Ordinaryundone
Member
He also worked on the new Japanese Godzilla movie. The trailer has a ton of stuff which looks like it's directly out of the first episode of Evangelion.
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Neon Genesis Evangelion AKA the worst anime ever
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He also worked on the new Japanese Godzilla movie. The trailer has a ton of stuff which looks like it's directly out of the first episode of Evangelion.
Ok.jpeg
End of Evangelion is more interesting to watch, period. Those episodes are easily replaced by reading an article after the fact if you want context on why Shinji and Asuka remained. Interesting to the overall meta discussion maybe, but certainly not to the average person invested in the story.
It seems like the majority of anime is total shit. I don't know what it is about the genre, but it's rife with cliches and bad writing. The art is definitely the highlight for the vast majority of anime series. However, I did like Monster a fair bit and Ghost in the Shell was fairly cool. Yes, I know this is just my opinion, but there is a reason why anime is still a niche that most people seem to grow out after they enter adulthood.
fabricated backlash
Member
All true, but the show loses the plot about 2/3s in and just starts getting self serving and incoherent for the sake of it. Being a deconstruction doesn't excuse you from being self serving to the point of being obtuse.
To just handwave all the shortcomings of the series as deconstruction of anime conventions is cheap and intellectually lazy. A deconstruction doesn't automatically mean that it works or that it is even a good product. While you can appreciate the effort, you don't automatically have to excuse every flaw because of it.
This could be said about anything. Most books out there are total shit, I don't know what it is about the genre, but it's rife with cliches and bad writing. Or you can say this about movie or TV shows.
Evangelion is primarily a character study, and those episodes give a lot of character detail. They also use interesting visuals to present them, so no, they're not easily replaced by reading an article.
End of Evangelion is more interesting to watch than almost every episode of the series but I don't suggest skipping the show and going straight to the film.
The best anime series (again, in my opinion) don't hold a candle to the best film/television works outside of Miyazaki. Is this because the target audience is generally young adults? Not sure.
The fact you consider anime aimed at Young Adults means you really don't know what you're talking about. People have been lifting stuff from the work of Satoshi Kon's for live action Western movies for a long damn time, just ask Darren Afronsky or Christopher Nolan. There are tons of mature, well crafted, intelligent anime out there. A couple random examples aside from Kon's work, try out Jin Roh the Wolf Brigade as a movie that could basically be remade in live action without changing anything and would be considered an award winning masterpiece in the West.
Systolique
Member
A cursory search on Google makes it seem like many Western critics thought it was not great.
Its considered an anime classic and for good reason and it is in no way a movie for younger audiences. Also I'm not sure what critics you're reading but its on a ton of the best movies, animated or otherwise, lists of critics like Roger Ebert, etc.
I can't find any Western critic reviews praising it as a classic. Not trying to fit some sort of narrative here, but I can't.
Anime is a medium, not a genre. There's nothing inherent about anime that makes it ill-suited to telling great stories, any more than television in general. (Don't forget that for many decades, people believed television was inherently mindless entertainment.)
Second, the reason there's not nearly as many "classic" anime series that appeal to broad audiences comes down to a lot of factors. For one, film and especially literature are much older than anime and thus have had way more time for such works to come out. Second is that the anime industry is pretty god damn broke, with many of its employees (especially animators) making less-than-livable wages, which is why they so often pander to niche audiences they know they can sell to. It's a lot easier to make a living selling Otakubait Sister-Incest Show than it is to gamble on trying to make it big.
This is why, for instance, Evangelion shat all over otaku culture, vilified the fetishiziation of waifish submissive girls, showed how broken an actual "tsundere" girl would be, and tore down the power fantasy appeal of many mech shows - only for Gainax to turn around and sell Asuka swimsuit figurines and romcom high school AU manga. Studios need money, art be damned.
Second, the reason there's not nearly as many "classic" anime series that appeal to broad audiences comes down to a lot of factors. For one, film and especially literature are much older than anime and thus have had way more time for such works to come out. Second is that the anime industry is pretty god damn broke, with many of its employees (especially animators) making less-than-livable wages, which is why they so often pander to niche audiences they know they can sell to. It's a lot easier to make a living selling Otakubait Sister-Incest Show than it is to gamble on trying to make it big.
This is why, for instance, Evangelion shat all over otaku culture, vilified the fetishiziation of waifish submissive girls, showed how broken an actual "tsundere" girl would be, and tore down the power fantasy appeal of many mech shows - only for Gainax to turn around and sell Asuka swimsuit figurines and romcom high school AU manga. Studios need money, art be damned.
Messofanego
Banned
Watching Paranoia Agent, Ghost In The Shell, and Serial Experiments Lain right after Evangelion is my favourite period of anime watching. I'm glad more of that kind of philosophical, psychological, or introspective work was made. Then came Welcome to the NHK, Tatami Galaxy, and most recently The Flowers Of Evil. This is my favourite genre of anime.
