Shin Evangelion the Movie: ||" (Part 2)──Why Makinami Mari Illustrious kept singing Showa songs [Re-Animate for the Post-Heisei World Part 9

As the time period is changing from the Heisei Era to the 2021 Era, the serial series "Re-Animate for the Post-Heisei World" aims to capture the contemporary landscape through time reviews of notable anime.

This year's theme was finally released in March 2021, after two postponements! Shin Evangelion Theatre:||" has brought the curtain down on a quarter of a century of history.

Critic Daichi Nakagawa will give his verdict on the conclusion of this historical blockbuster representing the Heisei era in two installments, one before and one after the film.
(There are many spoilers, so please be aware of them before reading the article.)

Click here to read the first part!
⇒ Summary: "Shin Evangelion the Movie: ||" - Prologue to the End of the Postwar Anime Adolescence that Was Too Long (Part 1) [Re-Animate for the Post-Heisei World Part 8

The Maturation of Adults as a "Time of Merit

The stance of this film as a "post-disaster fantasy" by way of 2016's "Shin Godzilla" contrasts with the biggest embodiment of the post-Eva imagination, Makoto Shinkai's "Your Name. which is the greatest embodiment of the post-eva imagination.

As discussed in detail in Part 4 of this series, "The Weather Child" in 2019 will be the first film in the series to be inspired by the Great East Japan Earthquake, which was the inspiration for the previous film "Kimi no na wa. was criticized for using the disaster in a local city imaginized by the Great East Japan Earthquake as a tool to enhance the tragedy of the love romance between the main couple, and then using it as a device for emotional pornography by resolving to "pretend" that the disaster did not happen.

In other words, as in "Shin Godzilla," this time the capital city of Tokyo is the subject of a simulation of the damage caused by climate change, and the film sets up a Sekai-style problem of whether to sacrifice the heroine Hina Amano, a weather maiden, to human sacrifice for the safety of Japanese society, or whether to recover her even if Tokyo is submerged, and then the protagonist, Houtaka Morishima, is given the choice of the latter. The conclusion of "The Weather Child" is a celebration of the innocence of adolescent rebellion against the world by forcing the protagonist, Morishima Hotaka, to make the latter decision.

From this point of view, the world collapse caused by Shinji's decision to rescue Ayanami in "Shin Eva", followed by the harsh pursuit of responsibility in "Shin Eva", and the de-secularized flow of forgiveness through interaction with society in "Shin Eva" is a brilliant contrast to "Weather Child", which is all about exoneration of Sailtaka's choices. The "weather child" is a beautifully opposite of Hontaka's "Weather Child," which is all about absolving Hontaka of his choices.

Even more striking than the contrast between Shinji and Hondaka is the change in the role of the adult generation, who are in the position of guiding the protagonist. The therapy in the post-disaster community of the third village and the disappearance of the other Rei, who has grown accustomed to the community and begun to develop a sense of humanity, are the reasons why the story from Part B onward, after Shinji's decision to return to Wunder with Asuka, focuses on the true intentions of Misato Katsuragi and her actions.

The adults around Nerf at the time of the old film were treated as the most decent people in the play, including Ryouji Kaji, who was the investigator of the mystery, and were more or less unstable in the sense of adult children with dysfunctional family environments and sexual relationships, which was also a distant cause of the development of Shinji and Asuka being driven into a corner. The "Eva" series was a very different story from the old "Eva" series.

This image of a boss who is unable to mature, as in the old "Eva" film, is also present in "Weather Child," in the form of Keisuke Suga, whom Makoto Shinkai seems to have projected his own generation's sense of inadequacy, and whose status and voice within the organization and society are kept at a low level to help the protagonists, so that he plays no role in the story beyond that of an object to be overcome by the protagonists. In contrast, in "Shin Eva," the protagonists are not the main character's target to overcome.

In contrast, Misato and her friends in "Shin Eva" were only emphasized for their unreasonable attitude toward Shinji in ":Q", perhaps to keep the mood of the old work closer to that of the "Shin Eva", but here, for the first time, they are shown to be determined to protect the remaining human world against Gendo Ikari's Nerf and Zele's plan, and to do so by accepting Kaji's will. The background of his decision as Vile is fully explained, and the viewer is able to see how he has matured as an entity with the ability to take responsibility for the state of the world over the 14 years that have passed since "Shin Godzilla".

