An anime series that has been up for discussion and dissection for the past three decades is the complex as it is arguably notorious 1995 anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, otherwise known as Shin Seiki (New Century) Evangelion. The show’s complexity is complemented by several factors, one of which being a method that would confuse, or even annoy the audience over how cheap it is, yet this show’s usage of it comes off as the opposite. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s complexity comes from its animation, or rather, its lack thereof. The beauty of this series from both a storytelling and industry economics perspective is that it can captivate and leave audiences guessing with a single static image. To demonstrate, this essay will utilize Chapter 5 of How to Watch Television, which speaks on the visuals of Mad Men and what its mise-en-scène represents with image examples, but to make it further highlight the arguments at play, I’ll utilize image examples (53).
Directed by Hideaki Anno, the series is a sci-fi drama following 14-year-old Shinji Ikari, as he and his copilots ride in supposed “mechs” and fight extraterrestrial beings known as “angels.” At least that’s the plot on the surface, but as the series goes on, it spirals into a conspiracy on the heads of their commanding organization, “NERV,” and their plans to return humanity to a primordial soup. At the same time, Shinji internally combats his depressive, and arguably selfish, people-pleasing mindset, as he constantly runs away from his problems.
This may sound like a tangential amount of story context for this argument on the surface, but it is crucial for the following examples that are to be highlighted, specifically from episodes 22, “At Least, Be Human” and episode 24, “The Last Cometh.” These episodes have extended director’s cut versions available, however, to gain a better industry understanding of their animation, the broadcast versions of these episodes, which were under the constraints of ad slots and production schedules, will be utilized instead. To start, look at the image below and ask yourself what it tells you on its own.
This image is from episode 22. If one were to ask themselves what the image’s mise-en-scène told them on its own, they would note the pyramid, tall and imposing, sitting under construction in background, and the two characters sitting in the foreground, yet small and almost insignificant compared to the pyramid in the background, with the NERV logo, though faint due to the analog quality, hovering above them. Additionally, the foreshortening of the light poles and the trees in the distance give the image additional depth, further highlighting how big the pyramid really is. Yet, for whatever reason, the pyramid is under construction. Is it just being built, or did something happen to it? Something bigger than the already imposing structure, further reducing the significance of the two characters in the foreground.
All of this can be garnered from the image itself, without any context from the series’ plot. The real context is that NERV HQ is still undergoing a reconstruction effort after an angel attack from episode 19. In the story’s continuity, it’s been a month since then, yet HQ still isn’t fully rebuilt. All the while, the characters in the foreground, Misato and Hyuga, are discussing their suspicions on the cash flow and spending of NERV’s worldwide locations on the construction of the impending EVA series, leading them to suspect an influx of angel attacks, or perhaps something worse. The characters are left to only suspect and ponder, while the agency that looms over them is still recovering from a force they cannot comprehend.
With NGE being an animated series, one would assume the characters would move at least a little, or the background would be given some kind of parallax effect, but that could not be further from the case. The image is not only completely static, but it stays still for more than 45 seconds. Misato and Hyuga’s dialogue tell us specifically what they are thinking. The mise-en-scène of this one image does the rest of the work. Over 45 seconds of a 22-minute episode (28 minutes in the director’s cut) are spent on this one static image, and the story of it is not only coveyed on several levels, but that’s also time and energy saved on the animators’ end, and most importantly for TV Tokyo, the broadcaster, precious money that was saved on a shot that could have easily been an animated shot-reverse shot with more dialogue for further exposition. This one technique has given the show a relatively consistent quality. Of course, the show also reuses animation cels and drawings, but no other technique in the NGE staff’s arsenal saves time and energy quite like this, boosting the progress of an episode’s production so significantly, and it’s done multiple times, no less.
Here is another example above, also from episode 22, this one being one of the more notorious shots in the whole show. Once again, it must be asked. What does the mise-en-scène of this one image tell you without context? Granted, there’s not as much here as the previous example, but what this shot lacks in depth, it takes advantage of with minimal animation, or once again, a lack thereof. The still itself shows two teenage girls, one in the foreground, and one in the background, the one with blue hair, stoic and almost lifeless in her expression, and the red-haired girl in the back, her expression mopey with her arms crossed. They’re standing in a confined space, presumably an elevator (again, we’re going off visuals alone here). What this can tell an average observer is much simpler than the previous: these two girls are less than fond of one another, temporarily trapped in the personal hell of a confined space with one another, perhaps even on the cusp of a falling out.
The context makes this image significantly more interesting. To put this as simply as possible, the red-haired girl, Asuka, is currently on her period, and at the same time, going through a depressive episode of questioning her self-worth, both as an EVA pilot, and a person. She wants to be seen as an independent, an adult, yet she consistently walls off her heart from others to do so. Because of this, her EVA unit is on the verge of becoming unresponsive, compounding her lack of self-worth. This also gives her a hatred for Rei, the blue-haired girl in the foreground, as Rei typically follows orders without question, admitting she would kill herself if commander Ikari ordered her to. Asuka despises Rei for this, seeing her as lesser for not being independent in her eyes.
