Red Cross, more then just blood

Red Cross

This is a translation of the "Red Cross" book, a manual of Eva that Gainax put out. It is as holy as any bible, and its word is considered the cannon law of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The STANDARD TRANSLATION COPYING POLICY (tm) Want to repost or archive this? Just follow these rules: 1) Don't change the content, although formatting is ok. You can translate it into html, just don't go inserting your own paragraphs, or changing words (even spell-checking). If you want to translate this, you have far too much free time on your hands. Mail me. 2) Bill me as "Patrick Yip , despite what email address you see this coming from. 3) Leave this disclaimer intact. This applies to all my translation that have been released (either posted to the Evangelion ML, or rec.arts.anime.misc). You don't need to send me mail to ask permission to archive this, but it might be a nice gesture to let me know you did it. Now the real stuff. The first part contains the "commentary" of the RCB. THE RED CROSS BOOK (aka RCB) -- the final(?) canon of Evangelion translated by Patrick Yip (Patrick.Yip@Asia.ING.com) 1997/10/19 The Red Cross Book (referred to as RCB onwards) is the pamphlet sold in the cinema to those who came to see the movie "the End of Evangelion". It cost 800 yen. The book is A-4 in size and landscape in orientation. The cover is pitch black with a red Georgian cross superimposed on it, hence the name "Red Cross Book" On the cross, the words "THE END OF EVANGELION" was printed, in thin, match-like manner. What makes this book particularly special and meaningful to all EVA fans is that, for the first time, we hear the voice from Gainax about why and how the movies were made. We also know a great deal about the answers to some of the most discussed after mysteries in the anime. The "commentary" "glossary" and "production notes" are three parts that are most informative. I shall strive to translate these three sections so that all the EVA fans could know the latest update of the "official" answers to the EVA mysteries (real-life or anime :-)
Commentary THE END OF EVANGELION" is the final of the series "Neon Genesis Evangelion". This movie is composed of the 25th episode "Air" and 26th episode "True Heart to you" (Magokoro wo, kimi ni).At the end of TV EP.24 "The last Shito/Nagisa", Kaworu Nagisa, the first one who understands our hero Shinji Ikari, also the last Angel, was killed Shinji's own hand. Ep.25 "Air" starts right after this. Therefore, Ep.25 and Ep.26 are the continuation of TV EP.24 "The last Shito".In TV, after the EP.24, EP.25 "The end of the world" (Owaru Sekai) and EP.26 "The one who calls only I/Love at the center of the world" (Sekai no Chuushin de AI wo yondake mono) were shown, and the series ended afterwards. Therefore, after the end of TV EP.24, the story of Evangelion can be said to branch into two. There is one ending as shown in TV EP.25 & 26, while the Ep.25 & 26 as shown in "THE END OF EVANGELION" is another ending. (Here we use the kanji number for TV Episode, and Arabic number for the movie episodes) -- PY: I use EP for TV and Ep for movie -- TV "Neon Genesis Evangelion" was an anime series which ran from 1995 October to 1996 March. The planning and original story were done by GAINAX, which is known to produce anime "The Wings of Oneamis" and "Fushigi no Umi no Nadia", also games like "Princess Mecha". The animation production was done by GAINAX and Tatsunokopuro. "Neon Genesis Evangelion" has always been, since its inception to this movie, evolving with the director Hideaki Anno as the center. From the theme, the skeleton of the story, up till the single pieces of the dialogue, they all bear the stint of Anno's creative individuality. When Evangelion was shown on TV, it received the enthusiastic support of many fans. Discussions started on many topics: The intriguing SF settings, the dynamic fighting scenes, the metaphysical taste derived from the appearance of many Christian and psychoanalytical jargons, the super-intensive amount of information. Evangelion overtakes all previous anime on all these counts. It could be taken as real "Neon Genesis" of anime. The tremendous popularity could match the biggest hits like "Space Battleship Yamato" and "Mobile Suit Gundam". The "Eva phenomenon" was created.
