha? It's been ten years since the Eva project got off the ground. What are your thoughts on the “anime boom” since that time? How do you feel things have changed from the time you worked on Eva as opposed to other projects you've worked on these past ten years? How would you respond if the release of the “Renewal” sparked an outcry for a new Eva? Would you consider being a part of one? What does Eva mean to you?
Illustration Director
Shunji Suzuki
A1. The Great Hanshin Earthquake, the subway attack by the Aum Shinri Kyo cult—it certainly felt like the end of the century. In relation to the show, it was receiving feedback from the audience online; it was so new and exciting then.
A2. I got goose bumps when I watched Episodes 1 and 2 at the preview.
A3. The pressure we got from the production company (even though the director covered for us whenever he could).
A4. Only those who watched the episodes when they aired every week can understand what an exciting time it was. Watching them all together gives a different kind of pleasure, I suppose.
A5. Misato Katsuragi and her gun the H&K USP, Hikari Horaki and Ritsuko Akagi.
A6. Except for the fact that the anime of Studio Ghibli has become universally recognized, I really don't think it reflects a diversification in the thinking of the advertisers and the media they've chosen to use. As a person who works in this industry, I'm very concerned that the average age of our target audience is really getting up there in years [laughs]. My worry for the future is the fact that young people today aren't being educated in this industry, so the workflow is no longer adequately structured. In the past we used overseas sources not because we were trying to cut down on the cost of labor, but instead because of the strength of the yen. Soon we'll be facing both inflation and an ever-weakening yen. As a result, we'll be forced to scale our budgets back.
A7. My energy, eyesight and concentration are definitely getting weaker. I don't think I can do what I used to be able to.
A8. Evangelion is what it is because of who Anno was when he made it.
A9. Even a guard in the Vatican City knew about Evangelion! My Canadian friend calls it a legend. I think with Eva, we've shown the world what anime is all about.
Scriptwriter
Hiroshi Yamaguchi
A1. The meetings for the script used to take five to six hours easy. And on top of that, we had to make so many corrections. We used to call it Judgment Day for scriptwriters.
A2. I was very pleased with the quality of the film and excited because it was building in popularity.
A3. Despite the best efforts of the staff, Episode 25 still turned out the way it did. The hardest thing was seeing Mr. Anno getting chewed out like that on the Internet.
A4. I haven't watched them for a long time. I'd like to watch them all again.
A5. Because I'm a scriptwriter, I don't really think about which one is my favorite. If I had to answer, I'd say Gendo Ikari.
A6. I wonder if you can really call it a “boom.” I think it's just that there are a lot of shows out there, that's all.
A7. After experiencing what it's like to do storyboards, direct and produce, I realized all over again how great Evangelion was.
A8. Only if Mr. Anno asked me to… (I don't think it will happen, though.) For the time being, I want to watch Tsurumaki's new stuff.
A9. It was such a great experience. I'm really thankful to every person who worked on it.
Art Director
Hiroshi Kato
A1. I got married during the production.
A2. I enjoyed going to Hakone to do background research.
A3. Now I know what “very busy” means. Sometimes, I didn't even know which episode I was working on.
A4. I've noticed recently that there are some episodes I haven't watched in their completed form.
A5. Casper and Pen-Pen.
A6. I'm very grateful for it.
A7. My kid's already going to elementary school. And I wonder if I am aging gracefully.
A8. Are you serious?
A9. The very last anime with a hand-drawn background.
Scriptwriter
Mitsuo Iso
A1. Director Anno's personality.
A2. I was very happy when I wrote some action recorder software in C. I used it for the first time in Evangelion.
A3. When we were working on the original cels for the first episode, I was also working on the setting for Kokaku Kidotai (“Ghost in the Shell”). I didn't have time to sleep back then.
A4. I can't think of anything.
A5. Nothing in particular.
A6. I was reacquainted with the idea that what you see isn't always what you get.
A7. I'm still the same person.