With all this in mind, the elevator shot may come off as comical to some, but it’s the animation within the shot that is used to its advantage. While Rei is completely static, not even blinking, Asuka blinks and even sniffles at one point in the 53 second shot, commanding attention in the most minimal way possible, which is extremely ironic given how she always walls herself off, which leads to Rei’s only movement in the shot, where she finally speaks and says “if you don’t open your mind, your EVA will not move.” This one sentence leads to an immediate one-sided argument between the two, as Asuka screams and berates Rei for her obedient shortcomings, with Rei being calm and collected the entire time, leading to Asuka posing the statement “You’d kill yourself if commander Ikari ordered you to!” Rei calmly replies, “I would.” Asuka slaps her red and storms off.
This is possibly the most tangential part of this essay, but the context leading up to and following the elevator shot is not worth as much on its own without those 53 seconds of uncomfortable silence. Simply jumping to the outburst in the elevator could have been the approach, but it’s that tense minute of nearly nothing happening that totally sells the realism of an actual argument between two people who want absolutely nothing to do with each other. Once again, thanks to static, minute-long shots and minimal animation, time, money, and energy are saved on a scene that could have just as easily been fully animated, yet not as impactful.
That leads us to the final minute-long shot I wish to highlight, one I would argue is the most masterful one yet. This would be where an observer is once again asked to look at the shot and ask themselves what it tells you, but I want to change it up here and provide context straight out the gate. Episode 24 is a clever episode that not only uses more static shots compared to previous episodes, but reuses animation and backgrounds very frequently. In fact, well over a third of the episode is reused animation from prior episodes, with the rest either being static shots or new animation. If the plot of the episode weren’t a new one for the series, one would go as far as to say the episode is nothing more than a glorified clip show, but that’s not what’s happening here.
The plot of the episode is primarily focused on Shinji meeting a new friend in a time where his past friends have moved away, and his current “friends” and/or guardians either scare him, or are completely unrelatable, and thus, unapproachable. It is the exact moment he asks what he should do that he hears a teenage boy a short distance to his left, humming Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” out of sheer appreciation of it. This boy’s name is Kaworu. Midway through the episode, just before the ad break and title card, Kaworu declares to Shinji “I love you” (He says “I Like You” in the Netflix/VSI version), words Shinji has never heard from anyone, not from Misato, not from his friends, not even his own father.
This leads us to the end of the episode. Kaworu is revealed to be an angel, forcing Shinji to come to a decision: kill Kaworu, or let him live and let humanity die as a result. The entire series arguably culminates to this exact moment before the instrumentality project begins, and the “End of Evangelion” movie commences. Kaworu happily pleads for Shinji to kill him, and the scene comes down to a minute-long still, with only Beethoven’s 9th in the background, seen below. Given the context of the episode, and by extension, the series, every point about economic animation from the prior two examples is still going to stand, and I can hammer it in as much as I want to. However, I wish to do something interesting. I’m going to display the scene in full. Should this essay provide a video link, I ask you to watch the clip and let the scene speak for itself. Should this be a physical copy, I’ll elaborate on it in the next paragraph.
In the simplest explanation, the scene leaves viewers guessing for a straight minute while the most somber part of “Ode to Joy,” Kaworu’s song, plays in the background. We anticipate what’s coming, whether he lives or dies; we don’t know. The song’s somber attitude also leaves us reminiscing on the events that got us to this point, good, and mostly bad. Calamity after calamity, disaster after disaster. Shinji, tall and imposing in the EVA, yet weak-minded. Kaworu, mal-intentioned, yet wholesome in spirit, small and helpless. The choice is in Shinji’s hands, until the screen goes black. Kaworu is decapitated for the sole reason that he was an angel, something others told Shinji was the enemy, and Shinji’s people-pleasing mindset took over. The choice was his, yet at the same time, it wasn’t. Shinji’s only justification for murder was that someone told him to.
Neon Genesis Evangelion, arguably because of this one cost saving measure, told a story very few have. It does more than hold on a static shot with little to no animation. It uses that lack of animation to its advantage, and both carefully and masterfully gives such communicative depth to them. Its visuals so limited, being a cost-saving show, has not only served to highlight the creative workflow of director Hideaki Anno, but the staff at studio Gainax (Gurren Lagann) and Tatsunoko Production (Speed Racer/Mach GoGoGo). Other shows have taken cost-saving measures in the past, but I’d argue NGE did it like no other.
Works Cited
Butler, Jeremy G. “Mad Men, Visual Style.” How to Watch Television, 2nd ed., New York University Press, 2020, pp. 51–60.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.