The coloring, fonts, monsters, sets, and UIs of NGE are so pleasing to look at.
I hold NGE in much higher regard than other similar IPs, and would continue to do so even without the excellent art direction. Like many other stories, NGE asks "what would happen if a young boy with an unusual ability was entrusted with the saving of humanity?" However, unlike many other stories, the show answers "he would fail, be driven insane in the process, and humanity would fall."
Yeah, I was part of an anime club in the 90s where the main guy was importing laserdiscs from Japan, downloading fansubs, and generating subtitles with an amiga. So we watched NGE as it came out, and it was such a perfectly executed troll. It starts out as yet another anime mecha fantasy, and by the end of it is showing you what that world would be like if it was actually real in a very adversarial way.
I remember when we watched the finale (the first version) one of the members of the anime club lost his cookies so hard he stood up and screamed a rant and walked out of the house in a state of rage.
I find this funny because now it’s pretty much just NGE, a deconstruction, and Gurren Lagaan (sp?) that have maintained significant cultural appeal in western audiences imo. As anime has gotten more mainstream, the original mecha shows have not.
Somewhat similar for magical girls in Madoka Magica and Kill la Kill.
Yep. It's funny how so many anime follow this sort of "tropy premise with backstory strip-tease" formula, where they start out in a well-worn theme, but then gradually reveal a dark backstory. Madoka Magica is the absolute pinnacle of the form, each new revelation being as staggering as the last, and yet it never feels opaque and cryptic like Evangelion, and it all makes perfect sense together at the end.
Trigun is another show that does it well. It's a sci-fi western that slowly reveals the origins of the hero and the villain and the philosophical underpinnings of their conflict, as well as the miserable desert planet all the characters live on.
Elfenlied does the same with harem animes, but nobody should ever watch Elfenlied.
Can't forget Utena, the proto-Madoka. It IS as cryptic and opaque as Evangelion, while covering similar ground as (but also completely different ground from) PMMM. It also stands in opposition to Madoka in that it seems almost immune to ongoing commercialization: Rebellion and Magia Record, in its multiple forms, exist, but beyond Adolescence Apocalypse (perhaps in part because of Adolescence Apocalypse), Utena is probably one of the most popular magical girl franchises (very, very few anime have had as much written about it) to never be further capitalized on - and avoids thematic sliding in the process (looking at you, Precure).
The story is about girls who are born with a mutation that causes telekinetic powers and sociopathic impulses, and the shadowy organization trying to contain and control them... and a teenaged orphan boy who has multiple stay at his house, including one prolific serial killer recovering from a massive concussion, as an ultra-dark subversion of the harem anime template.
The premise is ruined by a grotesque amount of lolicon.
Fair enough - I have tendency to ignore lolicon in anime (unfortunatelly it comes with the turf) so I dont remeber it beiing so off-putting.
But I have some vague memory that the violece and gore was quite creative and that there was some intresting contrast created between it and any expectations viewer may have towards normal anime with this kind of premise.
I loved the original Mobile Suit Gundam show, but I found the other series a lot harder to get into. The WWII-flavoured drama applied onto Space Battleship Yamato's formula hit me just right. I sometimes wonder if there's a different magic in the franchise for other fans.
I don’t think it’s popular in the west though? It went through (still in?) an unusual phase where the target audience shifted to women and the protagonists became vaguely gay effeminate young men iirc
>It starts out as yet another anime mecha fantasy, and by the end of it is showing you what that world would be like if it was actually real in a very adversarial way.
This is what I didn't like about it. It reminded me a lot of Christopher Nolan's work: way too meandering and stoner-bro-what-if
Ender's Game, too. [spoilers follow] To ensure that the young boy entrusted with the saving of humanity succeeds before he goes insane, the adults spend years (at least a decade), and incredible amounts of money and political power, to manipulate and deceive him and his cohort so that they don't understand the gravity of what they're doing.
> "You had to be a weapon, Ender. Like a gun, like the Little Doctor, functioning perfectly but not knowing what you were aimed at. We aimed you. We're responsible. If there was something wrong, we did it."
> "Tell me later," Ender said. His eyes closed.
> Mazer Rackham shook him. "Don't go to sleep, Ender," he said. "It's very important."
> "You're finished with me," Ender said. "Now leave me alone."
The most-salient parts are excellently dramatized during tracks 9-12 of Julia Ecklar's "Horsetamer":
It's a shame Ender's Game hasn't received a quality visual adaptation. I think Evangellion being animated helped a lot with it being able to seriously depict children in a dark story.
I never read the books, I only saw the Ender's Game movie that came out like 8 years ago. I remember thinking that the premise itself had promise, but that the movie was this rushed, hard-to-follow piece of crap that was borderline unwatchable.
For years people have told me that the books in the series are way better than the movie but I still haven't gotten around to reading it. Maybe I should.
My advice is to not worry yourself with "books" when considering Ender's Game. The first book is a complete product, and it wraps up everything it needs to.
The sequels are good too, but they're also unnecessary if you aren't curious to experience more of the world. The ending of Ender's Game is roughly like the slideshow epilogue of a movie saying things like "Johnny went on to medical school and got married". The sequels and side-stories go into things like what happened while Johnny was at medical school, how he met his future wife, or what their retirement looked like, but the epilogue itself doesn't leave you hanging on anything.
For sure, nobody needs to worry about reading any of the books other than the original. The story begins, happens, and ends, all in one not-very-long novel.
After that novel is a whole series of novels that follow Ender into distant futures and places, as he literally runs from his past to keep it from defining him. The first one, Speaker for the Dead, is very recommendable for follow-up reading. The others I would only recommend if you've already decided that you want to read more of the series.
However, there is also a different set of sequels, and the first of them is the first book I would recommend to anyone who wanted to read more: Ender's Shadow. (Like Ender's Game, it won both a Hugo award and a Nebula award.) It takes place during the same time as Ender's Game, but from the perspective of one of the secondary characters. This second series of sequels generally takes place on Earth in the time shortly after Ender's Game, and follows Ender's siblings and the other Battle School characters. Like the first series of sequels, I won't go out of my way to recommend these to people who haven't already decided they're interested in reading them.
AS I write this comment, I learn that Orson Scott Card has been writing prequels: a trilogy in 2012-2014 (Earth Unaware, Earth Afire, and Earth Awakens) describing the First Formic War (which took place ~50 years before, and is heavily referenced in, Ender's Game), and a not-yet-complete trilogy since 2016 (The Swarm, The Hive, and the not-yet-published The Queens), which appears to be about the actions that were taken after the First Formic War to produce Ender. The reviews on Goodreads are promising; I might read some of these.
While I’m sure it sums up well as a novella, as pre-teen, the “big reveal” probably hit with more force by being in novel format. It reads like a typical “coming of age” adventure, and then…suddenly isn’t. Although I haven’t read it since then, I think there was a fair amount of character development, which also increases the impact of the reveal since you’ve been given time to care about the characters and relate to them. Also, as a kid who loved strategy games, the training program was just really fun to read.
