Miao Miao is a carefree little angel, the pearl in the palm of mom and dad. She is called "Sauce Sauce Love Candy" on WeChat, and the personal signature written in the circle of friends is: Always be a little friend, the world's first cute.
She likes to draw, she likes to design her text in the shape of a heart, she can draw small illustrations of "Me and Homework" hand in hand, and there are hollowed out little faces on the English practice book...
On June 4, because the composition was not "positive enough", she jumped from the fourth floor of the school, and her life stopped at the age of 10, becoming a child forever.
A few days later, the official response said: No corporal punishment and scolding behavior was found among the teachers involved; Miao Miao's composition was plagiarized, and the modified symbols were also drawn by herself.
It just so happened that I didn't even believe in punctuation.
Yesterday afternoon, Miao Miao's mother voiced through Weibo, questioning the official response, and making a heartbreaking appeal: "Please don't throw dirty water on your children anymore"...
Not long ago, another 13-year-old boy, Zhong Meimei, was asked to "shoot more positive energy works" just by truthfully reproducing what he saw on campus.
Do people who say this remember where the word "positive energy" came from? When Song Shanmu, the founder of the former "Yamaki Training", was accused of raping the trainees, the media exposed a detail: this morally upright educator, whenever he wanted to sexually assault female trainees, always said that the other party's body was full of negative energy, and he wanted to "inject" some positive energy into her.
This word that can be heard by anyone who understands Chinese grammar can hear its ironic meaning, and once became synonymous with "Wei Guangzheng"?
According to the original plan, the final chapter of the new theatrical version of the Japanese anime series "EVA (Evangelion)" that has been jumping tickets for many years was supposed to be released worldwide this month, ushering in the "third time" of the entire series. Of course, in this case, we can only expect to postpone it, rather than "Lao Tzu is gone" in anger.
EVA (Evangelion) series
Twenty-five years ago, this obscure anime masterpiece, mixed with multiple theological and psychological metaphors, "gloomy, dark and tangled" anime god debuted on TV Tokyo, and the cruel angels who "all are sick" have since set out to influence and encourage generations in Japan and the world with their own bursting negative energy.
Passing on negative energy has supported the career of Hideaki Anno, the father of EVA, for most of his life, and it is also the best thing he can do for the world.
Crushed by the bubble economy, born a loveless generation
The name Hideaki Anno is often associated with two diametrically opposed titles, one is "Anjin" and the other is "Leper".
As a man who created EVA and led Japan's third animation revolution, it is not surprising that he was a god; and "Leper" stemmed from Hideaki Anno's extremely exposed weird and grumpy personality, and almost no second person dared to do it to EVA fans' sadistic statement of "love to watch, don't watch and roll".
The work gives Hideaki Anno the courage to be arrogant. There is a saying among Japanese animation fans that a TV animation can be counted as a quarterly hot hegemony if the disc sales exceed 15,000 sets. With sales of more than 40,000 units, it can be called a social phenomenon. The total sales of EVA discs exceeded 200,000 sets, ranking first in the history of Japanese TV animation, and it cannot be shaken so far.
EVA has become a culture that has penetrated deeply into the general public, "Human Completion Plan", "Three No Girls", "Runaway"... Too many memes and lines are now a routine that needs no explanation. Even Japanese custom shops use EVA-style posters to attract customers – the simple words "beauty strike" can make passers-by fall into long fantasies.
Custom shop EVA style poster
Around 2000, EVA was introduced twice in China under the titles of "2000 SkyHawk Warrior" and "New Century Sky Eagle Warrior". Although it has undergone a large number of deletions, there is only one Japanese animation that "knows that if it is introduced, it will be greatly changed, and it will still be introduced after the major reform, rather than banned", and this is the only one - fortunately, no one used the "negative energy" reason to beat this work to death at that time, otherwise the EVA enlightenment of domestic children would be at least another generation.
Hideaki Anno is a fanatic, in Japan, where the "Gundam" culture has become fully prevalent, he is not satisfied with creating a "cool fan" similar to the mecha fighting monster made by the assembly line, but in the original positive, upward, hot-blooded mecha two-dimensional dimension to rebel coloring, jumping out of the "everyone wants to open a mecha" custom, so that the audience realizes that the protagonist does not need to be full of the strength and self-confidence of the middle two style - the cowardly and tangled "anti-hero", mortals can also save this mutilated world. This foresight of empathy and foresight will continue to be validated over the next few decades.
The EVA premiered in October 1995. Six months ago, Aum Shinrikyo created the Tokyo subway sarin gas incident, killing 12 people and injuring at least 5,510 others. The "cleanness" of Japanese society is free of violence, and thus ceases to exist.
With the bursting of Japan's bubble economy in the 1990s, the harmonious society that originally walked on two legs of material and spirit completely collapsed after losing material, and even the last spiritual fortress collapsed, which further aggravated the anxiety and wandering of the Japanese people, especially the younger generation.
