Author: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Character Designer & Illustrator)
Translated by: William Flanagan
Source: Originally published in the Japanese edition of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Vol. 2
Dated: March 12, 1996
Q: You did the character designs for the animated version of Evangelion, and I'm sure
that there were various points you paid special consideration to each character, so to
start with, please talk about Shinji.
A: In a normal giant robot animated show the main character is noted for his enthusiastic
battle spirit. And in Eva, the main character does pilot a giant robot, but Shinji
is not noted for his enthusiasm, so I had to come up with a different heroic
interprtation. Rather than a reflection of a hero, sort of a refraction of a hero.
Q: He's sort of a dry character.
A: He's a product of our era. I started out trying to create a character that would
tap into the consciousness of today's anime fans.
Q: As a product of out era, you mean the attitude that, "My life is my own, and
I'm not interested in the opinions of others," right?
A: He's a person who doesn't want to be interested in the opinions of others, but actually
he's very interested. He's the kind of character who would encase himself in a shell
of his own making.
Q: A sort of delicate character.
A: I wanted a sort of clean image that a woman tends to project. But also a
character that is cold, unambitious-the type who would commit suicide, but can't bring
himself to do it. It was my intention to create a wistful character who had given up
on life.
Q: Did you have a model for his face.
A: Not particularly. The image of a hero in Japan is like Ushiwakamaru, the strong
champion whom no adversity will affect. When you say "hero" in Japan, it
conjures the impression of a man, just prior to middle age, accomplished at arms, with a
burning spirit. Or maybe you think or a bishonen (beautiful young man). In the
beginning I gave Shinji longer hair, so in the dramatic scenes, it could hide his face or
wave in the breaze. But when I drew that, he looked a little too wild-and so
delicate the slightest pressure would break him. So finally I tried for a look where
you could see the forhead through the bangs, shorter hair-the look of a boyish young
girl. Spreaking in concreate terms, his eyes are a girl's eyes. I drew them
exactly as I drew Nadia's [the heroine of Gainax's 1990 TV series Nadia, forthcoming in
English from A.D.V. Films-ed.] eyes. He's a male Nadia, just as if I had given Nadia
a masculine makeover. Lengthen the eyelashes and change the hair style, and you have
Nadia.
Q: You don't draw characters out of any love of simplicity.
A: That's right. Our aim was to be the antithesis of all the giant robot animated
shows around us. It's not a world where the wind blows through your hair while you
declare your purpose in a booming voice. Especially in the past one or two years,
this type of refractive, feminine character has not been seen. I wanted to tell the
tale of a main character taken from my own life, so I designed a character straight from
the more stoic part of myself.
Q: So instead of someone pushing you to draw, you added piecs of yourself to draw the
characters.
A: I think that the theme of the animated version is that the main character's attitude
changes little by little. I think that in the anime, Anno wrote the script in his
own words, and that is why the change occurs. And the reason for the subtle changes
between the animation and the manga is that Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is writing the script using
Anno's characters. I think the anime is...I can't say cuter. But it has the
feel of an honors student. The manga is a little more twisted...the feeling of a
flunk-out. I think the reason behind this is that Anno was his class president in
elementary and junior high schools, and flunking out was something he couldn't do, whereas
I never had that problem. (laughs)
Q: You're saying that twisted sensibilities are a subtle difference?
A: According to Anno's thought process, a twisted person is one who puts on a cool face,
but once you see his inside, you get to the crazy portion, just like all the young people
today. My approach is the opposite. On the inside the characters are stoic and
earnest, but the outside is twisted, just like a child. So I could never write the
anime scripts in my own voice. My Shinji is quite a bit different than that.
In the end it is his resistance, his refusal to listen to what Misato has to say, but he
still makes the right decision. I think that approach is where our methods differ
the most.
Q: What about Rei?
A: I played around with a character, Ukina, in a story I wrote a long time ago in NEWTYPE
called Koto ("The Ogre on the Desert Isle"). You take her, give her
shaggy, bobbed, wolf-like hair, and you've got Rei. Really, I just played with her a
bit-the way the eyes are drawn, the basic character is the same. Her character was
locked in as translucent, like a shadow or the air. The kind of girl you can't
touch. The girl you long for, but there is nothing about her that you can grab a
hold onto.
Q: The same type of stance that Kensuke and Toji feel about Rei?
A: Even more distant. The first time you see Rei, she is all bandaged up. The
group Kinniku Shojo Tai has a song called "Hotai de Masshiro na Shojo"
("The Girl White with Bandages"). When I heard that song, an image popped
into my mind, and I drew Rei according to that. I thought, "I'd like to draw a
girl like that." This girl who is fated to pilot a robot. I wanted to
draw her even before I heard of Shinji. There were two things that went into the
decision to make her eyes red: one is the fact that she didn't have enough outstanding
features, and the second is from a buisness standpoint, the makers of the game wanted her
differentiated from the other characters, but personnally I think it turned out to have a
great effect. She's so quiet you can only tell her character from her gaze and her
facial expressions, so she leaves the impression of having a strong stare.
Q: Concentrating on the story, where do you think the biggest difference is
between the manga and the anime?
A: Well I did write the script of the manga using the anime as a base. And at
the moment, I think they're pretty much the same. I've made the story more compact.
I think even if you rephrase a sentence into less words, you're still saying the
same thing. But the manga does have a different approach. Maybe I should say
it has a differnt coreography. The main point is that the anime has quite a few
different people writing the continuity, for example when the assistant director, Mr.
Tsurumaki wrote the continuity for a particular script, and when Masayuki wrote a
continuity for the same script, it came out to be a completely different program. I
think there's a difference there.
Q: There are the differences of format. You can't draw a manga in the same
way you would animate a show.
A: And that's the reason I tend to change the script entirely. I pick and
choose what is easiesr to say in manga, The anime became a craze among the fans, and
I wanted to lower the demographic to people about 14 or 15 years old, but the content was
so difficult, it just wouldn't dumb down. If I tried, it would cease to be Evangelion.
If that were to happen, there would be no reason left to do the book, so I went
from the planning stage and came up with the book you're reading now. You see, what
I wanted to do was exactly the same storyline that was contained in the TV series.
But I thought it might make the comic easier to understand if you weren't bombarded with
quite the quantity of information, and if you shined the spotlight directly opn the main
character's soul. I put my whole heart into seeing what kind of world the Eva
world would be if seen through Shinji's heart. And then, what kind of world would
you see if you shined a spotlight on the souls of the other characters. Also, manga
is basically drawn by only one person, and it is impossible to fit the great load of
content into the comic. The anime can end in half a year, but the manga, even after
abbreviating, could take years to tell the same story. So the idea is to simplify
the spotlight on different spots than the anime, or you make the flow of the main
character's emotions easier to understand. If you make the comic exactly the same as
the anime, you will never be able to make up for the loss created by the abbreviation, and
even though you have the same story, you have a very different product. On the other
hand, since manga doesn't have voice actors or music, it will be a very different product,
anyway.
Q: Well, it certainly seems like a different viewpoint looking on the same
story. We see Shinji's thoughts which we never saw in the anime. Were his
thoughts the same in both versions?
A: Most likely his thoughts in the comic are just my own impressions. If you
asked Mr. Anno, I'm sure they would be entirely different, but unless I get into Shinji's
head, I can't draw the comic. One of my weak points is I have to empathize with the
character before I draw. In the first episode of the anime, over and above the
dramatic elements, Shinji's dialog was the most important part of the episode. That
is what made me want to draw the comic. That is what made me purposely change his
dialog. What I'm attempting to write is the piece of my life-the dialogue of
Shinji's that comes from inside me.