Creation and Conception
According to director Hideaki Anno, Evangelion was an attempt to make all perspectives into one, creating characters that represent different things to different viewers to make it impossible for everyone to arrive at a single theory. To some viewers, the characters are psychological representations, while to others, they are philosophical, religious, historical, and even themselves.
Anno was influenced by Ryu Murakami's political economy novel Fascism in Love and Fantasy (愛と幻想のファシズム, Ai to Gensō no Fashizumu?), and the names "Toji Suzuhara", "Kensuke Aida", and the surname "Horaki" and "Toda" come from this book. Many of the surnames of the characters in Evangelion are named after Japanese warships in World War II.. In the original Japanese show, all of the characters' first names are written in katakana.
Most of Evangelion's characters' ages were plotted before broadcasting the TV series, but their birthdays were not settled. After the TV series finished, GAINAX released birthdays which were similar to those of each character's voice actors, except Rei Ayanami, Toji Suzuhara, Kensuke Aida and Kaworu Nagisa. This time, the characters' birth years were still unrevealed.
Adult characters' birth years were simply calculated from their age, but there was an additional aspect in determining the children's ones. According to the Japanese educational system, in 2015 second graders of junior high school (eighth graders) are basically made up of children who were born from April 2, 2001 to April 1, 2002. Children's birth years were set in proportion to this rule. However these birth years did not change the children's ages of 14 in year 2015. This is the reason why Asuka Langley Soryu and Toji Suzuhara were born in December 2001 and Hikari Horaki was born in February 2002, despite all children except Kaworu are 14 in 2015.
Read more about this topic: List Of Neon Genesis Evangelion Characters
Famous quotes containing the words creation and, creation and/or conception:
“For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)
“As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is possible—indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic—to give in advance a description of all ‘true’ logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)