A8. I will look forward to “The Renewal.”
A9. An anime from the 90's.
Illustration Director
Kise Kazuchika
A1. I read the project plan before I joined the team, and I thought it looked interesting.
A2. Being able to read the original manga prior to publication.
A3. In many ways, I wasn't quite ready for it.
A4. No episode in particular.
A5. Ritsuko.
A6. A question mark for that one.
A7. I got old.
A8. I'm not sure.
A9. Hard to explain.
Scriptwriter
Shinji Higuchi
A1. For the TV series I was so totally absorbed in my own work that I hardly remember anything about what happened around me. Taking a look at the production schedules, it shows that I was involved up until the airing of Episode 8 or so. Anyone who cares to check will see the same thing. Halfway through the scripts for Episodes 17 and 18, though, we started preparing for Gamera 2, so I got taken off the Eva project. One night while I was having dinner, I turned on the TV and they were showing Episode 3 of Eva. I told everyone that when I'd been at Gainax, I'd only worked on the storyboards up through part A of Episode 3. But no matter how I tried to explain that fact to the people there, they wouldn't believe me. They figured I'd done at least up through the storyboards for Episode 8 and 9. But it's the truth, I swear.
A2. How about the time I saw Yuki Masa at the preview screening of the film version of Eva, which was his directorial debut. His eyes were as big as saucers, and he was screaming something about the image and sound being ONE FRAME OFF! I saw him just as he was tearing up the stairs to the projection room like a madman, skipping every other step. I'll never know whether that one act is what started the legend of the “reel-house bully,” but all I did was giggle fiendishly and say “Welcome to purgatory, my friend!”
A3. It was pretty painful for me listening to all those slippery-tongued actors call out the main character's name, Shinji (which happens to be my name, too). But I don't know if “call out” is quite the word for it. Curse the name is more like it. And curse it in voices that carried so well it was like hearing them blasted through a megaphone. It was psychological torture at the time, but now I look back on those memories with fondness.
A4. Maybe now I'll watch all the episodes straight through one more time.
A5. I like the computers built by Ritsuko's mom where she said she put a little bit of herself into each one. That's the episode that sold me on the Eva series as a viewer. For characters I'd have to say Kaworu.
A6. Anything I have to say about the “anime boom” is from the perspective of a viewer rather than as a player, but all I want to know is when the hell did they start running anime shows in the middle of the night? I guess that time slot gives all the “offenders” of the anime world a stay of execution. At this point, they'd never even consider running those shows at 6:30pm on a Tuesday.
A7. It's been ten years already?! What we did then has become more or less permanently emblazoned on our careers and can't be erased no matter how hard we try.
A8. This isn't a very easy question to answer, but wouldn't doing something like that be sort of indicative of a drop-off in the passion that the creators, studio executives and viewers have for the show? Since there hasn't been anything for the past ten years, it'd probably end up being some kind of forced run through the history thus far. I for one am against doing anything like that.
A9. I know I've got to come up with something clever to say here, but I'm completely at my wits' end.
Scriptwriter
Hiroshi Enokido
A1. The production ended up being different from anything we'd seen in that genre, transforming the genre itself into something more essentially thematic. The process was so interesting it was almost scary.
A2. At that time I was living in Hibarigaoka, and whenever there was a meeting with Gainax, I'd ride my bicycle there. I seem to recall being on my bike, spinning those light pedals around and daydreaming about the Evas and the angels. That's a fond memory for me.
A3. When the meetings at Gainax were finally over and day would turn into night, I used to get lost on the way back home [laughs].
A4. Once I reach a stopping point on the job I'm working on now (and if I have time), I'd like to go back and watch them all from the beginning.
A5. Maybe it's just because they let me work on Episode 8, in which they appeared for the first time, but I've always had a soft spot for Asuka Langley and Ryoji Kaji. I've always thought it'd be great if these two could find happiness.
