English transcription for Interview: Hiroyuki Imaishi and Atsushi Nishigori @ AX 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-8pdaaheL4
Transcription was created with Vibe

[ Silence ]
Michael Huang:
I'm here with Hiroyuki Imaishi which one is -- hi, nice to meet you.
And Atsushi Nishigori.
Right, how are you doing?
[ Silence ]
Hiroyuki Imaishi:
Yes, I sometimes do projects for other companies outside of Gainax.
[ Silence ]
Atsushi Nishigori:
Yes, sometimes I also do work for companies outside of Gainax if they sound interesting.
And Gainax is a company that gives us a fair amount of freedom
to choose what projects we want to work on independently.
[ Silence ]
Hiroyuki Imaishi:
Well, since Evangelion came out, we've had a lot of new people join the company.
And I feel like their sort of younger perspective has tended to shift things.
So you'll see those changes in series like Gurren Lagann.
It really reflects that kind of generational shift.
And of course, with the longstanding presence of Anno, who is one of the founders of Gainax,
I would say the change probably started to happen about 10 years ago.
[ Silence ]
Atsushi Nishigori:
Well, so I've been involved with Gainax for about the last decade.
And of course, around the time when I came in is around the time of the shift
that Imaishi-san was talking about.
It was when a lot of the founders were kind of elucidating control to some of the younger generation.
And the younger generation was starting to ask ourselves, "Okay,
what are we going to do with this company?
How are we going to put our talents together to create some new stuff?"
So I would say if there's one thing that really marks our newer generation,
I would say it's our willingness to pursue all kinds of directions
in our production and creative work.
[ Silence ]
[ Speaking in Foreign Language ]
Hiroyuki Imaishi:
Since after Evangelion from around that time, we've been producing a lot of quiet main characters.
And we felt like this was something that pleased viewers and people kind of enjoyed seeing.
There was a tendency to avoid main characters with too strong personalities.
And this went on for probably about 10 years after the original Evangelion.
And then we kind of felt like it was about time for a change.
It was just sort of a general shift in the feeling and the atmosphere.
And we wanted to give main characters whose worldviews and way of thinking was sort of powerful.
It demonstrated that sort of masculine strength.
And it's not like this has never been done before.
If you think about it, 20 years, 30 years back, anime did feature main characters like this,
but it sort of disappeared for a while.
So we, in a certain sense, were bringing it back.
[ Speaking in Foreign Language ]
Atsushi Nishigori:
Well, basically, I agree with what Imaishi said.
I feel like with Evangelion, GAINAX kind of gained a reputation as putting stuff out there.
That was a little twisted, a little cynical, kind of not straightforward.
And so we thought that we'd like to change that, actually, with "Gurren Lagann,"
that we would put something out there that doesn't, you know, curve too radically,
and that would be something a little more consistent.
[ Silence ]
[ Laughter ]
[ Speaking in Foreign Language ]
Hiroyuki Imaishi:
For me, a real man is one that never abandons his beliefs.
That always sticks to his guns.
[ Speaking in Foreign Language ]
[ Silence ]
[ Laughter ]
Atsushi Nishigori:
In other words, a man unlike Imaishi-san.
[ Laughter ]
[ Speaking in Foreign Language ]
[ Laughter ]
[BLANK_AUDIO]
[ Silence ]