Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Switchblade]

Okay, over the last couple of days, I've been watching this series for the first time ever. My flattie, Chris, lent me the series and movie, and I basically just watched it all during the last seventy hours or so.

I rate the whole thing as being about a 56.2 on the "What the FUCK??????[/i]-o-meter".

I mean, it started out as being fairly normalish - big robots, geeky kid, random biomechanical penguin, a couple of hot girls, some sexual tension and a few city-demolishing fights.

Towards the end... I found it horrifying. Especially the movie. Seriously, I doubt that I'm going to be able to sleep tonight, properly.

So: reactions, theories, comments, whatever the hell have you. Come rejoice the weirdness.

[Garcin]

Heh.  Although director  Kazuya Tsurumaki is on the record saying that Christian symbols (e.g. angels, cross-shaped explosions, Adam, Eve, expulsion from Eden, virgin birth, etc.) were used because they looked cool to a Japanese audience, most of the serious analysis the series gets focuses on the anti-Christian theme.  Namely that the Angels are symbolic of emissaries of the Catholocism, attempting to breach Neo-Tokyo first by force, but then eventually (as in the case of the last two angels) by subversion.  Keep in mind that the Catholic church was banned from Japan for about 200 years, because of fears of supposed subversion.


I could go on and on and on on this subject, but I have a feeling that I've bored enough people already.

[Switchblade]

Well, historically, the catholic church did have something of a history of meddling in Japanese affairs, claiming divine right to bring "civilisation" to the "primitives" - which basically meant squeezing the Imperial Court and the noble families for every scrap of wealth they could manage to get out of it without provoking a war. The Vatican got genuinely arrogant at one point.

[AdamIsConceited]

That was such an amazing series... back in '99

[Switchblade]

Thanks for that. Got anything else to add?

[AdamIsConceited]

You're being a dick perhaps?

I made a good point, the series was good back then and can't hold it's own to some of the shows on today.  I'd make references to said shows but I stopped the whole Otaku thing back in highschool and grew up.

Moiche pretty much summed up everything in his post on the religous references so there wasn't really a need for anything to add.

I give it props for giving anime more attention in America and zombifying thousands of adolescants one episode at a time till their brains melted from the lack of use.  True story.

[Switchblade]

Thanks for expanding on what you were originally saying. Pardon me while I let my irritation dissipate....

There we go...

Although this is getting off topic a bit, I'd query wether it's really fair to say that you "grew up" from the whole "otaku" thing. You may have stopped watching regularly, but I'm not sure that's valid justification for being obliquely insulting of manga as a whole. You seem to be suggesting that it's childish, whereas after just finishing watching through one of the freakiest things I've seen in recent years (it comes in just behind "Eraserhead"), I'm fairly convinced that I, a twenty-one year old man, am going to have trouble sleeping tonight.

I try to avoid making a distinction between an animated show and a live-action series, preferring to judge a series on its own merits rather than letting its origin cloud my judgement. Just because it's animated and from Japan shouldn't be cause for a dismissive attitude.

I've heard people talking about NGE before, and I can't claim to have ever been sufficiently interested to go out of my way to procure a copy, but now that I've watched it, I'm very glad I did. However, I strongly doubt I'll watch it again anytime soon, if ever. In all honesty, I prefer something a little more lowbrow - something where the final scene of the entire thing doesn't involve the lead male trying to strangle another main character to death on the shores of a blood-stained sea while half the continent-sized severed head of another main character turned planet-sized naked space giant stares blankly off into infinity in the distance. I tend to get attached to recurring characters, and don't like seeing them get that badly fucked up.

Still, it made me think. Mostly I'm still sorting through confusion and weirded-outness, but I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the series and film as a whole and trying to pick out some kind of moral, which is probably the entire point.

[AdamIsConceited]

It was defiently a thought-provoking series I'll give it that.  And, I'm 20 so don't think you're an old man quite yet.

It's not that it's childish... but more of a fad for grade school kids from my perception.  I rarely see another adult give praises to an anime film or series.  I do admit to watching several recent movies like Steam Boy (Crap!) and... I can't even remember to be honest.