I'll try and find some of them but it appears none show up on Rottentomatoes or metacritic which is a little surprising. That said try some of Satoshi Kon's works, the are well regarded, well reviewed and all around excellent movies. Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue especially.
Ordinaryundone
Member
I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if you've said it before but what's your issue with the series, exactly? Is it the ending? It's vague sure but most of that was for budget and time constraints and from Anno wanting to leave things off with very ambiguous but still relatively happy ending. And most of that ambiguity got stripped away by End of Evangelion which has a much more straightforward (in comparison) plot and finale to explain what's going on. It's confusing but I always felt in a good way; even as a kid I had a handle on what was going on (or at least thought I did) and appreciated the open ended nature of the story as a discussion point. It's not high literature or anything but I appreciate any story that has me asking questions after its done; not in a critical way but in genuine curiosity.
Will give these a look, thanks.
Only someone neck-deep in analysis of the show already would see it that way. Just because it has well defined characters and touches on themes about human nature doesn't mean the show stops being a mech anime with mysteries about the impacts, organic mechs built from the very enemies they fight, regular character drama, comedy, etc. There are plenty of reasons to like it.
As for skipping the series, the only reason I suggest skipping those 2 episodes in particular are because they do not advance the plot in any meaningful way. They complete Shinji's character arc but most first time and casual watchers are unlikely to have much interest with how its presented in comparison to the rest of the series. EoE is much more familiar and serves as a better finale.
Nadesico was amazing, but it's chock full of those generic character tropes that Evangelion went out of its way to deconstruct. It's the anti-Evangelion.Indeed! So many feels in Nadesico. I still haven't gotten overGai
Aww. <3
Yep, it's baffling. Plus, Evangelion didn't have the wonderful Miss Yurika.
Yurika especially. The bubbly, naïve but overachieving genki-girl.
Yeah I was waiting for this day.
People have called me crazy for years, and I even lost a friend over it.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is the worst fucking anime on the face of the planet.
The worst, right up there with Death Note, and fucking Sword Art Online.
You lost a friend over Evangelion? I don't wanna know how that went down.
WickedLaharl
Member
The only boundary evangelion pushed is how much shitty exposition one can take
John Kowalski
Banned
Yeah I was waiting for this day.
People have called me crazy for years, and I even lost a friend over it.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is the worst fucking anime on the face of the planet.
The worst, right up there with Death Note, and fucking Sword Art Online.
You just lost another.
I had almost the same order of watching the shows lol.
I miss not having watched most of the good stuff yet
fabricated backlash
Member
My Problem with the series and the movies was that all the setup, all the motives never went anywhere. I get that the OG ending was rushed, what with all the shit animations and excessive Stills and cut Storyline, but even with the movies there simply was little payoff to anything really.
I feel like the series simply had nothing left to say about 2/3s in and just had to finish somehow. Doing an Early climax and a long epilogue is fine if done right, but for me it just didn't work with NGE.
I don't think the series is rotten to the core, but it squandered it's message by being too full of itself and becoming bloated and obtuse, which is a shame.
Edit: just to be clear, I absolutely appreciate the intentions, especially given the absolute drivvel that polutes this Medium.
Trying to explore a Mediums possibilities should be complemented and encouraged. Just that with NGE it became self serving to a fault.
I'll have to disagree because the movies wrapped up the entire story pretty well. Its obtuse and convoluted at times but the movies were a pretty final ending to the series, EoE, especially gave us basically the "opposite" ending of the TV show and did a pretty thorough job at so I'm not sure what you mean when you say nothing was wrapped up.
I don't see how EoE is anything but a proper finale to Eva. Basically every major theme and plot is paid off. Asuka, Rei, and Shinji all reach a satisfying conclusion to their character development. There's a massive and beautifully animated Eva battle, there's the phenomenal Third Impact sequence. I don't know what anyone would want out of an Eva finale that's not in EoE.
And huge amounts of military hardware lining up to let off a rain of missiles, bullets, rockets and so on.
fabricated backlash
Member
Maybe I just never gave EoE a fair chance and I might one day go back to rewatch it and might change my View on it.
Shinji should have just fucked all those hot girls and piloted the shit out of that sweet-ass robot. That's what I would have done, bro.
Now THAT would have been a great show.
Who wants to explore how depressed 14 year olds might actually react to having the weight of the world put on their shoulders as humanity is literally on borrowed time on the verge of armageddon? Yuck. Just fight the horrible cosmic monsters, you little bitch. His dad was so cool how he was completely distant and emotionally abusive to his child because his wife died. Only good character in the show, for sure. Shinji deserved it. