c/o Viz Comics P.O. Box 77010 San Francisco, CA 94107
viz@j-pop.com
Renee Lott of Gateway, says "Well, I would like to thank you for printing my pic of Rei & letter in Part 3, #4... But, I just felt really embarrassed that the picture was printed... because it was just a sketch that I used as a basis for a later picture which I'm sending you guys. I'd really be super-pleased if you would please print it... Ack! I hate asking for greedy pleasures!" Well, it's no problem at all, because I like your work. I can see the inspiration from Japanese styles, but your approach is more interesting than many who attempt to draw what Adam Warren calls "big eyes and speedlines" (I'm not embarrassed by anything I've drawn since I was 16, because I haven't gotten any better since then; although I am going to try to get my act together for Rich Anderson's dojinshi Under The Influence). Robyn Hines from Irving, TX was kind enough to send in an actual cassette with suggestions for an "alternate" soundtrack to The End of Evangelion, including Korn, Stabbing Westward, Sugar Ray (!), Gravity Kills, Blur, Massive Attack, Garbage, U2, Plumb, plus two personal favorites of mine: Smashing Pumpkins' "The End Is The Beginning Is The End" and Alice In Chains' "Them Bones." Ms. Hines also says, "I just wanted you to know that I have really enjoyed the manga version of NGE. It explains certain details I feel the anime doesn't really get all that much, plus two dollars and ninety-five cents is a hell of a lot cheaper than twenty-five bucks, don't you think? ...is there any way I can get a Viz order form to order back issues?" Just check the credits page of this issue; Viz will be happy to send you a whole catalog!
Dear Karl and the usual gang of otakus,
I'm not exactly your typical anime or manga fan. I wear the same thing almost everyday: jeans, a team sweatshirt (Red Bank Lions, from my high school; or UT-Chattanooga Mocs, from my college; or Tennessee Vols, from where my mom and grandfather went to school; or Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars, from my favorite NFL teams), and a pair of sneakers. I listen to everything from Aerosmith to music that reflects my Southern Heritage (bluegrass). I drive a ‘91 Ford F-150 and load heavy freight at UPS in trailers under weather conditions in early hours that would have most fan boys and girls shivering at the thought. But beyond that, the fact is that I am an otaku from small-town Chattanooga, Tennessee. If you don't know where that is, Karl, it's that small town where people on stop to pee on their way to Atlanta, 120 miles to the South.
And as far as Japanese comics are concerned, I'd have to say that the manga version of Eva is thus far my second favorite next to Inu-Yasha. And yes, I was the guy dressed up as dog-boy at last year's Anime Weekend Atlanta. It was a nice change compared to being everyone's favorite Tuxedo superhero the last two years. So far, nothing negative to say about Sadamoto's version of the Eva story. My personal favorite is how he dives more into each of the characters' personal lives than in the anime. In the anime, one could barely get two words out of Rei's mouth, while in issue 3-5 Rei ACTUALLY volunteers info to Shinji as to why she feels she has to pilot the Eva. She even talks in complete sentences. I also like how he goes into more of Shinji's past as well. It seems everytime I get further and further into the series, the more I see of myself in Shinji. I don't think we're both pessimists but I tend to assume we see things more for what they are than how most people perceive things. Yeah, that's a little deep but that is about the best I can explain it.
I would like to take a moment to call you on something you mentioned in reference to Rei's nude scene from 3-2. It was mentioned that Rei's calmness to her appearing in the raw in front of Shinji symbolized how she was not "fallen" like the rest of the human race. On a personal note (and yes, I KNOW I'm going to get some serious flack from other readers if this letter ever got published) but I don't believe that humans were once a perfect people who had fallen from God's grace and without Jesus blah, blah, blah. That's just Baptist brainwashing. Mostly it's our society in general and they're outtake on nudity that in my opinion, has caused Shinji's reaction. Yes, I know Shinji is Japanese but I'm trying to explain his reaction from a Westerner's perspective. Think how much trouble Viz would be in if Rei was a real-life person because of her age? The city of Birmingham alone would demand members of Viz be deported to Alabama and given a "fair" trial before hung by their manhood in front of the town square. Since the people of Chattanooga are more interested in stopping anything to do with alcohol than manga, you'd easily slip through the cracks.
