#history in Genesis

[trueconservativepundit]

Genesis 1-11: Authentic History from an Awesome God

The world sees God and the Lord Jesus Christ as enemies whom they believe need to be eradicated from the mind of humanity   By Donald Whitchard Genesis 1:1,John 1:1-4,Hebrews 1:1-4,Psalm 19:1,Colossians 1:16-18,Psalm 47:7   Summary: This is the introduction to a series on the historical foundations of the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis.  These chapters present authentic events and…

[lionofchaeronea]

Title: Jacob and the Angel Artist: Gustave Moreau (French, 1826-1898) Date: between 1874 and 1878 Genre: religious art Movement: Symbolism Medium: oil on canvas Location: Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

[cuties-in-codices]

the creation: division of light and darkness and division of the waters above and below the firmament

historiated initials from the "bible historiale complétée" by guiard des moulins, illuminated by the "fauvel master", paris, c. 1320-40

source: The Hague, KB, 71 A 23, fol. 2r and 3r

[stumpyjoepete]

Huh. I guess Cain and Abel might have been sort of a subversion of a Sumerian (and therefore Babylonian) myth.

There's this whole category of Sumerian myths that take the form of debates or disputations. Enlil or some other god creates thing X and thing Y. X and Y argue which is better, presenting arguments to that effect. God offers a judgement, along with some sort of moral relating to the teleological functions of X and Y.

For instance, in the Debate between Winter and Summer, Enlil judges Winter to be the superior of the two, as that is when precipitation comes in Mesopotamia, which is necessary for agriculture. It's like Aesop's fables but for Sumerian simpletons from the 30th century BC.

Anyhow, there's a Debate between Sheep and Grain too. Sound familiar? Unlike in Genesis, grain comes out on top:

In the context of the Babylonian Exile, the Cain and Abel story seems like a fuck-you inversion. Cain the (Babylonian) agriculturalist is judged by God to be inferior to Abel the (Judahite) pastoralist. But then Cain kills Abel because he's an asshole, and God curses him for it.

[hardcore-gaming-101]

The Video Game History Foundation recently put together an absolutely fascinating video on the lost stages of the Sega classic Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It includes partial recreations of some of those cut levels, which have never been seen before. Definitely worth a look!

[chloelefay]

imported a couple of old evangelion tie-in manga

they're so fucking gay for eachother

[arconinternet]

Animaniacs (In-browser, Genesis, Konami, 1994)

You can play it in your browser here, or if in-browser emulation isn't working yet, download all the Animaniacs console games packaged to run of modern versions of Windows here.

[mizs-fandom-lair]

Evangelion is the anime ever sorry I don't make the rules

[albi-bumblebee]

they won’t teach you this in your classes, but alexander hamilton was the only founding father who had alexandria’s genesis.

[wanderersrest]

An Abbreviated History of Mecha Part 4.1: THE EAST IS BURNING RED!!! (1990-1995)

(Read in the voices of Yosuke Akimoto and Tomokazu Seki) ANSWER ME, DOMON! THE SCHOOL OF THE UNDEFEATED OF THE EAST!!

THE WIND OF KINGS!!

ZENSHIN!!

KEIRETSU!!

TEMPA KYOURAN!!!

LOOK, THE EAST IS BURNING RED!!!

Welcome back to An Abbreviated History of Mecha! Last time, we saw the proliferation of mecha shows throughout the 80's. We also saw the introduction of an incomplete list of influential industry people who got their start in the 80's. In the 90's, we will begin to see a continuation of this proliferation of mecha works throughout the decade. The 90's will also see a lot of the stories I have talked about pay off, as

What we will also see in the 90's are a few major events that will affect the world of mecha in pretty major ways. The first is the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble, which would cause the Japanese economy to go from an era of excess to one of stagnation known as the Lost Decade. Another is the sudden arrival of a third honorary mecha series, except this honorary mecha series would arguably help to kickstart the slow decline of mecha stories. It should be noted that this series is not the only reason for the slow decline of mecha shows. That is a whole conversation in and of itself, and one that, maybe one day, I will talk about.

The last thing that should be noted about the 90's is that this would also see the creation of a handful of networks in the US that would help to bring anime over to the west, namely one Cartoon Network (and more importantly, its spinoff networks Toonami and [adult swim]) for the people in the US. While anime had seen some popularity in the west thanks to shows and movies like Robotech, Voltron, Ghost in the Shell, and Akira, it would be the four-part knockout of two of the series mentioned here alongside animanga juggernauts Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon that would cause anime to become mainstream.

That should be everything. With all of that out of the way...

Gundam Fight!

READY?! GO!!!