While I don’t usually care about spoilers, even knowing that there is a big reveal feels a bit like a spoiler.
I don’t know. I read Ender’s Shadow before Ender’s Game, and felt like Shadow was a much better book. It’s been a while, but as I recall it runs parallel to Ender’s Game and goes into much more depth regarding the difficulties and anguish Ender endures.
On the other hand: Ender's Shadow also introduces a rather ridiculous and unnecessary origin story for its central character ("Bean"), involving an evil genetic scientist. This plot line continues through the rest of the spinoff series.
It's been a long time, so I can't remember which I liked more, but I definitely don't remember Ender's Shadow being a complete package in the way Ender's Game was. It leaves open a bunch of questions about the events in Ender's Game, doesn't have the same satisfying epilogue, and introduces a bunch of things that feel unresolved (the genetic engineering, and more focus on the global conflict stuff). If the GP commenter liked Ender's Game, they could go on to read the sequels and Shadow series, but if they didn't like Ender's Shadow, they'd have a bunch of unresolved questions.
The first book is fantastic, in that it makes a very good portrayal of extremely intelligent children, and how their lack of wisdom and experience allows them to be manipulated.
The movie was sorely disappointing, which was itself disappointing because Ender's Game isn't at all unfilmable (except that the main characters are all children in a really messed-up environment).
It really is similar to Neon Genesis Evangellion in many respects. If NGE had existed first as a novel, it's hard to think that the TV adaptation would be anywhere near as good as what was actually made.
I highly recommend the book, with almost no reservations. It's not very long, and a very stimulating read.
If you enjoy that one, and want to read more, then I'd recommend reading either one or both of the immediate sequels (Ender's Shadow and Speaker for the Dead). Iff you read either of those, and enjoyed it, and want to read more, then (and only then) should you concern yourself with the trails of sequels.
I think the pacing of Enders game isn't right for Hollywood. The middle of the book, where he's in battle school figuring out politics and strategy is the best part. And what kid doesn't want to be in the battle room? They basically rushed through all the good stuff in order to make room for a longer ending.
Dissenting voice here. I did not like the book. It's dark and unpleasant and contra other people here I don't think it speaks to any particularly interesting truths about how supposedly smart kids can be misled.
edited to add: I arrived at this opinion when I first read the book sometime in the early 90's, which I think is decades before the author's bigotry became public.
I read the first three and have mixed feelings about them. They're creative and well executed. The stories are definitely captivating. But particularly in the later books the author's religious views come out and start coloring things in a way that personally I find a turn off.
I feel the same way about the Honor Harrington series, which is basically a riff on redoing Horatio Hornblower in space. The books are quite engaging if you like the gimmick, but the author is a conservative monarchist (in the UK sense) and it comes through pretty strong in most of the books. In the later ones he balances it out a bit though, so I'd guess he's grappling with some view changes of his own.
Yes, you should. At least the first book. Even if you don't adhere to the philosophy/politics in the book, it's really quite an entertaining story and it's indeed far, far better than the movie.
I've only seen the movie and didn't think that much of it, since the bulk of it is a kinda cringey children's sports league movie. I don't understand why so much time was spent (in the movie anyway) on weightless lasertag before they're rushed through military command training or whatever and tasked to save humanity.
Note if you do choose to pick it up: The author of Ender's Game is highly homophobic, to the point of helping funding the anti-gay-marriage side during the gay marriage rights battle in 2008.
On the other hand, it's an excellent book, and I recommend reading it.
I'm not telling you what to do, but personally I make it a point to get books like that used, if not borrowed.
Finishing 3.0+1.0, I was met with the same realization. The story is a bit Lord of the Flies with giant mecha, and I think it’s unexpected because we’re used to seeing protagonists in media being young people who are far more emotionally and psychologically developed than they have any right being. The trope leads you to believe it’s going to be one kind of show, but it ends up as something very different.
FLCL, which I’m sure most Eva fans have seen, follows a similar conceit about the ineptitude of kids to cope with circumstances beyond their understanding, and is another show that I hold in similarly high regard. Incidentally, it also references Eva a lot.
FLCL was a collaboration of Gainax (who made NGE) and Production IG.
Also, I feel that FLCL is a more true coming of age story than a commentary on teenage psychology. You're taken along for the ride too, so the viewer can connect on multiple levels if they're also coming of age. That's in part why I enjoyed it so much as a teen.
FLCL was one of those shows I hated the first time I watched it at age 19, but I also got a vibe that there might be some subtext and metaphors that I missed. About a year later, I saw that it was on Netflix and decided to give it a second chance.
I'm glad I did, because it's become one of my favorite animes at this point. I think a lot of the veiled references to erections and the analogies strangeness of a 14-year-old-boy forcing his way through puberty were lost on me the first time, and it took until I wasn't a teenager anymore to step back and view it in an almost "nostalgic" sense.
NOTE: I have only seen the first six-episode run of it. I can't speak to the newer reboot series that came out in 2016.
If it makes you feel any better, I saw FLCL at twice your age and only now that you've said it did I realize what the whole forehead-robot-bulge thing was a reference to.
100% my interpretation as well, yet it’s indisputable that Naota is vastly underpositioned for the role of world savior.
But the coming of age narrative is so poignant it actually rounds the corner of touching and heart sickness.
I actually found Eri’s story (the girl who was the daughter of the mayor) in episode 3 of the original series to be the most compelling. You love to see a character where you absolutely know what they must be feeling but they are clearly trying to meet some social standard of behavior (see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”).
I liked the first season of SAC, but it did kind of annoy me how they basically decided to put Major Kusanagi in lingerie throughout most of it. She was nude in a good percentage of the 1995 movie, but it wasn't really "sexualized." In SAC it kind of felt like, instead of being a conflicted character unsure of her place in the world, a large percentage of her character was just there as fan service/eye candy, and I thought it cheapened her as a result.
I agree. Major's nudity in the movie feels like a person driving a robot that was human shaped. Her character felt, to me, like an AI trying to figure out what it meant to be human. Trying to figure out whether she/it is human or not. Her character blurred the lines between human and AI and that was IMHO the soul of the film. There's one particular pair of scenes where the human Major is tracing the steps of the human-shaped robot body and you can see her robot eyes trying to piece together what that experience ... is.
SAC Major feels like 15 year old me felt when I first started playing EverQuest and discovering that I could "be" a woman and take all my clothes off in public.
Exactly! If I watched SAC as a fourteen year old boy, maybe I wouldn't have as many issues with the more problematic aspects, but I didn't watch SAC until about a year ago, and it felt a bit gratuitous to me.
