I watched End of Evangelion for the first time in 15 years
Still entertaining, great animation that stands the test of time, but wow I wish I can go tell my teenage self that it actually doesnt make sense, the symbolism has no point whatsoever but Judeo-Christian dogma is “foreign and cool“ and the writers eventually admit it and everyone had a good time making it
The use of Christian symbolism as nothing more than an aesthetic is somewhat common is Japanese fiction. I wouldn’t say it made no sense though.
The bad guys say humanity is fundamentally incapable of opening up to each other. Shinji proves that it can be done and is worth pursuing, although it is fundamentally difficult. He discovers acceptance of himself through his connections with his peers. He acknowledges that everyone must go through life at a pace they don’t get to choose, and that the inevitably of death doesn’t erase the meaning of existence.
This comment, while oft repeated, is simply not true. There is plenty of symbolism going on in the show. There is a lot of PoMo "mask on top of a mask" stuff going on with the biblical references, but some stuff is more on the nose. There are plenty of articles on this, including this one: https://reelrundown.com/animation/Symbolism-in-Neon-Genesis-...
There's plenty of symbolism but there's no deeper plot, no master plan.
Eva is a great anime series and a solid 'philosophy exists if you want to check it out' message for 12 year olds that worked for me back in the day, but let's not go overboard with assigning deep interpretations to it.
I'm 99% sure that I read an interview in which Anno said that he included the Christian symbolism simply because he thought it looked cool. Of course, that doesn't exclude the possibilty of it still making sense somehow.
I can't quite get a read on Anno. Sometimes he'll answer a question like who's his favorite character almost flippantly with "Asuka, because she's cute" and sometimes he'll describe Eva as being almost autobiographical and diagnosing himself as stuck at the Fruedian oral stage and fundamentally disliking living things.
He's also described Eva as like a puzzle, and not wanting to give answers and instead let people come up with their own interpretations.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I both wouldn't be surprised if he did pull much of the visual symbolism out of a hat, or if he did come across it while exploring western philosophy and decided to incorporate it.
There's some great bits in Extra Curricular Lesson with Hideaki Anno, like him talking about disliking the parts of what he makes he sees himself in or sleeping through a fire in his apartment.
ah yes the classic "but which symbolism" rebuttal. predictable, there are great plot points, but ultimately there is no deeper meaning to a lot of it. There are crosses for the sake of crosses, and there are crucifixions for the sake of crucifixions, there are crosses popping out of forehead vagina eye sockets for the sake of crosses popping out of forehead vagina eye sockets
It was a Japanese show for a Japanese audience and Christian symbolism means something very different to them than it does to us. He might not have used the symbolism in the way that a western audience would have, but the connection between Christian symbolism and the West and in particular America would not have been lost on a country which had within living memory had a couple of atomic bombs dropped on them by a foreign army bringing Christian symbolism with them.
It’s almost impossible to understand any 80s or 90s anime without the context of Hiroshima and the occupation.
The creator of the series definitely thinks a lot about Hiroshima and the occupation. Its extremely evident in the live action movie Shin Godzilla that he also directed (its a great movie, check it out if you can, very unlike any Godzilla movie I've seen before). Not to spoil too much but the postwar relationship between the US and Japan is a major theme and the film includes a 10 second silent cutaway where photographs of the destruction of Hiroshima/Nagasaki are shown.
>but the connection between Christian symbolism and the West and in particular America would not have been lost on a country which had within living memory had a couple of atomic bombs dropped on them by a foreign army bringing Christian symbolism with them.
Japan was aware of Christianity and Christian symbolism long before the Americans dropped the atomic bombs, with missionary attempts going as far back as the 15th century, or thereabouts[0], so America really didn't "bring Christian symbolism with them" as a foreign army at that time.
Arguably, it was fear of the growing influence of Christians and their possible allegiance to the Pope threatening the Shogunate's power base (ironically, a similar fear that Americans would have of electing JFK, that he would be a puppet of the Vatican) which led to the Sakoku period and Japan committing genocide against its Christian population[1], forcing the religion underground.
I'm not disputing the analysis you're presenting - there is obviously a lot of symbolism in anime relating to the atomic bombings and occupation, but I wouldn't go so far as to imply that Japan sees Christian symbolism generally as being emblematic of that. Oftentimes it's just a visual metaphor for "the West" in general, or an attempt at "foreign" mystique[2] particularly when supernatural or magical elements are presented, where A lot of anime characters will recite spells or special moves in English because it sounds cool.
