Kanagawa Prefectural Ikuta High School (3)

Anno: I read girls' comics when I was in junior high and high school, and at that time, there was almost never any sex in them. Somewhat progressive manga might deal with sex, but even so, it took a long to get that far, and actually doing it was the series finale, in a lot of cases. When I look at girl's comics these days, though, they're doing it all over the place.

All: (laughter)

Anno: It's like, there's no building of tension. It doesn't take much for these characters to hop into bed with one another. Literature prior to that had scenes like "Shiosai (Roar of the Waves)", where a man and woman would get naked, talk of getting past the bonfire, and that was where they would go. Without that sort of drama, it was like men and women couldn't sleep together, back then. I was wondering if today's high school students feel like that, that is, if there's really such a lack of resistance to sex.

Suzuki: I wouldn't say that's true of everyone.

Sakagami: People without resistance are on the increase, I think.

Anno: Do you think it's all right if you're in love? Or if you get money, or if it just happens?

Suzuki: I'd get mad if it just happened.

"A Classmate Became a Mother"

Oda: A friend of mine in my class got pregnant, and got married as a result. I was shocked when I first heard about it. We were going to find work together after graduation, but when she told me she was going to become a mother, I thought, that's incredible. I don't think that Compensated Dating is nearly as prevalent as people talk about, though. TV shows and magazines do their reporting in major shopping areas, right? And that's because they know that that's where they'll find the kind of people they're looking for. I think they should report on high school students as a whole.

Anno: Put it on TV, though, and old ladies with time on their hands watch it. We got one such old lady calling the TV station while "Evangelion" was on the air, saying that we shouldn't have sexy scenes.

Miyabu: Just for that?

Anno: Yep. There's no sense of realism about high school students having a romance without sex, is there. I'm thinking about putting a message at the beginning of each episode telling grade-school students not to watch.

Miyabu: Are the main characters of "Kareshi Kanojo no Jijoo" going to be junior-high or high school students?

Anno: They're in their first year of high school, and in the manga they've recently had sex. And it just happened, without any buildup. I'm trying to figure out how to make something dramatic out of this. Could that be the way it is? Do they just do it?

Miyabu: What do you think?

Anno: I think I'm stuck. The male lead seemed to me to be so terribly upstanding, I figured he'd treat her better than that, when he up and has sex with her. He's not the character I thought he was. Maybe that's what it's like nowadays. People don't waste time, or something.

Miyabu: There's just no telling.

Anno: There are people who think first and foremost in terms of doing it, though.

"I Want Pure Love"

Q. Do you want pure love?

Suzuki: Many times I've fallen in love, and every time I've thought, there's no one else but her for me. And everytime, I've been wrong.

Miyabu: I want pure love. But you'd have to get married for that, wouldn't you?

Anno: Everyone defines pure love differently. But old biddies like the one who complained (about Eva) have never experienced it. They do things like that to kill time, because they're dissatisfied with kids today. They're not dissatisfied with themselves, but with their environment, their surroundings. They ignore any blame they may have for their situations, instead blaming everything on anime. I never thought I'd get caught up in it. Nobody sounds as loud as old biddies like those. They have so much time on their hands that instead of calling telephone dating clubs, they call TV stations.

Miyabu: Things seem more problematic now than they were in their time.

Anno: Just what is love, anyway?

Suzuki: I'm not sure what the yardstick, or the concept, might be.

Kosone: I don't really know what's "love" and what's "like".

Miyabu: Isn't love when you really, really like someone?

Oda: We covered it in modern Japanese, but ended up without understanding it at all.

Anno: Speaking in general terms, time makes the difference, I suppose.

(From the July 30, 1998 edition of Mainichi Intermediate School News)