On the surface, EVA is a story about several teenage pilots in sexy costumes who control giant mechs to fend off the apocalypse attacks brought by the "apostles". But as the story progresses, the protagonists are forced to face their hearts, and the sense of uneasiness and dislocation that cannot be shaken off is always lingering.
Unlike the common animated protagonist, the protagonist, Shinji Tsurugi, is a teenager, but he is old-fashioned; what is worse is that his cowardice is deep in the bone marrow, and all social interactions are full of embarrassment and apology. Such a character cannot make people admire and admire, but it can make people feel empathy. The whole work is dark, depressing, tragic, and the ending is bizarre and shocking, reflecting not only the social atmosphere of Japan at that time, but also the smallness, wandering and helplessness of individuals in the high-speed modern city.
EVA is like a refuge for everyone who has seen it and loved it. Everyone can see their inner self in Shinji, and they can also compare with Asuka and Ayapolis around them. The emotions, moods, experiences, and tones in those lines are almost all the induction and extension of a generation of Japanese people, and everyone can sit in the right seat.
In a sense, Hideaki Anno created EVA, and the times chose EVA as a favorite. It was EVA that reversed the society's perception of anime as "low-grade", "vulgar", and "yellow riot"; pioneered the "production committee system" to change the form of production and broadcasting in the industry; and inspired the "seller-run" peripheral derivative sales model to achieve unprecedented commercial success, so that the Japanese animation industry recovered from the blow of the Miyazaki Incident and became what we see it now.
"O brave boy! Go and do miracles."
In The eyes of Hideaki Anno, however, the project was launched only to make the world aware that he was "a man who had nothing to do in four years, a man who had escaped for four years but survived."
Hideaki Anno was never a self-motivated student, but after graduating from high school, he had no intention of working, and after a year of struggling in the state of "Ronin", he was admitted to Osaka University of the Arts without a cultural test with reference to Miyazaki's storyboarding technique.
In terms of animation, Hideaki Anno is extremely talented. In his first year of school, he was invited to participate in the drawing of the classic cartoon "Timeless Fortress", and under the guidance of the famous mecha painting supervisor Ichiro Itano, he continued to practice the level of mecha painting. During this period, his unique ability to produce explosion special effects scenes full of personal style also began to stand out.
However, due to his busy animation production and failure to pay his tuition fees in time, Hideaki Anno was expelled from school. He turned around and took a backpack and a hopeful outfit to Tokyo and embarked on the path of animating Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind—Miyazaki, who had not yet established Ghibli, was about to adapt his manga into a movie.
Hideaki Anno was lucky enough to get the job and soon became known for enjoying sleeping in the studio. The relationship between him and Miyazaki slowly developed into a close and lasting teacher-student friendship.
In 1984, Hideaki Anno, who had been fully trained, founded his own "GAINAX" company with his college friends, and quickly launched his first animation work "Wang Li Cosmic Army" a year later. This experimental work, independently directed by Hideaki Anno as a special effects artist, was widely praised for its advanced production precision.
In just three years, Hideaki Anno successfully directed Leap to the Top with his friend Yamaga for his excellent control of rhythm and storyboarding. This anime full of mechs, maidens, and monsters once again brings out the "Wind of Anno" to the fullest.
But these two works, full of arrogant idealization, ignore the control of the maturity of the project process and budget, and repeatedly compress the company's financial state to the brink of collapse.
Then, Anno supervised the production of "The Mystery of sapphires" based on "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", which was not well received, and made a big loss - Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky", which was also based on "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", was not only applauded, but also brought a lot of benefits to Studio Ghibli.
Hideaki Anno is full of confidence in his work, but he has been repeatedly hit by the anime market. Going around and going around and being silent for four years, he wrote in his autobiography about how cruel his surroundings were during this period, and how unsuccessful his creative career was. In the end, in the trough, he finally decided to "no longer run away" mentality, single-mindedly pounced on this theme, took out the first script of "EVA", and fought again.
In 1986, the Hong Kong street director, who was also silent for four years and had no drama to shoot, found a former actor who had just been fired by the company, a "box office poison", and a newcomer to the film industry who failed to prove himself, also holding the idea of "fighting again", formed a bureau and made a movie, "The True Colors of Heroes".
Similar to Wu Yusen, "EVA" pours out too many similar self-experiences of Hideaki Anno, such as the delicate love plot of the male and female protagonists, which implies Hideaki Anno's inability to ask for voice actor Hidaka Noriko.
After the EVA became popular, Hideaki Anno "sealed the gods", but he did not stop showing his "leprosy nature". He first began to launch a large number of peripheral products almost madly, linking books, coffee cups, handmade, razors, underwear, sneakers, etc., all-encompassing, although he made a lot of money, he was also attacked as a "new century circle money warrior", over-consuming and overdrawing the IP ecology.
In hideaki Anno, published in 1997, Evangelion recounts a conversation he had with journalist Oizumi. Hideaki Anno said: "When anyone watches EVA, it becomes a mirror for the audience, and that's how we made it... After doing this, I initially thought it would be nice if someone could keep falling into the trap, but some people fell into it so deeply that I hated it."
