[EVA] Sadamoto (again) [Was: By the way...]

[Carl Gustav Horn]

It is sometimes difficult to discern the creative roles played in  
traditional Gainax projects. For example, even though Toshio Okada is  
officially credited as the writer of Gunbuster, Okada himself  
described to Animerica a process where the script was passed around  
through several people, including Yamaga---whereas at the recent  
Bandai Visual panel at FanimeCon, Mr. Maeda of BV asserted with  
Yamaga present that Yamaga had written the entire script based on  
Okada's ideas. Of course, these points of view are not necessarily  
contradictory, but may depend more on viewpoint.

My own outine of Evangelion's development (at least, the original TV  
show), is this--

1.) The plot concept, character and mecha designs, and many details  
and themes of Evangelion had been talked out now and then among  
various members of Gainax for a few years (at least since 1993, and  
perhaps as early as 1991, as Okada asserted he remembered it). The  
idea of the series itself was not necessarily Anno's invention or  
sole creation.

2.) However, Anno is the reason the series actually went beyond  
talking and concepts, when he suddenly (in late 1994?) felt able/ 
motivated to direct again. What made him say "I mustn't run away" is  
still uncertain. It's even possible that the decision arose out of  
the process of talking out the series with his friends (a consistent  
theme from those who knew him is that they didn't realize he felt so  
badly as he did). The fact Gainax was able to get financial support  
and a network sponsor for the series isn't to be dismissed as a  
factor. It was a long way from Nadia's 1990 run on the mighty NHK,  
based on a Miyazaki concept, to the unproven Evangelion on TV Tokyo,  
at the time the smallest of Japan's four national networks--not to  
mention the changes in Japan's economic atmosphere in those five years.

3.) Anno, although the engine behind Evangelion, gave the impression  
that the actual route and destination it was going to take was  
something that would arise through the collective creative thinking  
of his partners--extending the "talking out" that went on in the  
years before the show into the show itself.

4.) Near the end of the series, however, at least some people at  
Gainax gave the impression that Anno had taken command and was  
leading the show to a strange and unpredictable place, and doing an  
approach to the ending that some within the staff disliked.

Obviously, there is a lot of vagueness in this outline, but I have  
enough confidence in it that I bothered to type it out ^_^ I wanted  
to say "gave the impression" in points 3.) and 4.) because we can't  
be sure of the difference between what people said, and the  
complexities of what was actually going on.

--C.



On Jun 9, 2007, at 2:44 PM, Rachel K. Clark wrote:

> Tommy B Rude wrote:
>
>> the direction gainax seems to be going would suggest that he won't  
>> even be doing character designs for the new works.
>
> You mean Webuild? He was designated character designer on that a  
> while back.
>
>
> Doug Dennis wrote:
>
>> And [Sadamoto] was the #2 man on the project.
>
> What happened to Tsurumaki and Masayuki?
>
>
> -Reichu
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