#giant naked kaworu

[moog-enthusiast]

gods favorite little guy

[cheeseproducts]

Oh, don't mind me, just trying to assimilate all Lilin souls into one being and all, nothing big. No no, take your time, it's cool. I don't mind.

[mus-xpart-a]

feeling silly might render later 😝

this thing is half the size of the palm my hand why do i insist on making everything so small (my poor fine motor skills are screaming)

[adamworu]

hello! thank you for all your essays; they helped me understand a lot about eva. i would like to ask why kaworu was not in the congratulations scene of eotv.

i was thinking that because kaworu has angel dna, he was not part of the "everyone learns about everyone else" psychological bit of instrumentality that was episode 25 and 26. however, pen pen is also in the scene despite clearly being not human, so shouldn't non-humans like kaworu also be counted into it? also rei is in there and she's sort of the same with kaworu. furthermore, he is shown to be part of giant naked rei in eoe so we know he is alive during instrumentality. it seems weird that he is not there simply because he is an angel, but i can't think of anything else.

Thank you for your inquiry!

This is probably one of the stickiest Kaworu related questions I've been asked if not the stickiest in the decade I've been in the fandom. You're absolutely right that Instrumentality isn't a human affair due to Pen Pen's implication (which is its own can of worms of who 'Pen Pen liked most?').

I think angel AT Fields are far more physical and manifest in ways that could possibly interrupt the tanging process. Humans don't get that luxury. They can block out satellite waves, such as in the case of Sahaquiel. Ramiel's can bend light. Kaworu's can block light, magnetism, and subatomic particles. It's very possible that other angels have powerful block off capabilities but went unused because situations didn't call for them.

Kaworu being fused to Rei while everyone gets tanged in EOE is different. Since him and Rei weren't tanged, since it was everyone but them when Shinji grants them Instrumentality/meta-death.

[coredrill]

perhaps my most insane collection of brvn thots yet

do we think lulu is from the moon. i think this for three reasons. one: when she told superbia she was going to ride him the moon was quite large and prominent in the shot. symbolism. two: when she got her fancy hairdo, she had two little buns that looked like moons. three: “lulu” could come from “luna” the same way it could come from the first syllable of smith’s name. why would she become spanish? don’t worry abt it. also if she’s from there then maybe the “final battle” which obari allegedly said would take place in an unexpected location will indeed be on the moon (pls dont ask for a source on this bc i don’t think i could find it again but it was one of the like. EARLY early interviews iirc. or it was just a rumor. this part of the post is a joke anyways LMAO). however this IS a super robot show so i feel like the moon in general is actually a more expected location for me than like. idk. cleveland

everyone pointing out the animation differences maybe indicating different timelines is so funny to me cause like. if it’s NOT intentional, the fans are putting together a list of fixes to make for the bluray on a silver platter LMAO. also god i hope we get a western bluray release, i honestly am considering getting the jp one if it somehow winds up w eng subs though just cause i know it’s such a long shot for CRUNCHYROLL of all motherfuckers to put one together 🥲 discotek ur our only hope………………

i keep thinking abt the like. pacing of the previous fight scenes being reused in ep9 in such a smart way…………like with smith/lulu v superbia - isami/bravern v cupiridas AND with smith/lulu v knuth - isami/bravern v pessimism/vanitas they kept doing the quick jumps between each of the two fights in a way that made it clear that isami and smith were in conversation even if they were doing completely different shit, and then bringing that completely to the forefront this ep while isami is asking smith why he died and at the same time smith is refusing to die bc of his promise with isami. BLEW MY FUCKIN MIND to see the pattern reused like that, i swear to GOD everyone talks about how fun and hype this show is but it’s so damn GOOD too 😭😭 and then after that the fuckin. symmetrical docking ass cut and then later the gattai which has been held off for SO long bc they are no longer separate conversations. JESUS

called my shots too early tho w smith not melting ppl’s minds in a kaworu manner where they convolute the story x1000 to try to make him seem straight 😭 congrats white boy, your days are numbered until ppl start saying you love isami like he’s your pet dog……….also in a related fashion the giant naked smith fanarts are taking me out LMAO

you can tell idk shit abt fuck when it comes to time travel fuckery cause i rly am just here like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ atp LMAO, the serious theorizing is GONE. i trust the show to finish out in a satisfying manner and also in a way that my pea brain can understand and i’m rly looking forward to savouring these last 3 episodes :] and then rewatching the whole thing from the beginning once the remaining twists have been revealed and i Know :3 like not to get way too sentimental w 3 whole episodes left but we are so lucky to be following this story in real time you guys 😭 like i’m just gonna put the same post i made back after episode ONE here cause it’s true but times a million with what we’ve seen so far, truly this is such a special experience to have and i’m so glad this show waited until i got into mecha to get made so that i could like. Understand it yknow. anyways good for january 14 2024 version of me, you are so excited andyet still have NO idea the kind of treat you are in for 😭

“lewis” jumpscare tho omg. i forgot it took me like a week to figure out what the hell was goin on with all the characters first and last names LMAO. anyways everybody go look at sumiisa sekiha love love tenkyouken right now i am no longer asking

[madmanjive]

Shinji, Asuka, and QRei wander until they are picked up by a truck, transporting them to a nearby Lilin settlement.

Toji is a village doctor and father of a young child named Tsubama (with Hikari, who is also alive).

Kensuke is also there. He’s an avid survivalist and works for a smaller sub-organization within WILLE called KREDIT, developing and refining the re-vitalization tech used for Angel Sealing Pillars.

Shinji stays with Kensuke and Asuka. Asuka wanders around naked and has a few suspiciously intimate moments with Kensuke, who she refers to as Ken-Ken.

Shinji is nearly catatonic. He refuses to eat or engage, still shaken by what happened with Kaworu. At one point, he gets a glimpse of Asuka’s DSS Choker and vomits, having been reminded of Kaworu’s head exploding. Kensuke cleans up the vomit.

Asuka marvels how he can manage to throw up without eating anything. Frustrated, Asuka and other villagers try to forcefeed him meals. Village elders scold Shinji for not trying hard enough. Hikari implores that the elders go easier on him.  

Meanwhile, Shinji is slowly recovering from his initial shock. Asuka is protecting the village perimeter.Kensuke teaches Shinji how to fish, elaborating more on the Angel Sealing Pillars. According to Kensuke, ASPs do not run indefinitely. Their failure will mean the end of the Lilin settlement and its inhabitants. Here, he introduces Shinji to “Ryoji Kaji” - Misato and Kaji’s 14 year old son, who works with Kensuke on KREDIT.Ryoji wears a light blue/white radiation suit. Here, it’s explained that Kaji died during 3rd Impact by closing the Door of Guf, while Misato was pregnant with Ryoji. Presumably, the Door of Guf can only be opened and closed with a Key of Nebuchandezzer, so Kaji could have procured two Keys from SEELE, one that he gave to Gendo, and one that he kept for himself.Ryoji has no clue who his parents are - allegedly thinks of himself as orphaned (parallels with Kaji’s own childhood post-Second Impact). Misato had abandoned him shortly after he was born. 

Turns out, Rei has an LCL deficiency in need of constant maintenance. Her body deteriorates the longer she remains outside her tank. With Tsubama near, Rei starts crying as the realization dawns on her. She has no idea how to process her death and doesn’t understand why it makes her so sad.Before she dies, Rei finds Shinji and gives him the SDAT. She thanks him. Her plugsuit changes color from black to white and she explodes in a pop of LCL.Shinji decides to return to WILLE and help Misato restore the world back to its pre-Impact state.WILLE does not react to Shinji well. They quarantine him again, though this time without a DSS Choker. Asuka and Mari visit him in his quarantine cell.Mari re-introduces herself to Shinji. Asuka admits to Shinji that she’d “liked him a long time ago” when she was still a child. Asuka is relieved to be long past those childish feelings, and happier still she had the opportunity to get them off her chest.Gendo starts to make use of Eva 13. The Wunder embarks to destroy him and 13. Here, a battle ignites between a skull-Eva army and Units 02 and 08, repaired with the spare parts WILLE salvaged from Paris in AVANT.Asuka attempts to destroy Unit 13′s core, first by removing her eyepatch to unleash an energy bolt from her Bardiel-corrupted eyesocket.When that doesn’t work, she goes beast mode, only for Unit 13 to destroy her after she injects Angel blood into 02 for an emergency upgrade. Asuka dies.  

