Neon Genesis Evangelion

Viani

In addition to finishing Panty & Stocking, I finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion.

So yeah. I can see where it's reputation comes from.

And then Panty & Stocking. It better get a season 2. It better.

KJI

It gets ruined by all the guys who think Rei is pretty and want to put Nerv wallpaper on their Droid RAZR MAXX and love Rebuild more than the original series because it's happier

millercross

I like Rebuild more than Evangelion, but I think it's because NGE had some rather weak aspects and that it hasn't aged well in a number of ways. Plus a lot of the supposedly scary sequences border on the hilarious.

With that said, Rebuild made Asuka much more stupid, And That's Terrible.

Imipolex G

NGE is where Reispin came from, I think.

Haven

Rei is pretty though.

Gendo is sick as hell, but still.

I don't think I like Rebuild more than the original, but it is pretty great to see Evangelion with a budget.

millercross

Rei is pretty but the Rei fetishizing is really annoying. At least, to me anyway.

KJI

Corporal Forsythe

Never seen, never plan to. Gainax was the most overrated studio of the last century and they're only now improving with the likes of TTGL (along with learning how a budget works)

Obā-san

I have never seen any of the things mentioned on this page.

PlutoniumFist

JuMer has been pestering me to watch Evangelion with him, but I'm reluctant. He says the movies (are those Rebuild?) are more my speed than the series is.

Sredni Vashtar

^^^ Wait, FLCL doesn't count now? (OK, you have the right to scream "fluke!" but put down that show and I will eat your face... or just, you know, agree to disagree.)

LW

Opinions are opinions I guess, but I am still kind of surprised how much stuff is sold with the NGE name in Japan given what actually happens in the series.  

Justice4243

^^ FLCL is awesome, eat his face!

DO IT!

millercross

The characters were really a hit, above the mediocre plot and alright-for-its-time animation.

I mean, I like (nay, love) Evangelion, but I wouldn't say it's flawless or that its flaws aren't really glaring

Justice4243

LouieUU said:

Opinions are opinions I guess, but I am still kind of surprised how much stuff is sold with the NGE name in Japan given what actually happens in the series.  

Damn you work filters for having me miss stuff like this.

What in the goddamned hell is going on here?! Seeing Gendo and Kaji shave is like witnessing some sort of heretical act unfold. And the FUCK is up with them dragging out the 14 year old female cast to swoon over the clean shaven adults?!

Viani

Well, the only things I didn't like about NGE right now are...

1. The ending. I feel mildly unsatisfied. I had only a vague idea that the ending would confuse me from it's reputation. And now, all those "Congratulations!" jokes make no sense, again.
2. The still parts of the show. Like, the part where Kaji is boning Misato and all you stare at is a coffee mug and a table, the part where Rei and Asuka are sitting in an elevator, the part where Misato is trying to come up with something to say to Shinji, and the 24th episode with Eva vs. the 17th angel. They broke my ability to stay in the moment and made me break from the drama and wonder what else is happening outside.
3. Taking so long to have the pilots themselves question the aspects and existence of the angels.



and things I liked about the NGE.

1. Asuka is almost exactly like me, including the parts where she degrades into a crying self-hating depressed loathesmoniere. The characters inabilities to help themselves were just very very believable.
2. Shinji's constant fight with himself, as emo as it was, was believable, that I would probably turn into a little bitch too if my dad was that much of an asshole and I was forced to do as much as he did.
3. The Evas and were they came from. Here I was thinking they were just giant robots with red oil.
4. The angels, I thought they were just random space giants coming to wreak havoc, but they weren't.
5. NERV. I thought it was just like MIB for space giant counterattacking, but they weren't.
6. The angels themselves. I didn't have any frets about the "vainglorious christian symbolism" because I never really noticed it that much.
7. Main characters that were entertaining.

The one thing I am confused though....why were the angels attacking originally? was it because of the cloning or experiments or something?

Justice4243

"
The one thing I am confused though....why were the angels attacking originally? was it because of the cloning or experiments or something?"

They found Adam and tried to shrink him back to his embryo form. Some Angels seem to want to recover him. Others, are drawn to Lilith in what is supposidly an attempt to reset life.

Hilariously, it seems some Angels had no motivation what-so-ever, making it seem like some sort of divine "Hey guys! What's going on in this thread?" 

Warning: Spoilers in links

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Angels#Motivations_.26_Psychology

http://mrbagel.tripod.com/evangelion_angels.htm

millercross

LouieUU said:

Opinions are opinions I guess, but I am still kind of surprised how much stuff is sold with the NGE name in Japan given what actually happens in the series.  

Damn you work filters for having me miss stuff like this.

What in the goddamned hell is going on here?! Seeing Gendo and Kaji shave is like witnessing some sort of heretical act unfold. And the FUCK is up with them dragging out the 14 year old female cast to swoon over the clean shaven adults?!

The best part is Rei's face. She clearly seems to be thinking "My hero~"

1. The ending. I feel mildly unsatisfied. I had only a vague idea that the ending would confuse me from it's reputation. And now, all those "Congratulations!" jokes make no sense, again.

