The "Critical Stage of Expression" lost by Shin Eva is seen in "Neon Genesis Evangelion: Air / Magokoro wo Kimini ni". Nostalgic Anime Retrospective No. 78.

Shin Evangelion the Movie:||" was released in March of this year, and is still in theaters two months later. Shin Eva" seems to be in a mood of "no criticism" acclaim, both in terms of content and box-office performance. Now is the only time to re-evaluate what "Neon Genesis Evangelion: Air / Magokoro wo Kimini ni" was like when it was released in the summer of 1997 as the final part of the old series.

Air/Magokoro wo Kimi ni" is a film remake of the TV version (episodes 25-26), which ended in indigestion, as it should have. The entire "Complementary Plan for Humanity," which was not clearly depicted on TV, is revealed in ......, but live-action footage begins to be mixed in the middle of the film, and the film loses specificity. (The scenery of a local city, which looks as if it were shot on location with a handheld camera, is probably from director Hideaki Anno's hometown, Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture.)
In this column, I would like to examine why live-action scenes were necessary in "Air/Magokoro wo Kimini ni", which could have been completed as a high-quality cel-animated film.

Is it possible to abandon the "body" and meld the "soul" into one in celluloid animation?

In "Air/Magokoro wo Kimi ni", there are many depictions of the human body melting and crumbling. Naked Ayanami, standing in front of Gendou, has one of her arms fall off, and a NERV member's body turns into orange liquid and flies off.
The ultimate in depictions of human body destruction is probably Lilith, the NERV underground giant that begins to move when Ayanami is assimilated. Lilith, depicted as white and shaggy, dismounts from the crucifix on which she was crucified and begins to walk. Lilith's hands slip through the nails driven into her hands. The skin of her hands gets caught on the nails, and the wrinkling and pulling of the skin is described in an exquisite manner. When the mask peels off from her face, it is as if the flesh is rotting.
Even more disgusting is the scene in which Lilith, transformed into a giant Ayanami (hereafter referred to as "Giant Ayanami"), appears at the NERV headquarters. Giant Ayanami's left hand slips like a ghost through the floor where chairs and consoles are set up, and through the body of Maya Ibuki, who is crouched on the floor. Maya screams at the behavior of the giant Ayanami, which defies the laws of physics.

According to Ikari Gendou, the Human Complementation Plan is "a complement to the missing heart," by "unraveling the AT Field, the walls of the heart. The goal of the plan is to "discard unnecessary bodies and unite all souls into one". Just before this, Gendou, seeing Ayanami's arm collapsed, also says, "The AT Field will not be able to maintain your shape.
In other words, the "form" of the body and the "wall" of the mind are spoken of collectively. If the loss of a character's form is connected to the unification of his or her "soul," it makes sense that "Air/Magokoro wo Kimini ni" (Air: My Heart for You), which depicts the entire human completion project, contains a series of depictions of the destruction of the human body.

Without paint inside the outlines, celluloid characters cannot exist.

However, it cannot be said that people really "lose their physical form = one soul" as per Gendo's ideal.
This is because the characters depicted in celluloid animation are always framed by outlines. A character in celluloid animation can only be created by painting the inside of the outlines with skin tone or hair color. This is the structural fate of cel animation. Whether Maya's body is enveloped by the giant Ayanami's hand or all the characters burst out as orange liquid, contour lines and tress lines are always drawn.
Cel-animated characters cannot abandon their physical form. In the latter half of the film, although the naked bodies of Shinji and Ayanami are depicted as connected, their bodies are still wrapped in contour lines, so the characters' shapes are still preserved.

Since the Complementary Project for Humanity must depict "the united souls of characters who have lost their forms," its depiction must be an abstract image scene.
In the first half of the film, Shinji's childhood memories are depicted with rough images and non-cellular drawings made with crayons and other art materials, but after the giant Ayanami engulfs the first Evangelion aircraft, countless images flicker like subliminals and unconnected lines are layered on top of each other, making it difficult to discern what is going on. The film is a subliminal, dizzying flicker of countless images and layers of unconnected dialogue, making it difficult to discern what is happening.
At the end of the film, live-action images of nude women, movie theaters, water surfaces, crowded streets, and utility poles appear. At this point, it becomes impossible to interpret whether the story is progressing or stagnating. There are also figures dressed up as Ayanami and Misato, but are they the "real" ones and the characters in the celluloid images "temporary"?
After the live-action scene, the previously mentioned scene of a naked Shinji and Ayanami melting together appears. If we are to return to the celluloid play, how should we position the live-action scene that reflects "reality"?　With the answer to this question left unanswered, "Air/Magokoro wo Kimini ni" ends with the celluloid Shinji and Asuka suspended in mid-air.

Of course, Shinji and Asuka in the last scene are separated by outlines. This is natural since they are celluloid pictures, but after being shown a live-action scene in which it is impossible to judge, the fact that they are "in a state given shape by the AT field" becomes more persuasive. At least in the live-action scene, there were no outlines of the cel-shaded characters.
During the live-action scenes, which seemed to be a meander, it could be said that not only the characters but the film itself "melted". How else could the film depict the state in which "people lost their forms and became one soul" in the Complementary Plan for Humanity in a cel-animated format, but by inserting scenes not from cel-animated films?

The result of pursuing such a high level of purity of expression must have been "Air/Magokoro wo Kimini ni", in which the film itself had no choice but to collapse. If so, is there any other expression as sincere as this?


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)