at some point you have to stop relying on retrospectives and word of god for media analysis because a) the vast majority of people consuming the work have no idea what animation director c said in a hobbyist magazine interview 3 years after the series ended, and b) that’s nice but it’s not what they watched. hardline ‘death of the author’ is willful ignorance but if you have to do outside research to make a point, and that point is that the work didn’t actually depict the work, you don’t really have one in respect to the cultural perception of the work. respectfully i don’t really give a shit if hideaki anno revealed he tripped and spilled ink that makes anime gay all over the animation cels, and i fully understand the implication of 好き in the original japanese. peddle this strange brand of ‘i’m not gay for liking episode 24 a little too much’ denialism elsewhere