Biografia

[on getting into the anime industry] If you want to get into anime, my best advice to you as a creator is to please have diverse interests in things besides animation. Look outward, first of all. Most anime makers are basically autistic. They have to try and reach out, and truly communicate with others. I would guess that the greatest thing anime has ever achieved is the fact that we're holding a dialogue right here and now.

[on his beliefs] Japanese spiritualism holds that there is kami (spirit) in everything, and that's closer to my own beliefs.

Once you hold the prejudice that you can't use anything but cels to represent characters, you've finally become a fetishist...

About Nadia - Il mistero della pietra azzurra (1990): Actually, I felt sad when I watched Nadia, which I directed. I felt Nadia was too childish.

About Shinji Ikari, the Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) protagonist: The reason why the main character is fourteen years is that he is no longer a child but not yet an adult. He lives alone, but is attached to others. In past centuries, he would soon celebrate his coming of age. Back then, life expectancy was fifty years, so people had to grow up in fourteen years. Considering 'age fourteen' as that in which an independence of mind starts manifesting, I found it proper to include this in my work.