To make a long story short, one of the things manga and anime alone has taught me is how nudity can be artistic and non-exploitive which has gained me at least a few more brownie points in the mature column. However, North American society in general has a long way to go. This is mainly due to the fact of using nudity as part of a storyline (like in Ranma or Eva) how our society uses it for perverse pleasures just for the purpose of "showing boobs just for the hell of it." Not that the Japanese don't have manga like that (NAWWWW... not them) (sneaker, sneaker). But they know the difference while we as a society still think all nudity is about sex, sex and more sex. Which can be frustrating at times believe me. All in all, I can't really explain why I like Eva. Maybe because I feel it's my own personal payback for all the fundamentalist brainwashing I was fed in high school. I don't know. But Eva is definitely a story ahead of its time. If manga were ever one day considered literature, Neon Genesis Evangelion would be a masterpiece. As for dressing up as Eva characters, I have seen my fair share at AWA. Even though I'm one of the regulars there, I'm sad to say I may not go to the '99 con. Nothing the nice Folks at AWA did but I have my reasons. Other than that, keep up the great work... and maybe we might meet on the circuit.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cook
University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
P.S. I'm also enclosing this snapshot I found recently. Apparently NERV has a secret base located in Colorado. Supposedly, the Sixth Child was discovered there.
My name is spelled with a "C," but what the heck. And don't think I didn't appreciate the MAD reference. Although I like the NBA (Golden State and Houston), I always suspect, deep down, that I'll never be a real American until I follow the NFL (To quote Corn Pone Flicks, "Hey, look—someone who probably doesn't like to watch football!"). I like basketball because a.) I think you have to be more of a total athlete to play pro b-ball than f-ball; b.) it's easier to get a good seat; and c.) I have this old-fashioned idea about teams actually representing their home towns. Now, Hakeem coming all the way to U. of H. from Nigeria and then leading Houston to two championships—that's real America! (I heard that his parents used to write him, asking when he was going to forget about this silly game and come home to run the family cement factory!)
I understand that there used to be a fairly common expression in Japan that went "Nudity is often seen but never looked at." A generation ago it was normal for the average Japanese, even in the city, to wash themselves at a public bath rather than in the privacy of their home, and in some parts of the country, baths were co-ed. This didn't mean that it was "innocent" nudity, or that nudity was not regarded as potentially sexual, just that—as you suggest—people put that out of their minds while taking the bath so as not to disrupt local society. That kind of communal bathing is much less common today, but, as Ian Buruma puts it, in Japan, morality is still "very much a matter of time and place and nothing is absolute" (This is actually true of America as well, when you think about it—just look how chaste all these teen movies are now, not a hint of exploiting the underaged there. But Buruma means the Japanese are less hypocritical about human nature; they acknowledge that their society—one, I might add, with a lot less crime than our own—works on moral relativism).
Rei's reaction, however, makes sense in the context of the society portrayed in Eva. Remember that the logo of NERV emerges from behind a fig leaf cut in half... (Genesis 3: 7-11) Mr. Yamaga, co-producer of Evangelion, has actually expressed relief that Anno used esoteric Judeo-Christian rather than Buddhist beliefs in Eva—because apocalyptic Buddhism might have reminded Japanese audiences of Aum Shinri Kyo! The converse, of course, is that a figure nailed to a cross is going to have little visceral impact on most Japanese, but is bound to provoke a reaction in American audiences, regardless of what they believe in their hearts—we are a culture that still at least professes belief in the God of Genesis 17 and John 3.
Yamaga averred during his recent visit to Fanime Con '98 that the motifs in Eva are "only window dressing," a remark which I take to mean the same as Anno said at Expo '96—that he himself does not share any of the religious beliefs one might find in Eva. I'm convinced that it can't be window dressing in the sense that Anno simply threw out a few names of Angels to decorate the series—the show is far too-well researched for that. I don't suppose Anno actually believes in it any more than he believes in the "science lessons" of his 1989-90 OAV series Gunbuster (if you like the sound of what Gainax calls an "incredibly impassioned robot SF anime series" or "the fiery hot-blooded friendship hard SF space science courage guts hard work sexy invincible robot epic spectacle!!!" then what are you waiting for—? It's available subtitled from Manga Entertainment). But to the characters in Eva, this is not a mythology, but a true and real description of the physical universe; their super-symmetrical theory—just as Gunbuster's Imperial Space Force uses those Tannhäuser Gates so difficult to find in our own reality. Nevertheless, although Eva was made with no audience in mind but a Japanese one, it is only to be expected that what may be window dressing to a Shinto-Buddhist-Confucian culture is going to mean more to Western audiences, raise in a culture still strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian beliefs.
I seem to meet everyone at Anime Weekend Atlanta. It seems to be the con with the best discourse. I think it has something to do with it being run in part by people (CPF— who's Matt Murray and C. B. Smith are also veterans of a fundamentalist high school) who are themselves filmmakers, who aren't just passive consumers (as I am). At what other otaku event are you going to find yourself talking about the labor movement in New York and the recent decisions of the Missouri Lutheran synod? To paraphrase Charlie Brown, "We may not ever watch any anime, but we have lots of interesting conversations." I'm a California otaku, but I thank God that all otaku or not California otaku, and keep their own regional flavor. It's that flavor that makes me enjoy Anime ("Top 10 Things Hoosiers Like About Anime") Central and AWA so much. That was a great letter, Mr. Cook. Git a rope.
Carl Gustav Horn