A6. It's been exactly ten years since I first started writing anime scripts, and things have changed so dramatically. I wouldn't even know where to start comparing.
A7. To me, it feels as if these ten years have gone by in a flash. So naturally, I feel that I myself haven't changed that much. When I worked with Gainax again for FLCL, things went pretty much as expected—it was a lot of fun, but it also reacquainted me with just how much physical exertion is required to work in that environment [laughs]!
A8. For the moment, I'll just look forward to it like any other fan.
A9. My first and last robot anime… at least, that's what I thought at the time [laughs].
Illustration Director
Shinya Hasegawa
A1. When I arrived at my office one morning, I found staff members on the floor in sleeping bags.
A2. It was the first time a copyrighted illustration of mine was used for the cover of a magazine.
A3. I was crazy poor at that time. I won a Disneyland Passport in some contest, and I promptly traded it in for cash.
A4. Episode 1. I think the world of Eva is very well portrayed in that episode.
A5. Asuka. It's a lot of fun to draw a character like her who displays such a wealth of emotions.
A6. Let me use a metaphor. It's kind of like this—it makes me feel like going back to watch an old Mutsugoro [a famous Japanese naturalist] nature film. Even though all the marshland has been reclaimed and turned into city, sometimes I still feel like I want to see the old scenery again (sorry if that's a little difficult to understand).
A7. I've come to learn that roads don't just head upwards—there are descending ones and level ones as well.
A8. The “new Eva” is already in the hearts and minds of fans.
A9. It's not often that one comes across a work that remains popular for such a long period of time. I think it's really quite difficult to turn out something like that, which is why I'm so happy to have come across such a project and to have had a hand in its making.
Mechanical Director
Ikuto Yamashita
A1. Between Eva and my other commitments, I had a lot of work. So when I got a phone call from Gainax, I'd frequently pretend I wasn't in. But when Seiji Kio, who was practically chained to his desk doing mechanical design at Gainax HG, found time to sneak me a phone call, I would answer those.
A2. I didn't think it'd get anywhere near as big as it did and was pretty surprised at the response we got. The old ladies in the neighborhood used to say, “That Mr. Yamashita's son doesn't work at any company. What's that boy doing with himself?” Now thanks to Eva, they have an answer to their question.
A3. I don't have the skill to just come up with an idea all at once, which means no matter what project I'm working on, I tend to experience utter boredom rather than the “birth pains” of creativity.
A4. As it turns out, I haven't had the opportunity to watch them all. I've only gotten as far as “Magma Diver.”
A5. It has both its good and bad points, but I'd have to say Unit 01.
A6. My way of thinking is that a “boom” can help some great stuff get made. That's important, but what's most crucial is the frame of mind of the staff—the guys who want to put this stuff out for the rest of the world to see—and whether that frame of mind gels with their target audience. If it does, you're going to have quite a reaction on your hands. With Eva, the audience started going into a frenzy, and in turn so did the staff. Being in the middle of that group fever was a great experience for both the audience and the staff.
A7. There was the time when my beloved cat Duskin went missing. And the time when I hadn't been paying any subscription fees for my satellite, but someone spotted my dish, and I had to start paying.
A8. All I can say is that it'd have to be with Anno directing again, and that doesn't look likely at this point.
A9. —
Illustration Director
Takeshi Honda
A1. At that time I was really into karaoke and would even sing at work. At least, I seem to remember doing that...
A2. Maybe that I got to travel a few times.
A3. I have forgotten!
A4. If you're going to rewatch one, you may as well just watch them all.
A5. No one in particular. So I guess I'd have to say all of them.
A6. I'm not sure if this is related to the “anime boom” or not, but judging from several of the series on TV nowadays, it looks like Eva's influence hasn't died down just yet.
A7. I breathed a big sigh of relief when Sennen Joyu (“Millennium Actress”), which I worked on, finally premiered last year. As for me personally, I've gotten married, moved, had a kid, stuff like that. Man, I'm getting old...