In "Shin Godzilla," the role of the Giant Disaster Counter led by Rando Yaguchi is similar to that of the new leaders of the Giant Disaster Counter, but it is a depiction that can be convincingly conveyed only when both the creators and viewers have come to understand the realities of the generation of people who are older than the age of twenty-one as the core of society.

What cannot be ignored as an effect of the film's external influence is the fact that, due to the coincidence of the suspension of production after ":Q" and the delay caused by the Corona disaster, the years from 2007, when ":Introduction" was released, to 2021, when "Shin Eva" was released, are, coincidentally, exactly the same as those in the film, as experienced by the audience. This means that the "Shin Eva" series is no longer a part of the old TV series.

In other words, more time has passed than the 12 years between the old TV series and ": Introduction," and as mentioned earlier, the degree of maturation of the content of "Eva," which seemed to be a premature reboot at the start of the new theatrical version compared to, say, "Z Gundam," has been deepened by the unexpectedly long interval. The fact that the content of "Eva" has matured to the extent that it was prematurely rebooted at the time of the start of the New Drama Version compared to "Z Gundam" can only be called a blessing in disguise.

Thus, "Shin Eva" conveys to the viewer the theme of "reality versus fiction," in a different sense from that of "Shin Godzilla," in that no fictional device can match the persuasive power of the passage of time in reality, on various levels both inside and outside the film.

Looking back on "Evangelion," however, contrary to the impression that it completely changed the imagination of domestic animation, it was a work that always exposed the superiority of the latter when contrasting the fiction of animation with the reality that was the foundation for its creation.

This is also true for the fact that the final two episodes of the TV series could not be completed as an honest story, which, in the social context of the 1990s, provoked an excessive consideration of the mystery and a critical reading of the same era, resulting in the creation of an unprecedented social phenomenon. The old theatrical version, which was the first reworking of the original, was shown twice, once in spring and once in summer, because the production was not completed in time. The film also contains live-action shots of Shinji masturbating to Asuka, and ends with Asuka's shocking line, "I feel sick," as a message that forces the viewer to return to reality.

Eva" has always exposed the realities surrounding the production system led by Anno, giving viewers an experience that deviates from the fictional nature of a "well-made animation film.

And in fact, it can be said that the fact that the main characters, other than Shinji whose time was stopped by the Eva, have grown old and matured as adults over the course of 14 years has become an undeniably compelling feature of the new film trilogy, which has reached its conclusion with this film.

Of course, this is possible because the fictional expression as animation is of sufficient quality to respond to the course of reality, but symbolically speaking, the know-how and imagination derived from "tokusatsu" were used everywhere as a method of mediation to bring together the relationship between reality and fiction. The most obvious example of this is in Part A, which is the first part of the film.

The most obvious example of this is the elaborately miniaturized scene of the Third Village in Part A, as I have already mentioned, but the development from Part B onward, where the Ville led by Misato rallies to the AAA Wunder as the ship that holds humanity's last hope and heads off to stop Gendo's Complementary Plan for Humanity, is a scene that is reminiscent of Toho's special effects film The story follows the role of the airship Todoroten in Toho's special effects films "Undersea Warship" (1963) and "The Great Planet War" (1977).

In other words, by returning to the lineage of tokusatsu mechanics before "Ultraman" (1966-67), the roots of the general-purpose humanoid battle weapon Evangelion (or giant robot anime as a genre as a whole), for the first time Misato and her friends have gained a circuit of independence and maturity that was impossible in the older works (It goes without saying that the film is also a return to Anno's first TV animation film "Nadia of the Mysterious Sea" (1990-91), in which the high-tech submarine Nautilus serves as the mother ship, including the operation to retake Paris in the avant-garde title that makes extensive use of the Eiffel Tower.)

) Then, after the attack and defense against the same type of ship in Part C, where the assault on Nerf is dared, Wunder runs out of arrows and breaks her sword, and in Part D, where the Human Complementation Project begins and the climax of the father-son confrontation between Shinji on the first Eva and Gendou in Unit 13 proceeds, the Spear of Hope, Cassius, and the Spear of Despair, Gendou, and Shinji are again confronted in the first Eva, Cassius. It is the material for the third spear following Longinus, and even serves as a gimmick to bring the story to its conclusion.

