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[Reelya]

Spoiler: Depth in NGE explained (click to show/hide)

This is amazing.

I think it's more of a creepy-pasta than a serious looking into Anno's mind though. Sure, he had the depression and stuff, but the "fuck the fans" part I find hard to swallow. The author of that piece is projecting their own feelings into it, not Anno's.

THe fact is, if Anno was really hating on anime of the time: which anime? What was he sending up? Because there wasn't really any pervy harem or pervy mechas at the time (1993-1994) to send up. Most of that shit came after NGE, not before it. Hence, he couldn't have been sending that stuff up, because it wasn't popular - yet. This theory only makes any sense in hindsight.

1994 anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_television_series_of_1994
Probably the sexiest anime on TV that year was Sailor Moon season 3. And the mecha of that era are all old-school still 80's influence sci-fi stuff. Ones that don't really have much, if any, fanservice. Way, way less fanservice than NGE. So, other than Sailor Moon, there really wasn't much "perv" material in anime TV back then. Shit up to 1994 was way more innocent and child-friendly. I can find one show from 1994 that might have a bit of fanservice - DNA². Girl looks kinda like Rei from NGE. It's not like now where there's about 12 fanservice shows per season. Back then you maybe had 1-2 fanservice TV shows per year. I can believe that Anno's flipped his skull because there's like ONE 12-episode show the year before he makes NGE with a girl with some boobs, so he's like "fuck everyone".

[Tellemurius]

DNA² WAS fanservice, it was about a time travel cop that was after a guy in the past that will become the worlds most powerful playboy.

[IronyOwl]

I think it's more of a creepy-pasta than a serious looking into Anno's mind though. Sure, he had the depression and stuff, but the "fuck the fans" part I find hard to swallow. The author of that piece is projecting their own feelings into it, not Anno's.

Yeah, I sadly can't comment on its accuracy, not being familiar with the source materials.

THe fact is, if Anno was really hating on anime of the time: which anime? What was he sending up? Because there wasn't really any pervy harem or pervy mechas at the time (1993-1994) to send up. Most of that shit came after NGE, not before it. Hence, he couldn't have been sending that stuff up, because it wasn't popular - yet. This theory only makes any sense in hindsight.

1994 anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_television_series_of_1994
Probably the sexiest anime on TV that year was Sailor Moon season 3. And the mecha of that era are all old-school still 80's influence sci-fi stuff. Ones that don't really have much, if any, fanservice. Way, way less fanservice than NGE. So, other than Sailor Moon, there really wasn't much "perv" material in anime TV back then. Shit up to 1994 was way more innocent and child-friendly. I can find one show from 1994 that might have a bit of fanservice - DNA². Girl looks kinda like Rei from NGE. It's not like now where there's about 12 fanservice shows per season. Back then you maybe had 1-2 fanservice TV shows per year. I can believe that Anno's flipped his skull because there's like ONE 12-episode show the year before he makes NGE with a girl with some boobs, so he's like "fuck everyone".

However, I find it really hard to believe there wasn't anything pervy or child-mecha-y to despise by 1994. Maybe not industrial-scale like nowadays, but that's likely in part because there was less of everything. Of course there were going to be fewer fanservice shows back then, there were fewer shows total. Remember also that particular list just displays the date they first premiered, which was even less of an indicator back then of what was actually on.

More importantly, people aren't rational about things they hate. If he was going to be all logical regarding only 85% of all shows being pervy child soldier garbage patronized by disgusting mentally challenged perverts, he would have just acknowledged that some people like different things than he does. Dropping those figures to 2% isn't going to make as much of a difference as you'd expect, because it wasn't about the numbers to begin with. He wouldn't have been perfectly fine with that sort of thing until he realized it was occurring at 26% rather than 24%, or 64% rather than 32%, or 89% rather than 12%.

[Redzephyr01]

EVA is 3grimdark5me.

[Chaoswizkid]

Spoiler: Depth in NGE explained (click to show/hide)

This is amazing.

