Akio Satsukawa
Akio Satsukawa (昭夫 薩川) was a writer for the Evangelion TV series. He has worked on Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 9, Episode 10, Episode 12, Episode 13,[1] Episode 15, Episode 19, Episode 21 and Episode 24 alongside Anno.[2] Unlike most other writers, he had limited involvement in the first two Rebuild films, and not returned for Evangelion 3.0 or 3.0+1.0.[3] Satsukawa originally worked as an editor, sporadically taking up scriptwriting additionally later, however his main career is still as an editor[4], and he hasn't worked on a script since the early 2000s.[5]
Satsukawa was always more interested in working as a director, and met Anno while working as an editor for Nadia The Secret of Blue Water. Anno was considered hard to work with, so Satsukawa was sent as a replacement for another editor from Episode 10 onward. They came to mutually appreciate each other's talents in the editing room. As Anno became aware of his writing aspirations, Anno later asked him to join up as a writer for Evangelion, however, he hadn't watched any of his previous writing work like Watcher in the Attic. Satsukawa explained that he had never watched any robot anime and could not write it, so Anno suggested that he could instead write it like a drama, which Satsukawa accepted. In Episode 4, Satsukawa protested Anno's outline for Shinji's recovery, calling it too "anime-like". He also designed Rei's room, based on a real-life apartment he had seen while working part-time as a plumber.
Satsukawa was used repeatedly for these character-heavy episodes, and Gainax co-founder Hiroyuki Yamaga claimed much of Eva's psychological depth was due to Satsukawa's contributions. Notably, he was the one who introduced the term Hedgehog's Dilemma to the series. However, Satsukawa clarified that Eva's famous internal monologues and most of the lines as aired on the final episodes were written by Anno himself. Despite being known for his work on Kaworu and Episode 24, Satsukawa actually says he put his all in Episode 15. He also picked Shinji's cello piece.
Satsukawa felt surprised by Anno's request to work later on Love & Pop, a live-action romantic drama. While still making Death and Rebirth, Anno had first approached Satsukawa about the project, which he felt was a way for Anno to "run away from Eva". According to Satsukawa, Anno kept saying he was attracted to the main character. They had inserted some references to Eva and particularly End of Evangelion in the film. Notably, the shooting version of the script began with the same line as Asuka's final line in End of Evangelion: Disgusting (Kimochi warui), but this was edited out of the movie at the last moment. Satsukawa noted the thematic similarity with Eva, and felt Love & Pop was almost like a continuation of Evangelion, and Anno said he was attracted to the protagonist, a mentally ill girl with multiple personalities. In fact, the movie starts in the same date End of Evangelion was release.[6] Uniquely, he has written Episode 04, the only one not written by Anno, as a result of staff input, not originally planned in the plot outlines.[7]
References
- ↑ While contributing to all episodes as a key frame animator, he (Mitsuo Iso) also – in addition to what’s been credited – proposed a number of setting details affecting the script direction and the work as a whole. On episode 13, “Angel Invasion”, he was involved as screenwriter and assistant settei artist. This was his screenwriting debut. He shares the “Screenplay” credit with Akio Satsukawa and Hideaki Anno. Since the script contents that Iso completed were over twice the usual amount, they were recompiled by Akio Satsukawa and turned into the final manuscript through Director Anno’s edits. - Mitsuo Iso Animation Works: Preproduction
- ↑ Platinum Booklets - Episode Commentaries 21-26 and others
- ↑ Anime News Network profile
- ↑ https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%96%A9%E5%B7%9D%E6%98%AD%E5%A4%AB
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampo_Noir
- ↑ Love & Pop Theatrical Booklet]
- ↑ "In actuality, this episode was once omitted in terms of the series composition and it was planned that what is now Episode Five would come after Episode Three. But as production progressed, staff members voiced their opinion that perhaps there was a need to depict Shinji’s relationship with the people around him after Episode Three, and thus, this episode was made, greatly changing the contents from what had originally been conceived. Because of this, the script for this episode written after the script for Episode Five had already been finalized. This is the one and only episode of all the TV and movie episodes in which Director Anno did not have a direct hand in the plot and script." - Platinum Episode Commentaries
