Ghibli Co-Founder Calls Evangelion Director the Next Anime Industry Leader

roseofbattle

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Ghibli Co-Founder Calls Evangelion Director the Next Anime Industry Leader

Hideaki Anno, director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, could be one of the next anime industry leaders following Hayao Miyazaki's retirement.

Director and animator Hideaki Anno, best known for Neon Genesis Evangelion, will have his works featured at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival. During a press conference, Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli co-founder and general manager, looked to Anno as an anime industry leader following Hayao Miyazaki's retirement. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127382-Hayao-Miyazaki-Ghiblis-Anime-Legend-Retires-at-72]

The TIFF will feature a string of Anno's previous works as "The World of Hideaki Anno." This is the first time a major screening has showcased his works. The full line-up, including works in the Evangelion series, GunBuster, and Nadia the Secret of Blue Water, is listed online. [http://2014.tiff-jp.net/news/en/?p=6821]

"When I was asked for an advice by the festival about launching Animation program, I came up with an idea of spotlighting on individual Animation filmmaker and I thought Anno might be the one after Hayao Miyazaki had announced his retirement," Suzuki said. "I truly believe that Anno will be the successor in the Japanese animated film industry and animation can only be run by few talented people, and Anno is the one. You have to value the talented people like him. Anno is going to lead the animation industry for the next at least 10 years in Japan."

Studio Ghibli is now restructuring and temporarily shut down. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/hayao%20miyazaki ]

Anno and Miyazaki had worked together for years. Miyazaki hired Anno in his early twenties when he worked for Miyazaki as an animator on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and Anno voiced the lead character in The Wind Rises. Suzuki describes Anno as "the only man Hayao Miyazaki would ever acknowledge as his apprentice."

Anno served as the director, storyboarder, and scriptwriter for the popular psychological mecha anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. It ran as a TV series in the mid-90s with a movie called The End of Evangelion serving as an alternate ending to the series. Anno has directed three more movies, with a fourth in production, in the "Rebuild" series of Evangelion.


Source: Business Wire [http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140827005440/en/27th-Tokyo-International-Film-Festival-%E2%80%9CThe-World#.U_8xiYBdW2A]


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ryukage_sama

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This makes a lot of sense, at least from the context of Anno and Studio Ghibli's work. Anno's character in The Wind Rises is widely interpreted as an allegory for Miyazaki himself and the legacy of his work. I'm not so sure Anno is the future of the anime industry in any commercial or artistic sense, but that could change if Anno is given creative control at Ghibli, as this statement by Suzuki could infer.
 

Fappy

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I am not a big follower of the industry (I watch the stuff), but it looks like Anno's kind of... 'stabilized' in recent years. I understand he used to be kind of nutty, but the more recent work I have seen of his has been far more comprehensive even when it's being weird and/or satirical.
 

Casual Shinji

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Anno does seem to be one of the few old guards still active in this industry, but to call him an industry leader these days... What of any significance has Anno really created after NGE? I mean, His and Her Circumstances was pretty good, but not an original work and hardly a push for the medium.

I'd say Anno doing the Rebuild's indicates he's out of ideas and just wants to live off his old succes.
 

Imre Csete

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Casual Shinji said:
Anno does seem to be one of the few old guards still active in this industry, but to call him an industry leader these days... What of any significance has Anno really created after NGE? I mean, His and Her Circumstances was pretty good, but not an original work and hardly a push for the medium.

I'd say Anno doing the Rebuild's indicates he's out of ideas and just wants to live off his old succes.
He's as relevant as Kevin Smith or Tim Burton these days.

The importance of his works can't be appreciated without the context in it was made, so I'm puzzled myself aswell.
 

Mahorfeus

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Casual Shinji said:
I'd say Anno doing the Rebuild's indicates he's out of ideas and just wants to live off his old succes.
I've always it as being more of a George Lucas kind of thing; it's his baby and he wants to present it in such a way that he wasn't able to back in the day due lack of technology and what have you. Well, before 3.0 at least...

I like Anno, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy that can catch lightning in a bottle more than once.
 

Redryhno

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Casual Shinji said:
Anno does seem to be one of the few old guards still active in this industry, but to call him an industry leader these days... What of any significance has Anno really created after NGE? I mean, His and Her Circumstances was pretty good, but not an original work and hardly a push for the medium.

I'd say Anno doing the Rebuild's indicates he's out of ideas and just wants to live off his old succes.
Not to mention the creator of Circumstances pulled support from it a quarter of the way through the work because they heavily deviated from the tone of the original, which resulted in it not being completed.

I can't consider Anno an industry leader, he did Eva, and that's about all he's got to his name. Gen Urobuchi and Watanabe are closer to industry leaders than Anno as far as I'm concerned, unless they're just talking about him being the next head of Ghibli, in which case I really am not being able to see it exactly. Dark themes are sorta prevalent throughout their works, but it's always countered with their pretty childlike wonder they're so damn good at doing. And Anno has never struck me as a guy that can do that.
 

Casual Shinji

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Redryhno said:
Not to mention the creator of Circumstances pulled support from it a quarter of the way through the work because they heavily deviated from the tone of the original, which resulted in it not being completed.
I heard about that, but I actually like Kare Kano all the way through. I don't know at what point the original author pulled support, but that show is probably one of the few if not only romantic anime I've ever seen that gave a realistic view and progression of a relationship.

