Contents

PART 2 - PRODUCTION NOTES

(PY's Note: In the Production Notes, a lot of staff's names are introduced. Although I have a Japanese Name Dictionary, I have got lazy and decided to go for the translation without bothering to find out the pronounciation of the names. This means many of the names would be left untranslated, and absent from this version of translation. I hope I could get the name right later. My apologies. Also please note that I keep the Japanese convention of writing the surname first, followed by the "first-name")

Two kinds of title logo of "THE END OF EVANGELION" were designed. One is the logo used on the poster and the advance-sale ticket. Another one is used as the title in the movie, following the hand-written style of the title used in "REBIRTH". It is the latter title logo that is used on the cover of this pamphlet.

The movie ep.25 "Air" is based on the script already in place during TV production originally intended for TV Ep.25. Because of various problems during production, this script was not used and the TV Ep.25 "The Ending World" was done in a same way as TV Ep.26 in which the drama was developed within an internal mind universe. Because of this, it could be said that this ep.25 is a return to the original intended story. In contrast, the movie ep.26, when compared with TV Ep.26, contains much more content on the story and plot, thus deepening the theme brought out in TV.

Since this movie is supposed to be the remake of the last two episodes of the TV series, the TV episode format is followed, with each episode having its own subtitle and eyecatch scenes.(PY: you know, those static scenes that contain nothing but black background and white Japanese/English words)

The animation production of this movie, PRODUCTION I.G., is known to have produced anime movies like "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell". PRODUCTION I.G. made the most out of the big composition production effort put into this movie, a theatrical film, and it became a high quality film.

In movie ep.25 "Air", the director is Tsurumaki Katzuya, the deputy director in the TV series. Although the script play is from the hands of the chief director Anno Hideaki, and all the operations from direction downwards are also generally entrusted to Tsurumaki.

Masuna Yuki (?), also the deputy director in the TV series, is responsible for the animation draft (PY: kai-konte? those pencil drafts of the scenes as they should look in the real animation).

Also, Higuchi Shinji partcipated in script play as well as animation drafting. They all followed the instruction from Director Tsurumaki.

The direction of the movie ep.26 "True Heart to You" was taken up by Chief-director Anno himself. Because of that, this movie bears a strong flavour of his individual taste. As for animation drafts, Jime Kiichi and Higuchi Shinji also took part.

Masuna Yuki, who was the deputy director of the TV series and the director of the movie "DEATH", served several responaibilites in this movie: animation drafts, original print, virtual water artist.

The depiction of water is the most difficult part in animation, and he worked as the art director of all depiction realated to natural phenonmena like water and waves. As a result, a post called "virtual water artist" was recreated for such responsibility. He also drew the original print for the advertisement poster of this movie.

There are two art directors in ep.25 and three in ep.26. In ep.25, the art director for scenes centred on charcters is Kouse Kazuya from PRODUTION I.G.. Kouse is known as the animator of movies like "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell", and he worked twice as the art-director in the TV series. Honda Yuu is the main art director, as well as the animator for the "opening"

The art directors for ep.26 are Suzuki Gotoni, Hiramatsu Teishi and Anno Hideaki. Suzuki and Hiramatsu are both the art directors for the general scenes, while Anno concentrates on the mecha scenes and cuts centred around special effects.

In order to depict the interal world of Shinji in ep.26, real life scenes were employed in one part of the movie. Because of this decision, a team called "Special Production Team" was formed. The script play and chief director in this team is also Anno Hideaki.

The post for special effect director was taken up by Higuchi Shinji.

"Special effect director" in this context means the director for the filming of special effects. The real life filming was done according to the combined opinion formed between Hideaki Anno and Higuchi Shinji.

Although CG (computer graphics -PY) was widely used in Evangelion TV, those CG scenes were all computer screens, processed in a 2-dimensional manner. This time, in "THE END OF EVANGELION", broadened 3-dimensional CG was used. The core of the CG production is Omnibus Japan, which did the CG in "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell". Most of the CG scenes are found after the start of the Human Complmentation Project in ep.26. Some examples include the cut which has the surface of the Earth gradually buried under more and more big crosses, and the cut which has numerous Rei swimming around. This time, the most difficult challenge for CG is the issue of translucence. Also, in order to create a visual feeling closer to other cuts, some scenes, after the normal CG operations, underwent a further analog filiming process with filters. The CG effect seen in the staff roll (in ending) was also done by Omnibus Japan.

PRODUCTION I.G. also did several C.G. cuts. One of them is in ep.25, in which 9 gigantic transport planes carrying the mass-production model of EVA's first appeared. The nine big planes are seen from a bird-eye's view from top, with one plane overlapping another, and they each slided towards a different direction. Such scene is nearly impossible in conventional anime camera work, but C.G. makes it possible. The "Eirin" mark (the trade-mark of the studio appeared at the beginning of the movie -PY) is also C.G. done by PRODUCTION I.G. So it is also billed as 3D animator in the telop. As for the CG seen in the computer screens, they were all done by Gainax in-house, as in the TV series. This is billed as the 2D animator in the telop.

There is a substantial part in movie ep.25, which repeats the content shown in "REBIRTH", released in spring time and is the first part of the final. One quarter of it underwent various retouch work so as to improve its quality.

The effective use of classical music in Evangelion TV series and the spring movie "DEATH" leaves a deep impression to everybody.

In this movie, 2 classical pieces were used: "Air on G" and "Jesus bliebt meine Freunde" by J.S.Bach.

"Air on G" is a version from a new recording arranged by Sagisu Shiro.

It is used in the scene in which the second half of the battle scene between EVA-02 and mass production model EVA's is intermixed with the scene when Gendou faced off Ritsuko. "Jesus bliebt meine Freunde" is from a compliation of an existing source. It is used in the real life scene in ep.26.

2 songs were written for "THE END OF EVANGELION", both are produced by the team of Anno Hideaki and Sagisu Shiro. One is "THANATOS - IF I CAN'T BE YOURS", heard in the end of ep.25. This is the vocal version of the BGM "THANATOS (E-13)" used in TV Ep.19 "Man's Battle". Vocalist is LOREN and lyrics is by MASH. Song and arrangement is by Sagisu Shiro. THANATOS is the god governing death in Greek mythology. It also carries a meaning of "impulsive desire for death" in psychoanalysis.

As for the other song, it is the insert song used in ep.26 "Komm, suesser Tod". The lyrics is the English translation of words composed by chief-director Anno (PY: In my opinion, this is no translation, but inspired rewriting of the Japanese words). The title is a German, meaning "come, sweet death". Vocalist is Arianne, and song and arrangement are by Sagisu Shiro.

There are altogether 18 BGM with new music and recording. The BGM used in this movie were done according to the opinions from chief-director Anno. So new music is even used in the part which repeats the story in "REBIRTH"

It can be seen that the Municipal Haishima Kindergarten of Akishima city is billed in the "Thanks to" section in the telop. The is the kindergarten to where the daughter of Ishikawa, the producer of PRODUCTION I.G., goes. Since chief-director Anno wanted to use some children songs as close to real-life recording as possible in the sand bank scene of ep.26, Ishikawa and his team-mates went to that kindergarten and recorded the songs.