Gendo successfully merges with 13, ready to start the final Impact. Shinji demands that Misato let him pilot Unit-01.Misato agrees; the time has come for Shinji to face off against his father in Unit-01. However, Sakura and Midori are vehemently opposed to the idea.Sakura, terrified and panicked, tries to shoot Shinji. Misato intervenes and takes a bullet for him (just like in EOE).As Shinji rushes to Misato’s aid, they have a heart to heart. Shinji tells Misato he met her son, Ryoji, and liked him. Shinji hands Misato a photo of Shinji and Ryoji smiling together that Kensuke had taken moments before. Misato smiles, relieved.Mari retrieves Shinji and transports him to Unit 01. Inside 01, sits Rei II with long hair. Shinji goes berserk.Shinji and Gendo duke it out in Units 01 and 13. Shinji is positioned as someone capable of growth, someone who can move on from the past, versus Gendo, who is escapist, stagnant, trapped in old memories. Shinji resolves to create a new world without Evas. During their fight, Shinji and Gendo’s memories cycle through, pulling in random scenes from their pasts: Shinji’s middle school, Sachiel stage, inside Misato’s apartment, etc.WILLE is baffled how Shinji can pilot despite his synch ratio reading “zero” - until Maya and Ritsuko realize “zero” actually represents the number closest to zero; that is, infinity.At one point, Gendo and Shinji stop fighting and the setting transforms to reveal a train, where they both confront each other. Gendo’s backstory is explored: he was alone and didn’t care about people, until he met Yui, who made him feel for the first time. When she died, he decied he’d do anything to get her back again.  

Shinji gets right up in Gendo’s face and pops his AT Field. Gendo protests, incredulous and resisting. We see a flashback of Gendo sending Shinji away.Shinji gives Gendo the SDAT through the AT Field. Gendo, defeated, departs the train  

Shinji and Rei brainstorm how the new, Eva-less world will look like. Shinji says, in English, the new world will be a “Neon Genesis.”Rebuild is set up as a sequel/loop of the original TV series. Kaworu is the same character in every Evangelion story: when he dies in one universe he gets brought back in another.Shinji remembers the original anime inside Unit 01, which contains both the Lance of Longinus and Lance of Cassius (the lances of hope and despair, together).  

Shinji attempts to impale himself as we get flashbacks from End of Evangelion. Giant Rei returns in hyperrealistic/fantastical CGI.Misato sacrifies herself and the Wunder by colliding the ship into GNR’s giant head. Before she dies, she says “I’m sorry, Ryoji” - a parallel played straight with Gendo in EOE.Yui blocks Shinji before he can impale himself with the Spears. Two sets of arms wrap around 01, including Eva 13 (Gendo). Gendo and Yui reunite, smiling fondly at their son.Shinji gets transported into the sea of LCL from End of Evangelion. Asuka is there, her plugsuit in tatters. Shinji tells Asuka that he once liked her, but now she needs to take care of Kensuke.Asuka has an Instrumentality sequence where she confronts a giant, human-sized doll as a child. The doll removes its head to reveal Kensuke, who affirms her existence  

Final Impact commences. Shinji says “Goodbye, all of Evangelion.” Unlike EOE Impact where everyone explodes into puddles of LCL, everyone, already having exploded, regains their forms through self-discovery.Evangelions turn into humans. Humans become men, women, children, animals, and nature.Shinji is alone on a quiet, blue beach. Mari’s Evangelion appears and says, “Goodbye Evangelion 3.0+1.0.” We’re treated to another train station. Adult Shinji, wearing a business suit, waits on one side of the tracks. Adult Rei and Kaworu are on the other side.Adult Mari comes up from behind Shinji and goes “Guess who?”Shinji replies: “a woman with a big chest.” Mari asks him if he’s “ready to go” and Shinji responds with an affirmative. Then, the shot pulls back to reveal a shot of live action Ube, Japan - Hideaki Anno’s hometow 

There you have it. After all these years kensuke get to be whit the girl of his dreams. Kensuke is the man.   AsukaKkenken LIVES!!!! Good things comes to those who wait.  

[ladyvgrey]

Reactions: Watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time (25F)

***

Episodes 1-24

- Oh wow, good show. I feel like I'm being thrown into an actual world with no preamble, but I like that

- Cool to have a protagonist that's not a super badass child genius

- Ok so they really just said "we have 20 minutes of footage and 24 minutes to fill, let's just take this one frame and extend it by 3 minutes more than could possibly be comfortable. Let us do this several times throughout this series, for reasons

- Oh new character, she's loud af but alright

- Wish the dub used "child" instead of "children"

- This show is making me feel uncomfortable and upset, but in a really interesting way, this is the shit language teachers would have a field day with when it comes to analysis

- Kay so is Rei both Gendo's replacement child and replacement wife? Is he grooming her? Man, he's such a dick

- Holy shit glad Toji is alive but man is Gendo ever an asshole

- Wait, Ritsuko and her mom were both sleeping with Gendo?? Ew

- Holy shit Gendo is SUCH A DICK, hopefully he'll get some development

- Okay even with the ambiguous dub, Kaworu is REAL GAY and Shinji does not dislike that

- This is absolutely great, there's a lot happening but I don't get how the conclusion can possibly be as bad and confusing as everyone says it is

Episodes 25-26

- Oh I wonder where they're going with this

- Oh I guess the style is changing for this scene

- Oh no it kept going

- AM I ON ACID, IS THIS A FEVER DREAM

- I UNDERSTAND NOTHING

- WTF HAPPENED, HOW IS THIS THE LAST EPISODE

- Yeah ok it ended I guess, and Gendo is still a massive dick, that's it that's his arc, "asshole dad acts like asshole"

End of Evangelion

- I was not ready for that hospital scene, I feel violated and gross, Shinji you dick, I believed in you, can't you show the fact that you're an empty shell by sitting quietely in the corner instead

- I'M STARTING TO UNDERSTAND THINGS

- I don't like Asuka much, but damn is it badass to see her chuck a whole ass ship at enemies

- Wait why the FUCK did grown ass Misato kiss Shinji and imply she'd fuck him later, I get that she probably thinks it's going to motivate him and that she'll die anyway, but NO MISATO YOU WERE MY FAVOURITE (no more, no more), you were supposed to be like a mother figure to him, kid's gonna be even more fucked up than he already is, noooo, nooooo!

- Ok not sure why Gendo had to get to Rei's insides by the tittay

- Giant naked people

- Ok wait so is Shinji imagining choking Asuka to death, seeing as she just died in a different way? It's a vision?

- 'Ight, now everyone is exploding like oranges in the microwave

- Well at least we got a smidge of reason for Gendo

- In conclusion, infinitely more satisfying and informative than eps 24 and 25, still a confusing acid trip

- Is this epileptic seizure inducing montage what they show people à la Clockwork Orange style when they want to brainwash them?

- We've transcended into live action?

- Is this a dream? Is this the end? Did things work out for the best, or did Shinji fuck over the whole world? Idk there's just a lot of lights and exploding things. Everyone is dead? Or everyone is immortal? Everyone is one?

- SHINJI, STOP CHOKING ASUKA

[very-grownup]

THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 12

Episode 24.

It seems very unfair of us to watch Dorohedoro after Evangelion, because each episode of the former concludes by telling us things we've learned. I feel like all I've learned from Evangelion is "fuck the colour orange".

This is also the episode where I cursed that the episode length of Devilman Crybaby and Madoka didn't sync up with Evangelion so we never got the power trifecta of 'my first homoerotic teenage nihilist crush'.

The actual episode report under the cut.

So, so, so after last week's upsetting underground tang aquarium of Reis adventure the series remembers to check in on the super-traumatized Asuka (which is more than the adults within the series do). We get a greyscale small child Asuka running down an orange (bad) corridor. She's excitedly telling her mother about how she's been chosen to pilot a giant robot and protect humanity and it'll be with other kids and she won't be alone and won't need to depend on her father or anyone else and the excited child shots keep cutting to an ominous door. Eventually the door opens enough to show the red behind it and, knowing what we know from the Asuka episode a few weeks back, you can interpolate pretty easily and upsettingly what opening door onto solid red means.

There's a fight between Shinji and Asuka that we're catching the climax of, with thrown and shattered mugs, and Asuka calling Shinji a liar and Shinji apparently reiterating that fuckin' Kaji is gone (I can't tell if he's trying to tell her Kaji is dead or just that he’s bailed on them).

Misato's gotten notice from Seele, the obelisk council, that the Fifth Child is being sent to replace Asuka and Misato recognizes something hinky is going on and senses conspiracy which is ... pretty reasonable at this point. I'd also be seeing conspiracies everywhere. I wouldn't know what they meant or even whose conspiracies they were, but I'd definitely suspect multiple conspiracies going on if literally anything new happened.

Asuka, naked, maybe bloody? in a bathtub in a destroyed apartment with the ceiling crumbling down. Her eyes are vacant and her cheeks are hollow and she's mumbling about her sync rates falling. It's weird and haunting and the building is as destroyed and non-functional as Asuka. Someone from NERV finds her and it turns out Asuka's been missing for a fucking /week/ in this destroyed city and they've only just found her since I guess she ran away after her fight with Shinji and you know it's at least partially because they don't care about finding her. NERV barely cared about Asuka back when she could get in the robot, they absolutely don't care about her now and it's unclear who, if anyone, is responsible for her since fuckin' Kaji's death. Is there even law in Tokyo 3?