Misato, who had given birth to a son, Ryouji, with Kaji, and had become a mother herself, remained alone in Wunder, entrusting the settlement of her own relationship with her father and the fate of the remaining human race to Shinji, and delivered the Spear of Gaius (Spear of Ville) created from his spine with Ritsuko's cooperation. Misato was exhausted.

Although they share the same role of Shinji's back and dying in the end, the role of "captain's self-sacrifice in the final battle," which in conventional postwar fiction was the role of a mature male in terms of gender, is a world apart from the old Movie version that tried to motivate boys with the sexual romanticism of "adult kisses. It is a world apart when you think about it.

Ultimately, the biggest factor in the development of a story different from the old one through the reboot of the New Movie version was the aging and maturation of Misato and her generation, and the specific role model found in the new version was a pre-Adult Kiss, a genre of robot animation that became closely linked to adolescent individual self-consciousness. The fact that the specific role model was a return to the ship special effects romance, which was depicted as a collaboration of professionalism, should be considered as a key point of this work's production.

Gendou's End, Shinji's Choice──About the Completion of the God Killer/Father Killer Mythology

In contrast to Misato and her friends, who have matured in the special effects sense, and Shinji and Asuka, who are steadily moving toward independence with their support, the only thing left behind in the 1990s mentality of the old works is none other than Gendo Ikari's obsession.

The reality of the Human Complementation Plan that Zele is trying to carry out at the end of the struggle for survival between the apostles and humankind differs considerably between the old and new film versions, due to differences in the tooling of the worldview settings, such as Lilith (more on this later). The focus of the drama remains the same: Gendou's obsession to reunite with his late wife, Yui, even at the cost of all of humanity.

Therefore, the climactic scene of the Additional Impact unfolds in the same image as the climax of the previous film version, in which a giant Ayanami Rei, transformed into a Great Mother as an expression of his obsession with Yui, swallows the entire earth into her womb and fuses with it. The story changes dramatically when Shinji intervenes in the first plane and wishes to have a direct confrontation with Gendou in Unit 13.

The stage for the fight between father and son between the two Evas, which takes place in a fictional world composed of their memories in the negative universe, is the Third New Tokyo City, which is rendered in 3DCG as a miniature set that looks like a monster special effects film, and Misato's apartment room, which is revealed to have been an indoor set at a film studio, and other locations that look like live-action special effects. The film is animated in a manner that resembles live-action special effects. This is a variation on the metafictional expression that was seen in the last two episodes of the TV series and the old movie version, which exposed the fictional nature of the work's world, but the images are more about respecting the skill of those who construct an elaborate fictional reality within reality. Here again, "special effects" as a means of mediating between fiction and reality is found as a circuit for the healthy relationship between Gendo and Shinji, which is at the core of the "Eva" story.

Thus, the clash between father and son shifts from a clash of forces to a dialogue on the train, a mental picture of Shinji's self-questioning since the old film, and the spear of vire sent by Misato arrives at Shinji's side as they begin to understand each other. By acknowledging Shinji's growth as a god-killer ≒ father-killer spear in hand to change the destiny set by mankind itself, Gendo accepts his separation from Yui and decides to get off the train and leave the fate of the world in the hands of his son.

Shinji then interrupts the Complementary Plan for Humanity by using Ville's spear to pierce Unit 13 with the soul of Yui, who had actually remained on the first plane to watch over him. The boy literally becomes a myth, as he mentally completes a picture-perfect Oedipus-type myth, and even recovers the title by rebuilding the world as "Neon Genesis," a "world without Evangelion," using the toolkit of the minus universe.

This is a part of the post-Eva anime lineage since the 2000s, especially the "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" (2011), scripted by Gen Urobuchi, which combined a novel game-derived looping storyline with the world reconstruction end. Although it did not go beyond the realm of a subplot in the development of the story of the new movie version, the hint that Kaworu Nagisa, the last apostle in the previous work, was playing an Akemi Homura-like role to lead Shinji to a route of happiness in the new world line from beginning to end, combined with the fact that he had been hinting at the same time in ": Introduction," has captured the imagination of his successors. In other words, the last part of the work is a "Kaname" story, and the last part of the work is a "Kaname" story, and the last part of the work is a "Kaname" story, and the last part of the work is a "Kaname" story.

In short, Shinji's epilogue, which finally arrives at the Madoka Kaname position, frees Asuka, Kaworu, Rei, and their respective children from the "Eva curse" that has existed since the old works, while catching up to the level of the late 2000s to early 2010s, which became popular around the time of the earthquake, It will bring about a resolution that is full of a sense of true ending in the sense of a circular novel game.

However, the role of the compensator for the world change that Madoka and Lelouch would have had to take on themselves is left to Yui and Gendou, who are more responsible for the events of the old world, and compared to the endings of the heroes of the Zero Era, who were severely held responsible for their own desired order in a world without parents, the adult generation that takes responsibility exists. Compared to the endings of the heroes of the Zero Age, in which the adult generation takes responsibility, the ending of "Shin Eva," in which the adult generation has a sense of presence, is mild and idyllic.

If we reinterpret this on a socially critical level, we can either see it as a retreat from criticality that turns away from the reality of the present world of the 2020s, in which the old role models are increasingly failing, or as a reflection of the world malice and self-serving nature of the younger generation that was overemphasized in the popular Sekai-kei and battle royale/death game dramas of the 2000s and '10s. Or, it may be that the film shows an anti-chronological will to normalize reality by embedding a model of how to fulfill adult responsibilities in the film, in response to the malice of the world and the sense of urgency of self-responsible decision-making that the generation is facing, which has been overemphasized in popular dramas of the 2000s and '10s such as Sekaikei and Battle Royale/Death Game.

Why did Mari, the guide to neon genesis, continue to sing Showa-era songs?

The final line of the documentary, "Good-bye, all Evangelion," in which Anno asked Emi Ogata, the voice actress who played Shinji, to express her feelings for the 25 years that had passed since the film's inception, was played in the documentary, and the world of Neon Genesis without Eva was brought back to a positive tone of reality. The final scene of the film is depicted with live-action photography around Ube-Shinkawa Station in Anno's hometown of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

It should also be mentioned that the third heroine, Makinami Mari Illustrious, who was not in the previous films, was the one who guided Shinji to the world outside the story.

The role she played in the story overlaps with the presence of Anno's wife, Moyoco Anno, who was Anno's partner in reality and remained close to him during his mental difficulties during the production of the new film version. It has already become a household word in Internet discourse, so I have nothing to comment on this point.

If there is one point I would like to add regarding Mari's externalities to the "Eva" world, it is the significance of having Maaya Sakamoto as the voice actress in charge of Mari's character.

She was one of the children who piloted Eva, but she was also of the generation that was in the same laboratory as the young Yui and Gendo and had a good understanding of the world's affairs, and her humming and vocabulary gave her a sense of a Showa-era old man. Sakamoto, the youngest of the voice actors playing the heroine, has a long career as a dubbing actress for Western films, and her calm voice and assured performance certainly made her a natural choice for the role.

What was even more impressive, however, was the casting of Sakamoto in her first starring role as an anime voice actress in "Tenku no Escaflowne" (1996), a shoujo manga-style robot anime produced by Sunrise and aired the year after the "Eva" TV series, as well as her debut as a singer with the theme song "Yakusoku no Yairanai" from Victor Entertainment. At the same time, she also made her debut as a singer with the theme song "Yakusoku no Yairanai" from Victor Entertainment, and at the time of "Shin Eva," she was also celebrating her 25th anniversary.

Sakamoto's activities as a voice actor artist since the late 1990s were a counterpart to Megumi Hayashibara, who played Rei and was popular as a singer with King Records, and led the third voice acting boom as the original idol voice actor. The commercial success of "Eva" was largely due to the skills of producer Toshimichi Otsuki, who headed King Records' anime label Starchild at the time, but the voice actor idols belonging to King Records basically established the mainstream of the boom with their energetic moe and cheer songs. On the other hand, Sakamoto, produced by Yoko Kanno, released her own original albums with a musical style that avoided the "anime song" taste as much as possible and adopted classical, folk, jazz, and city pop tastes, while also focusing on high fantasy and stylish science fiction for tie-up productions. The company's tie-up works are also characterized by their artistic branding, which is similar to that of fantasy floating music.

