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Обреновац, Милоша Обреновића 90

МАТУРСКИ РАД
из енглеског језика

Тема:
“Hope, despair & religious symbolism in Evangelion”

Ментор Ученик
Маја Аћимовић Матеја Пантић
______________ _____________

Обреновац, јун, 2022.

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Hope, despair & religious symbolism in Пантић
Evangelion IV3

Content (work in progress)

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Hope, despair & religious symbolism in Пантић
Evangelion IV3

1. Prologue

1.1. Cultural importance

When talking about anime and art in general, we always point out the most representative and
influential pieces that contributed to that field, oftenly bringing up the staples and the bending
points of the genre. In the world of anime, undeniably, that mantle of responsibility would be
given out to Neon Genesis Evangelion, a true genre-bending masterpiece, that serves as the true
anti-anime, deconstructing the entirety of this art. This is an anime that resonated with many
souls, being definitely the most analysed piece of Japanese science-fiction, and besides the
numerous philosophical discussions it spawned, Evangelion also experienced a great commercial
success, that continues to bloom to this day, more than ever before. Many animes throughout the
years have been taking direct influence from Evangelion, only cementing it’s undisputable role
in Japanese animation, and fiction in it’s entirety.

1.2. Content

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a well known psychological drama mecha anime franchise created
by a Japanese filmmaker and animator Hideaki Anno. Evangelion consists of 26 TV show
episodes and a 90 minute long anime film titled „Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of
Evangelion“. Of course, the TV show and the film are only the main storyline, on the side, this
popular franchise has spawned other alternative storylines and a recap movie called „Neon
Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth“.The somewhat controversial and less popular (but not by
any means less worthy) rebuild films serve as an alternative storyline, or better say, alternative
retelling of a classic story, a retelling by a different version of Hideaki Anno, that has learnt to
deal with emotional hardships he was dealing with while creating the original series.
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2. The mind behind Evangelion

2.1. Who is Hideaki Anno?

Hideaki Anno is a Japanese animator, filmmaker and actor, born on May 22nd, 1960. His name
is engraved with golden letters in anime history, being best known for his life work, Neon
Genesis Evangelion. Even before Evangelion, Anno invested himself in the world of filmmaking
and animation, producing a variety of amateur spin off anime films with his colleagues, that
helped him catch the attention of many big names in the industry. In the early 1980s he formed
Studio Gainax and also started working with the well known Studio Ghibli, under the wing of
legendary Japanese animation director, Hayao Miyazaki, known for films like: Spirited Away,
My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle. Hideaki has worked with
his mentor on the movie Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which is his first big endeavour as
an animator. Hideaki even said for himself that he is Hayao’s prodigal son, these two directors
are close friends even to this day. There is an interesting fact about Anno, even though he was a
fan of anime and manga, he never really wanted to be an animator, in an interview in 1999 he
said:

„I became an animator by chance, really - it didn't happen by my will. Before I knew it, I was an
animator. When I was a child. I wanted to be a bus driver or a train conductor; I never really had
a specific vision or dream.”

2.2. Anno’s depression

As the new decade started, new doors had been opened. Japanese people refer to the 1990s as the
lost decade, because of the collapse of Japanese economy in that period. When talking about
Hideaki Anno, we can see how his mental health can easily be compared to the state of Japanese
economy. In the year 1990, Anno started working on a new show called Nadia: The Secret of
Blue Water. He was quickly swamped with a set of new problems, stress and situations that he
had never known before. The series ended in 1991 but even after the show stopped airing, Anno
faced serious mental problems, being incapable to mentally distance himself from the Nadia
series. He fell into a four year long depression, spending time being unproductive, stuck in a
neverending loop. He would work out numerous plans and projects, both on his own initiative
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and in collaboration with others, but they all fell through, and in the end, Anno’s idle days were
dotted with projects that he imploded by design. In the midst of all this, one project, a feature
film entitled Blue Uru, finally took shape and animation production began, only to be shut down
due to circumstances beyond his control. Anno even contemplated suicide, which he even talked
about with his friend Hayao Miyazaki. Later on, Anno picked up new hobbies like skiing and
scuba diving, in an effort to escape from this empty state of being.

2.3. How did Evangelion come to be?

Immediately after Blue Uru was put on hold, Japanese producer, businessman and musician
Toshimichi Otsuki called up Anno, as he wanted to talk about something, and the dialogue
between these two shifted towards the subject of TV animation projects. The two of them agreed
that there was a need for an all-original TV animation series, something not based on some other
work, something that no one has seen before. Otsuki remarking, “Bring me something, anything,
and I’ll make sure it gets green-lit”. That “something”, was Neon Genesis Evangelion.