My point is, everything is falling apart in the structure of the show and the world within it and the first ball to truly get dropped and broken is the used up and now valueless teenage girl and it's heartbreaking.

Things are getting so real that Misato is /sending Penpen away/ for his own safety and I'm glad Misato cares about Penpen but I wish Misato could find it in her to care about, say, Asuka (Misato is a fuck up and trying her best, but at the end of the day she's still a fuck up). Is Misato the best adult in the series or is she actually the worst adult in the series because she recognizes how she is failing but fails to take action to correct her failures? As a viewer I can't be disappointed in Gendo because he's shit and I have no expectations of him. But I love Misato and so it hurts more when she lets me down and by this point she is letting me down HARD (but I suppose Misato disappoints herself).

Shinji is also in a bad place and he's contemplating the orange tang wreckage of the city and how the small thread of normalcy has gone now that everyone's evacuated. Shinji misses his friends who ... hoo boy.

The one Shinji last saw in the hospital after nearly killing him via giant robot and the other he last heard calling him to tell him how much he sucked for not wanting to pilot a giant robot. It's sad that those two are as close to friends as Shinji has had.

Shinji desperately wants to talk to someone right now about, you know, the /underground tang aquarium full of Reis/ which it seems to be implied is a result of forbidden science experiments combining Adam Trevor flesh with the remains of Shinji's mother? No one SAYS it but yes?

So Shinji can't talk to Rei about this because he feels weird about the whole thing. Asuka's missing. His friends, such as they were, are gone. The poor kid just needs someone to talk to, to confide in, and he asks Asuka, Misato, and his mother, in that order, for help. Are all women ultimately mother for him? Rei, Misato, and Asuka all got conflated when he was absorbed into the EVA which were all part of an ur-mother thing so ... maybe? I don't know. Probably nobody knows. Shinji certainly doesn't know.

Then Shinji's thoughts are interrupted by Akira Ishida humming "Ode to Joy" (gorgeous piece of music, loved it since I was a little girl) and Akira Ishida is here! Things are not going to get more sensical when Akira Ishida just appears in your anime.

So this is Kaworu, who is sitting on some picturesque rubble jutting out from the orange tang, and he's the replacement EVA pilot. His hobbies are having mysteriously deleted records, perching on things, knowing about Shinji, and talking deep and cryptic, but in a friendly way.

AT SOME POINT IN THIS EPISODE Gendo talks to Shinji's EVA and refers to it by his dead wife's name and is glad the spear of Longinus is on the moon, actually, because with it on the moon it can't stand in the way of their plans and Gendo has an eyeball in his palm.

The obelisk council have a meeting where they are once again berating and complaining about Gendo and it is unclear if they realize that Gendo's not there.

Misato is pretty sure Kaworu is a spy or agent of some sort sent by the obelisk council and she and the dude NERV subordinate who's always around are trying to do some side snooping to figure out what his deal is.

Hey where's Ritsuko? Sitting on a chair in a black void telling Gendo about how her cat died and she didn't think about it at all for years until her grandmother called to tell her it was dead and now she's having feelings about it and Gendo doesn't care about symbolism. Gendo wants to know why Ritsuko destroyed the dummy plugs and Ritsuko is like, I didn't destroy the dummy plugs, I destroyed Rei which ... I don't know, I don't know, are we all operating at cross-purposes here Ritsuko? Are you and Gendo even having the same conversation?

Gendo's like ... is this because I stopped having sex with you? And ... maybe that conversation went further but I think my brain strangled itself rather than contemplate Gendo viewing sex with anyone as a favour he's doing them and one Gendo finds inconvenient (and gross at that).

Rei's having a time and as is often the case with Rei it's unclear what she thinks about what she's thinking? Rei seems like she's a cypher to herself more than she is to anyone else. Rei's maybe trying to figure out what her purpose in life is or who she's alive for? She thinks about Gendo's glasses and something's different with this Rei, I guess, compared to the other Reis. I think something's breaking down, like maybe each new Rei is less and less connected to Gendo? I don't know.

At some point, Rei encounters Kaworu and he's like oh hey, you're like me, I thought so! Maybe they're at NERV or on their way to NERV? Look, the budget ball got dropped with Asuka, this shit is getting impressionistic. So maybe Kaworu doesn't have any background for Misato to dig up because, like Rei, he's a construct from some weird genetic fuckery (I think Misato even compares his lack of background to Rei at one point) anyway he's like it's episode 24 time to drop Lilith references!

Why are you doing this to me, Akira Ishida? If I had one of those murder evidence string boards it would be such a mess right now as I tried to find room for /Lilith/.

Misato's reached the point of fuck it, let's just throw all the kids into the robots for tests and Kaworu is /suspiciously good at robot numbers/.

After robots, Shinji is just sort of hanging around when Kaworu exits ... something NERV-y and Shinji is awkward and shy and doesn't want to go home and needs to take a shower and Kaworu is ... intense and suggestive and friendly. So they shower together and then bathe together and there's, like, an entire wall in the baths that's dedicated to a screensaver slideshow of NERV propaganda and Kaworu just wants to talk to Shinji and get to know him and hold hands in the bath and it's obviously weird.

Shinji is so desperate for friendship and someone to talk to and you don't want to see conspiracy or shady shit here because at this point I just want something /good/ to happen to Shinji for once in this constant tragedy train of a show. Just let him have this weird friend who wants to talk to Shinji about his intimacy issues and how his fear of being alone makes him keep to himself and causes the aloneness because chosen aloneness is better than risking connection and getting rejection. So probably the biggest red flag about Kaworu is that he's talking to Shinji about the things Shinji is concerned about without any overt robot-centric motives.

Then Kaworu invites himself over for a sleepover. Shinji takes the floor because of course he does and they talk more philosophy and fate and destiny and depression and Kaworu is intense and tells Shinji he likes him and no one has given Shinji even this crumb before.

The obelisk council has a meeting that isn't in the void but is over the tang craters of the ruined city and they're meeting with Kaworu because of course Kaworu is their construct of some sort being sent to ... something ... Gendo ... moons ... Lilith ... Adam ...

Misato is watching all of this from the highway through highspec binoculars and cursing that she can't read Kaworu's lips. She's looking at the back of his head, mind you. But I heard what Kaworu said and I don't fucking know, Misato, so don't feel bad.

Misato meets Ritsuko in the black void at some point and if I knew why in the moment I have since forgotten. I don't take notes. I just watch. Misato's angry, though and Ritsuko is just ... overcome with a sense of her own failure or maybe grief or anger at her inability to not repeat her mother's mistakes? There's definitely mom-stuff involved.

I'm aware that these reports are becoming longer and less coherent and also probably less interesting for people to read but once I decide to do a thing I do it. There's definitely a loss of narrative cohesion as the series nears its end, probably due to budget stuff.

It's an episode for people to talk to the EVAs in their giant hangers and Kaworu goes to have a chat with Asuka's robot where chat means 'starts floating and establishes some kind of mental link with the EVA and turns it on'.

In the NERV control centre everyone starts freaking out at the sudden activation of the EVA. IS IT ASUKA? they ask (no, she's shown to be barely conscious in a hospital bed, so someone's caring for her to some degree). NO PLUG, NO PILOT, JUST KAWORU'S PSYCHIC MANIPULATION.

Oh, and Kaworu's an Angel which means an Angel is now using an EVA to punch through ... NERV ... ground ... basement ... heading to where Adam Trevor is, the orange tang ocean, and that's really bad. If he/they succeed ... Third Impact?

Shinji's called in (and Misato hasn't talked to Shinji once about Kaworu even though the last time there was a new surprise EVA pilot it went ... poorly and, well, here we are now) and he's angry and sad and disbelieving (echoing Asuka's disbelief at the beginning). Shinji feels so /betrayed/ and he compares what Kaworu has done to his relationship with his father which is ... a lot to unpack. I suppose the friendship Kaworu offered is the most obvious affection Shinji has been offered by anyone. He wants affection and recognition from Gendo. But any affection, any seeing and noticing of him, must be like water in the desert to Shinji at this point, and if Gendo's greatest betrayal of Shinji's hopes was overriding his will to make Shinji nearly kill Tohji I guess Kaworu, the only character who's shown any interest in being Shinji's friend, being revealed to be an Angel, something Shinji /has/ to kill, is comparable. I'm sorry, Shinji.

Shinji fights Asuka's EVA, controlled by Kaworu, as they descend deeper and deeper into the bowels under NERV, the two EVAs locked into a very cool looking combat that Shinji doesn't want to be involved in, and Misato and her underling confirm plan SELF-DESTRUCT NERV.

"Ode to Joy" is playing throughout this. It feels very natural.