Yuusha Exkaiser/Brave Exkaiser (1991)

Starting us off in 1991, Takara would realize that, due to the sudden success of Transformers in the US, it might be time to diversify as Transformers had no longer felt like it was truly their property anymore. As such, they would create the Yuusha line, with their debut series being Brave Exkaiser. Exkaiser would prove to be a massive hit amongst its intended younger audience and would kickstart a whole franchise, which would also include:

The Brave Fighter of Legend Da-Garn (1992)

The Brave Express Might Gaine (1993)

The Brave Police J-Decker (1994)

The Brave of Gold Goldran (1995)

Brave Command Dagwon (1996)

The King of Braves, GaoGaiGar (1997), which I will talk about next time.

The Brave franchise is important due to how often this series gets referenced by other works, with the usual reference points being either Might Gaine or GaoGaiGar. More importantly, both Brave Exkaiser and the Giant Robo OVA would usher in an era of works that looked to the older mecha shows like Tetsujin 28, Mazinger Z, and Getter Robo for inspiration as opposed to Mobile Suit Gundam.

Super Robot Wars (1991) & Another Century's Episode (2003)

1991 would also see the start of Banpresto's Super Robot Wars, the ultimate crossover of in terms of mecha works. Super Robot Wars is where a lot of mecha-related terminology such as Super Robots, Real Robots, and the Holy Trinity (Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Gundam 0079) come from. Super Robot Wars would also introduce its own set of original robot designs, each with their own unique pilots. Super Robot Wars would eventually gain a sister series in the form of 2003's Another Century's Episode.

One of the most important factors of Super Robot Wars is that, due to its celebratory (some might even say masturbatory) nature, these games can serve as a good metric behind what is a mecha story.

Giant Robo the Animation: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1992)

In 1992, Yasuhiro Imagawa and company would release the first episode of the now-legendary OVA Giant Robo the Animation: The Day the Earth Stood Still. This OVA, along with Brave Exkaiser, would begin the push for giant robot shows to take inspiration from works that were not Mobile Suit Gundam. The Giant Robo OVA, on top of being one of Imagawa's magnum opera (fun fact: the plural of magnum opus is magnum opera) alongside Mobile Fighter G Gundam, would also be the direct inspiration for western darling The Big O.

Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (1992) & Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (1993)

If you're wondering why I mentioned Super Sentai in part 2, this series is why.

In 1992, the Super Sentai series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger would release in Japan. While, to my understanding, it was about as popular as the rest of the Super Sentai franchise, this specific series in particular would attract the attention of one Haim Saban. With some editing here and there, along with filming new segments featuring an American cast as opposed to using the original footage featuring the original Japanese cast, Saban and company would create Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which would air for the first time in 1993. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers would go down in history as one of many series that would help pave the way for animanga to gain a foothold in western media.

Denkou Choujin Gridman/Gridman the Hyper Agent (1993) & Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad (1994)

1993 would also see the legendary Tsuburaya Productions, after a long period of struggles, finally make a comeback with their new series Gridman the Hyper Agent. With its smaller budget, the Hero of Dreams would come to be known as the hero who would help Tsuburaya Productions come back to relevance in the 90's.

Due to the success of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, other US companies would want in on the action. DiC Entertainment would buy the US distribution rights for Gridman and would try to put their own spin on Power Rangers by creating Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad.

Eventually, the people at Studio Trigger, who were interested in making an anime based off of Ultraman, would reach out to Tsuburaya Productions in an attempt to get permission to do so. While their initial request for Ultraman specifically was shot down, they were allowed to choose any of Tsuburaya's other properties for their anime adaptation. And they would choose Gridman for their subject, which would lead to the creation of SSSS.Gridman (a show I will talk about later).

If you have time to spare, you should also check out Cheese GX's video on the history behind Gridman.

Patlabor 2 (1993)

The fan-beloved Patlabor 2 would also release in 1993. Reflecting the realities of post-economic bubble Japan and the ensuing Lost Decade, Patlabor 2 would trade out the optimism commonly associated with the franchise with a much more cynical and grounded (even by Patlabor standards) tone. People tend to view this movie as being what Patlabor is all about, but in my opinion, this movie is an anomaly that can only truly be appreciated by knowing the context of everything that came before it.

Magic Knight Rayearth (1993)

1993 would also see the publishing of the shoujo manga series Magic Knight Rayearth. Created by the legendary mangaka group CLAMP, Rayearth would be one of the first magical girl series to really escape the long shadow cast by one Sailor Moon (if I understand my magical girl history correctly, Sailor Moon is basically the magical girl equivalent of the original Mobile Suit Gundam). How was Magic Knight Rayearth able to do this?

