>>280519003
>By the way, what do you think of the popular notion that Anno hated otakus and that the message of Evangelion was to tell his fans to touch grass? Is there any truth to it?
It's a half-truth. Anno was severely depressed after Nadia and the following 3 years of trying to get Aoki Uru off the ground and according to himself was kinda frustrated with the state of Japan, the anime industry and how his own generation of Otaku turned out, this is most likely just a projection of what he felt about himself. Eva itself isn't hateful at all tho, it's more like a self-help book, someone who calls himself an otaku turning to his fellow otaku and going "brothers, we can be happy if we try". Eva itself embraces its roots and Anno would go on to become the almost defacto stereotype of an otaku, something he wears in his sleeve and celebrates.
Anno himself did discribe it as "a bucket of water for otaku" but it's more about the anti-social and self-destructive tendencies associated with it. The problem isn't being a huge fan of otaku media, but shutting yourself off from friends and family to obsess over it. Using media to run away from reality and your problems, that's where the issue lies and critiques or self-aware jokes about this aspect aren't unique to Anno, they have been wide-spread since at least the 80s in the Otaku sphere itself. Gainax' own Otaku no Video talked about this even more directly than Eva did.
Pic. related from the 2003 Kodansha FRAMES interview with Anno