In this sense, while "Eva" was established through the accumulation of the voice actor idol boom of the King Starchild series, the career of Maaya Sakamoto, a diva who has stood on the back of the Victor Flying Dog series as an alternative, is also a part of the old world of "Eva". The career of Maaya Sakamoto, a diva who has stood on the back of the Victorian-Flying Dog type signboard as an alternative to "Eva," was also an important factor in shaping Mari's presence as a critic from outside the world of the old works.

Beyond Megumi Hayashibara covering folk/new music songs such as "Sayonara Hi Hi", "Tsubasa wo Kudasai", and "VOYAGER: Tombstone without a Date" as the official accompaniment to the film, Mari in the film was accompanied by "March of Three Hundred Sixty-Five Steps", "Hitori Nanai na Machi", and "Marriage on the Road to Truth", which were never included on the soundtrack. The fact that Mari sang songs that would never appear on the soundtrack, such as "March of 365 Steps," "Hitori nanai" and "Truth on the Road March," to an unnatural degree, can be read into the background of the history of the anime song labels.

Coincidentally, I attended Maaya Sakamoto's 25th anniversary live concert at Yokohama Arena on March 20 and 21, the week after the release of "Shin Eva," and was made aware of this context once again. (Of course, the live concert, in which the number of seats was limited due to infection control measures and the audience celebrated Maaya's memorial in a quiet and subdued atmosphere, was also a great event.)

The meaning of the "voice change" in the last scene - between Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai

Now, let's return to the story. In the last scene, where Shinji and Mari run off together into "reality," there is another "voice" issue that comes from outside the history of "Eva.

The voice change from Emi Ogata to Ryunosuke Kamiki, who plays the grown-up Shinji, is another problem that comes from outside the history of Eva.

In the live-action-based background depicted in a calm photorealistic manner, on a station platform where trains pass by and former friends seem to be leading different lives without memories of the play, the two find each other at the end of the story, having grown up a little.

When the voice of one of them is provided by Kamiki, there is only one situation that comes to mind. In the same year that Hideaki Anno achieved his biggest hit with "Shin Godzilla," "Kimi no na wa. This is the reason why this paper is based on the theory of the "Shin Gojira" story.

If we are to decipher the meaning of this based on the logic of this paper so far, it is that Tachibana Taki, the main character of "Kimi no na wa. Shinji, who wished for a "world without Evangelion," sought happiness in a tranquility of daily life similar to the status quo of the Japanese society we live in, rather than building a new society in a post-apocalyptic disaster utopia such as, for example, the Third Village. In other words, he sought happiness in the peace and tranquility of everyday life, similar to the current state of Japanese society.

In 2016, when the position of "national animation director," as it were, shifted from Hayao Miyazaki to Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno, who presented "Shin Godzilla" to the world as a member of the generation in between, belatedly filled the thematic void between the two and left the task of making this kind of work to younger generations, which is what this "voice" is all about. This is the meta-message that can be read from the too arbitrary "change of voice.

If Hayao Miyazaki is the orthodox embodiment of Toei's postwar animation style, which, under the banner of "Japan's Disney," has tried to create 100% fiction with the vitality of full-animated movement in its philosophy, then the "Disney" style of postwar animation, based on computer graphics and digital effects technology fostered in video games, has been a more traditional style, incorporating real-life scenery while creating a lyricism of adolescence. While the legitimate embodiment of the postwar anime style was Hayao Miyazaki, it was Makoto Shinkai who expanded the lyricism of youth while incorporating real-life scenery based on computer graphics and digital effects technology nurtured in video games.

Therefore, during this period, he has been working on "Godzilla," "Ultraman," and "Masked Rider" as special effects that mediate between fiction and reality using miniatures and stuffed animals, and "Eva," a compilation of junk SF military anime such as "Atom," "Yamato," and "Gundam," which developed based on the limited animation technique of the Mushi Productions style. The role of Hideaki Anno as a late director of national anime was to connect the missing link in the history of Japanese anime by completing "Eva" as a film, the culmination of a series of junk science fiction military anime such as "Atom," "Yamato," and "Gundam," which developed based on the limited animation techniques of Mushi Productions.

In other words, by showing the reality that even "Eva" would end, he drew the curtain on the overly long adolescent period of postwar Japanese animation and prepared the way for the arrival of a new century in the true sense of the word in a country where time had almost stood still. In other words, I believe that this film more than adequately demonstrates the image of burying the Heisei era as the lost 30 years.