A8. If we were to do another Eva, it'd have to be… the ANNO EVA! Looking forward to that one!
A9. When the series first started, I sort of wanted to take off running in the opposite direction, but I ended up staying right to the end. To me, Eva is something you can never quite get away from.
Illustration Director
Sadafumi Hiramatsu
A1. Having a blackout while we were in the middle of a rush check.
A2. Losing over 20 pounds while on the job, which is why it's commonly known as the Eva Diet!
A3. Being bombarded with questions after the show finished.
A4. From a sound-effects point of view, I would say Episodes 5, 8, 18, 19, and 21.
A5. Kensuke and Hikari. Though as it turns out, I didn't draw them even once...
A6. Mmm, I'm not sure. I'm not really aware of any sort of “boom” and personally haven't felt anything like that.
A7. The way I do jobs hasn't changed, but the way I approach them probably has—like the fear of simply doing what I want to do.
A8. If it's something like a brand new show loosely based on Eva, I'd really like to see it. If I see a spot for myself, I wouldn't mind taking part.
A9. Oigawa.
Inside Gainax
Source: NewType USA, July 2003 issue
At the studio's new premises, Hiroyuki Yamaga discusses taking on the establishment during the early years, giving the company a new focus and creating anime on a massive scale in the future.
In Otaku no Video, protagonist Kubo is drawn into the world of anime, cosplay and fanzines by school buddy Tanaka. Participating in activities generally shunned by the mainstream, the anime convert abandons job-hunting pursuits and defiantly states that he will instead become the king of the otaku. The pair establishes a company with their sights set on conquering the world via the manufacture and direct sales of custom 'garage kit' models of popular characters. A store opening ensues; the scheme later evolves into producing garage animation (which scores big with the fans) and culminates with the construction of Otaku Land, the anime and manga fan's ultimate fun park paradise. The parody is fittingly described as a fictionalized history of GAINAX, a company renowned among anime fans as the ultimate maverick studio, responsible for classics including Ouritsu Uchugun Honneamise no Tsubasa ("The Wings of Honneamise"). Top O Nerae! ("Gunbuster") and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
With a laugh, president Hiroyuki Yamaga says it would take 20 years to describe the real-life GAINAX experience blow by blow. "The very first thing that got my friends and I together was this convention every year," he recalls. Held across Japan, the sci-fi event that focuses on authors is currently in its 42nd year. It's slated for Tochigi prefecture in July under the name of T-con. The founding members of GAINAX (which include Hideaki Anno and Toshio Okada, who's no longer with the company) produced the opening animation for DaiCon III and IV, the event held in their hometown of Osaka in 1981 and 1983, respectively.
"At those conventions of course there were tons of sci-fi novel fans, but I wasn't anything like that at all," Yamaga notes about his personal background. "So it's funny that what actually drew us together was when we worked on the staff. It's certainly not always the case that people [get into this industry] because they've watched sci-fi works and say 'I'm going to do that!'"
The entire group were amateurs to begin with, most of them college students doing things just for the fun of it. "We did everything we're doing now, including running a shop," he explains. "At the time, toy stores didn't really carry things like spaceships and stuff from anime, sci-fi films or whatnot. There were some cheap things for kids, but absolutely nothing for hardcore fans. What we did was build them ourselves from the prototypes on up and sell them."
Then school ended, and they were faced with the prospect of finding jobs; the possibility of a less than creatively stimulating career weighed on their minds. "We all thought that was such a huge waste, you know. I certainly didn't want to get a job, so we thought if that's the case, then why don't we just make our own company? That way there'd be no need to look for work anymore. So we formed GAINAX."
