エヴァンゲリオンと鬼滅の刃:時代に選ばれた作品 Evangelion and Demon Slayer: Two Works Selected by Their Eras

非常に興味深い記事であったため、一部を抜粋して(英訳は拙僧のものであり)紹介したいと思う。拙僧が初めてハマったアニメシリーズはカウボーイビバップであったけど、次に見たシリーズは確かにエヴァンゲリオンであった。そこで描かれたテーマは非常に衝撃的であって、媒体としてアニメの可能性が無限に近いであることを教えてくれた。そして、早送りしてエヴァンゲリオンの公開から25年後たる2020年には、日本全土と同様にうちの子供も「鬼滅の刃」というアニメにハマった。この記事で取材を受けた社会学者で東京都立大教授の宮台真司さんによると、この二作のアニメシリーズは「時代に選ばれた作品」である。
This is a fascinating article, so I've decided to translate a few excerpts from it to provide the English speaking audience with some of the insights it provides. The first anime series that I really got into was "Cowboy Bebop", but the one I watched after that was "Evangelion". I remember being blown away by the themes that it addressed. Indeed, it was the series that clearly demonstrated to me the nearly infinite potential anime possesses as a medium. Fast forward to 2020, 25 years after Evangelion's release, and our kids got caught up in the anime "Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer" just like everyone else in Japan. According to Shinji Miyadai, sociologist and professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, both of these series have proven to be "works selected by their eras."

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Source: ITmedia, kimetsu.com

 

"宮台さんによると、95年は「社会の共通前提が破壊された年」だった。1月、阪神大震災が発生。3月、オウム真理教による地下鉄サリン事件。小遣いほしさの「援助交際」、強盗行為の「おやじ狩り」が社会問題化しはじめたのもこの頃だった。そんな時代を枕にして、秋の夕刻にエヴァのテレビシリーズが始まった。主人公の自意識を巡る悩み、極めて狭い人間関係の中でのやりとりに、世界の命運というダイナミックなスケールの「仕掛け」が組み合わされた斬新なストーリーに「10~40代の幅広い年齢層の視聴者がはまりました」と宮台さんは言う。「共通前提が空洞化すると、不幸も幸福も自意識の問題だと感じられはじめます。エヴァはそこにシンクロしました」 "
"Miyadai claims that 1995 was the year in which the universal preconceptions held by Japanese society were shattered. January saw the massive Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. Two months later in March was the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Metro subway committed by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult movement. Other new social issues also began to emerge around this time, such as "enjo kosai (young women receiving money/gifts from older men in return for sexual favors)" and "oyaji kari (hunting down and beating middle age/elderly men and taking their money)." It was against this backdrop that Evangelion hit the evening slots of Japanese TV that autumn. The story put forward by the series was really original, centering on a young protagonist struggling with his own idea of consciousness while confined within very narrow social relationships, thrust into a chain of dynamic events that will determine the fate of the world. It appealed to a wide audience, from teenagers to those in their 40s. 'When universal preconceptions start to ring hollow, people begin to perceive the notions of happiness and unhappiness as issues involving their own consciousness,' Miyadai says. 'Evangelion resonated because it fell in sync with that atmosphere.' "

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Source: evangelion.com

 

"「『鬼滅の刃』で描かれる鬼は、強ければ昇格でき、弱ければゴミ扱いされるルール下で生きています。これは今の社会と一緒。倫理よりも損得勘定に駆られて上を目指さざるを得ない昨今の人間たちの隠喩です」。さらに宮台さんが続ける。「鬼もそれぞれ人から鬼になる過程で悲劇を抱えますが、鬼同士はその悲劇を共有しません。そんな孤独な鬼たちが、悲劇を共有して正しい人間のあり方を示せる主人公ら『鬼殺隊』に退治されていくのです」"
"In 'Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer", demons are pitted against each other in a hierarchical battle. The cunning climb up that ladder, the weak are treated as expendables. This mirrors contemporary society. It is essentially a metaphor for human beings driven to vie for the top, discarding ethics in favor of self-interest as the calculus for their actions. There is a tragic story behind how each fell from human grace and became a demon, but these demons do not bond together over this shared sense of tragedy. Each of them is on their own. They in turn are vanquished by the Demon Slayers, a group that share in each other's own sad tales and come together to provide a model of how human beings should be."

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Source: Fuji TV

 

"エヴァが、社会で孤立し、自意識の世界にとらわれた個々の若者たちへの応援歌だったとすれば、コロナ禍の時代に老若男女が涙した「鬼滅の刃」は、自意識に閉ざされることを否定するという点で、その対極にある作品だと宮台さんは言う。"
" 'Evangelion' is a chant to cheer on young people who feel isolated from society and lost in their own stream of consciousness. On the other hand, 'Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer', which has stirred the emotions of young and old amid this pandemic, is a rejection of this self-imposed isolation within one's consciousness."

 

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20210106/dde/012/040/019000c?fbclid=IwAR0hvw9oZTkiHOn0IazRHoDE1mM5j5HCxhnrvjky_NMTrPZhKj4Ca3onXFY