EDIT:  To try and keep this on topic... I had a crush on asuka

[Switchblade]

Dude: She's Fourteen, and a cartoon.

It's not that it's childish... but more of a fad for grade school kids from my perception.

That would seem to be the case, sadly. West of Switzerland, Anime does seem to have a reputation as being what the weird kids at school watch. And then the kids who did watch it at school hit eighteen and they either descend into the depths of rampant otakuism (fat hairy men at conventions dressing up as Faye from Cowboy Bebop), or seem to recoil so violently that they attain escape velocity and start denouncing it as loudly as the people who made fun of them at school.

I'm fortunate enough to have never reached anything more than a low orbit, myself. I'll watch and enjoy manga, but for me they're all just TV series and movies, no different from any other. Most, in fact, I regard as being significantly worse than average. Ever see "Full metal Panic"? It's nothing but big robots and fan service.

It is, however, improved by watching it with a group of cynical tech students.

[decklin]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Eva, and what made it meaningful for me, has a lot to do why I like QC. It's a matter of folding, and particularly folding around wish-fulfillment. That and the distance between pain and laughter.

Unfortunately I don't know how to explain the concept of folding very well. my film guru is writing a book on it.

I think sometimes the most important and direct things don't have to... well... have to *not* make sense. I'm always kind of amused at people who try to come up with some hermeneutic of the Christian symbols. It's just another trope (like mecha is a trope, like the idea of a worldwide shadow conspiracy is a trope, like being depressed because you can't express your feelings is a trope) to be devolved as things go on into little bits of our minds and hacked into something that, well, addresses the problem of living in an entirely different way that what we would have otherwise.

But that's what all religious experiences are like, innit?

Sorry this isn't very clear.

[Digs]

NGE is great for having a giant monster robot beat another giant monster with  its own rib. Other than that it's a little spotty.

[Switchblade]

It must be said that, despite feeling a certain degree of attachment to them, a number of the characters really did irritate me. Shinji in particular, but also Asuka and Professor Ikari. Rei was just a bit too vacant to connect with, but she did have an air of tranquility which made her easier to accept within a scene, whereas the other three were all far too abrasive.

The only ones I ever really felt any sympathy for, in fact, were Misato, Doji, Class Rep girl (what was her name again?), and the crew in the command center.

[RUMBLEMOOSE]

For the record, I got into anime well after I graduated from high school, and I'm only now coming down off of that initial "otaku high" and figuring out how to communicate with normal people again. So either anime is for everyone or I'm a huge fucking nerd. Or both... yeah, let's go with both.

I actually once thought out a theory about Evangelion being allegorical for the intrusion of the West into Japan after hundreds of years of cultural isolation. It had to do with what Moiche said about the anti-Christian bit, but I also compared the three "impacts" to Commodore Perry's landing, the Meiji restoration, and the end of World War II in terms of their impact on Japanese society and culture. Of course, I don't know that much about Japanese social history, so it ended up pretty half-baked and I scrapped it.

Still a good show, though. I can't understand all the backlash against it, it still has great character development, dialogue, atmosphere, imagery, etc. Just cause it's old don't mean it sucks now.

[Gryff]

Eva is one of my absolute favourite animes. I really dug how it ended up just getting more and more fucked up and brain exploding, although, like everyone, I kinda wished it would've explained things a little better by the end.

Still, I guess that's part of the fun - trying to pick meanings out of it. Existential angst and giant robots ftw!

Also, the idea that you can "grow out of" anime is silly, really. Some anime is good, some is not, but to dismiss it all as childish belittles a legitimate form of animation, and art.

[JLM]

My problems with Evangelion generate not from the series, but from the company producing it.  I don't think I've yet seen a Gainax solo project where they didn't burn out/run out of money by episode 23 or so.  Towards the end of the series I counted at least four minutes of characters just sort of staring at each other, with no movement whatsoever.

As for the whole "growing out of anime" thing, I feel the same way about pretty much everything I used to like in high school, particularly my tastes relating to music, film, television and books.  There are very few things I enjoy now that I enjoyed when I was still a teenager.  Anime, for example, is an on/off phase for me (I'm almost thirty, rather thin, and married with no kids, thank god).