SAC and 1995 movie effectively base on different chapters of the first manga volume (all of them avoiding certain bits though, like Major's "on the side" enterprise), and the character design used in both matches the source material - just different scenes (SAC arguably follows the design more closely)
EDIT: to make it clearer, Major's clothing choices in Manga were definitely her own and it didn't feel like it's just random cheap sexualization, but then you have to consider that some of the off-the-books income streams Major had were censored from some releases, and she definitely knew how to play off people's looks at her (explicitly called out in GitS 2.0 manga)
I guess part of my issue is that I wasn't a huge fan of the manga either; it felt borderline-hentai at some parts and just wasn't my jam, I never finished it.
The 1995 movie is easily in my top five favorite movies, and I think a large part of it was because I liked that specific version of her character.
> Major's clothing choices in Manga were definitely her own and it didn't feel like it's just random cheap sexualization
I mean, I guess? These are fictional characters, so these depictions are still created by people. Yes, it's the character's decision in-universe, but it's still the author's decision to put her in situations that require her to be in skimpy outfits.
I don't mean to come off as super social-justicey, I guess I just never really liked the trope in anime of every female character being hyper-sexualized.
Ah, I meant it in the sense that Major, compared to many... other creations even from the same time, felt more punk/counterculture in that approach, fitting also with how Section 9 pretty much didn't give a crap about things like dress code (other than poor boss needing a suit for meeting other suits)
It's awkward to be sure, and often seems out of place, but that is Anime. Evangelion is no different. To be fair, there are such gratuitous elements in most TV and movies.
I hear that. The older GiTS really took its audience seriously. I mean a finale scene that's a conversation about Jameson and similar theories? Heady stuff for an anime. The original movie is one of my all time favorites because it hits such a poignant mood, and it's portrayal of a Hong Kong that's ravaged by climate change and technological advancement that isn't utopic was prophetic imo.
SAC is such a good series. Honest existential philosophy discussed _at length_ in a show is pretty groundbreaking, and this show was doing it _long_ before The Good Place was a spark in a camera lens. It really fleshed out the ideas I think GitS was just introducing the world to. What fantastic work.
I remember reading an interview with Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the character designer for the 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam on the idea. Him and the interview noticed a bit of a trend along the lines "the larger and more powerful the robot, the more vulnerable and neurotic the child inside is".
Back in ~2000 when FLCL was fresh, a common quote was that FLCL was NGE team (and Production IG's EoE team) taking a very necessary step into absurd, to decompress from having worked on NGE.
I’m not 100% sure on Revy — I just got wound up in the “two Rebeccas” thing. She has Chinese ancestry, and she was born in America, and has no problem using ethnic slurs on Chinese people. She doesn’t like to talk about her past so I guess you can just tell your own story.
Probably a better example would be Li Shaoran (or Xiaolang). In Cardcaptor Sakura, he’s descended from Clow Reed; in Tsubasa, it’s even more complicated. A more interesting one is Tina Foster, who is genetically 100% Anglo-American, but culturally 100% Japanese. She doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere, and the overall theme of Ai yori Aoshi is estrangement and finding one’s own family.
I highly recommend you watch the End of Evangelion and Rebuild movies if you get a chance. Ultimately, I think Eva is ambivalent about the value of saving the world, far and away from the ability to do so. By the end of 3.0+1.0, Shinji essentially HAS saved the world, except that that's not the important victory. In the end, Eva doesn't care about canonicity, and it barely cares about narrative. It's instead more interested in characters, and their relationships to each other and the world they inhabit. Everything else is malleable to produce interesting dynamics between each actor. It's fascinating in how experimental it is, and not just because it superficially upends assumptions about how stories should play out.
It’s been a while since I watched it but I felt the mechanic deconstruction angle wasn’t the main point. Yeah the kid becomes really depressed and overwhelmed, but the conclusion deals with him understanding a great deal on the nature of humanity and rejecting the cynical desires of the evil cyborg puppeteer people. Seemed rather uplifting to me.
It's not really a spoiler. Shinji has such intense self-doubt and psychological pain from the very beginning. It doesn't really broadside you with him being unable to cope with the pressure of the world's salvation at the end or anything, it's a continual theme throughout the entire series starting at episode 1.
Several years ago i went to see a screening of Things to Come, the tremendous 1936 adaptation of H. G. Wells's post-apocalyptic (and then some!) novel [1]. The writer and film critic Kim Newman gave a little introductory talk about the film. At some point, he referred to something that happens halfway through; a shout came from the audience, "Oi! Spoilers!". Newman was so thrown by the idea that talking about the plot of a famous 75-year-old film might be considered a spoiler that he stopped his talk and walked offstage. Which was a shame, as he's very interesting, but the film was great, so it was alright.
Gotta be careful though, because while NGE indeed feels way past the expiration date on spoilers, the Rebuild movies definitely aren’t (the final one came out just earlier this year). And people online definitely like to bring up Rebuild movie spoilers in conversations about NGE. Mostly due to how very inter-connected, yet, at the same, disconnected NGE and Rebuild movies are from each other.
TL;DR: agreed on no need to be afraid to spoil NGE, but we gotta be explicit that it applies only to NGE (+the end of evangelion movie, which is the true ending to the show that is absolutely a must-watch; also imo past the expiration date on spoilers), and not to Evangelion as a whole (which would include recent Rebuild movies). But there is no harm in putting a spoiler warning at the beginning, and that’s a nice gesture towards those who might want to watch it for the first time without the storyline being spoiled.
There's several lifetimes worth of content out there that's older than I am. Some of it I may never watch/read/listen to, but some of it I will, especially the works that are regarded as "classics".
I wouldn't be surprised if millions of people first experienced the plot of Dune this year, even though the book is over 50 years old. When I talk with friends who are still reading the books (or waiting for part 2 of the movie) I try to avoid spoiling things as a courtesy.
At this point some endings like Citizen Kane have become so memetic that it's impossible to avoid spoilers, but some people still prefer to go in as blind as possible.
I was planning on watching it through with friends within a month or two and I’ve never seen it before. But I guess I shouldn’t have clicked on the comments. Still, a spoiler tag would have been nice but I’m sure it will still be fine.
It's a 25 year old series, but it really is the journey that matters and not the destination (partially because the destination is quite honestly garbage).
To be fair, he really doesn't have much effect on the outcome at all. He remains effectively ignorant of the multiple concurrent conspiracies for the entire show and nothing he does really determines which one wins.
The coloring, fonts, monsters, sets, and UIs of NGE are so pleasing to look at
Piggybacking on this comment I think it’s a difference between western and eastern media. The western movies often have way less complexity and have less depth and fuck ups, perfect execution is the norm. I remember zombieland as an example of perfect execution, which I rarely see in eastern media it’s a comedy but in serious movies it’s happened too. 3.0+1.0 suffers from this as well, it’s tiring and boring except as a spectacle of effects like the opening and the dive, I did not at all find it entertaining after first watch, whereas EoE features plans constantly going wrong from Shinji, Gendo, Asuka, Misato and Ritsuko keeping the idea of perfect excecution away.
Formulas don’t have to be boring, Chronicle was excellent despite following the classic Greek tragedy.
Don’t know Eastern or Western is the best classification but I feel one diverges from a cliche and the other converges into a cliche, as if they’re mirror images.
Whichever one of it you would prefer, each ends of NGE are open ended turbulent static and never happily thereafters.
Even the latest one could be a bubble of dream in the hell - no one came back out of it, and the thing in his hand might have changed the order of couple events but didn’t change the end result.
> "he would fail, be driven insane in the process, and humanity would fall."
...and since that is the obvious conclusion, it makes for a truly awful ending. The last 3 or 4 episodes of NGE are interminable. There are some truly exceptional things in NGE, but it's flawed.
The movie saves it for me. Like, I appreciate the last 3 episodes of NGE from a 'psychoanalysis of the writer' POV, but the real entertainment is in the catharsis of End of Evangelion.
Especially Asuka going John Wick on the military hardware and MP Evas... one of the best pieces of animation in the series. My one qualm with the rebuilds is that none of the fights are that good.
I think the last fight in 2.22 tops that. It just feels very cathartic after 26 episodes and a few movies watching Shinji let everything important to him slip out of his hands. It is certainly less in the traditional Eva spirit of "everything you do will ultimately fail, no matter how hard you try"
The few that look cool are so dark and gloomy you can't see what's going on, at least when I watched it. Like Maru's introduction, or the launch at the opening of Part 3. I feel like the final battles of part 4 were supposed to be centrepieces but they were just too over-the-top.
I wish I could say the same. I was hoping for redemption from the movie, there really are parts of NGE I like. At the end I was so angry at myself for having wasted another two hours I can't even tell you.
It came out ~27 years ago. If you are actively reading a thread about old media, I think you have to expect that the audience will be dominated by fans who have already consumed the entire canon of the show.
Don't worry, you can make the argument that the exact opposite things happens vs. what I said. Make sure you're following a watch order than includes the movies instead of just watching straight through the last two episodes.
The Typeface work in NGE it's amazing. Despite using the most common typefaces, you can recognize the card titles as the "Evangelion Art Style" despite only using fonts, copywriting and layout as design elements.
Plus I love how Evangelion falls into a middle of exaggerated UIs to have the "hacker look" of /r/itsaunixsystem/, and at the same an amazing level of detail that make sense in their own world.
Like when MAGI it's being hacked by the Computer Angel or SEELE, you can see they use a form of assembly and a Unix System to fight it.
And then, the MAGI system by itself it's an amazing use of redundant architecture with 3 computers that should have the same output. That a system that it's resistant to data corruption, but at the same time working as an GAN AI.
Amazing to think this it's from the 90s, and the most amazing part that those details are just 1% of what makes evangelion interesting.
I wonder if the mechanical compression is an artifict of the times, and if it wasn’t stylistic as much as for other reasons. The cards are obviously “Evangelion” but stylized fonts are really memorable, such as the 2 color gradient images, and text of final fantasy titles with white stroke.
NGE has always been a favorite of me because of the UIs that are represented throughout the series. The new(ish?) movies are just gorgeous, I highly suggest you give them a try if you haven't already.
Evangelion uses graphical interfaces very effectively in its story telling. My favorite example is in episode 8: there are two pilots inside EVA-02, leading to problems. We know they've won when we see the synchronization gauge maxing out.
I always liked the pseudo-realistic stack traces in Evangelion. Like, when an error happens a literal stack trace runs through their digital screens. It's realistic enough to be immersive and nostalgic, but sci-fi enough to not warrant deep examination or to poke holes through.
The NERV facilities capture the "rushed research facility" vibe quite well. Not only the UIs are spartan but they have a team of scientists running even the most basic systems and still looking at every issue, and you can also see cables laid out on the floor and everything. It's more realistic than the usual "pristine facility that deploys giant robots" on other shows.
I always liked how they portrayed the EVAs, too. Unit 0 was a prototype, which in most shows would mean that it has some awesome special capabilities. But no, in Evangelion, unit 0 is a flaky but very expensive piece of equipment that's dangerous to operate, doesn't even work half the time, and no one really trusts for anything important. Unit 1 is more reliable but the pilot isn't, so it kind of evens out.
It's also a nice touch how, as the series goes on, the EVAs end up with different colored parts because they just use whatever replacement was on hand at the time. The city, too, goes from being a semi-normal modern city to barren, dystopian landscape. Not all at once, but in stages.
Yep. It reminds me of the striking difference between most space travel sci-fi (in which the pilot of a spacecraft is the captain of their vessel and can go wherever they please) and, say, the Space Shuttle (which required meticulous planning and a large ground support staff for every single mission). Evangelion does a great job of visually conveying how the pilot in the robot's cockpit is, in part, just a focal point for the efforts of thousands of other people.
And then, of course, it subverts that portrayal by revealing that (ROT13) gur Rinf jrer npghnyyl perngrq ol na bpphyg frperg fbpvrgl hfvat napvrag nyvraf, naq abar bs gur grpuavpvnaf be bcrengbef unir n pyhr jung gurl'er ERNYYL pncnoyr bs.
That was an era thing wasn’t it? Serial Experiments Lain has that same feeling. The best modern example was probably the opening in 2.22, which felt very rushed.
Yeah Lain and also Ghost in the Shell have similar portrayal of research facilities, they still look more surreal than Eva on those animes though. But I wouldn't say they are giant robots animes. Bubblegum Crisis and of course Gundam are and there the facilities are more pristine and everything is more like military run.
I feel like it is also due to the relentless decrease available slack[0] in growing industries and how artsy styles have higher logistic and managerial costs.
Sometimes close examination pays off though. Jet Alone boots up version 2.2.1c, nearly melts down and then reboots back to 2.1.1c seconds before it explodes, confirming that it was sabotaged.
Tangent, but the first episode of Golden Boy has a number of almost-but-not-quite realistic contemporary 1995 computer details, including this weirdly garbled rc script:
(i should note that while this is a terrible but entertaining lightweight comedy anime, as wikipedia puts it, "while the OVA is not strictly a hentai animation", it might not be something to watch in the office)
I'm just surprised to see that someone else knows about ‘Golden Boy’. It rides such a wacky edge between the mainstream and the weird that it's difficult to imagine an audience for it. Probably the only reason I've seen it is because in the early 2000s I and some people here watched just everything anime, whole hdds of the stuff. Now I just vaguely remember a couple of popular series, plus ‘Golden Boy’ and ‘Lunatic Night’.
Need to rewatch it one of these days, it's already on the watch-list.
Only the original series + EoE is worth watching "seriously", rebuilds are sort of a troll commentary on the public reception of the original show, Anno went like "You want more Eva? I'll give you what you want. Are you not entertained?".
They are well worth watching too, but you need to be aware of the context to fully appreciate the message.
The new series is not a “troll”. And clearly watching it you can see as much. It feels like the story Anno always wanted to tell but didn’t have the mental or emotional space to do it in. The story is fully realized and I think it’s actually the most faithful telling of Eva of anything released thus far. I’d even go so far as to say skip the original series and just watch Rebuild. It’s that good.
