[EVA] 2009 Sadamoto Young Ace interview

[Carl Horn]

If you keep an eye out--or more to the point, an ear, listening for  
accents--it seems that any American anime con of sufficient size  
(say, above 5000 people) will have a few foreign fans in attendance.  
Some of them may even get a visa long enough for them to hit several  
U.S. cons., the way an American might backpack around Europe. To save  
money, they may be doing the same thing American fans do--making room- 
sharing arrangements over the net, in this case often with U.S. fans  
they met online. Anyway, such fans are of course an excellent  
opportunity to chat about the scene in their own countries, and  
generally they don't mind doing so.

--C.

On Jan 17, 2010, at 2:28 PM, V V wrote:

> yes, I saw, it was very intersting (I myself am curious about say,  
> what are anime cons like in places like Ireland?) ....I hope they  
> don't think English fandom has a "paternalistic" stance towards  
> them, I mean we're trying to help out, and in countries like say,  
> Eastern europe...the only people that get anime are often those who  
> were smart enough to bootleg it, not generalized consumption.
>
> But often, we tend to *at best* think of "anime outside North  
> America" as OCCASIONALLY thinking about the British or Australian  
> market.  I mean apparently anime was big enough in South Africa to  
> support an anime magazine for some time...
>
> --- On Sun, 1/17/10, Carl Horn <once at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> From: Carl Horn <once at ix.netcom.com>
> Subject: Re: [EVA] 2009 Sadamoto Young Ace interview
> To: "The english-language evangelion mailing list."  
> <evangelion at eva.onegeek.org>
> Date: Sunday, January 17, 2010, 10:25 PM
>
> At Animerica, we used to exchange magazines and have occasional  
> editorial visits with the staff of French, German, Portuguese and  
> Spanish-language anime magazines, so we were certainly aware that  
> English-language journalism alone could never be the last word on  
> anime and manga--after all, from a Japanese perspective, we are all  
> different, but also all foreign. It's worth noting in this regard  
> that the founding editors of Protoculture Addicts were Québécois  
> francophone; in fact, a few of the early articles in PA were in  
> French. Furthermore, broadly speaking, areas of the world such as  
> North America, Latin America, and continental Europe grew up with  
> different sets of anime that aired on television, and thus  
> developed different understandings of it. In the back of The Shinji  
> Ikari Raising Project Vol. 3, I talk a little about the anime scene  
> in nations that use the Arabic script (and are therefore largely  
> Muslim nations) and how the challenge of
>  conducting web searches in Arabic isolates others from knowledge  
> of the substantial history of anime exposure in these countries.
>
> --C.
>
>
> On Jan 17, 2010, at 10:10 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote:
>
>> I recently ran across http://www.evalegend.com/interview_anno96.php
>> while testing my search engine.
>> That led me to http://www.gainax.fr/index.php? 
>> option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=8&id=37&Itemid=416
>>
>> After stifling my blinding rage into a tiny dark lump of pure bile
>> which I then vented into the center of the Earth, I set about finding
>> English analogues. (My French is just good enough to make reading the
>> 16 interviews & roundtables a pain in the arse.)
>>
>> One was particularly interesting in that I don't recall anyone ever
>> mentioning it: http://theplanetsthatmatter.com/features/ 
>> yoshiyuki_sadamoto_young_ace_interview/ 
>> yoshiyuki_sadamoto_young_ace_interview.html
>>
>> -------------
>>
>>       Young Ace: The current Evangelion manga series has really begun
>> to take a departure from the original television series. Can you tell
>> us anything about the direction the manga will head in?
>>
>>       Sadamoto: The original Evangelion film, End of Evangelion  
>> really
>> expressed (creator) Hideaki Anno's psychological landscape at the
>> time. I'm taking Anno's story as a basis, and filtering it through  
>> the
>> lens of my own interpretation. I've always considered Evangelion to
>> be, at its heart, the story of the relationship between a father and
>> his son. I've been pursuing this angle from the outset of the manga
>> series, and I'd like to pursue it to the end.
>>
>>       YA: How are you involved in the recent film updates of  
>> Evangelion?
>>
>>       S: The new films were originally intended to be a sort of
>> "digest" of the original television series, but as you can see
>> particularly with You Can (Not) Advance, they've begun to take a
>> direction of their own. The theme will be that of isolation, if I'm
>> not mistaken, and I don't believe that the story will be connected to
>> my manga adaptation. That said, I'd like it if fans appreciated the
>> new films and my manga version as separate stories.
>> ...
>>       A lot of people are saying that Shinji is much more optimistic
>> and willful in the new films, particularly in You Can (Not) Advance,
