f7d9395c_atings_and_reviews___Gwern_net__Review
[Title] The Notenki Memoirs: Studio Gainax and the Men Who Created Evangelion [Author] Yasuhiro Takeda [Rating] ★★★★★ [Year] 2005 [Read] 2009/01/01 [Review] 
For people interested in the history of the anime industry, Takeda fills in many gaps related to Gainax - it’s hard to think of any source which covers nearly so well DAICON III, DAICON IV, General Products, or throws in so many tidbits about surrounding people & Japanese SF fandom. It is an invaluable resource for any researcher, and I felt compelled to create an annotated e-book edition in order to elucidate various points and be able to link its claims with versions of stories by other people (for example, Okada’s extensive Animerica interview) Those reading it solely for Evangelion material will probably be relatively disappointed: Takeda clearly finds NGE not very interesting, may have bad associations due to being targeted in the tax raids, and he was writing this in 2000 or so - too close to the events and still working at Gainax to really give a tell-all, and it’s not a terribly long or dense book in the first place. Nevertheless, NGE fans will still find many revelations here, like the origin of NGE production in the failure of the Aoki Uru film project (an origin simply not present in any Western sources before Notenki Memoirs was translated). In general, Takeda is not interested in a ‘tell-all’; perhaps it’s due to fear, perhaps too many people involved are still alive and kicking, but he only covers the embarrassing things which are too well-known to omit, like the aforementioned tax raid or Okada’s ouster from Gainax. I read it several times, and that was how I wound up transcribing my copy into a webpage which I could annotate with cross-references and interviews with other figures like Okada or Anno - I realized I could keep rereading it, or just do the job right the first time. It’s been a valuable resource for me ever since.
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