However, it is too late to say that, with 1/5 of the 21st century having already passed, the film, while claiming to be a "neon genesis," only succeeded in confirming the image of reality expansion that Makoto Shinkai had established at least five years earlier. It is indeed too little too late.

Without confronting this, Anno Hideaki would not have been able to go one step further, and while I am well aware that this was an unavoidable theme for "Eva" as long as it was "Eva," I still feel that he was too preoccupied with the 1990s-style issues of Gendo/Shinji's maturation and recognition regarding "fatherhood" and human relationships, and that he was too much concerned with the "Eva" of the 1990s. I believe that the New Theater Version may have missed some of the possibilities that the project of rebuilding "Eva" could have gone much further. I can't help but feel that this is the case.

Conclusion: In What Sense Could "Eva" Have Become a "Myth"?

As I have mentioned above, with a critical tone here and there, the "kizuna" of the third village, for example, and the mature image of shipboard special effects-like collaboration are based on the aspirations of the time immediately after the earthquake 10 years ago, and therefore, they are not necessarily the same as those of the time after that, such as the muddle of Japanese society, the disasters of the US presidential elections in 2016 and 2020, and the "coronas. When viewed through the eyes of the Japanese society that has been in disarray since then, the disasters of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, and the division of the real society exposed by the Corona disaster, it is inevitable that the problematic setting of this work now seems empty.

In any case, most of the ideals and dreams that can be depicted in fiction are nothing more than a search for something similar to a prayer, something that people can still believe in against reality, from the history they have accumulated so far. It is possible that something that looks old in the span of five or ten years may take on a new luster at another opportune moment.

What I would like to address is not whether or not such ad hoc social critical currents have been grasped, but to what extent the author's imagination, at the level of more universal mythological thinking and science fiction thought experimentation, has been able to rise above the layers of personal drama through the author's alter egos such as Shinji and Gendo and the postwar historical context of Japanese anime. How far was the imagination drawn from the more universal level of mythological thinking and science fiction thought experimentation?

When reexamining the rebuilding process of "Shin Eva" from this perspective, one thing that is troubling is the subtle changes in the meaning of the Complementary Plan for Humanity when compared to the previous film.

Since Gendo's personal motive of reuniting with Yui remains the focal point of the drama, it may not be a matter of concern to those who are not fans of the setting, but at the time of "Air/Magokoro wo Kimini ni", the image of human completion by Zele was not that of a weak heart of Gendo alone, but rather that of a plan that would hold the entire human race and even all life. The image of human completion by Zele at the time of "Air/Magokoro, Kimi ni" was not the result of the weakness of Gendo's mind alone, but the fear of otherness and the return to the primordial unity that humanity and all life possess, which is essentially an enlargement of the universal mind that corresponds to the Jungian collective unconscious and the logic of symmetry that crosses the boundary between life and death.

What was predicted in the "Dead Sea Scrolls" was either the annihilation of mankind by the apostles or the annihilation of the apostles to become the children of an impersonal God. There is no more than a variation of the Judeo-Christian "God who tries" eschatology to explain the prophecy.

Therefore, while Zele and Nerf, who accept the prophecy as a given, will carry out the program of the planned harmony to destroy the apostles and become the children of God as the Human Complementary Plan (Gendo will try to get Yui back by taking control of the process), there is a choice to reject the two options and protect the current state of humanity and other life on earth. The conflict over the fate of the world is diagrammatic, as if it is Kaji and Misato's Ville that rejects these two options and seeks to find a way to preserve the status quo for humanity and other life on earth.

Thus, while the drama is simplified as a modern Bildungsroman in which the Son of Man seeks "independence" from God and the Father, the processes of Second Impact (purification of the sea), Third Impact (purification of the land), and Force Impact (purification of the soul) toward the Complementary Plan for Humanity are still generally understood as a process of "self-reliance" for the Son of Man. The process of "Second Impact" (cleansing of the sea), "Third Impact" (cleansing of the land), and "Force Impact" (cleansing of the soul) toward the human completion plan are only depicted as an expansion of the disaster toward destruction for the general public.