For what is worth, it's basically "Shinji learns that, in order to live, he needs to stop putting the expectations of others, such as his father before his own happiness" 

I think that the weirdest thing is, that while I normally would fully approve of an instropective ending like this, I think it drags on for way too long. I think Twin Peaks did that kinda ending better, although I wouldn't say that was entirely instropective.

2. The still parts of the show. Like, the part where Kaji is boning Misato and all you stare at is a coffee mug and a table, the part where Rei and Asuka are sitting in an elevator, the part where Misato is trying to come up with something to say to Shinji, and the 24th episode with Eva vs. the 17th angel. They broke my ability to stay in the moment and made me break from the drama and wonder what else is happening outside.

I forgave them because of the budget and such, but I agree absolutely with the fact that those were the show's weakest moments.

3. Taking so long to have the pilots themselves question the aspects and existence of the angels.

I think they always questioned, to a degree, their mission and who they were fighting. It's just that as they went along, the plot becomes increasingly more instropective (Or, in other words, it becomes less about the alien invasion but about the characters and their motivation, as well as their roles in the whole thing)

I don't think they ever question the nature of the Angels until Kaworu rolls in, but they always question the nature of the mission, for whatever that's worth.

1. Asuka is almost exactly like me, including the parts where she degrades into a crying self-hating depressed loathesmoniere. The characters inabilities to help themselves were just very very believable.

I'm not sure how weird is it that this is how I felt about Asuka. But there cha go. Although the aspect I found relatable was that Asuka's entire thing was trying to be a person she was not because she felt there was an strength and purpose within her that involved her doing that.

6. The angels themselves. I didn't have any frets about the "vainglorious christian symbolism" because I never really noticed it that much.

To me, it's honestly one of the aspects of the show that tends to be overinflated in terms of importance. Yeah, it's there, giant crosses and such, but they don't serve any real narrative purpose and they are just there to tie into the other biblical themes like the fact that Evangelions fight angels and such. It's not really anything that should affect someone's enjoyment of the show unless they really believe in God and they find the symbol use and abuse offensive (Which I can accept as an excuse to not enjoy the show, but not as a narrative/artistic failure)

Anyway, you should check End of Evangelion out. I feel that it's somewhat more conclusive about our merry band of fuck-up's fate and who they really are

One-Winged Eagle

I should probably pick this thing up sometime.

Finally put my knowledge attained by osmosis of this show into good use.

Maybe start with Rebuild.

Justice4243

I really like Evangelion, the old version as well. The level of detail put into the symbolism is mind blowing.

As far as the last point, I've watched a show with a rather die-hard Christian. She was a bit miffed at the Angels being called...well ANGELS but not enough to get really offended or stop watching.

I never really took the Angels as a direct attack on Christiandom, or anything. And, it's not viewed the same way in Japan as it is here, so someone would have to spend some time researching how Christianity is treated in other parts of the world, decided they didn't like it, then insert it into their anime that's originally going to be for an audience who won't even understand what the big deal is. I find it pretty unlikely that any any effort was put in to "stick it" to Christians.

It seems difficult to pin down exactly how many Christians there are in Japan, but last I heard it was something around 1% or less of the population. From my understanding, the average Japanese person seem to think about Christianity the same way a Westerner might regard East-Asian religion that their only exposure to is the New-Agey movement on their own country, foreign and esoteric. 

In fact, Evangelion could be said to use much more Kabbalism than Christianity anyhow. The angels names and descriptions are dug out of Kabbalist texts. "Lilith" is most certainly out of Jewish lore, not Christian, but even this isn't intended to be offensive, merely digging through the material with a fine toothed comb and putting in crazy amount of effort to be as accurate as possible and even crazy subtle at times (the commentary for the first episode is just insane regarding how much the little minute detail is actually out of Kabbalist text. ...)

There are some clearly Christian elements, like Sachiel throwing exploding energy crosses. But even this is too be understood as a symbolic gesture of Heaven returning mankind's sins (the ones absolved by Jesus) to them, not any sort of "Christianity is eeeeeevil!" statement.

Anyhow, I think the story is set up in such a way one could easily point to Revelations and show how Angels going ape-shit crazy on our planet isn't just made up for the sake of the Anime. If anything, I always got the impression that the various shadowy organizations had done enough "bad things" that they brought the Angels down on themselves and that there wasn't much room to believe the Angels where just attacking because "Fuck those guys!".  

Viani

That's kind of how I understood it too after awhile, them bringing judgment to humanity rather than being huge space dicks. and I should watch End of Evangelion next.

Here I was, a couple years ago going "oh fuck NGE it's so pretentious and the rei fetishism is so stupid fuck that show" and then I watched it, and now I can't stop thinking about it.

After watching the whole Shinji Kaworu thing I just wanted to give him a hug on the beach. Hell, I wanted to hug everyone on that show. It was so melancholy, that even with super badass robots fighting the one thing that's about to defeat them they learn everything they wish they didn't know and everything, and everyone begins to deteriorate.