Kaworu gets to where Adam Trevor is, weird and white and bulgy, looking very pregnant and Adam Trevor is also Lilith and they are the parent of humanity while the Angels are maybe less tainted children of god and are siblings to the EVAs?

Shinji throws Asuka's destroyed EVA through the ... wall? into the orange tang ocean zone with Kaworu and Adam Trevor Lilith and since Shinji's the victor of that fight, he seizes Kaworu, who he still does not want to fight, let alone kill. Kaworu's calm about all of this, though. He's ready to die. He expects to die. He also is ready to live but he recognizes this is a situation where for one of them to survive, the other one can't, and he smiles and tells Shinji he wants Shinji to live.

There's once again a really excellent use of the budget and animation limitations the show was hitting at this point, as there's a long, still shot of Shinji's EVA holding Kaworu as "Ode to Joy" soars, the music the only sound for the static shot.

Then the screen flashes and a small shadowy shape sinks into the orange.

Gendo and Rei wear raincoats as blood is hosed off Shinji's EVA.

Shinji sits by Misato, devastated, and tries to express his feelings to her, express his grief and regret. Kaworu was a good person. Kaworu was his friend. Kaworu told Shinji he liked him and Shinji confirms that /no one has ever told him that before/. Shinji feels like he should have died instead of Kaworu. He felt awful about Tohji's near-death at his unwilling hands. Tohji wasn't even really his friend. His grief and culpability in his own loss here is ... huge. And all Misato can say is that Shinji did the right thing in killing his friend. She's the only adult who's been sometimes sympathetic to Shinji, who he's been forging a real connection with, but by this point she's had to deal with so much shit of her own that the fragile pseudo-parent-child relationship between them has shattered. Misato is just another adult who isn't hearing Shinji. He doesn't know why it's changed, he just knows she's telling him killing his friend was right. This concludes my report on Episode 24 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Edit: I know there was a lot of discussion and criticism when Netflix released their new dub and sub, particularly with respect to the line "worthy of his grace" and we can all agree, I think, that Netflix's subtitles are sloppy, their localization flawed. But regardless of the words used, it's clear that Kaworu offers Shinji everything he isn't getting from the rest of the world: affection, understanding, intimacy, a sense of being valued, a sense of safety. Love in whatever form, every form Shinji needs and wants.

I guess I wonder how genuine this offer of love is although I suppose it doesn't matter to Shinji because the betrayal happens, the universe punishes him for risking emotional intimacy, and Kaworu's sincerity doesn't change how awful Shinji is left feeling.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

One Man's Burning Hatred for Anime

by Rude Cyrus

Friday, 10 July 2009

Cyrus displays something that looks suspiciously like masochism.

Uh-oh! This is in the Axis of Awful...~

Dear god in heaven. I’m not prepared for this, but the rage and hatred have built to a point where I must let it out. There are some things I hate in this world, but none more so than pretension, especially pretension that is accepted by the masses as tortured genius. It’s frustrating to point out that something is obviously a dog turd wrapped in shiny foil, only to be met with derision, defensive bootlicking, and cries of “WELL, THAT’S JUST YOUR OPINION.”

The subject I’ll be talking about today is a well-known anime (if you don’t know what anime is, go look it up on Wikipedia or something). A fair warning: there’s going to be a gratuitous amount of cussing and spoilers – that is, if you consider a dead fly in the middle of a feces lollipop to be a spoiler.

A bit of background first, so I can delay this thing as long as possible: when I was an innocent, starry-eyed larva, I was exposed to anime by way of Speed Racer. The show is about racing and cars, or some such shit; frankly, it’s a poorly animated mess that’s interesting only as an experiment to see how much footage the animators recycled. I was left with the impression that all anime was shit, at least until a few years later when I discovered Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon– the former catered to my violent fantasies of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, while the latter indulged my masturbatory dreams of teenage girls in short skirts. Look, I was 13 at the time, okay? Oh, and I got caught up in something called Pokemon, although I don’t think too many people watched that show.

Eventually I matured (kinda sorta) and began yearning for something that appealed to my awesome intellect. My first taste of a “real” anime was Akira, a fun little jaunt into a post-apocalyptic Japan inhabited by shriveled, psychic children and motorcycle gangs. The film fell apart at the end and generally felt slipshod; it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it was an adaptation of a manga, and quite a bit of content had to be cut.

Then I watched Ghost in the Shell, another movie that takes place in the Future! This time, it’s about 100 times more confusing and talky, with characters standing around, pondering what it is to be human, blah blah blah. Interspersed throughout are scenes of the lead character, Makoto, running around bare-ass naked and kicking butt. The thing that stuck me is that Makoto has no genitalia – no pubic hair, no vulva, just a blank area of flesh. It disturbs me to this day.

I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing. I thought it odd.

After that, I went through what I call my Hayao Miyazaki period: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro – if Miyazaki made it, I watched it. This was followed up with Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (which I found to be superior to the film). Finally, I stumbled upon a series called Neon Genesis Evangelion, something considered by the anime community to be a complex, profound examination of human nature, combined with awesome giant mech action.

This series is the subject of this article.

A brief synopsis: in the year 2015, Earth’s population has decreased dramatically, thanks to a cataclysmic event called “Second Impact” that occurred at the turn of the century. To make things worse, monstrosities called Angels are threatening to destroy the remnants of humanity – the only things that stand in the way are giant, biomechanical creatures called Evangelions (or EVAs for short), piloted by three 14-year-old teenagers. The main characters are:

Shinji Ikari – a shy, introverted boy that was abandoned by his father after his mother died (said father being the commander of the organization that created the EVAs), Shinji wants nothing more than to be liked by his deadbeat dad. He’s a coward as well, something that puts him at odds with the enormous responsibility of piloting an EVA. He becomes a bit braver and more self-assured as the series goes on, before collapsing into a whiny, spineless piece of shit.

Rei Ayanami – this strange girl is almost emotionless and wholly dedicated to Shinji’s father, which is somewhat creepy when you realize that he’s twice her age; we later find out that she’s a partial clone of Shinji’s mother. Her interactions with Shinji lead her to become more in touch with her emotions and thus more “human”, at least until she starts fostering a death wish.

Asuka Langley Soryu – a half-German/half-Japanese redheaded girl that serves as the show’s LOUD WESTERN STEREOTYPE. Asuka is opinionated, bossy, overconfident, and thinks poorly of Shinji. She softens towards him a bit after he fishes her out of a volcano and the two are forced to train in unison (don’t ask). She becomes an emotionally shattered shell after being forced to relive childhood memories of her insane mother’s suicide.

Whee.

To be fair, it doesn’t start out too bad. The best parts of the series dealt with the interactions between the three main characters (when they were three-dimensional human beings and not cardboard cutouts, that is). As time went on, the tone became darker, the characters became suicidally depressed, and a somewhat coherent storyline devolved into madness. Episode 24 (out of 26) introduced Kaworu Nagisa, an Angel in human form that became insanely popular due to his homoerotic interactions with Shinji, and ended with a two-minute static shot of an EVA holding Kaworu’s body in its hand while music played in the background – no speech, no movement, just this single shot. Go stare at a picture for several minutes and you’ll get the same effect: mind-numbing boredom.

The final two episodes were bullshit from start to finish. In them, an unseen party questioned every major character on their motivations, which the characters responded to, all with bowed heads so the animators didn’t have to draw mouths. In between these interrogations, we were assaulted with still images and words and nonsense. The ending had all the characters standing around, clapping their hands and saying “Congratulations!” As if they were praising the viewers for making it through this festering garbage.

I would’ve purged this crap from my head and moved on, but then I learned that the creator, Hideaki Anno, was forced to give the fans that shameful ending due to time and budgetary constraints, and there was a film called The End of Evangelion that acts as the true ending to the series. So, I hunted down a copy and watched it.

Let me tell you something: the movie makes the series ending look like fucking Citizen Kane in comparison. I have never, ever seen such a bloated, pompous, insulting, nasty, manipulative, incoherent pile of monkey shit like End of Evangelion. I hear that Anno received death threats over the series ending, and after seeing the kind of petty drivel this man is capable of, I can understand why. Not that I’m condoning death threats or anything.

How bad is this film? Here’s a scene from the opening moments: Shinji is in a hospital room, standing over Asuka, who has been sedated following the mental trauma she endured at the hands of an Angel. Shinji, desperate to get her to respond, pulls at her and accidentally rips open her gown, revealing her breasts. Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

This is sick! What’s the fucking point of this scene, to establish Shinji as a future serial rapist? It’s disgusting, vile, inexcusable, and every other synonym for “bad”. Why? I have about a dozen other questions, like “Who thought this was a good idea?” and “What the fuck is wrong with Hideaki Anno?” but the best query right now is: why?

Later, Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time –

I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. WHY?! I’ve heard fans say that this is an example of Shinji hitting rock bottom, and besides, he expresses his contempt for himself immediately afterwards. Look, I’ve been clinically depressed at times too, but I don’t jerk off over unconscious girls. Know why not? Because that would make me a SEX OFFENDER.