Thematically sophisticated, technically accomplished and beautifully realized, 1987's Wings of Honneamise is lauded among fans and critics alike. Funded by Bandai, who was impressed with the group's amateur works, the theatrical feature boasted a score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and a generous production budget for its time. As GAINAX's professional debut, it's nothing short of extraordinary. "It was what it was, and I do think the end result was good," reflects Yamaga, who directed the feature, but he's quick to downplay the work's public perception. "I certainly don't think we made it under the best possible conditions, not by a long shot," he states. "The budget was insufficient, and of course it was great being able to get Ryuichi Sakamoto to do that for us, but it wasn't like that was the be-all and end-all of our existence. For us at that time, it was something we made using the bare minimum required. I wanted to make it so much better than we did, to tell you the truth."
According to Yamaga, the film almost marked the beginning and the end of the fledgling studio. "Everyone had been saying we should stop [running the company]. I mean, it was a pain to keep it going, and the basic idea was if you could just land that first job and make that first movie, then your career would be pretty much in the bag, so after that, who needs a company, right?" Yet someone eventually stepped in to direct a follow-up project: Hideaki Anno with Gunbuster in 1988, and then Takeshi Mori with Fushigi no Umi no Nadia ("Nadia, Secret of Blue Water"), released three years later. "In the beginning, it was like that: doing it one project at a time. It lasted as far as Evangelion. So it wasn't like we had this great plan for where we were going to take the company and then got to Evangelion on the strength of that. We just somehow kept going, you know."
Battle Royale
"I couldn't do anything unless I was always on the offensive; that's the one and only secret," says Yamaga of the most important aspect of running an animation studio. "If you're starting up a company when you're 20 years old, no one takes you seriously. Everyone tells you 'That's just how it is'—if all you do is smile at that point, it's like you've accepted it, right? There has to be [someone who says] 'No, it's NOT like that. Just hold on there.' I was constantly fighting in that sense." So did things progress smoothly after the confrontations? Yamaga smiles. "You have to do the work, even if you are fighting; that's what a job is; there certainly wasn't much reconciliation though, that's for sure."
Needless to say, everything changed with the powers that be once GAINAX became famous. Just a mention of the name, and people listened; as he puts it, "Even if you bring the project plans to their door in person, all you have to say is 'I'm from GAINAX, and I brought some plans with me,' and they'll meet with you, whereas usually you wouldn't even be able to make it past the front entrance." It wasn't until reaching his late 30's that Yamaga truly acknowledged the benefits of having a company.
The main difference in the GAINAX of today compared to the past is stability in animation production. "For a dozen years or so, we just kept going without much planning," says Yamaga—it's the 'without much planning' part he wants to drop. "I guess we didn't really start thinking about how to run the company more effectively, like a company should be run, until maybe two or three years ago. Seriously." It's a matter of taking on work, defining the goals and checking to see if they're being fulfilled. "I mean, none of this is anything new," he remarks. "I guess normal people do it that way from the start."
Not that he's going to suddenly set up a multitude of departments to handle things more systematically. "If we get too uptight about things, we'll end up losing what's made us so great up to now. I think we're much more flexible than other companies."
Evangelion: before and after
Of his thoughts regarding Evangelion, Yamaga replies, "Before then, we were aware that this thing called 'anime' was making waves, but it wasn't the kind of thing where famous personalities would get up on TV and say, 'I watch anime'—I doubt KimuTaku [Takuya Kimura of the group SMAP] would just suddenly go 'Evangelion!' you know." Yet he found the series was continually being mentioned and incorporated into TV drama material at the time. "From that point on, the distinction between 'someone who likes anime' and 'a normal person' began rapidly disappearing. That's the thing that impressed me the most."
The series was not only a landmark in the industry and for GAINX; financially speaking, it was the first anime production to actually make money for the company. "Not making money is one thing, but that doesn't mean they weren't hits," stresses Yamaga of their pre-Eva works. "The others were certainly hits, but the contracts were at fault."
"We never had very good contracts," he admits. "In fact, we didn't have a very good contract for Evangelion, either, but it was just so popular. So basically we made money on the products we put out ourselves. They said on the news how Evangelion had passed the 30 billion yen mark, so even if the contract only gave us 1% of that, it's still be 300 million yen!"