2.4. Why did Anno make Evangelion?

Sometime in 1999, after Neon Genesis Evangelion ended and during the pre-production of his
anime KareKano, Evangelion’s creator Hideaki Anno appeared on a TV show on NHK (Nippon
Hoso Kyokai or Japanese Broadcasting Corporation) called “Welcome Back for an
Extracurricular Lesson, Senpai!”, which features Japanese celebrities revisiting their old
stomping grounds and teaches a class in their old primary school. In this episode, Anno returns to
Ube, a factory town in Yamaguchi, to teach kids about animation.

“Do you like the anime you make?”

“Well, I like some, but hate others.”

“What parts don’t you like?”

“The parts where I see myself.”

These are the words that have been said in that episode, these words perfectly reflect on
Hideaki’s creative being and his relationship with Evangelion. But perhaps to understand his
motivation for making Evangelion, we must take a close up look on his written statement that he
published in 1995, he said:
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“They say, "To live is to change." I started this production with the wish that once the production
complete, the world, and the heroes would change. That was my "true" desire.

I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Myself, a broken man who
could do nothing for four years.  A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not
dead.   Then one thought.  "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this production.”

Hideaki Anno and Hayao Miyazaki

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Hope, despair & religious symbolism in Пантић
Evangelion IV3
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Hope, despair & religious symbolism in Пантић
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3. Introduction

3.1. A brief look at the story

The year is 2015 and God’s wrath has been unleashed upon Earth. Humanity was too greedy for
knowledge and power, human beings have surpassed every limitation, both morally and
naturally, leaving it to face the only thing that’s left, the world they live in, the whole existence,
they faced God. The anime starts off by following Shinji Ikari, the rejected son of the
commander of NERV, a research-and-development and paramilitary organization under the
command of the United Nations, Gendo Ikari. Shinji, the frightened and insecure boy that is
completely lost in his world of self-neglecting is being thrown into something that he wasn’t
prepared for, he was meant to be one of the last guardians of humanity against the threat known
as “angels”, huge otherworldly monsters trying to as it seems destroy humanity. He was chosen
to pilot a 40 meter tall bio-mechanical humanoid robot called Evangelion Unit 01. As angels
keep attacking humans in their most important stronghold, advanced dystopian city of Tokyo-3,
characters are making bonds with each other that grow and break constantly, because of their
traumatic backgrounds and deep rooted mental problems that keep stalking them through their
minds. The overall atmosphere in this dystopian world can fool you at first, especially in the
moments of carelessness, where characters show that they are still children through their
interaction with each other, but the truth is far more grim and dark than suspected. Many truths
start uncovering, and mysteries behind NERV, angels, Evangelions, and planet Earth begin to
unravel as the world ceases to exist, getting closer and closer to the eventual end, called The
Third Impact.
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3.2. How was this dystopia created?

In the year 2000, 15 years before the show’s current happenings, a mysterious organization
called “SEELE” (meaning soul in German) sent out an expedition team led by Doctor Katsuragi
to investigate Antarctica, where they found remnants of the first ancestral race, making contact
with a being known as Adam. That contact resulted in a massive explosion that melted the
Antarctic ice caps and shifted the Earth's axis. The scientists subdued Adam, but they were only
successful in limiting the damage and averting humanity's complete extinction. The resulting
sea level rise, tsunamis, and armed conflicts eventually wiped out half of the human population,
and had massive geopolitical implications for the nations of the Earth. This completely changed
the world as people once knew it, leaving it a hollow shell of what it once was.
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3.3. Main characters

Story of Evangelion is mainly revolving around 3 14 year-olds and a 28 year-old woman,
although, in a non-traditional sense. First off we meet the lost and self-loathing boy Shinji, who
was truly alone his whole life. As he was rejected from his father Gendo, he even lost his mother
at a very young age. Shinji, after arriving to Tokyo-3, met his new guardian, or maybe even a
replacement for his long gone mother figure. That replacement was the daughter of Doctor
Katsuragi who died in the year 2000 at the scene of The Second Impact, Captain Misato
Katsuragi. The series shows us a strong, bold and humorous woman on the outside, but really a
broken individual on the inside. The story also focuses on two other Eva pilots besides Shinji.
Rei Ayanami, a mysterious girl that does not really seem to show any emotions natural to
humans, lacking skills of conventional social interaction, resembling a machine. Rei is purely a
servant of Gendo Ikari, showing glimpses of emotions only to him, something like to a father
even though at first we don’t know her origins. The fourth main character is Asuka Langley
Sohryu, the complete opposite of Rei and Shinji, as it seems at the beginning. The mentioned
character is a girl full of herself, falsely knowing her worth and what she’s capable of, because of
her disproportional ego that lets her escape from her unresolved traumas and loneliness that
dwell in the depths of her own mind.
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Hope, despair & religious symbolism in Пантић
Evangelion IV3