I think the movies are a lot more focused on just on the main characters, which is a bit of a shame because one of the great things about the original show was that in the later episodes it becomes increasingly more apparent that most of the adults have serious issues too. They're just able to hide it better than Shinji, Rei, and Asuka. I can kind of understand though not wanting to just repeat the exact same content, just with a higher budget.
I have yet to finish the last two movies, but I found the first two a lot more interesting if viewed through the idea that they actually continue from EoE (considering Kaworu's words at the end of 2.22)
Oh, sure, on the first look at 1.11 it felt dangerously close to losing a lot of the character to me - it was 2.22 that made it work, partially because of what I mentioned :)
1.11 felt completely unnecessary to me, personally. It didn't add anything to the original story, and took away too much. The only real achievement for me was the final battle, since the octohedron angel was otherwise a forgettable villain-of-the-week episode.
The sequels that stop tracking so close to the original is where it takes off. I still prefer the original but it didn't feel like a simple re-make at that point.
1.11 was IMO important to prepare the ground for 2.22 - some subtle differences exist and by not following exact the original story it makes 2.22 stand out more. But by itself it's not that great - probably helps a lot that I watched 1.11 and 2.22 pretty much back to back.
2.22 was the peak of the rebuild. I’d have loved it way more if it ended right there. Best character development, most interesting angels (except clocky), Mari has potential and wasn’t another caricature, all downhill 3.33 was little more than a drawn out and more boring episode 24 with 2 interesting fights.
That's more the weakness of the 3rd than the 4th. The third movie felt like there was a whole volume between part 2 and part 3 that was missing - I get the appeal of telling the story from Shinji's perspective and starting in media res, but you can't just use terms like "failed infinities" and the "chamber of guf" without a little establishing context.
The 4th brings it back somewhat, but ultimately the finale is still the typical Eva "here's a bunch of religious babble half-explaining what happens overlaid with crazy imagery" which imho had its last hurrah in EoE.
3.0 was garbage except the opening rescue scene and the end battle, I would not recommend it at all. The 4th has too much eye candy that wasn’t even babble.
As cheesy as it sounds, afterwards I sort of felt like the bad cg (and copy pasting assets) was intentional. Maybe it was meant to contrast the eva specific parts with the rest of the regularly animated sequences with human characters. The scene that made me think this way was near the end the giant Rei head exploded into a bunch of 3d eva models (about 2:20), where afterwards they decided to animate the contrasting scene with humans without 3d, which was probably so much more work that I felt it must have been intentional for some reason.
I’d say this for most digital interfaces in anime. They really hit the “thud effect” perfectly (blame a PM for that absolutely astonishing phraseology), where a UI manages to actually become part of the timing and beat of an audio-visual narrative.
Ex: there are few things in life as utterly satisfying as watching gigantic mechanicals lock firmly into place and a big screen filling digital display say something of the effect of “ENGAGEMENT OK”. I don’t know what it is, but it _works_.
I think so many people focus on the personal emotional journey of Shinji and the horror of the Evas, it's so easy to miss how good NGE is at things like this.
Personally what surprised me on re-watch and through the rebuild-series is how much emphasis there is on the beauty of industry itself - so many scenes of machinery on landscapes. This is particularly notable with Ramiel, the beam-weapon octohedron - in the original series they explain that the weapon to defeat it will require all of the electrical power in Japan. In the rebuild, they make the effort of "we have to build electrical equipment to get all the power in Japan into one spot for a few seconds, and we have to do this in like a day or two" feel real and amazing.
As much as Evangelion is a story about isolation and loneliness, visually there's a sort of celebration of industrial civilization - especially the rebuild. Not just individuals, but kind of a "together look what we can achieve" thing. In most other series, the images of machinery and industrial equipment weaponry splayed out over beautiful mountain landscapes and put to task would be dystopian... but in Evangelion, the artists instead make it heroic.
The original series has this too - everybody loves the machinery of Tokyo 3, even poor Shinji, it's just amped up in the rebuild.
Indeed. Admiration of human industrial progress is the foundation for every mecha show, but Evangelion really makes it visual and in-your-face, down to the most unheroic pieces of machinery. Power lines, payphones, escalators, elevators, funiculars, cables, gantries, hatches, and long shafts with quick-closing blast doors work almost like everpresent background characters, reminding viewers time and again about the little-noticed, mundane strength that resides in machinery all around us. Typography is merely another piece of tech in this context, and it gets displayed like the rest, in honest, spare, brutalist form.
Some viewers might see this industrial aesthetic as just eye candy (and in the Rebuilds, it mostly is), but I actually think it's at the core of what makes the original series great. The most memorable part of the series, the fragility, anxiety, and despair of its characters, doesn't land nearly as hard without a foil to contrast against. This is provided by the aforementioned machines-as-characters, not just because they reliably perform their basic duties, but also because they're physical evidence of what other humans could accomplish, people who weren't consumed by doubt, fear, and mistrust. We're constantly seeing juxtapositions between frail man and stable machine, whether it's the elevator patiently clicking through floors while someone inside seethes, the telephoned voice that falls upon would-be-closed ears, or the commuter train being used not to go places, but rather to avoid all places entirely. (And that's just at the surface level --- the broader plot, of course, goes much further and deeper into these themes.) It's only because the industrial aesthetic is so heightened in Eva that the opposing human-fragility aesthetic can reach as low as it does.
> This is provided by the aforementioned machines-as-characters, not just because they reliably perform their basic duties, but also because they're physical evidence of what other humans could accomplish, people who weren't consumed by doubt, fear, and mistrust.
I never seen it that way before! Some things reliably melt into the background, but MAGI was not predictable in EoE, it performed its duties with no problems until it was featured as an attack vector, the weapons against angels were reliably useless unless Eva were involved, and sudden power surges could also occur to make estimated reliability/functions work better. A lot was in the background and I never thought of it that way, but the problems I mentioned are when the reliability goes awry.
In comparison, I continually found myself wondering how the heck Gendo kept building so much crazy stuff when it seemed like his entire staff consisted of him and Kozo (especially in the rebuild movies.)
Hah, yeah. The (spoilers!) more prolonged apocalypse of the rebuilds combined with the larger industrialization of the Evas in Rebuild does make the absence of the industry that marked the first two volumes a bit conspicuous.
If you like this, you might also appreciate Typeset In The Future (https://typesetinthefuture.com). The article on the typography of Wall-E is especially fascinating.
Is NGE worth watching for someone who never was really into anime? The only animated thing I've watched in ages was Arcane, but that's completly different style that NGE.
Enjoyment of it does rely a tiny bit on knowing the general tropes of "giant robot" anime as it does deconstruct a lot of those.
If you have seen even a few episodes of Robotech/Macross/Gundam that's plenty. Even a bit of Voltron or having seen the movie "Iron Giant" may do.
That being said, if you are familiar with the general idea of "Only this one average/milquetoast/nerdy teenager can save the world for contrived plot reasons" it should still be enjoyable as that's where it dials the deconstruction knob up to 11 the most.