Until then, the games division kept GAINAX running. Yamaga recalls that Takami Akai, who'd been with the group since their college days, suddenly bought a computer and announced, "Let's do games! If we do games, we can make money."
"According to him, at that time with Japanese computer games, the art was done by the programmers, so it totally sucked," Yamaga explains. Since Akai was a painter, he'd be able to create decent images, even with the limit of 16 displayable colors at the time. "He was like, 'If we do this, there's no way we can go wrong!"
Akai's concept was literally on the money. "Princess Maker (1991) was a big hit, and that paid our salaries for quite a while," Yamaga says on the princess raising simulation. "Unlike the anime and films, we make the games all in-house and sell some of them ourselves, so it's not just that we have the rights; we get to keep the take in those cases, so hit or no hit, the amount of money coming in is totally different."
Princess Maker's art caused quite a stir in the industry; other developers took its graphic cue and incorporated lush art into the presentation. The long-running series, originally for PCs, later spread onto consoles including the Super Famicon and is the basis of the studio's latest anime work Puchi Puri Yucie. "We're still making games, but compared to then, we're taking it a little easier," Yamaga says. "What we decided instead was to take the animation we have the rights to and put them out ourselves; if the people making it are close by, then you're able to make something that's much closer to your heart, so to speak."
"We did make several games for the PlayStation," but he exclaims that it was almost prohibitively costly. Considering the economic downturn in the Japanese game industry, Yamaga opines that unless you're a large company, you can't create a decent game on platforms like the PlayStation 2 anymore. "That's why we're thinking of a somewhat smallish market. Making anime is our number one priority, but we are still considering putting out games as a kind of service to our customers.
Wheels and deals
Alongside original anime works of late including Abenobashi Maho Shotengai ("Magical Shopping Street Abenobashi") and the spectacularly nonsensical action-mecha-comedy mélange of Furi Kuri ("FLCL"), the studio has also adapted Oruchuban Ebichu, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo ("His and Her Circumstances") and Mahoromatic from manga to animation. "Basically, we take whatever, as far as projects coming in from the outside," says Yamaga. "It doesn't matter whether it was based on a manga or not—if we can do it, we'll do it; we're an anime company." Whether or not the right staff can be assembled, production timeline and budgets are all aspects that are scrutinized. "Sometimes we line it all up and we're like, 'Nah, maybe not,' and other times we actually start doing it and then realize we can't really do it after all."
He offers an example of the former, when a company brandishing a famous manga approached GAINAX (names and title have been left out for obvious reasons). "Even though we thought we could do it and it was interesting and everything, I read it and said, 'OK, it'll definitely cost 100 million yen; it'll be 100 million for 40 minutes,'" he explains. "They told me, 'Do it for 20 million yen.' I said there's no way we can do it for 20 million, but if we had 100 million, we'd do it. They were all, 'What do [sic]you[sic] think, we're made of money? We can't pay that!' And then they left, taking their manga with them." He pauses. "OK, so they did it somewhere else, and sure enough, it cost 100 million yen."
Asked how his writing and directorial skills have developed from Honneamise to Mahoromatic, Yamaga replies that he doesn't know whether they've evolved at all. However, he observes a change in trends. "We've gotten to the point where we're always conscious of the distance between [the anime] and reality. Before, it was like anime was making fairy tales. That's what used to be popular, and that's what everyone thought anime was. But gradually, everyone has started thinking about how close the fictitious worlds we've created will be to the real world."
Epic scale anime
Highly anticipated by GAINAX fans is Yamaga's grand project, Aoki Uru, which some say is a sequel to Honneamise. Yamaga says there's nothing he can impart on its development just yet, though he assures us that the project is maturing and moving forward. It's tied in with how GAINAX will evolve, their position with respect to the industry and the position animation occupies within Japan.
