Hideaki Anno Quotes

Hideaki Anno is a Japanese animator, film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known as the co-founder of Gainax and the creator of the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Hideaki Anno Quotes

”It’s a product of despair, though.” -Hideaki Anno

” I guess you’d like to see where it goes.” -Hideaki Anno

”Characters in animation do not cheat. They do not let you go for another. Animation is on certain points, very close to the po*nography industry. All your physical needs are met. You can watch different animations and find anything you desire.” -Hideaki Anno

” I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion.” -Hideaki Anno

”It’s more of a disappointment than a despair. It’s abandonment.” -Hideaki Anno

”Evangelion is my life and I have put everything I know into this work. This is my entire life. My life itself.” -Hideaki Anno

” Ah, I don’t need anyone who only does things halfway. (laugh)” -Hideaki Anno

” You’re an idiot. Study harder.” -Hideaki Anno

”A broken man who could do nothing for four years.” -Hideaki Anno

”A production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.” -Hideaki Anno

”Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we’re offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the ‘all-about Eva’ manuals, but there is no such thing. Don’t expect to get answers by someone. Don’t expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers.” -Hideaki Anno

Hideaki Anno

”No, not really. I haven’t decided, or should I say, it hasn’t come to me yet.” -Hideaki Anno

”Somehow, nothing but an inkling came to me. There was no epoch-making “That’s It!” Although, I _am_ thinking of stopping being limited by the bounds of time and space. (brief silence) Let’s see…methodology… For “KareKano”, if I try to do interesting things with a methodology that doesn’t depend on the number of cels, it’ll turn out just like “EVA”. I’m tired of reusing cuts and depicting using freeze-frame rhythm. That was how I did “EVA”. It’s what I did since the “Top (wo Nerai!)” days. But, not counting on the number of frames, the methodology that shows things most effectively is exactly that. It’s not a new methodology at all. To put it bluntly, settling into creatorhood may let you stay alive in life, but I just can’t stand the thought.” -Hideaki Anno

”Yeah, can’t stand it. Maybe it’s okay for people over 50 to get set in their ways as creators, but I intend to fight it as much as possible. Or so I say, and yet no matter how much I speak of seeking a new methodology, I can’t leave the original work to people walking on the street. What I’m talking about is the influential work known as “Macross”. In those days Yamaga (Hiroyuki), me, Sadamoto (Yoshiyuki), and Maeda (Mahiro) all began to get involved with anime because of our student part-time jobs. I could say that was how huge the talent of director Ishiguro (Noboru), who used that kind of unknown youngsters, was; the result of sensibilities drawn from deep within. Creators in those days had substance.” -Hideaki Anno

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”The reason the game business prospered and grew so fast is because it was a venture. But games have finally tanked too. It happened pretty fast, didn’t it? Our generation is naturally a shallow one, and there’s noone who’s trying to overturn things. There isn’t anyone trying to make “me-anime” now, is there?” -Hideaki Anno

”The first time I saw “Virtua Fighter”, I thought, is this what anime is up against? It was quite a shock. That’s when I realized I’d have to level up somewhere other than the visuals, I guess right before I did “EVA”. Visual impact is anime’s strong point, but since games had followed on anime’s heels, it had become a time when a methodology no different from the others just wouldn’t cut it. All the cards had already been dealt, so we had no choice but to change the combination, or turn over cards that were thought to be taboo. That’s what I mean when I say that “EVA” didn’t use even a single new methodology.” -Hideaki Anno

”Yeah. They can’t seem to overturn it.” -Hideaki Anno

”Oshii (Mamoru)-san says “Now that the pioneers of anime have died, it will die with them.” He says the history of anime ended long ago.” -Hideaki Anno

”No, but, I can’t stand CG shadows.” -Hideaki Anno

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” I hate them see…I guess they’re just not crisp or something.” -Hideaki Anno

”So, with brush shadows, when you make them fluffy, I just can’t take it. It’s just not manly. (laugh) Girlishness when trying to express aesthetics just sucks. Shadows should be crisp and definitive. “Seaweed” shadows weren’t popular in the original robot anime.” -Hideaki Anno

” I thought of a lot of different stuff for “KareKano”, but it seems impossible to do impactfully under the current system. All the same, starting around episode 9 a lot of inexperienced kids appear, the kind for whom it’s their first time in front of a mic. We’ll see what happens.” -Hideaki Anno

”Kuni-chan, you should come on too, as a teacher or something.” -Hideaki Anno

”When depicting the aesthetics of mecha, the wavy shadows.” -Hideaki Anno

”Yeah, well, I can stand Sakano (Ichirou)-san and the other guys with good sense using them, but with everybody else they look like nothing more than seaweed. You wouldn’t think anything but that the mecha had camouflage markings. Those aren’t shadows. When we did “Ouritsu (Uchuugun)”, it was totally counter to that. The shadows were crisp, and the highlights did nothing but give the impression of light. If cel anime targets aesthetics it’s all over. Both clothing and skin are the same except for color. Just give it up, and go for the gusto in some different area. No matter how hard you struggle, there are just some things you can’t fight your way out of. The people who created the system at the outset understood this.” -Hideaki Anno

Neon Genesis Evangelion

”In real life, bad things happen, like rowdy neighbors at a shop, but impact isn’t virtual, is it?” -Hideaki Anno

” Just like the difference between a war you’re in and a war you see on TV.” -Hideaki Anno

”That’s because impact is tough stuff. Movies can’t offer anything more than a pseudo-experience.” -Hideaki Anno

”Recently I watched some “Kinchuu” (“Kingiyo Chuuihou!”). As research for “KareKano”. I thought that perhaps that was what gags and shoujo manga were. But it felt a little old.” –Hideaki Anno

”Yeah. Whether something’s major or not at Comiket amounts to whether or not it gets made into erotic stuff. After all, the sex industry is strong no matter what era it is. As Tsurumaki (Kaguya) said, earnestly value all things equally. Both Hiromatsu Junko and Ayanami Rei. I can’t express it in words, but I feel the same chasm within myself.” -Hideaki Anno

”Miyazaki (Hayao)-san said that we’re the “first generation to value the the virtual and actual equally”, but I say “What about you?”. -Hideaki Anno

”In the old days, I had never seen anything like real impact, and thought the whole thing was absurd.” -Hideaki Anno

”Adjusting a set in real life was such a pain. Anime and movies are much cooler.” -Hideaki Anno

” Does that include us, by any chance? It’s an existence where courage and familiarity seem to be draining away.” -Hideaki Anno

” In order to see a made-up drama, there are even people who neglect their real lives, right? That kind of person does things like become a seiyuu fan.” -Hideaki Anno

”The first time I realized that was with Noda (Hideki)’s drama. I thought, this is the real thing! Before that, within myself I felt that the only thing that gave the feeling of corporeality in the anime dimension were the seiyuu. That’s why I kept on trying to express life. But I was deluding myself.” -Hideaki Anno

”For something that could connect the virtual and the real, I too turned to the seiyuu. But that was a mistake. That’s why I tried to show something different in “KareKano”. But altering the existing system is tough.” -Hideaki Anno

In an interview with Anno he was asked what he thinks about the future of animation. He answered that animation will be more about sound and vision rather than just sound and that it will be more like a live performance. “I think if we’re going to keep making anime, then we have to do something new.”