> If you have seen even a few episodes of Robotech/Macross/Gundam that's plenty. Even a bit of Voltron or having seen the movie "Iron Giant" may do.
Power Rangers might be the most mainstream concept for US-audiences. (It helps of course that Power Rangers is somewhat loosely based on Sentai Zyuranger, but a large chunk of the scenes were replaced with American actors)
Power Rangers is a really good example of the mainstream trope that NGE is deconstructing.
A team of "teenagers" are given all-powerful giant robots to kick the ass of the bad guy. And... you just trust Zordon, right? Zordon doesn't have like, nefarious purposes or anything. And these "teenagers" have the right psyche for the job right? We won't need like, a sad commander constantly barking orders at these teenagers to get in the freaking robot to save the world.
And these teenagers won't get hurt right, in these fights? Like, if a heat-ray hits the robot and the internal fluids of the robot begin to boil, the pilots won't get severe burns or mental scars from these traumas? Oh... right.
Why 13-year-olds? I mean, there's an in-universe reason that I don't want to spoil. But its really because its a deconstruction of "teenagers in giant robots" trope that was all the rage in the 90s (like Power Rangers).
I think it's more shocking when, as a genre aware viewer, you don't think it's appropriate to question why the world can only be saved by giant robots being piloted by teens.
Nice name! I recommend Gurren Lagann, it’s got more memorable characters, it has a lot of the same elements and it’s also a lot of fun, Simon is like if Shinji grew up. Mild spoilers (without context it doesn’t matter much) but this 1min clip captures the mood, it’s organized much better and doesn’t feel esoteric 2deep4u (it’s popular because it’s not wrapped up neatly and less from quality, it’s more of a dive into the mental state of Anno’s depression). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUzzAlorT7Q
Did the video seem entertaining? It less realistic, it has Simon act like Shinji but there is hope, the power of believing in yourself, and way more memorable characters as well as every robot having a face and to avoid spoilers they have very interesting designs like these geometric enemies https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gurennlagann/images/d/d6/M... and the shape of the spiral is essential to the anime. If you like other media I can recommend others based on what you also like, Junji Ito's horror manga are masterpieces, welcome to the NHK is pretty relevant in Covid times (A NEET trying to change his life, being aimless, and also a dive into Japanese and otaku culture).
Thank you. That being said... it's hard to say, but at the first look, hardly. I do realise how this sounds, but it reminds me of cartoons I saw in TV when I was younger, and I don't remember them as good :P
I know, I know, misconceptions, but it's hard to break habits. Either way, thank you, I saved your answers, I will get back to them one day, I promise.
Though, I remember I wanted to watch Ghost in the Shell one day. Do you recommend it? And where to start - I saw there were many spinoffs, movies, and so on
Yes its very goofy, but also uses it to build a world where strength of character is the most important. I didn't feel like GITS was that great. I prefer short manga like this (I like brief ideas quickly compressed and expressed with no filler only one chapter), you might cry for a hotel's feelings. http://www.mangahere.cc/manga/hotel/v01/c001/
Techy anime you might like Ergo Proxy, its more philosophical, and Serial Experiments Lain is very popular as your internet self becomes more real than you. I found gurren lagann the most enduring, animatrix is a bunch of short animated features of the matrix universe, I don't care if the boondocks isn't "anime", its drawn by the same animators animes use and it gets the most rewatches.
What shows or TV do you like? Yu gi oh abridged series is just goofy fun,
If I don't reply, feel free to message me on another thread, too bad I can't see replies!
It's got a fair bit of the classic "teens in mechs" tropes to it, but there's definitely more to it under the hood, and it's universe is rather well put together in my opinion.
I'd try to walk into it without focusing on it being animated though. It's cinematography like anything else, it's just a different medium and a different style that makes use of the flexibility it's medium provides.
I grew in a environment where admitting to even thinking about watching anything anime was like a social suicide. Only in high school it changed.
I just can't help but treat everything anime related as childish (and I know that genre has some problems, with, uhh... fan service).
Thank you, I will. The only thing I know about NGE is that ending(?) song, Komm Susser Tod.
> and I know that genre has some problems, with, uhh... fan service
NGE is quite Freudian and psycho-sexual. If you're worried about fan service moments, I'd say stay away. NGE isn't quite the worst when it comes to fan service, but its pretty up there IMO. This ain't a "waifu-simulator" or a harem but... its like 80% of the way there.
I mean, full on themes of Oedipus complex, teenagers discovering their sexuality, and other such sexual issues. Its certainly a mature theme and if you're worried about it... maybe its a better idea if you do stay away.
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There's a reason why I push "Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood" in my other post. There's almost no fan-service in that show. (Like, "Lust", the character representing the deadly sin has a low-cut dress but that's about it in Full Metal Alchemist, and its kind of acceptable for her character to do that cause she's Lust after all. Despite the name, she has almost no themes of sexuality and mostly serves as an incredibly powerful villain for the heroes to take down).
In contrast, NGE takes sexuality front and center in many episodes. In most cases, I think it does advance the story and is therefore acceptable, but plenty of blush-worthy scenes that are largely explained by "fanservice".
In the 90s it was ok to like DBZ but nothing else. I think anime fan sites linking to hentai didn’t help kids feel like it was anything but a gateway to porn either.
Just as a warning, its a relentlessly horny work. At least in the original series every single female character is sexualized, and two of them are 14 years old. There is at least one instance of "casual" sexual assault. The plot might be great, but it felt pretty gross to watch
There's a lot of good anime without fanservice if you find that sort of stuff icky, in all genres too.
* The Promised Neverland (Thriller / Shonen)
* Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (Comedy)
* Spirited Away (And really, virtually everything by Miyazaki has no fanservice)
* Oddtaxi (Film Noir / Zootopia world)
* Little Witch Academia (Iyashikei / Healing genre / School)
* Full Metal Alchemist (Battle / Epic Journey anime)
* Fate / Zero (while the Fate/series in general has fanservice and/or harem tropes, Fate/Zero has none)
* Your Lie in April (Romance / Drama)
I know some people just find the fanservice scenes icky, so I try to keep an eye out for the fanservice-free shows for them.
There are also some kinds of nudity which are more artistic in nature rather than fanservice. I think Spice and Wolf handled that sort of thing well for example: Holo's occasional nudity is somewhat representative of her Wolf Goddess form / Pagan diety background, and I don't think it was really used too much for what most would call fanservice (and certainly fit the setting of "Pagan Diety travels across Europe with Merchant").
I would reword "fanservice" since its more like pleasing the audience, I consider Macross Frontier fanservice with singing SDFM songs for instance, oversexualization for male viewers is always fan service but not vice versa, Miyazaki I also see as a lot of feminist fanservice (which I enjoy, having a female lead with depth is great!). Many of those I haven't heard of, but do you consider something like Gurren Lagann as fanservice to Evangelion fans? I also consider GiTS nudity non sexual.