As for the whole QC/Evangelion relationship...no.  I think I understand where you're going with it, but I relate QC more to something like a Cameron Crowe film than Evangelion.  If you're going to relate it to Anime/Manga, I guess maybe Fruits Basket would come closest...

*waits patiently for Marten to turn into a cat when Faye hugs him.*

[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]

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.

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]

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

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."

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.

[Garcin]

That's a great snippet.  Another (extremely amusing) element of the progression of the show is that both Hideaki and Kazuya have admitted in interview that the show wasn't really plotted much ahead of time -- which is a real poke in the eye to all the folks (myself included) just yearning to analyze the fuck out of it.  It's like spending 15 minutes talking about that fantastic new experimental piece at the museum, and then finding out it's a stepladder that got left behind during renovations.  (But yes I know, authorial intent is not determinative of interpretation, and unconscious/archetypical elements, etc., etc., etc.)

Anywho, I believe that it's generally accepted among Evangelion fans that The End of Evangelion was a bitch slap to the fan base that Hideaki felt had abandoned him by panning (and starting a huge harrassment campaign) over the supposed failure of the eps. 25 & 26.  I've read that actual photographs of letters of complaint to Hideaki were included in montage sequences in the movie.  Which is frickin' hilarious.

[JLM]

I do think, though, that Anno may have opted for a more metaphysical approach to the ending due largely in part to the pressures that he was feeling towards the end of the series, as sort of a visual "fuck you," but I don't think that it was motivated purely by some higher artistic vision from the beginning.  Many decisions are made last minute like that.  The final episode of the series "Sliders," for example, was a cliffhanger, due largely to discontent on the part of the writers, who changed the final episode just to make sure that the fans stayed annoyed at the network for pulling the plug.

EDIT: yeah, what you said.

[Gryff]

That's very interesting that it wasn't planned ahead. That could be the reason why things are unsatisfactorily explained at the end - maybe even the writers didn't know what was going on!

It's pretty disappointing that such an ambitious project was never fully realised due to budget and time constraints…

[LeeZion]

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.

But he doesn't go through with the strangulation, giving up half-way through and allowing Asuka to get in one last dig. Which, in a way, is also right for his character. He can't even do a good job of ending the human race...

Anywho, I believe that it's generally accepted among Evangelion fans that The End of Evangelion was a bitch slap to the fan base that Hideaki felt had abandoned him by panning (and starting a huge harrassment campaign) over the supposed failure of the eps. 25 & 26.  I've read that actual photographs of letters of complaint to Hideaki were included in montage sequences in the movie.  Which is frickin' hilarious.

That's exactly what happened. If you listen to the commentary track on the End of Evangelion DVD, those weren't just letters of complaint. They were death threats. Later on, in that same commentary, one of the speakers comments that the End of the Evangelion movie was the anime equivalent of making a bargain with the Devil. Everyone who wanted to see this big, final battle finally got all their wishes, but they will NEVER be satisfied.

On to other topics, the guy who said anime is for kids only, and he doesn't know of any adults who watch it? Well, I'm 37 and have a real life, including a full-time job writing for a newspaper. (do a Google search for the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va. You'll find me.) And yet, I am a die-hard anime fan, and have been ever since Akira blew my mind back in 1988. I am not one of those stereotypical smelly otaku, although I have met a few such people in my life.

The difference is I watch my little cartoons, and then go on to the rest of my life. Writing for a newspaper. Writing for myself — I'm nearing the completion of my fourth novel (nothing published yet). I also design acrostic puzzles — highly complex word puzzles that would take way too long to describe. And yes, being among other human beings.

The other difference is I have a sliding scale of anime. For me, the top tier is stuff that I would not only buy on DVD, but also show to non-anime fans as an example of why I like anime, trying to demonstate that these are not just kiddie cartoons. (Prime examples: Haibane Renmei and much of Miyazaki's work.)

Then comes the stuff that I would buy but not show to the uninitiated, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion. RahXephon, which used to be in the top tier, has now slid to this level.

Below that is the stuff that I would not buy, but enjoy watching. There are several other levels below that, with the absolute bottom being stuff I will actually walk out of the room if it comes on. Only two shows I've seen so far fit in that category: Berserk and Excel Saga.