The big theme in Evangelion is the "heart of people". This is also one of the attractions of this series which could not be found in other anime works. The relationship with others, the meaning of the existence of self, what is the self.... Evangelion started as a realistic SF mecha action anime. At first, the "people's heart" issue of the main characters is just some add-on to the drama. However, as the plot moved forward, the issue of "people's heart" grew much bigger than other elements like mecha actions or the solutions to the mysteries. At the last episode of the TV series, "Sekai no Chuushin de AI wo yondake mono", it became an odd-looking episode which depicted only the internal world of the hero Shinji Ikari. Although that was fulfilling for the main theme, the drama of the characters and further development of the Eva world were left unfinished as the story ended. It became an exploding issue as the last TV episode was considered incomplete. The voice of the fans grew stronger and stronger as they demanded the proper ending of the drama, the explanation of the mysteries or just a new story. With a view to meeting these demands, it was decided to remake the EP.25 & 26. At first, the remade episodes 25 and 26 were supposed to be released in OVA, but during production it was decided that it would be a theatre release. There is a "EVANGELION DEATH AND REBIRTH" (Shito Shinsei) which consists of the summary episode of the TV series "Death" and the new remade "Air" which serves as a climax. However, since later the content of the remake grew to an unexpected proportion, the content shown in "REBIRTH" was actually 2/3 of the new episode 25. As the first part of the final, "EVANGELION DEATH and REBIRTH" was shown in March 1997. It has been 4 months after "EVANGELION DEATH AND REBIRTH", and now the completion of the final is shown. This is this movie "THE END OF EVANGELION" As mentioned before, "THE END OF EVANGELION" is the continuation from TV EP.24 "The last Angel". All the Angels had died. Now the final phase, the Human Complementation Project of Seele, had started. The Strategic Self-Defense Force attacked the Headquarter of NERV. The deathly fight between Asuka's EVA-02 and the mass production models of EVA series. The resolved mysteries. And then, the ending of the HCP. The heart of Shinji.... In Ep.25 (AIR) and Ep.26 (True Heart to You), drama of main characters, actions, solutions to the mysteries etc are all contained. Also this is done in an experimental way, which strives to the follow the TV series in bringing up the real issue of "people's heart". As its title suggests, this is the ending of the final of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" The chief director and script play is Hideaki Anno. The castings of Ep.25 (Air) is Waya Tsurumaki (PY: don't know whether this is the correct translation) and that of Ep.26 (True Heart to You) is Hideaki Anno. The animation production is, as in EVANGELION DEATH AND REBIRTH, jointly done by GAINAX and PRODUCTION I.G. The movie lasts for about 87 minutes.

Production Notes (PY's Note: In the Production Notes, a lot of staff's names are introduced. Although I have a Japanese Name Dictionary, I have got lazy and decided to go for the translation without bothering to find out the pronunciation of the names. This means many of the names would be left untranslated, and absent from this version of translation. I hope I could get the name right later. My apologies. Also please note that I keep the Japanese convention of writing the surname first, followed by the "first-name") Two kinds of title logo of "THE END OF EVANGELION" were designed. One is the logo used on the poster and the advance-sale ticket. Another one is used as the title in the movie, following the hand-written style of the title used in "REBIRTH". It is the latter title logo that is used on the cover of this pamphlet. The movie ep.25 "Air" is based on the script already in place during TV production originally intended for TV Ep.25. Because of various problems during production, this script was not used and the TV Ep.25 "The Ending World" was done in a same way as TV Ep.26 in which the drama was developed within an internal mind universe. Because of this, it could be said that this ep.25 is a return to the original intended story. In contrast, the movie ep.26, when compared with TV Ep.26, contains much more content on the story and plot, thus deepening the theme brought out in TV. Since this movie is supposed to be the remake of the last two episodes of the TV series, the TV episode format is followed, with each episode having its own subtitle and eyecatch scenes.(PY: you know, those static scenes that contain nothing but black background and white Japanese/English words) The animation production of this movie, PRODUCTION I.G., is known to have produced anime movies like "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell". PRODUCTION I.G. made the most out of the big composition production effort put into this movie, a theatrical film, and it became a high quality film. In movie ep.25 "Air", the director is Tsurumaki Katzuya, the deputy director in the TV series. Although the script play is from the hands of the chief director Anno Hideaki, and all the operations from direction downwards are also generally entrusted to Tsurumaki. Masuna Yuki (?), also the deputy director in the TV series, is responsible for the animation draft (PY: kai-konte? those pencil drafts of the scenes as they should look in the real animation). Also, Higuchi Shinji participated in script play as well as animation drafting. They all followed the instruction from Director Tsurumaki. The direction of the movie ep.26 "True Heart to You" was taken up by Chief-director Anno himself. Because of that, this movie bears a strong flavour of his individual taste. As for animation drafts, Jime Kiichi and Higuchi Shinji also took part. Masuna Yuki, who was the deputy director of the TV series and the director of the movie "DEATH", served several responsibilities in this movie: animation drafts, original print, virtual water artist. The depiction of water is the most difficult part in animation, and he worked as the art director of all depiction realated to natural phenonmena like water and waves. As a result, a post called "virtual water artist" was recreated for such responsibility. He also drew the original print for the advertisement poster of this movie. There are two art directors in ep.25 and three in ep.26. In ep.25, the art director for scenes centered on characters is Kouse Kazuya from PRODUTION I.G.. Kouse is known as the animator of movies like "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell", and he worked twice as the art-director in the TV series. Honda Yuu is the main art director, as well as the animator for the "opening" The art directors for ep.26 are Suzuki Gotoni, Hiramatsu Teishi and Anno Hideaki. Suzuki and Hiramatsu are both the art directors for the general scenes, while Anno concentrates on the mecha scenes and cuts centered around special effects. In order to depict the interal world of Shinji in ep.26, real life scenes were employed in one part of the movie. Because of this decision, a team called "Special Production Team" was formed. The script play and chief director in this team is also Anno Hideaki. The post for special effect director was taken up by Higuchi Shinji. "Special effect director" in this context means the director for the filming of special effects. The real life filming was done according to the combined opinion formed between Hideaki Anno and Higuchi Shinji.