Fuck.

Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time cowering in a ball in the corner, alternating between screaming and sobbing. Asuka is revived, but she and her EVA are literally ripped to pieces. Rei becomes a sort of god-monster and dies. Whee.

The second half of the movie is filled the same mind-fuckery and nonsense imagery that ruined the series ending, only it’s a billion times worse here. There’s also some well-written dialogue on display too:

SHINJI: Where is my dream?

REI: It is where your reality ends.

SHINJI: Then where is my reality?

REI: It is at the end of your dream.

That’s not a 100% accurate quote, but it’s pretty damn close. It’s deep, man.

And if you don’t hate Shinji enough, here he comes to bitch endlessly about how everyone hates him and he hates everyone. Gee, with that sunny disposition, I can’t imagine why he’s so miserable. Then Asuka steps in and tells him he’s a worthless turd, so he chokes her. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill a fictional character so badly in my life.

Then there’s some live-action footage of people getting on a train while Rei and Shinji continue to babble about human nature, all for our benefit, of course. After what seems like fucking days, the movie ends with Shinji and Asuka on a beach, the only two humans left on the planet. Shinji starts choking Asuka AGAIN, but is stopped when she caresses his cheek. Her oxygen-deprived brain must’ve mistaken him for someone else. Shinji stops choking her and, what else, starts crying. Asuka looks at him and utters a most appropriate line: “Disgusting.”

In case you don’t get it, let me spell it out: I HATE THIS MOVIE. I hate it to a degree I didn’t think was possible. Most of my anger is directed towards Hideaki Anno, who was the writer and director for the series and the movie. He strikes me as a pretentious, antisocial, petty person, and everything he does oozes contempt for his fans. From creating this giant middle-finger of celluloid to stating “Too bad” in English when a fan said he was dissatisfied with the original ending, he’s a man who has no idea how to relate to people.

*deep breath*

Here’s why I can’t stand him: he created characters that I related to, characters that had nuanced personalities (even though they would be pigeonholed at times), characters that I wanted to see happy, characters that I sympathized with…and then he slowly, gleefully tore them apart. He forced them to go through absolute hell, and they all came out as broken individuals, and that’s how they stayed to the end – alone and unloved. Whenever there was a glimmer of light, Anno snuffed it out. I have no idea why he was so cruel to his own characters, but I have some theories:

1. He started out liking what he did, but ended up hating it, so he tried to make it so no one else would be able to revive the series (this one appears to have been disproven – see below).

2. He planned this from the beginning, making him a sadist as well as a hack.

3. Something in his life caused him to become extremely depressed, so his work reflects that.

I’ve heard a lot of evidence (and by evidence I mean conjecture) to support C, but if that’s the case, why not just put things on hold until he got better? On the other hand, his “too bad” comment indicates that he didn’t really give a shit about the whole thing, so who knows?

The fans deserve a tongue-lashing as well. If I had a dollar for every comment that called him a “genius”, a “visionary”, or any of the things that he isn’t…I’d be able to buy out Microsoft. I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

Hilariously, Anno has decided his masterpice wasn’t good enough, or something, because he’s now remaking the series into four movies with witty titles like You Can (Not) Advance and You Are (Not) Alone and You Can (Not) Go Fuck Yourself. The ending to all of this is supposed to be totally new, which means it’s probably going to be even more frustrating and ambiguous. From the pictures I’ve seen and the reviews I’ve heard, it looks awful. Asuka’s last name has been changed to Shikinami, for some nebulous reason, and the body suit she wears is now translucent – she wears a bra underneath, but there are only a few inches of opaque fabric covering her cooch, so I’m guessing the design was built around fanservice. Which is always a great consideration, right? Plus, she’s supposed to wear an eyepatch in the third film, like a goddamn pirate.

On top of that, Anno has shoehorned in the loathsome Kaworu from the beginning, and added a new character named Mari, who is from the UK, I think. He’s packed 100 tons of shit into a 10-ton bag, in other words. Naturally, the fans are eager to fall all over themselves defending their messiah, bleating variations of “IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN” or “WE JUST NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THE END”. I don’t need to poke myself in the eye to know that it hurts, and I don’t need to watch these films to know that they’ll end just like the original series: no resolution, no closure, no catharsis, no satisfaction. The whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth, and no amount of brushing will get it out. The only way these movies could be more insulting is if they consisted entirely of Hideaki Anno flipping off the audience with both hands, pausing occasionally to grab his crotch and sneer.

Actually, that would be less insulting.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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Wardog

at 12:26 on 2009-07-10Oh good God.

I don't know what to say. My knowledge of anime is pretty much restricted to shows in which princesses turn into ducks and do ballet (or is that the other way round). I guess we need to get Jen along here as she's the closest thing we have to an anime expert.

Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

Well ... at least he didn't do it over her unconscious body? Right?

I feel generally a bit ambivalent about a creator's attitude to fans. I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans - since what satisfies fans isn't necessarily the same as what's actually good. In fact, the more consciousness of fandom there is, the worse texts seem to get. Although this seems like a really confused amalgamation of fan service and fan contempt. Weird.

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Arthur B

at 13:23 on 2009-07-10I'm personally quite fond of

Evangelion

the series, at least the first 24 episodes. There is, as you point out, character development, gradual growing of a backbone on the part of Shinji and Rei, an interesting mystery revealed at a reasonable pace, and so on. I even like the way Episode 24 ended, with Shinji poised in a choice between killing a friend and letting the Angels get away with whatever it is they're trying to do, although to be fair I've only seen the expanded/tidied up version of the episode where they put in extra scenes and the last shot might not be so ridiculously long.

Then, as you point out, you have the different endings, neither of which fits what's gone before. I did enjoy

End of Evangelion

for the sheer trippy sadism of it all, but at the same time I couldn't really relate the characters we see in it to the characters from the TV show; there's this weird sort of inconsistency about it. Asuka is psychotic, Rei is even more autistic than she's ever been, and Shinji loses the balls he's been carefully growing over the course of the series; it's as if the TV show never happened. At a guess, I'd say the film is more about Anno's thoughts on the end of the series, and the experience of making the show, than it is about actually ending the story; the characters seem to be spoofing the fan conceptions of who they are rather than continuing the development shown throughout the series.

It's a fun ride, but it's fun partially because I think it's hilarious how Anno's trolled anime fans for years over this, and because I enjoy watching characters get raked over the coals and suffer for their most irritating personality traits. I'm interested in seeing the new movies because they're promising a proper ending this time, and even if they break that promise the results will probably be mad enough to be worth a look. I even think it makes sense to put Kaworu in from the beginning; the one thing I dislike about Episode 24 is that they insert Kaworu, have Shinji make friends with him really surprisingly quickly (exacerbating the homoerotic angle), and then have him betray everyone and have to get taken down. It would make far more sense if he were in it from the start. Even if the ending resembles David Lynch directing

Final Fantasy VII

again, I'd still watch it.

That said, my attitude to

Evangelion

probably stems from how I was introduced to it: at an SF all-nighter thrown by a local cinema, which incorporated a preview showing of

28 Days Later

(which is a

much

more effective movie if you go into it genuinely not knowing that it's a zombie film, as we did), hopped up on soda, watching

The Death of Evangelion

on the big screen. Watching 8 hours of TV series crammed into 90 minutes is hilarious, to the point where I could never take the show seriously after that.

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Rude Cyrus

at 19:51 on 2009-07-10

I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans

From what I've read, his fans are satisfied enough to try to unravel the mess he's made. I'm not asking him to be all happy-go-lucky, but his attitude comes off as spiteful.

I guess I'm just overreacting, but I still have an intense dislike for the man; he's my own JK Rowling.

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Wardog

at 22:38 on 2009-07-10He sounds like a worthy target of your bile :)

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Rude Cyrus

at 23:20 on 2009-07-10This may sound silly, but I still like the general idea behind the show and the characters (when they aren't being emo or one-note).

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Guy

at 04:42 on 2009-07-11I only watched a bit of Evangelion, but my impressions were coloured by the lengthy scenes displaying static scenery with loud cicada noises in the background. At first I thought they might be in there for atmospheric reasons I didn't quite understand, then decided they were in there for financial reasons (animation ain't cheap) and shortly thereafter gave up on the show. I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence... but I guess I'll take what I can get. :)

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Robinson L

at 18:00 on 2009-07-14I used to be a fan of

Dragon Ball Z

and

Sailor Moon

because for an early (and even not-so early) teenager, they seemed pretty cool. Then I noticed how stupid and repetitive they were and kinda lost interest.

At this point, I'm struggling to think of any Anime I know of that I actually think was any good. Well, the first season of

Digimon

, and at least one episode from the second. And Miyazaki's version of

Howl's Moving Castle

. And I suppose

Princess Monoke

, although it never particularly appealed to me.