Well, I definitely feel like a lot of people think that anime is overly sexual to a fault.
Now don't get me wrong, I like Konosuba, but if people don't like sexual scenes, I'm going to keep those kinds of shows away from them.
Its mostly a matter of matching tastes with people's expectations. If something thinks that sexy / horny scenes are bad, then its best to find anime that avoid those kinds of "fanservice".
Yes I agree, its a genre of entertainment mostly made by men, featuring women with non realistic archetypes, much is made to be mostly consumed by men who have no experience with women as well, if not just for them sexual fanservice is added since they make such a huge market and it is to entertain the male gaze. The animation quality is excellent as a visual treat, but I often find it lacking in many ways, depth isn't very common, its like superhero movies except featuring female fantasies, and anime archetypes.
Anime as a whole is pretty bad in quality, so its not surprising that people look down on anime viewers, especially if they are awkward men. There are excellent animes, and there are mature cartoons, but inexperience with the genre and the pareto principal gives it a very realistic assessment, especially since if you liked it in the 90s, all the anime fan sites linked to hentai in a few clicks. Remember this? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fairy-bounce
I luckily got into anime right on the verge where it became more socially acceptable (late 90s early 2000s). Also, I grew up in an area where the dominant local culture was more accepting of anime since Dragon Ball Z, Gundam (of some flavor), and Saint Seya were all localized into Spanish and popular with my age group.
The more off the beaten path animes like NGE, Hellsing, etc. didn't become as popular until a few years later when I hit high-school.
I remember my mom walking into the room during one of the more soap-opera-ish moments of Robotech and saying "What on earth are you watching?" I assured her that people would start shooting lasers at each other in giant robots soon...
If you were ever a depressed and lonely 14 year old kid, then yes. Watch the original TV series. It perfectly captures the isolation of being a young outcast full of hormones and mental health problems, mixed with a twisted cross-pollination of Japanese "monster of the week" giant robot Sentai framing and a biblical apocalyptic subtext. Watch the first 24 22-minute episodes, then skip the last 2 and watch the film versions of those "End of Evangelion".
A more recent version is the Rebuild movies (unrelated to the old finale movie EoE). The rebuild movies are beautiful and modern and tell a new story (after the first one which is almost a straight reshoot) but they just not as visceral as the original. They're called 1.11, 2.22, 3.33, and 3.0+1.0. Watch those after the original show if you're craving more.
I strongly disagree with skipping the original ending. I'm personally on the side of people who love it, but even for those who don't I think it's very interesting and absolutely worth watching. I'd say watch the original show, wait at least a few days, and then watch End of Evangelion.
I'd recommend watching it with subtitles. If you don't like subs after the first episode or two then go for dub. Once you get to episode 25 & 26, you could choose to watch the End of Evangelion movie instead.
Episodes 25 and 26 are very abstract and rushed due to initial production budget. EoE is a more watchable ending to the series.
If you're craving more after that! The plot continues with the four Rebuild of Evangelion movies on Amazon prime video.
Call me crazy but imo it's worth watching the entire series just so that you can then properly enjoy EoE -- which is surely one of the greatest animated films ever made.
I'd push things like Spirited Away or Tokyo Godfathers first, as far as anime-movies go actually.
EoE is good for the Evangelion fans. But honestly, Tokyo Godfathers hit me way harder.
EoE probably doesn't even hit my top 5 list of anime movies.
#1: Spirited Away
#2: Tokyo Godfathers
#3: Girl who Leapt through Time
#4: Summer Wars
#5: "Voices of a Distant Star" for #5? Hmm, or maybe "Time of Eve" ?? A lot of things I wanna fit in here but not EoE yet.
Not even getting to the "classics" like Akira, Eden of the East, Ghost in a Shell or whatever. These above movies have some mainstream appeal but still manage to hit that thoughtful analysis and depth. I'd still put something like Ghost in a Shell or "Your Name" above EoE...
There are also 'kid anime movies' like Patema Inverted that really were excellent and deserve recognition.
EoE is niche and fine for Evangelion fans though. Absolutely beautiful, and some of the best fight scenes I've ever seen. But you gotta see some of the __good anime movies__ out there. They all stand above EoE IMO.
meh, I found Girl who Leapt through Time, Summer Wars, and Your Name to be pretty forgettable. Spirited Away, Tokyo Godfathers, and Akira are obviously classics, but none of them have made quite as deep an impression on me as EoE. I guess it hinges on which themes are most personally meaningful to you.
I'm one of the few Evangelion watchers who prefer the original series ending over EoE.
I mean, the scribbles are pretty out there, but the core concept written is about Shinji coming out of his depression thanks to human instrumentality project. Its a bit magical and I don't think depression works like that... but the optimism that you can talk through your problems with your peers is a good message.
It was a muddled ending with a weird storytelling style with a studio that obviously was running out of money. But it got the point across, to me anyway.
More so than the alternative ending, which I do realize more fans seem to enjoy because its got a really good fight scene in it. But the message of EoE is even more muddled and seems to just becomes an extreme parody of itself.
Evangelion always was very much introspective, but EoE crosses the line into navel-gazing. ROT13: V zrna, Fuvawv vf na nffubyr 13 lrne byq. Ohg... znfgheongvat va sebag bs na hapbafpvbhf Nfhxn? Zvfngb naq Xnwv'f frk fprar jvgu Fuvawv jngpuvat bire vg, qrpvqvat jurgure be abg gb xvyy rirelbar?
Like, there's a limit to what I can believe, and I do think that EoE crosses a line. I'm sure a young boy like Shinji can feel bad about his awakened sexual desires but... whooo boy. That's pretty out there.
I agree completely, I watched the original without knowing much about it going in and thought the ending was incredible. The ending of EoE on the other hand is way too self indulgent to me. I don't know if it's because I was younger when I first watched it so it had a different impression on me, but I even prefer the original ending over the ending of the Rebuilds.
I agree, I didn’t like it at first because everyone else told me to dislike it. It’s a lot more cerebral and less eye candy and has different interpretations.
You might really like it! WTTNHK is a critique of Japanese, Otaku, and about aimlessenss, isolation and pananoia. SEL is about technology and out digital selves.
> Is NGE worth watching for someone who never was really into anime?
Maybe? NGE is not very representative of anime in general. Its definitely its own creature.
These days, "anime" lovers like "That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime", "Naruto", "My Hero Academia", or "Demon Slayer". And back then, this "style" was carried by Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball Z.
You know: powerful hero collects a bunch of things and saves the world kind of plot. None of these shows are anything like NGE. I'd say people who like NGE will probably not like Demon Slayer, and vice versa.
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NGE is an existential mecha-pilot anime about depression, being forced into a losing battle with powers you don't understand. If you feel like dragging yourself through 26 episodes of that, yeah, go ahead.
But this ain't the happy-go-lucky overpowered main character always wins kinda show that's popular by 2020 standards. That's for sure.
