Sometime in 1999, after Neon Genesis Evangelion finished and during the pre-production of Kare Kano, Evangelion's director Hideaki Anno appeared on a TV show on NHK called "Welcome Back for an Extracurricular Lesson, Senpai!", which features Japanese celebrities revisiting their old stomping grounds and teaches a class in their old primary school. In this episode, Anno returns to Ube, a factory town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, to teach kids about animation.