>> but I've always thought that the original film, End of Evangelion,  
>> was
>> the exception. Shinji is pretty dark and introspective in End of
>> Evangelion, but I never got that impression of him watching the
>> television series. I was really moved by Shinji's strength and
>> unwillingness to give up in You Can (Not) Advance. I also thought  
>> that
>> Rei's character was much less of a question mark. She was more  
>> fleshed
>> out. Her speaking style is so rapid fire (laughter)! I really thought
>> that you can perceive her gradual change in character in the new
>> films. Asuka's also more approachable as a character. In a bit of a
>> change from the original series, she doesn't just reject Shinji
>> outright, but actually displays a degree of jealousy. Her character
>> feels more like an actual teenage girl.
>>
>> The section on Mari is worth quoting at length:
>>
>>       YA: What did you think when you first heard about Mary?
>>
>>       S: I thought it was fitting that the new films should include a
>> new character. I really strove to design a character who was distinct
>> from Asuka and Rei, though I do worry that there are some small but
>> telling similarities that remain. My idea was to create a  
>> character so
>> distinct from the other Evangelion characters as to almost feel  
>> out of
>> place in the Evangelion world. I suppose I could've designed her as a
>> sort of "halfway point" between Asuka and Rei, but Asuke and Rei are
>> both such strong characters, in their own separate ways. I wanted to
>> bring something completely different to the table with Mary.
>>
>>       For Mary, I'd been asked to design a character who "goes about
>> with a parasol, like the sort of heroine you see in an anime". As I
>> initially designed her, she was very adult-like, having attended a
>> strict private Christian school in Britain. However, in the original
>> script, there was a scene where she returns home to a room full of
>> birds and dogs and begins talking to them, to indicate that she was
>> also rather idiosyncratic. Mr. Anno had also requested that she be
>> more adult-like in appearance and manner than either Asuka or Rei, to
>> set her apart. And that she have a huge chest (laughter).
>>
>>       There was a television drama I'd really been enjoying at the  
>> time
>> I began designing Mary. The heroine in this drama had a pair of long
>> ponytails. I really liked this character feature, and worked it into
>> Mary's design. After all was said and done, we ended up with the
>> design that we have now, although there are still many elements of my
>> personal tastes and interests of the time in Mary's design  
>> (laughter).
>>
>>       Incidentally, I decided to give Mary glasses because I thought
>> that this would be a simple yet affective way to set her apart from
>> the other characters. Some people have said that she "doesn't seem
>> like an Evangelion character", which is exactly what I was aiming  
>> for.
>> I'm glad to see, though, that the majority of people have appreciated
>> her character.
>>
>>       YA: How did you go about designing Mary's uniform and plug  
>> suits?
>>
>>       S: I'd been asked to make Mary seem very British, so I tried to
>> design accordingly. For her school uniform, I thought that a large  
>> bow
>> and long socks, along with a traditional checked skirt, would look  
>> the
>> part.
>>
>>      For Mary's old plug suit, I combined a rich green that seemed to
>> me very reminiscent of British clothing with the design aesthetic of
>> the space suits the Soviets were using around the time of the Cold
>> War. The Soviet space suits are the reason for the checkered pattern
>> of the lower half of the suit. Because Unit Five uses a lance, I also
>> looked at a lot of fencing outfits and tried to incorporate elements
>> of those into the design of her suit, as well. However, I also
>> included what look like large plugs where pipes and the like could  
>> go,
>> to convey the impression that this is, after all, a plug suit just  
>> the
>> same as those of Shinji and the others.
>>
>>      On the other hand, when I designed her new plug suit, I  
>> wanted it
>> to look more sleek, capable and well-crafted than the other plug
>> suits. I wanted it to have the appearance of something that was just
>> manufactured using the latest technology. For inspiration, I  
>> looked at
>> the design differences between the Lotus Elise Series I and Series  
>> II.
>> Lotus' vehicles really have that feel of a classic design updated to
>> the cutting edge.
>>
>> -------------
>>
>> The material on _Summer Wars_ was unexpected; I think I'd like to see
>> that sometime.
>>
>> --gwern
>> --Evangelion mailing list - To unsubscribe, visit
>> http://eva.onegeek.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evangelion
>
> --
> Evangelion mailing list - To unsubscribe, visit
> http://eva.onegeek.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evangelion
>
>
>
>
> --
> Evangelion mailing list - To unsubscribe, visit
> http://eva.onegeek.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evangelion