Don't get me wrong, I like both style of shows (!!!), and both have their place. But "anime" is so diverse that you really can't compare this story with other great anime stories.
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That being said, I'd say the perfect "starter anime" is "Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood". This show has a lot of the crazy fights you'd see in some of the more battle-oriented anime, but also has some deeper self-introspection that was more common to 90s era anime.
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood hits a lot of themes and concepts that seem universal, that many people both anime-fans and non-anime fans can enjoy.
EDIT: In particular, the main character: Edward Elric, may be a kid but he grows up through the show and becomes a hero. Not your typical "anime superpower" growth (Naruto/Demon Slayer / Dragonball Z)... but instead actual outlook on life and maturity kind of growth. Yes, its a hero's journey but there's a reason this story is told over and over again, its a classic epic tale setup with widespread appeal.
What's exceptional is that Edward Elric is a mostly mature character even from episode 1. So starting from a largely mature character and seeing him grow even more is quite spectacular honestly. FMA just does the hero's tale extremely well, far better than most typical anime... with a few deconstructive bits thrown in here and there.
NGE is almost a self-loathing kind of story that makes you feel pitiful. Its good at it too, but I don't think it'd be popular or mainstream. NGE is really out there and goes 100% for whatever depressing feeling its trying to drag you into. I really don't think its something I'd typically share (despite its widespread acclaim, it really is a niche-storyline IMO that few people would enjoy).
EDIT: In contrast: FMA does have a couple of self-loathing parts (The early "Tucker" arc is especially a horrific ordeal), but never quite to the degree that NGE ever gets to. Its still horrific what happens in FMA: Brotherhood, but you never really lose hope in Edward Elric. You can root for the hero from the beginning and never lose faith.
In contrast, NGE absolutely expects you to lose faith in Shinji Ikari, his father, and the entire set of humans involved in the plot. These are not good people. You're watching a train-wreck in slow motion. This is very unusual, even by anime standards.
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Lets put this in terms of WW2 movies. There's lots of WW2 movies: like "Downfall / Der Untergang" and "Midway". Both have their benefits, both are WW2 movies.
But "Downfall / Der Untergang" is simply going to be more niche because the depressing stories are just less popular than the mainstream happy / boom boom fighting movies (like Midway).
If you were trying to get people into WW2 movies, would you start them on "Downfall / Der Untergang" ?? Probably not. Similarly, I wouldn't recommend NGE to a beginner anime watcher... I'd start you on something happier and more mainstream.
I watched few episodes of FMA and came back unimpressed and bored. The plot devices as you mention is not much different than the usual hero saves world anime.
Probably because I've watched enough of 'starter' anime that I'm sick of it.
That said it seems to be a bit more grounded unlike the usual starter anime - for example Naruto where a promising story turns into a unstoppable train wreck of terribly written characters and stretched out plots
Its just a storytelling style that's somehow got permanent, widespread appeal. Since its a "familiar story", I definitely think it plays to the advantage as a "starter anime". It gives a sense of familiarity to the audience, especially if they aren't used to anime yet.
Since the Hero's Journey / Monomyth is so popular, of course there's tons of animes that follow that style (and most "starter" animes IMO are a large-scale hero's journey).
Given the shear number of choices: Naruto, FMA, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Bleach, Dragonball Z, Soul Eater, Sailor Moon, etc. etc... there's a lot to choose from. FMA: Brotherhood just so happens to be the one I think is best.
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I'm mean... we're into what? The 14 year of Marvel movies following the Monomyth formula? This Monomyth / Hero's Journey is hardly unique to anime. The few other mainstream shows that come out with widespread appeal (John Wick, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc. etc.) are just more of the Hero's Journey formula.
Its not a bad formula, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Agreed, to clarify - the Heros' Journey is prevalent in effectively every movie/TV industry I'm familiar with - part and parcel of the mainstream. There are some good creative movies, but most of them are typical rehashes with some variety(story backdrop, scene settings etc) baked in which gets cliched pretty quickly.
I limit it to less episodes or OVAs to prevent bad plots. Ever watch Gurren Lagann? I’d say it’s if Eva was silly and had character development. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUzzAlorT7Q
Gurren Lagann is a Hero's Journey, but in 100% over-the-top Studio Trigger style.
They make it the biggest, most absurd, comically over-the-top Hero's Journey ever. (With great references to those who know the Hero's Journey: Viral == "The Rival", anagram. Viral's mech is "Enkidu", who was "The Rival" to Gilgamesh, the original Hero's Journey story).
Gurren Lagaan is quite stupid at face value. But the writers clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the details of the hero's journey and how to make it incredibly over-the-top.
Stupid at face value, but actually well thought out in details / references, so you can just turn off your brain and have fun... or you can turn your brain on and try to see how the show plays with the Hero's Journey plot and take a more serious perspective.
The typography in Evangelion's titlecards is a tribute to Japanese film pioneer Kon Ichikawa. For instance, Ichikawa lets diagonal and horizontal layouts coexist in the titlecard to bring more dimension into typography (as opposed to being just linear). In his masterpiece "The Inugami Family"[1], the opening title is just 90 seconds of white Gothic typeface on a black background, but the layout is playful, letting the font speak more than just the text themselves.[2] In fact, director Anno Hideaki drew inspiration from this in Evangelion.
Ichikawa was very keen on layout. While Ichikawa mainly focused on live action features, he began his career as an animator, where he honed his craft of laying out "deliberate" camera shots. Later in "Brother",[3] he was even criticized for a jarring camera layout, where characters sometimes bifurcate the shot composition by standing in the middle. [4]
Ichikawa continued with his "jarring"
style; he would insert sudden bursts of opposite shots in the middle of characters speaking. The influence of Ichikawa's cutting style is evident in Anno's works too. For example, in the expository scene in the "End of Evangelion", he would also insert brief shots of the subjects the characters are talking about. (e.g. "Second Impact", "Adam", and such jargon)
Anno is like a Japanese Tarantino; he absorbed much influence from his predecessors, and refines their qualities in his own works. Right now in Tokyo, the Anno Hideaki exhibit is gathering much fanfare. A good portion of the exhibit is devoted not to his works, but the prior art he was heavily influenced by. Clearly, he wants to give more credit to his predecessors by giving them the spotlight they deserve.
[4] Ichikawa also innovated in film color processing, where he and cinematographer Kazuo Miyakawa left the silver while processing film, giving an eerie lush glow to the colors.
Thank you for this! I know NGE parodies/tributes a lot of other media. Do you know if the computer interfaces were also influenced by other similar media?
I've recently been way into this show. I highly recommend it as well as the "rebuild" movie series. You may have to grit your teeth and bear some scenes, but I recommend it without reservations.
I hold NGE in much higher regard than other similar IPs, and would continue to do so even without the excellent art direction. Like many other stories, NGE asks "what would happen if a young boy with an unusual ability was entrusted with the saving of humanity?" However, unlike many other stories, the show answers "he would fail, be driven insane in the process, and humanity would fall."