I think it's more of a creepy-pasta than a serious looking into Anno's mind though. Sure, he had the depression and stuff, but the "fuck the fans" part I find hard to swallow. The author of that piece is projecting their own feelings into it, not Anno's.

It's very widely accepted amongst Eva fans for that to be the case.
Especially, I think, because a lot of people razz on the last two episodes of NGE for being terribad because the budget ran out. And I thought that, too, until I realized that the animation in the last (I think) episode was actually incredible. It was just one little scene, but IIRC, it was really something. Considering that, I think that the budget issues were actually used and made into something by Anno, that he wouldn't necessarily change much of the ending of NGE even with a bunch of money.
That's a thought: Rebuild 4's ending sequence might be very similar to the TV series. Doubtful, but I'd definitely chuckle to myself if it came to be like that.

THe fact is, if Anno was really hating on anime of the time: which anime? What was he sending up? Because there wasn't really any pervy harem or pervy mechas at the time (1993-1994) to send up. Most of that shit came after NGE, not before it. Hence, he couldn't have been sending that stuff up, because it wasn't popular - yet. This theory only makes any sense in hindsight.

His attitude towards the entire Japanese animation industry, including animated film such as that by Studio Ghibli, is pretty well-known.
Here's some quotes and such:

Hideaki Anno:
Many different desires are motivating us to create the new "Evangelion" film.

The desire to portray my sincere feelings on film.
The desire to share, with an audience, the embodiment of image, the diversity of expressions, and the detailed portrayal of emotions that animation offers.
The desire to connect today's exhausted Japanese animation [industry] to the future.
The desire to fight the continuing trend of stagnation in anime.
The desire to support the strength of heart that exists in the world.

Finally, the desire to have these wishes be realized.

For these purposes, we used the best methods available to us to make another Evangelion film.
Many times we wondered, "It's a title that's more than 10 years old. Why now?"
"Eva is too old", we felt.
However, over the past 12 years, there has been no anime newer than Eva.

In recent years, in the world of anime and manga too, the hollowing out of mainstream culture and the putative rise of subculture severely diluted and eroded the standing of the Tale. Audiences have come to need only a work only as an escape from reality, as a comfortable dream, judging everything on the criterion of moe, while creators’ intellectual paucity and the jumble of trivial touches have encouraged that structure. At the same time, TV-type mass consumption, which prizes instant gratification and simplistic results, laid the improverished grounds of contemporary Japanese entertainment, giving rise to masses that can only respond with praise for superficial details and technical proficiency; with tears, laughter, fear, or some outpouring of simple emotions ; or with identifying and particularism. And here we are, in this stagnant state of affairs. I am stuck here myself. It’s embarrassing and frustrating, and I also regret that I contributed to it. I want it fixed. The sooner, the better.

I've also read other articles about his thoughts on how the Japanese animation industry outsourcing animation to Chinese and other animation studios was damning and incredibly damaging.

In short, it wasn't a shot at particular anime, it was a shot at the whole industry. While those two quotes were made quite Post-NGE, everything I've heard and read indicates that his attitude hasn't changed much on the issue other than just how bad the state of the industry is in any given year.

Also, his thoughts on modern consumers of the industry:

Anno pauses for a moment, and gives a dark-browed stare out the window. “I don’t see any adults here in Japan,” he says, with a shrug. “The fact that you see salarymen reading manga and pornography on the trains and being unafraid, unashamed or anything, is something you wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago, with people who grew up under a different system of government. They would have been far too embarrassed to open a book of cartoons or dirty pictures on a train. But that’s what we have now in Japan. We are a country of children.”

Also, keep in mind that the culture has changed. Remember, it was once scandalous for a woman to show off any portion of her legs, or even a forearm I believe. Consider that to be something incredibly alluring to men at the time, and now you don't have to look at anime pre-NGE to see that otaku would indulge themselves on something even as innocent as Sailor Moon.

[Reelya]

"no anime newer than Eva" sounds like a self-important wank. I can only think it was meant half-jokingly. NGE is kinda childish. I'll take Mushishi, Kino's Journey, Kaiba, Tatami Galaxy.

