[EVA] Perfect Blue/Anno in the Desert

[Luna1883 at aol.com]

seth hill's reply:
<<First of all,IN what ways did Anno and Miyazaki take
anime outta the hands of the Otaku,So to Speak? it may
sound like a Stupid Question,But ill ask it anyways^_^>>

replying to my original statement:
>>...{miyazaki and anno]as the two people most responsible for taking anime out of the hands of the otaku in order that it may evangelize (gomen!) the larger, non-otaku world [as well],  it isnt too far a stretch to say that whatever ghibli and gainax create together may well be the zenith in anime's ongoing evolution--<<

---CAUTION: LONG POINT-BY-POINT REPLY----

(firstly, my reply is not meant to be construed as an us-vs-them thing.) 

my pronouncement is evidenced by: 

1)by their own (anno, yamaga, takahata & miyazaki)writings and public admissions. 

ghibli types have been prattling about prosletyzing the non-otaku masses since the heady, (and very red) days of the late 60s, and their basic idea that anime can be quietly harnessed as a vehicle for broader, sociopolitical themes as well as family entertainment is well-documented. 

yamaga and anno have both said on more than one occasion that EVA was supposed to be anno's trojan horse. according to yamaga, GAINAX raised funds on the stipulation that the series was for the 14-year old target audience, but anno insists that he really created something for his generation as well. wheter of not ths was all hindsight is immaterial. i suppose the unusually large and diverse demographic of EVA viewers in japan bore this out. little irony then that it was the hardcore otakus who were most irritated by the fact that TV series was more interested in examining the recesses of one tortured soul, and begged anno for nothing less than the mother of mecha battles to make up for their own ingratitude and shortsightedness...IMO, EoE wasnt ideal, but it was NOT a bad compromise, considering the insolvency of the studio at the time. (but i still cling to the notion that the spark of true brilliance was evident in TV eps. 25-26).

2)there is a documented shift in viewership

in japan... 
as in live-action film, relying less on formula & more on technically and conceptually innovative storytelling (that demands rather than insults the audiences' intelligence) tends to pique the interest of non-otakus. surprise, surprise. in unscientific, but very accurate exit polling conducted generally by the anime-sympaticos at the asahi shimbun after screenings of EoE, mononke hime and tonari no yamada-kun, many salary men (and even salary women) who would otherwise never admit to being an otaku--which in some circles is still a bad word--queued WITH the otaku to make EoE & Mononoke Hime the two highest grossing films of 1997 (number 3 and 1 respectively.) IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to note that a purely otaku fanbase could not have done this. we are talking of a japanese viewership in excess of 50 million. 

in the US...

in addition, the statement is spurred partly by my own experiences as an american old-school astroboy/great mazinger/speed racer/starblazer/lupin III fan from the late 1970s who thought he had outgrown the medium until takahata isao's "grave of the fireflies" came as an epiphany in 1990(i was 14 then), and subsequently saw ghost in the shell a few years later. more recently, i also observed that there were six people under the age of 20 in the movie theatre i saw "perfect blue" in (the 150-person majority were easily over 25 years old). also, i've seen 6 films in the ongoing NYC retrospective on ghibli, and of the 600 or so people who pack the MoMA theatres every night the otaku comprise less than 30-40% of the audience, the majority being: non-otaku people over 25, a core of japanese nisei over 30, and a sizable block of white folk in their 40s-50s + a smattering of urbane octogenarians (i kid you not) and old hippies. this was especially evident in the screenings of "...tona!
ri no yamada-kun", "nausicaa" and "pompoko."


3)the increasingly critical study of anime and the belated recognition that some of its most mature exponents create fine art as well as popular ($$$)entertainment and sociological phenomena.

since the 1960s, members of the japanese press (who would become cultural anthropologists in the 1990s) were observing the nascent attempts by a few animators in the toei studios (like takahata & miyazaki) in legitimizing anime as a serious art form to many non-otakus AND AT THE SAME TIME placate their TRADITIONAL otaku constituency. 

this is not to underestimate the pragmatism (i.e. capitalism) of what would later become ghibli/gainax, but the impetus to elevate anime into fine art is not a motive one should underestimate but i seriously do not think that there are any similarites in the aesthetic and philosophical engines that drive myazaki/anno/yamaga/takahata and the creators of drivel like "golden boy:wandering student 4". 

it may be dangerous to say this, but broader sympathies, and a certain level of acculturation and learning can make all the diference between genius and mediocrity. realise that esp. miyazaki and takahata share very little with the many studios that provide sustain the hardcore otaku in present-day japan. apart from both being radical left-wing agitators in the lates 60s, they both hail from the plutocracy (graduates of tokyo university and gakushuin--where, BTW the meiji & showa emperors sent their kiddies to.

true postmoderns, anno & yamaga arent that far off politically from the two ghiblis, as they hail from the industrial heart of japan. what all four do have in common is the an almost obsessive dedication to the process of creating that is hardly evident in the run of-the-mill shit. in it lies the crucial distinction: anime has become the essential means of self expression--not simply a means to get by. 

4)anime has arrived. the singular, startling and most overlooked milestone in the anime-as-fine-art movement is that ghibli's "...pompoko" was japan's official entry to the best foreign film category in the 1994 academy awards. it was unanimously selected. only a dozen LIVE ACTION japanese films (in the realm of the senses, seven samurai, kwaidan, woman of the dunes, black rain, ran, the pornographers etc...) share this goddammned distinction...and 1994 was was not a bad year for art films either.