I can't consider Anno an industry leader, he did Eva, and that's about all he's got to his name. Gen Urobuchi and Watanabe are closer to industry leaders than Anno as far as I'm concerned, unless they're just talking about him being the next head of Ghibli, in which case I really am not being able to see it exactly. Dark themes are sorta prevalent throughout their works, but it's always countered with their pretty childlike wonder they're so damn good at doing. And Anno has never struck me as a guy that can do that.
Well, Anno's done more good stuff. Nadia was a fun adventure though is also a kind of a giant rip off from Castle in the Sky. And Gunbuster, despite the severe amount of booby bounching, is a very compelling little series where sci-fi is used to great effect. And it has probably the best ending of any Anno/Gainax franchise, though that's not saying much. But it is really damn good!

And if we're going to talk about industry leads I'm gonna have throw in Katsuhiro Otomo and Koji Morimoto. These guys made some the most technically impressive anime ever created. It's a shame they don't really seem to be doing much of anything anymore.
 

Redryhno

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Casual Shinji said:
Redryhno said:
Not to mention the creator of Circumstances pulled support from it a quarter of the way through the work because they heavily deviated from the tone of the original, which resulted in it not being completed.
I heard about that, but I actually like Kare Kano all the way through. I don't know at what point the original author pulled support, but that show is probably one of the few if not only romantic anime I've ever seen that gave a realistic view and progression of a relationship.
Yeah, it had something to do with them focusing more on the comedy aspect of it than the romance, which I sorta call bullshit on, because reading it, while good, is sometimes a chore to get through small segments of because it's so heavily focused on. Sorta like the eye-staring and name chanting segments are supposed to be in-universe in Rosario+Vampire for everyone that sees it happening.

Well, Anno's done more good stuff. Nadia was a fun adventure though is also a kind of a giant rip off from Castle in the Sky. And Gunbuster, despite the severe amount of booby bounching, is a very compelling little series where sci-fi is used to great effect. And it has probably the best ending of any Anno/Gainax franchise, though that's not saying much. But it is really damn good!

And if we're going to talk about industry leads I'm gonna have throw in Katsuhiro Otomo and Koji Morimoto. These guys made some the most technically impressive anime ever created. It's a shame they don't really seem to be doing much of anything anymore.
I would agree with you, except for the fact that neither have done much that we know about in the last decade or so, similar to Anno, their time has sorta expired in terms of being industry leads. I didn't really care for Gunbuster myself, though I will admit that it's ending was really great, if a bit..

Annoying since everyone lives after the big booms, really would've preferred it if it had ended with one or both of them dying or both of them arriving back home to actually find that it was gone and figuring out what they were going to do for the next...however long they had left to live.

Never seen Nadia, but considering I only seem to enjoy the endings of projects he's involved in the story side of things, I'll eventually get around to it I'm sure.
 

FalloutJack

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Well, not FOR making Evangelion, I can tell you that. That don't make no sense.
 

Casual Shinji

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Redryhno said:
I would agree with you, except for the fact that neither have done much that we know about in the last decade or so, similar to Anno, their time has sorta expired in terms of being industry leads.
Yeah I know, but they made the best shit back then. Morimoto especially was a genuis with animation.

I didn't really care for Gunbuster myself, though I will admit that it's ending was really great, if a bit..

Annoying since everyone lives after the big booms, really would've preferred it if it had ended with one or both of them dying or both of them arriving back home to actually find that it was gone and figuring out what they were going to do for the next...however long they had left to live.
I really liked how it was left open in this extremely bittersweet way. Throughout the series you get an increasing sense of the world going on without them due to the warped time, and then it culminates in this 50.000 year time jump that just hits you like a ton of bricks; They saved the Earth, but there's nothing left of the world they knew, being basically aliens now. And eventhough they'll be hailed as saviors of the planet, everyone they've ever cared about is dead.

It's like this spin cycle of emotions and I love it.

Never seen Nadia, but considering I only seem to enjoy the endings of projects he's involved in the story side of things, I'll eventually get around to it I'm sure.
It's a good show. A lot of precursors to NGE to be found in there.
 

Fox12

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Was he not already an industry leader?

I don't know, I loved evangelion, but he hasn't done anything since. The troubled genius artist isn't troubled anymore. It sounds like they're just desperate for a cultural figure head, or a face for the industry now that miyazaki's gone. That or they're grooming him to take position at ghibli which would be.... Strange. Like if David lynch became the head of Disney animation. Actually, that would be hilarious, get on that.
 

Coruptin

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anno is the hero we desrve but not the one we need right now

hopefully he creates something that riles up the crazy otaku. they might even incapacitate anno himself, but we'll just affix his comatose body to a golden throne as a reminder to the evil of anime. then the public will pass judgement on the industry and animation studios will be uprooted and left to wither.

just let the industry die. in the future, when we are older, wiser, we will rebuild, but at the moment anime is suffocating in its own excrement and ejaculation. it's on the precipice of damnation. all it requires is a push. anno could be the hero to give it that push.

tl;dr
i hope rebuild 4.0 is just 3 hours of anno taking a literal shit as he talks about how much he hates anime fans whilst the most heart wrenchingly beautiful rendition of pachelbel's canon plays in the background
 

Soviet Heavy

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At this point I think that Anno is just trolling his audience rather than being an actual visionary. He knows nothing he does is going to please the psychotic otakus that sent him death threats over EVA, so he's just playing them for cash. That, and I still think he's a rather unstable nutjob.