By adding giant robots into the mix. That's right: Magic Knight Rayearth is most likely the reason why there is overlap between magical girl and mecha fans. While remembered by many as being an important series in the canons of mecha, magical girls, and CLAMP, Rayearth's legacy would largely be overshadowed by one Cardcaptor Sakura.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994)

1994 would see Gundam return in a radically different form with the martial arts-inspired Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Often considered to be the other iconic series of Yasuhiro Imagawa, G Gundam would mark the beginning of a new era of Gundam by being the first alternate universe series to exist, thus allowing the franchise to flourish while letting the original Universal Century timeline continue to exist and get its own stories. Because of its radically different nature though, G Gundam is oftentimes looked down upon as a series that spits on the legacy of the Gundam franchise.

And again, not to toot my own horn here, but I also have a trilogy of posts all talking about G Gundam. All three posts seemed to be pretty popular relative to my other posts, so there seemed to be something in them that resonated with a lot of readers.

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995) & New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (1996)

Following on from G Gundam is 1995's New Mobile Report Gundam Wing, which is arguably the most important Gundam series after the original and Gundam Seed in the 2000's. As a return to the war stories of the original Gundam, the reason why this series is important is because Gundam Wing would be one of the big four anime series that would make anime become mainstream in the West.

In my opinion though, Gundam Wing's legacy begins and ends with it being the first Gundam series to air in the West. In Japan, another series would air at around the same time as Gundam Wing, one that would loom over the rest of canon of mecha due to its impact on the anime industry and Japanese pop culture as a whole.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) & The End of Evangelion (1996)

Ah yes, the original "Not Like the Other Girls" mecha anime.

The series that would hamper a lot of Gundam Wing's cultural impact would be Hideaki Anno and Studio Gainax's legendary Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the second of Gainax's Big Four alongside Gunbuster. Created as an homage to shows like Ultraman and Space Runaway Ideon, Evangelion would take the zeitgeist by storm, forcing its way into the pantheon of the mecha canon like... well, like an Evangelion Unit tearing through an Angel's AT Field. There was a certain je ne sais quois to the series that made it stick to a lot of viewers at the time, and a lot of the history and context behind this series' production would help shape a lot of its more cerebral moments.

Anno would eventually revisit this series in 2007 by remaking this anime series into a quartet of films known as the Rebuild of Evangelion series. At first just a project to bring Evangelion to the 21st century, the Rebuild films would eventually become the first of the Shin Japan Heroes Thematic Universe, which would come to also include:

Shin Godzilla (2016)

Shin Ultraman (2022)

Shin Kamen Rider (2023)

The problem with a series like Evangelion is that, while it is a culturally important series that deserves a lot of the attention and praise it gets, a lot of Evangelion fans tend to go a little bit too far. It's subversive nature tends to become exaggerated to the point where Evangelion is often treated as being subversive of mecha, and thus, not like the other mecha shows. This is, in large part, why the infamous idea of Evangelion being "Not like other mecha shows because it deals with character drama" comes from, and it's something that I'd like to talk about at some point in the future after all of this.

Conclusion

And there you have it! As we get into the latter half of the 90's, we will see a lot of iconic mecha shows begin to pop up. We will also see [adult swim] begin to really play its part in making anime more mainstream, along with Gundam begin to decline and the end of the Brave franchise. We'll also see the appearance of the crazy man known as Tetsuya Takahashi make his directorial debut in what is quiet possibly the single most ambitious JRPG project of all time along with a surprise appearance by... LEGO?!

Next time, Part 4.2: A Grand Glorious Gathering!!

This will be the key to victory.

[idkaguyorsomething]

learn your fucking history

(IMAGE ID: A man sitting in a pew in a church labeled “Modern Who is too political”. Behind him is a person with a gun labeled “Vengeance on Varos’ election subplot”. Behind them is another person with a gun labeled “Genesis of the Daleks’ fascism allegory”. From a hidden corner is a sniper pointing a gun at that person, labeled “Barbara saying trans rights in The Aztecs”.)

[centrally-unplanned]

Wasn't sure how to search for the other 18 rants about Eva not being about his depression, mind ranting again or linking me to a past one?

Oh, I don't think I have written it with any coherence at any point (maybe I have, I have been here for a long time after all), I was being cheeky. To quickly summarize, Anno's own mental health is certainly not irrelevant or anything, I was exaggerating for comedic effect, it isn't some truly-false statement. After all, depression can mean a lot of things! A generalized sense of struggling with one's place in the world? Oh sure, Eva is about that.

But Eva wasn't intended to be about mental-health-style depression and "Having Depression" is probably not how Anno saw himself? The themes of Eva are coming a lot more from genre commentary and discourse around otaku identity, and far more universal than the depressed. And while Anno did have a pretty famous bout of capital-D Depression, it was after the making of Evangelion, a bit of a "what do I do now?" kind of deal.

