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Amid a historic surge in the global consumption of Japanese media, Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno has pushed back against the idea of tailoring content for international viewers.
In a recent interview with Forbes Japan, the veteran director argued that anime production should remain strictly focused on Japanese sensibilities, stating that foreign audiences must adapt to the work rather than the other way around.
“I personally have never created a work with the international market in mind,” Anno said. “I can only make things that are domestic.”
The director noted that while movie studios were quick to ask about overseas potential, it was not something he aimed for. His stance, he explained, was to focus entirely on making something that would be well-received in Japan first.
“If, by good fortune, people overseas find it interesting too, I’m grateful for that,” he added.
Anno’s comments come as the Japanese government has plan in place to aggressively promote its Cool Japan initiative, a strategy designed to capitalize on the country’s cultural exports.
Despite demands to consider overseas demographics, Anno maintained that the integrity of anime lies in its cultural specificity. He suggested that the medium’s reliance on Japanese language and emotional nuances makes it inherently difficult to westernize without losing its core identity.
“A work constructed through Japanese thought processes is, naturally, difficult to understand outside of the Japanese language,” Anno said. “It is a drama about people acting on emotions rooted in Japanese thinking. If people can understand that, I think it will be accepted overseas, but I cannot adjust my work to fit them,” he noted. “I’m sorry, but the audience needs to adjust to the work.”
The director cited his production of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) as an example in maintaining creative autonomy. The film, which earned over 10 billion yen at the domestic box office, was produced without regard for foreign profit margins. Anno’s studio, Khara, handled the film’s production, distribution, and advertising independently, a move he said insulated him from external demands to cater to global trends.
“By making it essentially an independent production, no one around me could tell me what to do,” Anno said. “I liked that I could take full responsibility whether it made a profit or not.”
Anno pointed out that even industry giants like Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki operate with a similar disregard for foreign markets.
He argued that business teams should handle the “conversion” of a work into a global product only after the creative process is complete. This way, the creators, according to him, can trust their own sensibilities on what is good, instead of being burdened what may or may not click with international audiences.
Addressing the broader landscape of Asian cinema, Anno credited the global success of Korean and Chinese media for paving the way for Japanese works. He observed that previous barriers to entry for Asian content in Western markets have eroded.
“The ‘allergy’ to seeing Asian faces on screen has decreased significantly,” Anno said. “That’s huge.”
Source: Forbes Japan
