[EVA] Mother & child

[Gwern Branwen]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:34 PM, Peter Svensson <sun1jack at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> @But is she not a cypher of Anno's mother?
>
> Only if Anno is Shinji. I'm not entirely willing to buy into that theory. Shinji may share many characteristics with Anno, but he's more than just an authorial representation.
>
> Should we discuss the nature of Anno to Shinji?
>
> Peter Svensson

http://www.evaotaku.com/html/rcb-tsurumaki.html
    -- I see.  Then, it's true that Shinji's feelings are Director
Anno's feelings?
    KT - To tell the truth I'm not sure, but at the very least I tried
to work on the project from that viewpoint.  That's why in the
scenario planning sessions I was always saying something like, "Isn't
that a little too hero-like for Shinji to say?  Hideaki Anno isn't
that much of a hero."

    -- In episode 25' Shinji becomes completely despondent.
    Does this mean that Director Anno had also experienced that?
    KT - I think Hideaki Anno's tension after the TV series had ended
had probably fallen to about that level.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070927035716/www.aoianime.hu/evangelion/index.php?page=interanno
    "Shinji does reflect my character, both the conscious and
unconscious parts," Anno admits. As a pilot of Earth's most advanced
weapon, Shinji is far from the archetypical hero. Abandoned by his
father Gendo at a young age, he eschews human contact so that he
cannot hurt others, or in turn be hurt by them. The comparison,
however, isn't to be taken too literally.

    "I wasn't thrown out by my father or anything" he laughs.
Nevertheless, Anno has referred to the plotline as a metaphor of his
life.

    "In the process of making 'Evangelion', I found out what kind of a
person I am," he says candidly. "I acknowledged that I'm a fool." He
stresses the importance for anime artists to have diverse interests in
things beside animation.

http://www.evamonkey.com/writings_anno01.php
    I started this production with the wish that once the production
complete, the world, and the heroes would change.  That was my "true"
desire.  I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis
Evangelion-myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years.
A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.   Then
one thought.  "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this
production.

-- 
gwern