Anyway, I've been hearing a lot about

Neon Genesis Evangelion

for a while, but nothing that's really excited me after the series. This review, I think, clinches my decision not to subject myself to it.

Personally, I tend to empathize with main characters even if most people dislike them. Apart from Mal, I can't think of any main characters I know of who I think I'd enjoy seeing put through that kind of torture. Maybe not even him.

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

This may be just me fishing for an excuse to pull out my own pet hate, but it seems to me from the description that an alternate or complementary explanations might be that

because it's so dark and depressing, fans (and critics) have deluded themselves into thinking this is somehow insightful.

This is a trend in popular entertainment I've noted and lamented for a couple years now.

Last night my younger sister and I were discussing the contemporary

Battlestar Gallactica

(of which I've seen a couple episodes, they've seen the first three seasons). At one point, one of them said that "if the character only lost about twenty pounds of emo they'd be all right."

While this may be true, I suspect it's the current vogue for death, despair, doom and gloom which made the 2004

Galactica

so popular. To take an even more contemporary example (and borrow a metaphor from my sister's upcoming review) witness Kirk's and Spock's and Nero's Inigo Montoya Syndrome in the latest

Star Trek

movie.

For a while,

House

did a pretty good job of balancing its angst, but it seems like circa Season Four the writers began seriously to crank it up. After the one-two-punch finale (Amber dies and right afterward Thirteen discovers she does indeed have Huntingdon's) I was asking "Geez, you think you could lay it on any thicker? Maybe find a way to reveal that Cameron really did contract HIV in Season Two after all?"

I've yet to see Season Five, but from what I've heard of the spoilers (don't read this if you haven't seen it and mind spoilers), Wilson is broken up over Amber's death for a long period of time, which means House is going to be even more miserable than usual; Cuddy goes through a whole lot of crap before finally getting a baby of her own, and that only when the mother ups and dies; and Kutner commits suicide/gets murdered/somehow ends up shot dead. What fun.

The new

Doctor Who

started out pretty emo, but it feels like Davies and the rest of the team take every possible opportunity to twist it in just that little bit more.

And being the Star Wars fan that I am, I have to say the stuff that the Expanded Universe went through during and especially after the prequels ... let's just say most of it is not pretty. Not in the slightest.

There's probably more, I just don't pay much attention to what's popular at the moment. Anyway, my point is that I suspect anything as depressing as

Evangelion

is by all accounts in the current tragedy-obsessed atmosphere is bound to be considered deep and meaningful and insightful and all that simply because it puts its characters through so much crap.

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Cressida

at 04:16 on 2009-11-18

I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence...

Guy:

Try

Porco Rosso!

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 23:05 on 2009-12-18

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

I think you're onto something here, but as someone who enjoyed Evangelion, let me propose a more charitable version of the psychology.

I'm a student of ethical philosophy and religious history at college, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the "deep" issues that fans will tell you Evangelion (, Donnie Darko, The matrix, ...) addresses--Destiny, choice, purpose, hope, knowledge, or whatever the hell.

Let me be clear and say up front that I don't think Evangelion makes a coherent statement about any of these issues. I'm not going to claim that you're "not getting it" if you don't see any "there" there, and I'm not saying that Hideaki Anno is some kind of visionary genius.

BUT

I'm a very visual, fictionalizing person. I do a lot of free association, and try on ideas by putting them in the mouths of imagined characters. Something like Evangelion is, for me, excellent raw material. It gives me a *context* to think about these issues. the incoherence of the actual show forces me to go to a lot of effort to try to figure out "what is this show trying to say?" and since that question is, I think, largely unanswerable, this also becomes an exploration of what *I* have to say.

Something similar happens because I write fiction. I'll eat up many stories--Evangelion, The Matrix, Harry Potter, even some of Star Wars--that have, in my opinion, glaring flaws, because they *make reference to* ideas I find interesting, even if they don't do them justice. Frequently, while watching the show even for the first time, my mind drifts to possibilities and alternate timeliness, with the result that I am actually watching a movie that exists only in my head, that (I like to think) *does* say something coherent. for this reason I consider Revenge of the Sith, for instance, to have been worth the price of the ticket even though it was (IMO) absolute shit, because by about a third of the way in I had stopped watching what's on the screen and started watching the movie *I* would have directed.

I mention this because before I became really conscious of what I was doing, I would frequently walk away with the impression that a movie was in fact "deep" when is fact it was just thought-provoking, and then only for people with preexisting interest in the issue who are prone to free association. I don't know how many people like me there are, but there's a strong tendency in all humans to assume that they're "normal," and that may be where some of the "you just don't get it" responses are coming from.

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http://luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com/

at 23:31 on 2010-10-12//I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing.//

...What? o.O There's no kissing in Gundam Wing. There are barely any established romances.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 19:02 on 2010-10-13That was Macross/Robotech. Similar giant-robot-thingies-piloted-by-superteens plot -- possibly the originator of the entire trope. The giant-size humanoid enemies of Earth didn't have sex to reproduce, or something, and so this display of humanity was too much for them and made them stop fighting. Until one or two of them discovered that they liked it.

Aw, that was my very first anime. I'm all verklempt now.

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Gamer_2k4 at 22:41 on 2010-10-13Neon Genesis Evangelion is actually my favorite anime series, but I think that's more because of the concept and because of what it did to me personally than anything else. I mean, I've taken a look at some of the episodes recently and they look OLD. A lot of the content is boring or unnecessary filler, the animation switches between "pretty alright" and "did they not pay you or something?", and overall, there's a lot not to like.

However.

I've had a very limited exposure to media (besides the some of the popular stuff), and NGE completely changed the way I looked at storytelling. I had never seen a character like Rei before, and I loved her. The idea that the mechs were actually giant feral humanoids barely restrained by their armor blew me away. The fact that the Hallelujah Chorus was played as an Angel mind-raped Asuka, and it WORKED, stunned me. The cast and plot are both remarkably tight; EVERYONE is involved, somehow. But finally, the thing that struck me the hardest, was the idea that a big giant robot action show DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING.

Consider Asuka. She's this hotshot pilot, showing up a third of the way into the series reading to kick some butt. Her first appearance is quite dramatic as she handily and elegantly dispatches an Angel. However, her next victory requires the complete support of Shinji, and she barely plays a part from that point on. Battle after battle happens with this pilot, the one who was literally genetically engineered (in the manga, anyway) to be perfect, just failing with every attempt. Nothing goes right for her.

Rei's an interesting character, too. Generally you'd think the stoic, silent character would play the support role, ending up as the person the others always rely on. But she's not that great of a pilot! If memory serves, her Eva spends half the show out of commission, and in the other battles Rei plays a very minimal role. For as much popularity as she has among fans, you'd think that she had done a lot more in the series than she actually did.

And let's not forget Shinji. Here's a kid whose dad runs an organization that sends out giant robots to fight the bad guys, and HE gets a chance to be a pilot! In any other show, Shinji would've jumped in and started owning face for the rest of the series. But you know what? He acts like a kid could be reasonably expected to act: he's scared, and doesn't want to do it at all. But more than that, he wants love from his father, and realizes this might be his only chance to get that.

Right away it's clear that these aren't cookie-cutter stereotypes, but real characters with real problems. I personally found it refreshing that someone decided to make something where the good guys don't necessarily win. I was so familiar with "happily ever after" stories that I was shocked when this wasn't one of them. I like NGE, not because "true art is angsty," but because "holy balls, this is what a show can actually be like!"

Anyway, that's the anime series; let's get to End of Evangelion (you know, the subject matter of this article). It really did feel like some tacked-on supplement to the real thing. Furthermore, Shinji was infuriating, and the battle scene was just the opposite of what I'd come to expect from NGE: rather than an original conflict, it was just a beat-em-up royal rumble.

The second half of the movie left me in shock, and I went away from it thinking that was a good thing. I had never been exposed to the stream-of-conscious approach before, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I think Anno was trying to convey just what Instrumentality (the merging of all souls and minds) would feel like, and it SEEMED like he did a good job. I didn't understand it, so I assumed it was beyond my understanding, so I assumed it was good. That's probably not the right mindset, though.

Oh. In the first scene, Shinji sneezed into his hand. He just didn't have a tissue. Never mind that you can't hear the sneeze. He's allergic to nudity. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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Melissa G.

at 22:53 on 2010-10-13*Shameless self plug alert!*

A certain Ferretbrainer debuted with her first article by

defending Evangelion

. It was written late at night and not researched (by which I mean I hadn't seen the series in a while) or proofread much, but an article in favor of Eva does exist on this site! ^_^

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Fin

at 19:02 on 2010-10-14Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

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Melissa G.

at 19:29 on 2010-10-14

Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

:-D

They are actually remaking the series as a bunch of movies. The first two (?) have come out already. I've only seen the first one, but I liked it a lot. I just don't know how much one would like them without having seen the series first. But the animation quality is way better so you could always try watching the first new movie (You are (not) alone, I think it's called) as a taste test type of thing.