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff#Reliable_and_well-known_sources

You can fin plenty of quotes about what Anno had in mind and how he drew on his personal experiences for the show, but very little of it suggests he designed the whole thing as a fuck-you to the viewers, hence why I say that's a creepy-pasta above. They always have a grain of truth, but an underlying conspiracy theory.

Maybe it was a "fuck you" letter to himself, after all he did nothing and wallowed about for 4 years while other people were still doing stuff. It makes no sense for him to blame everyone else for that.

Also, he criticized Studio Ghibli because he thought there works were getting too nice and family-safe. If he was also criticizing other works at the same time for being too sexy and adult, then the guy would just be an a-grade tool, basiscally: someone who isn't happy no matter what comes out unless it's his exact personal tastes. Not too "family", just the exact
amount of "dark" that he likes etc. Risk-taking, but not too risk-taking etc.

That "country of children" quote was NOT about the effects of otaku culture. Only a small percentage of Japan are otaku. It's important to put quotes in context:

Anno understands the Japanese national attraction to characters like Rei as the product of a stunted imaginative landscape born of Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. “Japan lost the war to the Americans,” he explains, seeming interested in his own words for the first time during our interview. “Since that time, the education we received is not one that creates adults. Even for us, people in their 40s, and for the generation older than me, in their 50s and 60s, there’s no reasonable model of what an adult should be like.” The theory that Japan’s defeat stripped the country of its independence and led to the creation of a nation of permanent children, weaklings forced to live under the protection of the American Big Daddy, is widely shared by artists and intellectuals in Japan. It is also a staple of popular cartoons, many of which feature a well-meaning government that turns out to be a facade concealing sinister and more powerful forces.

Anno pauses for a moment, and gives a dark-browed stare out the window. “I don’t see any adults here in Japan,” he says, with a shrug. “The fact that you see salarymen reading manga and pornography on the trains and being unafraid, unashamed or anything, is something you wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago, with people who grew up under a different system of government. They would have been far too embarrassed to open a book of cartoons or dirty pictures on a train. But that’s what we have now in Japan. We are a country of children.”

Yes, he called Japan a "country of children" but omitting the first part gives a distorted view of what he was talking about. The entire post-WWII generation up to 60 year olds are the "nation of children", he didn't single out otaku culture as the cause of this, nor state Evangelion as the cure ... he singled out the "different system of government" of previous generations, not otaku culture or anime/manga as the cause.

There's also a quote where he talks about sex fan-fictions but he says "every generation has that, because sex sells". So he has no real "moral decline" quotes that can be attributed to otaku culture.

He mentions sailor moon, because he was directing a shoujo anime and watched an old shoujo anime for reference, commenting it "looks old" and that the world is divided into pre-Sailor Moon and post-Sailor Moon eras. This is more a comment that Sailor Moon  was game-changing for shoujo anime, making everything before it seem dated overnight, rather than that Sailor Moon was some great malaise on the industry.

His real major complaint is that he believes digital animation processes and CG are "changing the aesthetic" of anime: so his real thing is "why can't we paint it on cels like the olds days?", but simultaneously criticizing the new generation for not doing enough to create their own style and copying from the past. Seriously? Those two criticisms are totally at odds with each other.

[Leafsnail]

“The fact that you see salarymen reading manga and pornography on the trains and being unafraid, unashamed or anything, is something you wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago, with people who grew up under a different system of government."

So uh, is Anno pro-fascism then?  Not sure how else I'm supposed to read this.

Unless by system he's just referring to the lack of US influence?

[NullForceOmega]

Japan as a whole suffers from a serious form of identity crisis regarding WWII.  Prior to the events of that war, the Japanese people and government believed in a very real sense that all other cultures and values were beneath them.  America has forced japan on not one but TWO separate occasions to accept a superior power to themselves, they are terrified by that, and it impacts every facet of Japanese society.  This is getting kind of rambling, but ultimately it boils down to, they hate us but respect us, and they feel that kind of ambivalence in everything they now do.