In this sense, it can be said that we have reverted back to the 1980s Armageddon imaginary, only replacing the cause of the apocalypse with a natural disaster like the tsunami at the time of the earthquake instead of a Cold War nuclear war (this is one of the reasons why most post-disaster Japanese content is based on a "starting over from the ruins of a burnt-out house" mentality). (This is also in line with the fact that many of Japan's domestic content after the earthquake accelerated the trend toward Showa nostalgia in accordance with a "starting over from the ruins of the disaster" mentality.)

As mentioned above, Shinji, who supposedly overcame his father and grew up internally, makes a choice that leads to a "world without Evangelion," i.e., the world of "Eva," in which the fictional settings such as apostles, Lilith, Zele, and the Fatality Impact that make up the world of Eva do not exist from the beginning, and the disasters caused by these events are all part of the world of Evangelion. The disaster caused by the apostles, Lilith, Zele, Fat Fat Impact, etc., do not exist from the beginning, and the disasters caused by them are all "ruled out.

This eliminates the fundamental unreasonableness that characterizes the worldview of the work and brings about a "normal world" that is equivalent to the reality of the present day and makes the characters in the play happy. (2016-20) and "Shinkage no Kyojin," in which the protagonists seek to coexist in a "world without Titans," although the world does not become that peaceful.

In other words, the type of entertainment that allegorically emphasizes the malice of the world that has proliferated since "Eva" by means of a specific unreasonable setting generally ends in a way that brings the negative back to zero and bites into the goodness of a reality where extreme misfortunes do not occur.... This is simply to say, the defeat of fiction.

This is, simply put, a defeat of fiction.

Although the last part of "Eva" at the time of the previous films was indeed a metafictional message of returning to reality in the conclusion, it worked because it animated the mythical desires and fantasies surrounding death and primordial chaos as a fascinating realm, but it was not a single-line maturation or overcoming, but a tense return to and return from such a realm. The viewer was able to experience these transgressions with a sense of tension, rather than a monolithic maturation or conquest.

The image of the Complementary Plan for Humanity, in which the boundaries of the individual are dissolved and the individual becomes one with the world, is an extension of the "new type" image that Yoshiyuki Tomino, for example, had unquestionably found as a vision of hope in the First Gundam, or, as a real movement, it is an extension of today's information technology via hippie-ism. It was also a movement that motivated the transformation of reality, with its own merits and demerits.

However, the Internet society, which was supposed to remove the boundaries between people and liberate them through such imagination, has also succeeded in rewriting the world like the red sea after Second Impact in the past quarter century, almost parallel to "Eva," but is now clearly exposing its harmful effects and limitations.

In light of this current situation, was there any way to modernize the back-and-forth between reality and the mythical realm of fantasy that existed at the beginning of "Eva" while at the same time paralleling the maturation of the relationship between Shinji and Gendo through the "special effects"-style mediation circuit that this work has achieved? If the choice of neon genesis should not be a mere acceptance of the status quo to reduce the negative to zero, then we will have no choice but to rediscover the clues that will allow us to once again confront such reality.

At any rate, with Tokyo 2020 becoming a rerun of the phantom 1940 rather than 1964, it is certainly one of the few fortuitous moments for the future of Japanese culture that Hideaki Anno has completed the race that has gone on too long and has been freed from the struggle with his own problems.

Anno, now a rare archivist who controls the Showa and Heisei eras of imagination, has become the bearer of the "Shin" brand, and by rediscovering the two major special effects of "Ultraman" and "Masked Rider," which have already been rebooted to the hilt, what overlooked veins of imagination can be found?

I, too, have high expectations that Anno, more than anyone else, will be the one to carry out the "reanimation for the post-Heisei world," and that we will be able to catch a glimpse of the roadmap to the "future" of "Eva" that has not yet been fulfilled.

Author's Profile

Daichi Nakagawa

Critic and editor. Deputy editor-in-chief of the critical journal "PLANETS. Jury member of the Entertainment Division of the Japan Media Arts Festival (21st to 23rd). He has written various critiques that bridge reality and fiction, focusing on culture such as games, animation, and TV dramas, as well as contemporary thought, urban theory, anthropology, life science, and information technology. He is the author of "Tokyo Sky Tree Theory" and "The Complete History of Modern Games," and co-editor of "Amachan Memories," "Game-Suru Jinsei," and "The New Age of Game Studies.