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Gamer_2k4 at 22:51 on 2010-10-14I agree that the first movie was pretty much spot on. They left out the stuff that could be left out, played up the stuff that could be played up (most notably the battle against the third Angel), and everything just felt right. (My only complaint, actually, is that in the English dub, Rei is played by a new voice actor. I thought her old one was perfect, and it was a real shame for that voice to be missing.)

However, the second movie just seemed a little...off. It was darn COOL, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching Evangelion without all the stuff that made Evangelion special. Maybe it was just that I was so familiar with the story that there wasn't quite that sense of wonder. You know, the sort of "sure it looks nice, but it's been done already" feeling. Yes, that's ridiculous, because the only reason it's been done before is that it's a freaking remake. I don't know.

Perhaps the thing that really did it was all the seemingly unnecessary changes they made. New pilot, changed surnames, different (and missing) Angels, a LOT of new scenes...It's possible I just felt that the makers were trying to do more and ended up with less.

Anyway, Melissa, you should still check out Rebuild 2. Remember when they had to catch that falling Angel? The weirdly shaped flat brown one with all the eyes? IT'S FREAKING AMAZING IN REBUILD 2. Like I said, the movie is still very, very cool, and the ending actually has traces of EoE in it. It's nuts. Watch it.

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Melissa G.

at 05:06 on 2010-10-15I definitely want to see the second remake movie, I've just been lazy and haven't gotten around to it. I saw the first one in theaters in Japan because I happened to be living there when it came out. Seeing it on the big screen was something special. ^^

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TheMerryMustelid

at 18:37 on 2012-04-21I am a terrible animation snob. When it comes to anime, there isn't much I like outside of Miyazaki, save the studio that did

Tokyo Godfathers

.

What puts me off most anime is it's obsession with mecha, robot girls, and post apocolyptic premises. Yes, Miyazaki sounds the environmental apocalypse gong in practically all of his films, but at least he puts Nature above the usual anime love affair with all things machine and keeps the damn robots to a minimum. How I hate this obsession with the ensouled machine.

On the American side, that includes

Transformers

up to

Wall-E

. I just find it sad that the idea of emoting robots is considered more 'cool' or even more

realistic

than emoting animals.

Say what?!

So teens 'outgrow' cartoons with talking animals while anything with a chrome surface is just friggin' AHW-some, man.

(what's that? what's that I hear in the background? Is it my axe grinding? Why yes, it is!)

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http://kitsune9tailed.livejournal.com/

at 02:57 on 2015-07-28@TheMerryMustelid

Unfortunately, it sounds like you have had a very slim experience with anime and are using it to make a blanket assumption of the whole medium. Remember, animation is just a storytelling method, it's not a story in and of itself. Mecha and machine anime are actually a very small slice of the whole. Unfortunately, this is the slice that is made especially for 6-12 year old boys, and as such, is the primary genre exported to the US (since the American public feels cartoons are generally only for young boys, they freak out over any anime that doesn't settle nicely into that demographic).

But, you can still seek out other genres. You've already seen Miyazaki (almost a genre in and of itself), but you have high-school romance, film noir action/mystery, artsy (you might like Paprika if you haven't seen already, it's from the same studio as Tokyo Godfathers), magical girl, drama, slice-of-life, comedy, etc.

So, I'd definitely sample the waters a bit and find anime in a genre more to your tastes before swearing off altogether :)

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Orion

at 08:03 on 2015-07-28I think you've been mislead by the headline, which really should be "one man's burning hatred for an anime." It's pretty clear from the text that he likes a decent amount of anime and is open to more.

[middlemistgrey]

*cracks knuckles* *clears throat*

On Physics, Human Nature and the End of it All

or My Final Thoughts On My Own Thoughts

On 1st January, 2016, Instrumentality is in process. There is no explicit scene where we even get the date 31st December, 2015 displayed on a screen before, during or after the attack. What we do know is that Misato’s hacking into the database got stopped at 6:00 AM due to Seele’s attack on the Magi.

We also know that the JSSDF infiltrated Nerv approximately 1.5 hours later.

We can only gauge it’s December and the end of the year because of the timeline that I have already mentioned. Maya Ibuki’s computer is shown in close-up exactly two times during the entire movie:

When she’s seeing the Eva series devour Unit 02

When she turns into LCL and we see her hand tumble across the screen with the words “I need you” typed in.

Both of these scenes do not display the date at all.

The text in Episode 26 more than implies that it’s 2016 and Instrumentality is still happening. Still. That means it was happening before too. You yourself have mentioned the date of attack to be 31st December through Maya’s computer screen (though that’s not the case). I doubt Shinji was screaming for all day in front of Giant Naked Rei and everyone waited till midnight to let 3I start on 1st January. 3I started before 1st January ever happened and that’s a fact.

This is canon.

Time is an artificial construct? Let’s not go into the Berguson versus Einstein debate while discussing Evangelion. For my argument, Time is the fourth dimension and it began with the Big Bang. Yes, the way we measure it can be called artificial but time itself is not artificial. Moreover, time is not distorted during Instrumentality. I don’t think Lilith had a side job of being a black hole. (Well, metaphorically she is a black hole for souls, but only metaphorically.) Spacetime remains as it. There’s no relativity at play and only AT Fields break down and people return back to being a primordial soup.

About people grasping knowledge: There would be confusion and chaos in general. People may get the knowledge or maybe they don’t. It’s going to be a case by case basis, imo. Imagine someone sees a loved one who died – it’s supposed to be an ideal world, after all, so that can happen. Why will they go looking for answers? Instrumentality is a confusing all around. Again, I refer to the Instrumentality sequence with people to this date debating whether the Kitchen Scene takes place in someone’s mind or is it actually Shinji’s and Asuka’s souls fighting. Nothing can be said with surety and Anno has always maintained that people have to make their own conclusions.

��Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we’re offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the ‘all-about Eva’ manuals, but there is no such thing. Don’t expect to get answers by someone. Don’t expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers.”

– Hideaki Anno, November Issue of Newtype Magazine, 1996

Shinji and Asuka’s specialness (and by extension Rei and Kaworu’s too) certainly need not be debated but it definitely isn’t something that leads them to return early. In fact, the events of the whole of Evangelion series coupled with this closeness with the Impact only make me question why these two of all people return first. The logical answer is that they are the main characters (I know that Anno has said that Misato is the second protagonist of Eva, but EoE really focusses a lot on Shinji and Asuka, so they do stand out as the principle characters of EoE). The deeper reason (for me, anyway) is that they really, really wanted to get out of there. I have already said why I think that. Their return makes me think, “If someone as broken as them can return, then anyone can.” It gives me hope.

‘Lilith’s’ appearance before Misato is no coincidence. The process has not begun. It doesn’t begin until after Ritsuko has been killed. Lilith is just lying on the cross before Rei decides to merge with her/it. Putting aside those facts, I say it is no coincidence because even Ritsuko has a glimpse of Rei floating above the LCL pool before falling into said pool. Gendo lays a hand on Rei only after Ritsuko is dead. Moreover, it all ends where it begins: Rei seems to be a representative for the cycle of beginnings and endings, because why else will Shinji see her in Episode 1, when he doesn’t even know of her existence?

Or do you wish to say that Lilith’s soul has been leaking since the beginning? Frankly, that is impossible; Rei isn’t even close to merging with Lilith at that point.

Also, about Anno’s research: I didn’t find a single source that said he researched Jung and Smith, or Freud, for that matter. Yet, he must have because there are plenty of psychological terms thrown around the show, most noticeable being Hedgehog’s Dilemma. There’s also Ego Borderline and Destrudo. Not to mention Splitting as in the Ep 16 name (Splitting of the Breast) and the use of Johari Windows. Another term is Klein Space (said by Ritsuko in Episode 20) which isn’t an actual term in psychology afaik but seems to be a nod to both psychologist Melanie Klein and Klein geometry, imo. So yes, he must have researched.

Anyway, why I bring up this is because you mentioned the Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind is the ability to attribute to mental states to oneself and others and understand that others can have different mental states. Evangelion as a whole centres on what happens when people have a Theory of Mind Deficit. People experiencing emotional and/or physical pain have been shown to have such a deficit. People having long term depression show such deficits too. There’s substantial scientific research to back these statements.

In regards to Episode 25 and 26, yes, they never go into details of Theory of Mind because Shinji isn’t actually understanding Misato and Asuka, he’s being shown­ their life and problems. ­Their case studies are not him understanding them. There’s no way someone with as huge a deficit as him is suddenly going to be all correct about other people as complex as him. How do we know that Shinji has a Theory of Mind Deficit in the first place? Well, aside from all the Hedgehog’s Dilemma talk from Ritsuko, one particular interaction stands out to me:

Episode 19

REI: Ikari, why did you do that?