The point of all this is that I do not blindly worship some show just because it's Japanese animation. I watch it, I watch it critically, and then I get on with my life.

Oh, and I have an Inu Yasha satchel. I wear a jacket and a tie on the job, but whenever I head out to interview someone for the paper, I carry my Inu Yasha bag with me. So what does that make me?

[JLM]

lacking in some credibility?  

Kidding, partially.  InuYasha was interesting for a while, but anyone familiar with Rumiko Takahashi's work has seen this story before, and the fact that the Anime has ended but she's more or less painted herself into a corner in the Manga doesn't really attest to her writing skill.

See for me the top tier anime stuff is stuff that I find interesting enough to watch more than once, and doesn't really cross into whether or not I feel that it's something that I would show a friend.  The only three series of the last few years that I felt were strong enough to be used as initiates into the genre would be Peacemaker Kurogane, Samurai Champloo (the sub, not the dub), and FullMetal Alchemist, although the latter gets a bit heavy at times.

[Merkava]

Lots of stuff that can be talked about here:

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.

Holy shit, I don't remember that happening at all. I need to watch that movie again. XP

In fact, I have no idea what the fuck happened at the end of the show.

It was like, all of a sudden...

"Good job Shinji, it was all a project! See, none of it really mattered! Screw you!"

[Garcin]

Think of it as the ultimate teenage rebellion.  "Hey Dad!  You wanted to turn the human race into a hive mind/superorganism?  Well fuck you!  I'm ending the human race and there's nothing you can do about it!"

Kids.

[Switchblade]

See, the particular impression I got was that Shinji actually balked at the idea of becoming part of all that oneness in the end. The idea of not having anything or anyone to interact with properly was too much for even his fucked-up psyche to deal with, so he rejected it. Which could mean that everybody woke up naked and covered in orange goo, after a very bad dream.

Yeah, I'm too much of a sucker for a happy ending, which is probably why I found End of Evangelion so mightily disturbing.

[RUMBLEMOOSE]

I thought waking up naked and covered in orange goo was normal?

I just drop episode 25 and 26 into that part of the movie where we get montages and Shinji talking to his mom, when everything starts taking place inside his head. I know it doesn't really work, and the creators have I believe come out and said that the two endings are mutually exclusive, but I like my way just fine. Also, it covers the spot on my DVD that glitches up.

[LeeZion]

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....

Holy shit, I don't remember that happening at all. I need to watch that movie again. XP

In fact, I have no idea what the fuck happened at the end of the show.

It was like, all of a sudden...

"Good job Shinji, it was all a project! See, none of it really mattered! Screw you!"

The infamous masturbation scene occured near the beginning of the Evangelion movie. Asuka is unconscious in the hospital, and Shinji is begging her to come back and be with him. He shakes her, trying to rouse her, and her breasts fall out of her hospital gown.

The next thing you know...


uhhn!


uhhn!


UHHHN!

 
SQUIRT!!

[Garcin]

That's how the world ends folks: not with a whimper but with a squirt. . . .

I'm hear all week, try the beets.

[nescience]

It's a real testament to the power of this series that such intentionally obfuscated and frustrating endings (both the original and End of Evangelion) that were admittedly made with little regard for plot resolution can still be fervently discussed six years later.

Also, I like the reading offered on the DVD commentary for "End of Evangelion" where Shinji is choking Asuka: he is attempting to evoke a human response from Asuka so he can know whether he is truly back in the human world of divisions and pain.  Sweet scene, finished off by "kimochi warui", which translates roughly into "LAAAME" or "God, that's pathetic" or "I'm going to be sick."

[vavado]

I've always loved Eva and still do.

It's a love it or hate it series in my opinion and Hideki mostly did the plot lines to his feelings as a way of channeling his own problems with his father and the inadequacies he felt from him.  I remember him saying that in an interview.  At this point ADV is trying to make a live action version of Evangelion with the help from WETA, the people who did LOTR but it's on hold.  Some of the conceptual drawings at the WETA site are really cool but I particularly don't like ADV because they're going to mess it up and I think the  voice actress who does Asuka is part of ADV and I've always found her voice to be VERY annoying.  Oh well.