HIDEAKI ANNO'S EARLIER LIVE-ACTION WORK
Anno is the current darling of the Tokusatsu world with his amazing Shin Japan Heroes Universe films and especially with the debut yesterday of the American premiere of Shin Kamen Rider. He is, of course, best known as an anime director and the creator of the seminal 90s series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
However, his first two forays into Live Action filmmaking were definitely different. Back in the late 90s, after 'finishing' Evangelion (Ha ha ha ha), Anno directed an anime romance series called Kareshi Kanojou no Jijyo (Kare Kano) which was a departure from his usual science fiction oriented shows. I was part of a fansub group at the time and was buying the laserdiscs for this series and I rather enjoyed it. The theme song is a total banger.
After finishing that project, Anno moved on to some live action films, his first being an experimental, shot entirely on digital, art film about the phenomenon of compensated dating called Love & Pop.
Compensated dating is/was the practice of older men paying high school girls to spend time with them and was basically a form of sex work that was questionable at best and downright illegal at worst. Anno was fascinated by a book about the subject called Topaz II by Ryū Murakami and adapted it to the screen with co-writer Akio Satsukawa.
In 2000, Anno made his second major Live Action film Shiki-Jitsu.
This was a highly personal film starring Ayako Fujitani and was about a disillusioned filmmaker who meets a young woman who continually repeats "tomorrow is my birthday". He tried to communicate with her through the movies he makes on a video camera. Anno met Fujitani (who is the daughter of colossal asshole actor Steven Seagal) while hanging out with Shinji Higuchi on the set of the the 90s Gamera films and thought she would be perfect for this role.
After this, Anno directed the 2004 adaptation of Cutie Honey and the rest is history.
I thought it would be fun to take a peek at his lesser known films while he is in the eye of the tokusatsu public. Hope you learned something. These films are not super easy to find, unfortunately.
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Series: Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou
Artist: Tsuda Masami
Publication: LaLa (01/2003)
Details: 2003 LaLa All Star Beautiful Calendar (April)
Source: Scanned from my personal collection
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