Much of the Christian symbolism is just there for the sake of aesthetics, but this is less so true for the Jewish (and especially Kabbalistic) imagery - there's actually a lot of overlap between the plot of Evangelion and themes from Lurianic Kabbalah (especially the notion of the ein sof and the traditional interpretation of tikkun olam, which is reflected in the Human Instrumentality Project), so the visual/aesthetic nods to it are a nice touch.
NGE asked a lot of interesting questions about the nature of reality and humanity’s relationship to itself, but I think it intentionally left the answers up to the audience’s interpretation.
Not a bad way to go, but personally I felt was unsatisfying because I was a bit spoiled in having first seen Gurren Lagann, which I felt was far more concrete about the message it was trying to convey, and definitively answered one of the central questions asked by NGE: when a young person is forced into a desperate life-and-death situation, and comes to believe in the self that believes in them, what happens next?
Gurren Lagann goes way off the rails in the last few episodes too. I enjoyed that as well. Never thought of it spoiling anyone from enjoying a trendsetting predecessor.
TTGL definitely gets whacky plotwise in the last few episodes but I don’t think it ever lost focus on its central themes at any point.
From all the buzz I’d heard from friends and on the internet about NGE, I was ready to be bawling by the end with a tsunami of emotion. Not that it’s without precedent: TTGL, Kill La Kill, and Darling in the FranXX, to give some examples, have had me (and my partner) in tears at several points. And yet at the end of NGE (both the series and EoE) I just sat there like “...ok, that was interesting. Lots to ponder over. Also...what?”
I read through the wiki and thought a lot about the plot and themes afterwards, but it didn’t really speak to me on an emotional level. Maybe it was just me.
I see, I just enjoyed it and the mystery, the attention to detail, animation, direction choices
No tearjerkers from the twists or relationships, maybe just from the fun and perplexing outcomes rendered awesomely
Whiny angsty awkward teenagers are annoying, Gurren Lagaan doesnt have a main character like that which is refreshing but I never really considered comparing them - do a lot of people put them in the same category because mecha?
I would recommend NGE for the entertainment and mindfuckery
I think they fit in similar categories because many mecha animes deal with themes of exponential escalation, which I suspect was heavily influenced by the collective national experience of a total war that culminated in daily firebombings of cities, and ultimately (being on the receiving end of) the only wartime use of nuclear weapons in history.
However, both series deal with that escalation in different ways. While in TTGL, the escalation is purely physical - the villains get perpetually stronger and the heroes have to strengthen themselves to stand up to them - the escalation in NGE is more personal.
“Why do you pilot the Eva?”, Shinji asks Rei and Asuka, a question with an answer seemingly so obvious that nobody else in the entire series asks it. And yet it gets to the heart of Shinji’s development.
In the beginning, he’s a terrified teenager who is in way over his head. As time goes on, he becomes more confident in his ability to pilot the Eva, yet his experiences leave him a shattered husk of a human being.
I think (and this somewhat gets into spoiler territory for anyone that hasn’t seen NGE yet) that the answer to the question of what happens when someone is put through so much trauma that it destroys who they are is that there is nothing in a void. Community can help repair the damage but some things can’t simply be handled by the self, no matter how hard one tries, how dearly they want it, or how capable they are at other things. At least, that’s the impression I got from the ending.
I'm sure there's counter-references to be found but I imagine the parent is thinking of things like this, from an interview with assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki:
> Can you explain the symbolism of the cross in Evangelion?
? KT: There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.
not sure Westerners are in a place to criticize given that we love to thoughtlessly appropriate Hindu/Buddhist imagery all over the place in our culture
personally I love this aspect of Evangelion because it makes me examine my own orientalist biases
The anime "Haunted Junction" is fun in this regard.
The main characters are the son of Buddhist monk, a Shinto shrine priestess, and the son of a Christian minister; they protect their school from spiritual dangers.
If an eastern monk can be a D&D class, then why not Christian minister?
I watched End of Evangelion for the first time in 15 years
Still entertaining, great animation that stands the test of time, but wow I wish I can go tell my teenage self that it actually doesnt make sense, the symbolism has no point whatsoever but Judeo-Christian dogma is “foreign and cool“ and the writers eventually admit it and everyone had a good time making it