SHINJI: Because I couldn’t forgive my father. He betrayed me. I was finally able to have a comfortable conversation with my father, but he won’t try to understand my feelings at all!

REI: Did you try to understand your father’s feelings?

SHINJI: I tried.

REI: Why don’t you try to understand him?

SHINJI: I said I tried!

REI: And that’s how you run away from unpleasantness.

SHINJI: What’s wrong with that?! What’s wrong with running away from unpleasantness?!

This is a conversation in Shinji’s mind; the train imagery makes it obvious. He’s forcing himself to believe that he tried to understand his father, but he knows he did not. It’s no wonder then that a slightly altered copy of this conversation plays out in EoE with the exact same train imagery.

REI: Did you ever really try to understand, Ikari?

SHINJI: Of course I did.

Asuka: Idiot! I know all about your little jerk off fantasies about me. Go ahead and do it like you always do. I’ll even stand here and watch you. If I can’t have you all to myself, then I don’t want anything from you.

SHINJI: Then, try being nice to me.

ASUKA, REI, MISATO (together): We are nice to you.

SHINJI: Liars!

What’s interesting is that an altered version of the Kiss Scene from Episode 15 plays before this scene and we have this shot:

Why all those versions of him frowning beyond that determined face? Because Shinji is painfully aware that he really did not ever try to understand anyone else. He never thought others had as complex problems as him. He probably viewed them as paper cut-outs.

This is getting off-topic. So, in short, I wrote all this because I wanted to establish that Shinji has a definite Theory of Mind Deficit and that imo, the Asuka and Misato Case Studies we get in Episodes 25 and 26 are not him having a sudden revelation about them but them opening up due to the effects of Instrumentality. Also, the entire spans of these Episodes don’t seem to solely focussed on Shinji. We have Misato, Asuka and Rei frequently saying their thoughts through the entirety of Episode 26, even though this Episode opens with CASE 3 i.e., Shinji. What you said about the words ‘Part 1’ appearing under the case studies of Asuka and Misato is only true for Asuka. And yes, we never see Part 2 written again in NGE but hear me out.

Asuka’s part 2 happens in EoE. The entire conversation I just mentioned? It’s part of that. Of course, that’s only my thoughts as to why we get PART 1 written under Asuka’s case study and we never have had a comment on this from Anno or anyone.

Why don’t we get similar stuff for Misato, then, you might ask. Answer is, I don’t know. Misato’s case study plays exactly as it did in Episode 25, with added dialogue. This scene is same across EoE and Episode 25:

My belief that it’s the real them interacting with each other in Episodes 25 and 26 stands due to these facts; because people are opening up about their lives and speaking facts Shinji has no way of knowing because of his Theory of Mind Deficit. They really are present in Instrumentality.

Moving onto other matters…

Seasons.

There is never a single comment about anyone re-establishing the ecosystem and the general climate of the world. The Episode 3 statement you seem to be referring to is actually said by the old teacher and it isn’t about things coming back to normal. It’s about what happened due to the Second Impact. This is the exact dialogue:

TEACHER: The hardest trials for the human race began then. In the last year of the 20nd century, the massive meteorite, which came from the outer space, fell in the continent of Antarctica. It cause the ice of the continent to melt in a moment. As the result, the water level of the oceans went up, the earth axis fluctuated and abnormal weather which threatened the existence of living things occurred all over the world. But 15 years after that…only for 15 years, we have revived the world so far. This is not only the result of the excellence of the human race, but the one of blood, sweat, tears and efforts of your fathers and mothers.

“We have revived” not “it has revived on its own”. The weather and climate won’t change no matter what precautionary changes humans take because axial tilts tend to last very long compared to the human lifespan. 15 years is a very minute amount of time in the geological sense. Even if the ecosystem re-adapts to its new conditions, the new conditions will remain. Also, how can you so casually state that nothing changes in 3I compared to 2I? After 2I, almost half of the human population was alive. After 3I? Everyone was in a collective hive mind and their physical bodies had turned into primordial soup. Taking physics, or specifically, the law of conservation of angular momentum into account for my speculation about a second axial shift:

Tall buildings can affect earth’s axial tilt, theoretically. Practically, they have no effect. But look at Lilith’s size:

I think that’s taller than any skyscraper I know of.

Anyway, seasons changing dramatically after 3I is just my speculation; I have no proof to back this up when looking at the original anime series.

Speaking of who has said what is canon and what is not: No one from Gainax or Khara has ever said the manga and the rebuilds are not canon and can be simply disregarded when it comes to discussing Evangelion. They are different continuities but that doesn’t mean that they are not canon. I seem to think that you’re getting your information from this page on evageeks.org. This ‘Tiers of Canonicity’ was given by a person named ‘Shin-seiki’ who posted frequently on some well-known Eva forums, who to my information, is no way related to either Gainax or Khara. Also, this page was last updated on 22nd November 2010. That’s old. Besides, Evageeks is infamous for downplaying the canonicity of Kawoshin in the early years of the fandom but that’s a different topic.

Let’s not forget this statement by Anno himself:                  

“’Eva’ is a story that repeats. It is a story where the main character witnesses many horrors with his own eyes, but still tries to stand up again. It is a story of will; a story of moving forward, if only just a little. It is a story of fear, where someone who must face indefinite solitude fears reaching out to others, but still wants to try. We hope that you look forward to the 4 new retellings of this story.”

– Hideaki Anno, 17.02.2007

It is a story that repeats. I am not saying Loop Theory is canon but what I am saying is that there’s not enough evidence to kick it out, yet.

Lastly, western religious symbolism in Evangelion: I am aware of what the Assistant Director has said but Anno himself has always been silent on this matter when prompted. Sadamoto has once commented that he never knows what goes on in Anno’s mind. Who knows why the Assistant Direct said what he said? It could be entirely made up on spot. People often do that in interviews. Evangelion was originally called “Alcion”. They changed that, saying that Alcion didn’t sound cool enough. I myself think the western influences are there to attract native viewers but why they used them in the first place, we don’t know for sure. I say that because the director’s comment on that they might have changed their choices had they known the series was going to air in the West is kind of strange.

Evangelion came out 1995. Anime reached America in the 60s. Mecha became a definite genre in the 70s (starting with Mazinger Z, which introduced the concept of someone piloting a robot). Anime itself as a whole became mainstream in Japan in the 80s. International acclaim came in 1988 with the film, Akira even though it was a failure in Japan.

Gainax’s first commercial debut was Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise in 1987 and it had several North American releases. Gunbuster was released in North America in 1990. In short, there’s no way the Evangelion team didn’t know that their anime won’t get a Western release.

At the end, I would like to say that the initial question asked for my thoughts on the matter. I won’t tell you to see it my way. As Anno has said, we all have to find our own answers.

As the "Evangelion Enthusiast" what do YOU think the state of the human race is post third impact? I have a guess, but wonder what you think.

Interesting question. I always am interested by the possibilities of a post Third Impact world.

Third Impact was initiated on 31st December, 2015. In Episode 26 we get text saying, “It’s 2016”. They never say it’s 1st January. Personally, I presume that’s because Third Impact started some time around noon and the whole process took a few days. Sure what we see in EoE had happened all on 31st December but we see Shinji and Asuka on the beach after an undefined amount of time. So I think even though Shinji was the first person to enter Instrumentality, he still took a few days to come back. In my theory, the beach scene happens anywhere between 4-7th January. He clearly was back for a longer time than Asuka, given what he did with Misato’s cross.

What I am trying to get is that if someone as closely linked with the impact took a few days to come back, the rest of the humanity will surely take longer. Anyone outside of Nerv, Seele and the JSSDF had no idea what was happening. For them, life as they knew it, ended in a flash with the vision of a ghostly girl in a school uniform. So no, there would be no large camps or big bonfires and crowds for the first few months or so of 2016 or even the whole of the year. However, hope is not to be lost because Yui did say that “everything has the ability to be all right”. Humanity will come back, but not all at once and certainly not very fast. Some key people like Ritsuko might never come back at all.

Secondly, let’s talk of the weather; the manga focussed greatly on that, with a flashback of Yui saying, “One day, I want you to see snow” to a little Shinji. NGE all happened in an eternal summer. Summer is often used in literature for displaying repression and stagnation which is apt because everyone in NGE is stuck in the past, unable to understand both themselves and others. It would only be appropriate then that winter descends after impact. Winter is often used to symbolise despair and hope. It all fits; despair for everything that has been lost and yet hope that it might all come back again. It’s no wonder then that the last chapter of the manga is set in winter.

And I haven’t even started on the loop theory. Sorry for rambling. :’(

[icarusfellintomyarms]

Giant Naked Kaworu

I'm assuming this is Evangelion related but I've no idea what you're talking about

[juliana-egg]

The Creature (Sketch Redraw) (2014-5) – Originally graphite, redone digitally