As a result, dissatisfied with the otaku's behavior of liking to pin dreams and hopes on the characters he created, he not only wrote one of the heroines Ayapoli many times in the TV version, but also the tyrannical and tortured other heroine Asuka in the old theater version of "True Heart for You", a "to defeat the devil, you must first become a demon" style.
This salty-sweet mixture of paranoia and redundancy also seems to be intertwined with Hideaki Anno's true self: a twisted man, a man who seems to be like a hemp rope, a person who tightly bundles disappointment and hope for the world.
"A lot of EVA fans want us to come up with an 'EVA full analysis' manual, and there has never been such a thing. Don't think others can give you answers. And don't expect your thoughts to be met all the time. We all have to find our own answers ourselves. EVA is my life, and I've put everything I know in my life. This is my whole life. The nature of my life."
Mourning and love
Hideaki Anno is full of contradictions and antagonisms, and his characters are clearly surrounded by a circle of darkness, which precipitates melancholy, hesitation and indecision. Lost, tense and entangled, these "negative energy" emotions swirl among the various characters of EVA, slowly rising, painting the reflection of Hideaki Anno's self-pity and narcissism, although he never admits it.
The characters and plots created in this way often appear twisted and thick, but they also have a lot of results. Anime fans find that characters who need to rush to the front line and save the world can also be cowardly, crying and afraid of death, but they can become brave, bright and righteous when difficulties are attacked; arrogant girls always speak negative language, but they can always show firmness in the face of great right and wrong; the hidden tearing heart pool of the evil one often accommodates the most simple pure sea.
Or because of this, the characters and plots before and after "EVA" become torn and broken, full of pain, darkness and extremes, but the audience can always capture the hidden goodness and flash in a certain picture.
In the post-EVA era, both the "divine personality" and the "spirit" seem to be slowly lost to Hideaki Anno. It is not so much a little lonely as it is that he begins to enjoy the worldly life and becomes softer.
In 2002, Hideaki Anno married manga artist Yumeko Anno, and Hayao Miyazaki also served as a witness. In addition to his 1998 romance "His and Her Story", Hideaki Anno also gave up directing new animated feature films and switched to live-action films. Successively filmed "Love and Fashion", "Style Day" and "Sweetheart Warrior". He became as warm as water, and it took ten years to shake.
In 2006, Anno officially left the hard-to-return GAINAX and took away all the rights to EVA, setting up a new company, Khara, to prepare for a new round of "Evangelion New Theater Edition" program. Up to now, in 2007, 2009 and 2012, "Prologue", "Broken" and "Q" have been launched successively, corresponding to the three-stage starting and ending of the traditional Japanese art form, "preamble, break, urgent".
However, after the official release of "EVA New Theater Edition: Q", Hideaki Anno quickly disappeared from the public eye. Although the media and the audience were very curious about his whereabouts, Hideaki Anno never replied.
It wasn't until April 1, 2015, that Hideaki Anno said on his official website that the production of the "New Theater Edition of EVA" brought him great pressure to the point that he fell into depression. Fortunately, with the help of Mr. Miyazaki Jun, his wife and friends, he gradually emerged from the abyss.
In the epilogue to Yoko Anno's manga depicting the couple's married life, Hideaki Anno says to his wife with love, "Thank you for accompanying your stupid and naïve dead husband from the past to the present." After that, I may not go home for three months because of my busy work, be picky eaters, and be willful. In my lifetime, I will have to trouble you to take care of it a lot."
After Hideaki Anno suffered from depression, Miyazaki gave him support in many ways. Not only did he often counsel and encourage Hideaki Anno, but he also specifically asked Anno to voice the male protagonist of another of his "retirement works" in 2013, "The Wind Rises", Jiro Horikoshi – although after the anime was released, many viewers thought that the dubbing level of "Leper" was not high, and even had a sense of "stick reading".
Maybe it's a mapping. "A canonized god" seems to be an eternal curse of the creator, and the name Ofano Hideaki is also too deeply bound to EVA. Hideaki Anno tries to exert efforts in various fields, and it is also a reality to break this bondage.
In 2016, at the invitation of Toho Pictures, Hideaki Anno directed and produced the film "New Godzilla". Completely abandoning the civilian perspective and the core value of "great love in the world" common to disaster films, it peeks out the profound political and human nature behind the attack of Japanese society and all mankind for the monster attack, and gets rid of a "monster attack" that shows the exclusive Japanese political context, becoming one of the most successful live-action films in Japan in recent years.
Movie "New Godzilla"
But what people are waiting for is still Hideaki Anno's EVA. What teenager has not aspired to become a hero in the sky, and what girl has not fantasized about living in a rose-colored dream country. But when they have to face the cruelty and hypocrisy of real life, at least Hideaki Anno tells them that letting go of unrealistic fantasies and suffering can also change the world.
Like waiting for the big "THE END" to appear on the pure white background, this bowl of poisonous chicken soup is a gift from Hideaki Anno to the world.