As a part of the Eminent Person Project, I was supposed to interview someone with knowledge of Hideaki Anno’s life, legacy, and achievements. Unfortunately, I was unable to secure an interview in the time allotted. I had contacted five organizations regarding the possibility of an interview, these being Studio Q, Osaka University of Arts, Nippon Television Network Corporation, TV Tokyo, and Tatsunoko Productions. I was only able to get one response, from Osaka University of Arts, which was unfortunately negative. After spending time researching organizations to contact and sending out emails, I lost motivation to continue. I had hoped that one of these companies would respond and was running out of possible people and organizations to contact. It was nearly impossible to find a way to directly contact anyone who had worked with Hideaki Anno, which would have been ideal. For this reason, I had to send emails to corporations that were affiliated with Anno either in the past or present. Perhaps it is due to the notorious slowness of Japanese corporate systems that I only received only one polite no in response.

  If I were to have more time to secure an interview or was able to do this all over again, I think I would set my sights a bit lower. Interviewing a corporate PR person or a former colleague would have certainly yielded ideal results but as I discovered getting a hold of either is easier said than done. Rather I would direct my attention to animation or film professors and other educators who would have been touched by Hideaki Anno’s work. The primary reason that I didn’t do this was because of the risk that neither would have even heard of Anno or been familiar with his work. Researching people to contact for this project, specifically individuals, was difficult enough as is and adding the difficulty of searching for connected educators would have been nearly impossible. However, looking back it may have been worth a shot, if I only found one there would be a higher likelihood that I would receive a response than emailing a soulless corporate contact.

Although I wish I had the opportunity to conduct an interview and gain more information on my eminent person for this project I feel that I will still be able to deliver an adequate speech and learning centre. Thankfully, several interviews of Hideaki Anno exist at the press of a button which I have read and watched and will continue to read and watch in an attempt to recreate the experience. I still believe that I have more than enough knowledge on my eminent person’s life and specifically of the challenges I will cover in my speech. There is more than enough proof of his eminence available. Whether I was too lazy or simply unlucky this time I will keep this experience in mind whenever I need to interview an expert on anything going forward in my education.