Megumi Ogata, a Japanese voice actress and singer famous for her roles as Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Nagito Komaeda in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, was recently interviewed for SHIBUYA ANIME BASE, looking back on her yearly special concert held in December 2025. In the interview, the voice actress talked about her struggles performing the role of Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the deep bond she shares with anime director Hideaki Anno.
Ever since her debut as Minamino Shuichi in YuYu Hakusho, Ogata’s most recognizable and iconic roles have been those of teenage boys. However, being in the industry for almost 40 years now, Ogata says she’s gone through a lot of hardship trying to maintain that “edgy 14-year-old soul” for such a long time. “I’m not a particularly skilled or talented actress, so in order to keep being able to play roles of 14-year-olds, I can never let go of my own feelings of being 14 years old,” she comments. “For a long time, I’ve always thought that I’d become worthless unless I continued to bear those feelings […] I was sure nobody would understand me, and I also thought that if I don’t continue [doing roles of teenage boys], there wouldn’t be a place for me in the voice acting world, so I tried real hard to maintain that.” However, she mentions that one of the few who reached out to her and understood her struggles was Evangelion director Hideaki Anno.
After recording the scene in which Shinji goes on to save Rei Ayanami, Ogata burned out and dropped on the floor, unable to stand up. In that moment, Anno rushed into the studio and sat next to Ogata, grabbing her hand and telling her: “Thank you for always holding on to the feelings of a 14-year-old. It was thanks to you never letting go of those feelings that we were able to create Evangelion.”
“Anno was the only one who recognized my struggles. He made me realize I was really glad to have been able to come this far as a voice actress,” Ogata recalls.
Reminiscing on her work with the director, Ogata explains that the (sometimes chaotic) recording sessions and the overall production of Evangelion were thanks to Anno pouring his soul into creating the anime. “Both then and now, director Anno has always cherished a live performance kind of approach to his work. At the time, Evangelion was a like a live performance to everyone who participated in its creation.”
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