A lot of this is sort of a lost-in-translation across time and culture deal. Like you see this being said all the time (Shinji's wikipedia page):

Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno was depressed for four years before the series began production.[4] After the failure of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise's sequel Aoki Uru, Gainax began planning a new series. According to Gainax co-founder Yasuhiro Takeda, ideas from Aoki Uru were borrowed for the new project, including the concept of "not running away".

And here is the source quote:

They say, "To live is to change."  I started this production with the wish that once the production complete, the world, and the heroes would change.  That was my "true" desire.  I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion-myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years.  A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.   Then one thought.  "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this production.  It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.  I know my behavior was thoughtless, troublesome, and arrogant.  But I tried. 

Now, for a weak argument I will say even without any context it should be notable that he doesn't say depression - this is more like feeling like a failure. The stronger argument is that Anno runs his fucking mouth all the damn time. He says bombastic and cryptic and tortured artist shit all over. When he asks Miyazaki to take his dick out and show the world his erect penis in Princess Mononoke, does he actually want that? Is that, you know, an authentic, unfiltered expression of his true emotion? Or is he playing to the crowd? He does this shit, its great, but, you know, you gotta read the tone.

One of my favourite quotes from Hiroyuki Yamaga is when he delicately called him a faker lol for the (Post-Eva, to be clear) depression:

On Anno’s severe depression, his “crisis of the soul,” as a motive in the development of Evangelion. YAMAGA: Well, I think Anno may have appeared in the Japanese media as you suggest; he’s made comments about wanting to die, and so forth, but at least from my perspective, things were never as serious as they appeared in the press. [LAUGHS]

Anyway, the far stronger argument is that this statement is false. He did not do nothing for four years! Nadia shut down production in 1991, and in 1992 Gainax began working on Aoki Uru, a sequel to their film Royal Space Force, with Anno as the director. Then funding fell through, so Anno himself goes to King Records and hashes out a deal with producer Toshimichi Otsuki for a new anime, with a focus on artistic agency and in particular rejecting funding from toy companies (standard at the time in the long tail of the Gundam boom for something mecha-esque) as he thinks they are a creative straightjacket. They put together a funding structure, and he writes the Evangelion Proposal which is finished in 1993, two years before the show airs. In that proposal are most of the core themes of Evangelion, the same depressing tone and otaku-commentary stuff. Work begins in earnest in 1994.

I have no doubt this was a stressful and harrowing time for Anno, I am just saying A: he does not mean these comments literally, he was in fact doing a lot and quite busy at this time. And B: this comment is about creative freedom and the future of the anime industry. Anno is depressed about anime, otaku, stagnation in the field, commercialization, things like that. Nadia was a gigantic fuck-up in his mind due to studio meddling, he is responding to that - it is an external and artistic struggle that he is referring to here. And these "universalized" themes are more like what he was putting into the work. And this makes sense because in Japan at the time you wouldn't really express things about mental health in the western, "capital-D Depression" way.

But since that is how it was expressed in 90's & 2000's America, the Prozac Generation, when these comments went to press in America that got put through that lens. These interviews are summarized in our media with the word depression - it comes up far, far less in Japanese sources at the same time (not zero of course). As an example, take the famous Hiroki Azuma Evangelion essay, "Anime or Something Like It". Depression is never mentioned - instead the societal lens is the focus:

According to Anno himself, this change of attitude came about while creating and producing the work. "Evangelion" was received enthusiastically among anime fans. He said that in noticing that autistic, enthusiast reception, he thought he should changed the entire conceptual structure of the work, and in the end that's what he did. After all of the episodes were broadcast, in what looks like a self-tormenting, auto-destructive critique of anime fans that ANNO would repeat many times in radio interviews, specialty anime magazines, etc., he would clearly reiterate the personal intellectual history of MIYAZAKI and OSHII. All three of them isolated themselve from "anime-like things" owing to their hate of the autism after they achieved overwhelming success among anime fans. 

Lol for openly expressing a hatred of autism, it was 1998 don't cancel him okay. I like its emphasis on the lineage - Anno's themes are not tabula rasa, instead in conversation with others, things western sources didn't pick up on.

Anyway, I am just presenting the negative case here, certainly depression is a part of Evangelion. That reality is just often stretched into a sort of "Eva as Anno's therapy" lens that I think is not justified by what we know of the production. (Not to mention it was a joint production, not Anno's work alone, but I have gone on long enough)

[lionofchaeronea]

Abraham and the Three Angels, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, ca. 1770

[nickysfacts]

Easily the star attraction of Jurassic Park, I wish she made more appearances in the series!

😎🐟

[unluckymeat]