Anno understands the Japanese national attraction to characters like Rei as the product of a stunted imaginative landscape born of Japan's defeat in the Second World War. "Japan lost the war to the Americans," he explains, seeming interested in his own words for the first time during our interview. "Since that time, the education we received is not one that creates adults. Even for us, people in their 40s, and for the generation older than me, in their 50s and 60s, there's no reasonable model of what an adult should be like. "The theory that Japanss defeat stripped the country of its independence and led to the creation of a nation of permanent children, weaklings forced to live under the protection of the American Big Daddy, is widely shared by artists and intellectuals in Japan. It is also a staple of popular cartoons, many of which feature a well-meaning government that turns out to be a facade concealing sinister and more powerful forces.

The Japanese network NTV will air the first six minutes and 38 seconds of the Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (Evangelion Shin Gekijō-ban Q Quickening) film on November 16 — one day before the film opens in Japanese theaters. The preview will run after the airing of the second new Evangelion film, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance, in NTV's traditional 9:00 p.m. "Friday Road Show!" timeslot for movies and specials.

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