"Now that someone like Miyazaki has won an Oscar, where does that leave us?" he asks. "The point I'm thinking of here is somewhat different from the usual idea of doing business. To put it in more concrete terms, my thinking for that project is to produce an anime on a massive scale, something on the order of two billion yen. But in Japan, there are only about three people in the position (to do something like that)—Miyazaki, Otomo, and Oshii. So I have to pay close attention to what the situation looks like for those three. It takes time to get a project like this in."
Also blipping wildly on the GAINAX fan radar in Japan and abroad is a sequel to Gunbuster. "There's a lot happening, but I can't reveal anything," Yamaga apologizes, also hinting at other projects in the works. A friendly tease, he smiles and points at the table. "See these eraser bits right here?" We look at the shavings. "They're the remnants of yesterday's meeting. We were discussing things at length right here."
A regular US convention guest, he observes that compared to Japanese fans, overseas fans—especially the ones also studying Japanese—tend to approach anime intellectually, akin to how Japanese study European film or foreign literature. As an example, Yamaga mentions the dictionaries and reference books created by fans. "It's such an academic atmosphere."
Looking ahead
Yamaga opines that one of the benefits that may result from anime's increasing globalization is big budgeted theatrical works. "I mentioned a film that would cost two billion yen. That's more money than you can possibly recover if you only consider the people who watch Japanese movies inside Japan." To make the production viable, he estimates one would have to recoup around four billion yen when factoring in the marketing costs. It's not impossible, he says, considering the popularity of titles like Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi ("Spirited Away").
"But it's damn tough. And there's no way you can have something on the level of Sen to Chihiro every year, no matter how hard you try. If you stop to think about that, finally you see investors in Japan start to wake up to the fact that there's a huge market overseas, so money starts to flow a little easier." He doesn't however believe that the shift will have any impact on the stories that will be given the green light.
"That debate's been going on for a long time, but we've gone along ignoring it, making things that target Japan, and they're still very popular overseas. Sen to Chihiro was an extremely 'Japanese' film, wasn't it? There were parts that even Japanese viewers couldn't understand without some research." He stresses the point with an analogy: "I really like French wine from Bordeaux, so do I want something that the businessmen over there have whipped up especially for Japanese? No—give me the stuff the French people like."
On the other end of the budgetary spectrum, he doesn't believe that advances in technology resulting in works such as Makoto Shinkai's Hoshi no Koe ("Voices of a Distant Star") will revolutionize the anime industry. "First off, I personally really like that title," he says enthusiastically. "I like what it's about. I remember how beautiful the sky looked, and I like small stories like that, but I definitely disagree with the way the mass media in the Japanese anime industry is making such a huge stir about it."
"It isn't the case that you have someone who's made an anime all by himself," he elaborates. "What you have is a manga that someone created that's now moving like an anime and has music stuck onto it. In fact, it's because he made it all by himself that he was able to create a world of such substance. You can't create a world like that if you have a hundred people working on it. Whether it's novels or paintings or manga, there've always been works that a single person creates. And of course there've always been works done by a hundred people, too."
"So while I do believe we can look forward to seeing many more things like that in the future, in the final analysis, if you haven't got the talent, it's meaningless. Shinkai had the talent, but I certainly don't believe that just because you can use a computer, you're suddenly able to make anime. When you're doing it with a hundred people, there's a certain kind of 'talent' that you get from having a hundred people working on it. And there's something interesting about that, too."
Regarding GAINAX's future developments, Yamaga is thinking live-action works. "We want to become a movie company. We can take on a theatrical project, and make it an anime if it seems suited to anime. But if it's more suited to live action, then we can make it live-action. In that sense, we're striving to become a movie company with a lot of freedom."
He dismisses the traditional image of a huge studio hiring outside directors to helm live-action films. "I think if you want to have a movie company right now in Japan, then it has to be based on animated works." Thus he believes GAINAX is in a pretty good position, considering that the increased use of CG in films has blurred the line separating live-action and animation. "I think that probably even the sense of wondering which you should work in as a company will fade away as time passes."
