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Neon Genesis Evangelion *spoilers*

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Garcin:
So you think the mind-fuck in eps. 25 & 26 are because Gainax ran out of money, and not because it was part of Hideaki Anno's artistic vision to produce something completely incomprehensible?  I've always found those two episodes, plus the whole Death/Rebirth Anno vs. audience controversy unbelievably boring.  In a special land where everything is beautiful, episode 24 was the last one.

LeeZion:
Lots of stuff that can be talked about here:

1) I like Evangelion a lot, but it has its flaws. Most notably the last two episodes which completely threw plot out the window and decided to concentrate instead on hand drawn scribbles in Shinji's mind.

2) The idea was mind-blowing and ground-breaking when it first came out. But it seems that just about every robot anime ever since is about a shadowy conspiracy by people in power to use robots to alter the very nature of reality. That was what Gasaraki was about. That was what The Big O was all about. Escaflowne flirted with the let's-alter-reality concept, but had the sense to pull itself back from the edge.  RahXephon, meanwhile, was the biggest NGE rip-off ever, with a shadowy government conspiracy, oddly-shaped enemies, two Rei-like characters, two Misato-like characters, an eventual discovery that the robot that fights the bad guys is actually made from the same stuff as the bad guys AND an ending where everybody shoots everybody else while the entire planet is coated by something new.

3) In defense of RahXephon, at least it had class. (So much so that I have RAHXPHN on my license plate. I become one with my futuristic vehicle, listen to music and fight the bad guys.) In fact, I'd say it's the better of the two — the animation quality is better. The characters are very well delineated, and you can actually care about them (Episode 19 makes me cry EVERY time I see it). The mystery unfolds gradually, but makes sense when it comes to the end, and the animators don't stray into Huh?-enducing weirdness. The last thing that makes RahXephon work is that when Ayato finally alters reality, he creates a happy ending for everyone. No angsty strangling the last girl on the planet. No masturbating over her unconscious body.

4) Speaking of Shinji masturbating over Asuka's unconscious body, the first time I saw the NGE final movie, seven years ago, it was a fourth-generation VHS bootleg copy, so the image quality was extremely poor. As a result, Shinji's jizzum-covered hand did not look like a jizzum-covered hand, and I completely missed the point of that scene. I thought his choked breath was a sign of grief and no more. Well, you can imagine my surprise and discomfort when I finally got the movie on DVD last year....

I could go on, but I'll stop here for now.

dessa:
NGE was great, i loved the last two episodes so much i bought the dvd of them, none of the others though, crazy awesome tv show, the movie was good too.
on the topic of anime i watch a fair bit in my spare time, but the main factor is that it doesn't dominate my life and tv watching experience.
steamboy was a cool film, well at least i thought that.

i think the obsessive anime watchers are weird but the casual ones are just normal guys, also another point of note, i have never... ever seen a normal guy watch a furry anime cartoon, just thought i would point that out.

Gryff:

--- Quote from: LeeZion ---The last thing that makes RahXephon work is that when Ayato finally alters reality, he creates a happy ending for everyone. No angsty strangling the last girl on the planet. No masturbating over her unconscious body.
--- End quote ---


Actually, i found the strangling ending to be quite fitting. Shinji would rather have the human race die out than go through all the corruption and hurt again. It seemed right for his character.

The masterbation scene was indicative of his screwed up outlook on relationships and his inability to connect with people in a normal way…

Still, I have to agree that the ending was a little unsatisfactory. It just went too far into mind-blowing existential weirdness.

JLM:

--- Quote from: Moiche ---So you think the mind-fuck in eps. 25 & 26 are because Gainax ran out of money, and not because it was part of Hideaki Anno's artistic vision to produce something completely incomprehensible?
--- End quote ---


I said burn-out or lack of funding.  And poking around on the internets. I found this little gem:


--- Quote ---Kazuya Tsurumaki interview, RCB:

-- What did you think about developments during the second half of the TV series?

KT - I didn't mind it. The schedule was an utter disaster and the number of cels plummeted, so there were some places where unfortunately the quality suffered. However, the tension of the staff as we all became more desperate and frenzied certainly showed up in the film.

-- I see.

KT - About the time that the production system was completely falling apart, there were some opinions to the effect that, "If we can't do satisfactory work, then what's the point of continuing?" However, I didn't feel that way. My opinion was, "Why don't we show them the entire process including our breakdown." You know -- make it a work that shows everything including our inability to create a satisfactory product. I figured that, "In 10 years or so, if we look back on something that we made while we were drunk out of our minds, we wouldn't feel bad even if the quality wasn't so good."

--- End quote ---



The film "The End of Evangelion" was made, I think, partially due to a backlash against the "ending" in episodes 25 and 26 of the original series, and partially to offer an alternate vision for the ending after some distance had been placed between the creative team and the final product, so that they could approach it from a fresh angle.

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