Although CG (computer graphics -PY) was widely used in Evangelion TV, those CG scenes were all computer screens, processed in a 2-dimensional manner. This time, in "THE END OF EVANGELION", broadened 3-dimensional CG was used. The core of the CG production is Omnibus Japan, which did the CG in "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell". Most of the CG scenes are found after the start of the Human Complementation Project in ep.26. Some examples include the cut which has the surface of the Earth gradually buried under more and more big crosses, and the cut which has numerous Rei swimming around. This time, the most difficult challenge for CG is the issue of translucence. Also, in order to create a visual feeling closer to other cuts, some scenes, after the normal CG operations, underwent a further analog filiming process with filters. The CG effect seen in the staff roll (in ending) was also done by Omnibus Japan. PRODUCTION I.G. also did several C.G. cuts. One of them is in ep.25, in which 9 gigantic transport planes carrying the mass-production model of EVA's first appeared. The nine big planes are seen from a bird-eye's view from top, with one plane overlapping another, and they each slided towards a different direction. Such scene is nearly impossible in conventional anime camera work, but C.G. makes it possible. The "Eirin" mark (the trade-mark of the studio appeared at the beginning of the movie -PY) is also C.G. done by PRODUCTION I.G. So it is also billed as 3D animator in the telop. As for the CG seen in the computer screens, they were all done by Gainax in-house, as in the TV series. This is billed as the 2D animator in the telop. There is a substantial part in movie ep.25, which repeats the content shown in "REBIRTH", released in spring time and is the first part of the final. One quarter of it underwent various retouch work so as to improve its quality. The effective use of classical music in Evangelion TV series and the spring movie "DEATH" leaves a deep impression to everybody. In this movie, 2 classical pieces were used: "Air on G" and "Jesus bliebt meine Freunde" by J.S.Bach. "Air on G" is a version from a new recording arranged by Sagisu Shiro. It is used in the scene in which the second half of the battle scene between EVA-02 and mass production model EVA's is intermixed with the scene when Gendou faced off Ritsuko. "Jesus bliebt meine Freunde" is from a compilation of an existing source. It is used in the real life scene in ep.26. 2 songs were written for "THE END OF EVANGELION", both are produced by the team of Anno Hideaki and Sagisu Shiro. One is "THANATOS - IF I CAN'T BE YOURS", heard in the end of ep.25. This is the vocal version of the BGM "THANATOS (E-13)" used in TV Ep.19 "Man's Battle". Vocalist is LOREN and lyrics is by MASH. Song and arrangement is by Sagisu Shiro. THANATOS is the god governing death in Greek mythology. It also carries a meaning of "impulsive desire for death" in psychoanalysis. As for the other song, it is the insert song used in ep.26 "Komm, suesser Tod". The lyrics is the English translation of words composed by chief-director Anno (PY: In my opinion, this is no translation, but inspired rewriting of the Japanese words). The title is a German, meaning "come, sweet death". Vocalist is Arianne, and song and arrangement are by Sagisu Shiro. There are altogether 18 BGM with new music and recording. The BGM used in this movie were done according to the opinions from chief-director Anno. So new music is even used in the part which repeats the story in "REBIRTH" It can be seen that the Municipal Haishima Kindergarten of Akishima city is billed in the "Thanks to" section in the telop. The is the kindergarten to where the daughter of Ishikawa, the producer of PRODUCTION I.G., goes. Since chief-director Anno wanted to use some children songs as close to real-life recording as possible in the sand bank scene of ep.26, Ishikawa and his team-mates went to that kindergarten and recorded the songs.