[Neonivek]

I wouldn't say current Japan hates America outright.

They are just suffering from both envy and inadequacy issues at the same time!

Canada has it too (Honestly Canada from Hetalia is... pretty spot on in terms of his relationship with America FOR THE MOST PART "Please stop being an ass" then America turns around with a chainsaw "What? I can't hear you!")... but Japan has it real bad.

Id say between them Japan has it more... Canada only has one saying about how America is bigger than us... while I know Japan has at least two.

[NullForceOmega]

There are forces in Japanese popular media that have been actively stimulating anti-western attitudes for about a decade now (at least overtly), it's becoming so obvious that I have real problems watching most modern anime.  That and the stories are so recycled that they hurt my soul.  Positive note: Gargantia is the most amazing, well executed, modern anime I have seen.  All others pale in comparison.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but that is typical of Japan to have both highly progressive and regressive attitudes in place at the same time in force.

Heck, even within the same anime.

And I am speaking in a larger scope then just their attitudes towards the western countries. Trust me they aren't very nice to Taiwan.

[Reelya]

Yeah Gargantia is pretty good. Have you seen Shinsekai Yori?

BTW you might like to check out other series by the writer of Gargantia. The currently airing one is Aldnoah Zero.

And I am speaking in a larger scope then just their attitudes towards the western countries. Trust me they aren't very nice to Taiwan.

This could be the Just World fallacy at play, relating to nations that were under the colonial thumb of Japan. People tend to negatively stereotype the worth of those that they have harmed. "I kicked you in the face? well it's ok because you must be a worthless human being, who didn't deserve not being kicked in the face.". Psychologists have noted that this is a form of circular logic for protection of self-esteem: I hurt you, but your worthless/bad, therefore I'm not a bad person for hurting you.

I think this type of emotional detachment isn't necessarily bad, it's a necessary part of just being able to emotionally cope with the world we live in: 30000 Peruvians die in an earthquake? You react more to your 1 neighbor dying. You value one person more than all those others. Thinking about it too much just isn't healthy nor productive in any way. If we took every bad thing seriously 24 hours a day we wouldn't ever get out of bed. Guarantee that everyones ancestors were responsible directly or indirectly for wiping out someone to make room for their offspring.

[Neonivek]

I was more talking about their depiction of Taiwan as far as anime is concerned.

[Culise]

And I am speaking in a larger scope then just their attitudes towards the western countries. Trust me they aren't very nice to Taiwan.

This could be the Just World fallacy at play, relating to nations that were under the colonial thumb of Japan. People tend to negatively stereotype the worth of those that they have harmed. "I kicked you in the face? well it's ok because you must be a worthless human being, who didn't deserve not being kicked in the face.". Psychologists have noted that this is a form of circular logic for protection of self-esteem: I hurt you, but your worthless/bad, therefore I'm not a bad person for hurting you.

I think this type of emotional detachment isn't necessarily bad, it's a necessary part of just being able to emotionally cope with the world we live in: 30000 Peruvians die in an earthquake? You react more to your 1 neighbor dying. You value one person more than all those others. Thinking about it too much just isn't healthy nor productive in any way. If we took every bad thing seriously 24 hours a day we wouldn't ever get out of bed. Guarantee that everyones ancestors were responsible directly or indirectly for wiping out someone to make room for their offspring.

Ummm, I hate to note this, but there's a difference between the "30000 Peruvians versus 1 neighbor" example and what you outline in the first paragraph - I don't recall any Japanese oppression of Peru (unless you count Alberto Fujimori ), after all.  There's a difference between not even noticing the suffering of people and actively portraying them collectively as racist stereotypes, idiots, and/or as useless.  I do agree that Japanese depiction of Taiwanese, Koreans (both zainichi and mainland), and especially mainland Chinese in anime has always been a bit...ah, hit or miss, shall we say?  There are some good examples, and there are good people, but there are also some rather unfortunate ones that have emerged in the past.

[Neonivek]

Wait there is a nuanced version of Taiwan in an anime somewhere? Really?

What anime?