All Macross, all the time. I know nearly as much about biotechnology as I do about Federation warp drive. Only "nearly" because each new Macross series just makes up new stuff.
I like anime, but I am not really a fan. So I'm aware of most of the big names. I know a lot of fans, so I'm generally familiar with plots and characters. But, aside from Cowboy Bebop, I haven't seen much.
Out of boredom and curiosity, I decided to collect Rebuild of Evangelion. I wish I hadn't.
It's like the Matrix. The first is great, the second is not actually bad, but raises a Huge number of questions. The third is a huge let down that taints everything that came before.
Now I'm not saying Rebuild is that, exactly. The first two are awesome. I know enough about the original to know that the first, and first half of the second are basically a retelling. I know all about NGE 25 and 26, so the action on Shinji's walkman in Rebuild caught my eye.
Like the Matrix, 1.0 and 2.0 were fabulous. I'm an action guy, and I was riveted by a pretty cerebral story. I have to wonder, how different was NGE that people have such disdain for Shinji? The kid's in way over his head.
But like I said, I was pretty familiar with what was going down. So when Shinji's walkman flips form program 26 to 27 I perked up.
I'm sure, somewhere in this thread, this has been covered. But this is my brain dump.
The sixth Angel has to be one of the most epic amine mwcha battles of all time. Absolutely the most epic amine battle of any type, in which none of the combatants moves. It's during this scene that Misato became my favorite anime character, ever.
Asuka comes across as fairly unsympathetic. Knowing why she's the way she is let me ignore that, but I can't imagine how she must seem to someone who has no idea what is going on.
I think Shinji probably seems less pathetic to me because this version seems pretty damned proactive before each of his funks. It's easy to see how his father is playing with his head. Or maybe it's just that Gendo reminds me of my dad. (No, my father is not an evil bastard. Just distant, harsh, and difficult to understand.)
Still Shinji has an aura of pathetic about him, so when he goes super seijin on the tenth angel, I had to stop the movie and reattach my jaw.
Then 3.0 happened. I like to think of it as You Can(not) have young boys in love. The whole thing seems a bit creepy. Kaworu's affection for Shinji might be real, but it is so over the top, and he obviously has an agenda. At the same time, I don't think it was poorly done. Misato and Rei are probably the only people who ever care about Shinji in any sense other than "we need you to save the world." But neither is equipped to show it. Kaworu seems to be all about Shinji. Overall, it worked as a setup for the climax. It's obvious why Shinji is devoted to him. No one else bothered to explain anything to him.
At the end, however, I'm stuck with the same feeling I had at the end of Matrix: Reloaded. A bunch of questions, and the uneasy feeling that there aren't any answers is store. Like what is the deal with Mari, and where did MMisato get those snazzy duds? How in hell was all of this perfectly in line with Gendo's plan? (And one-eyed Asuka is an awesome thing. At least now she's got a reason to be so prickly. If you were 28 years old in a permanently 14 year old body, you'd be pissed, too. Unless you were Mari, but I wonder if she isn't more like 44.)
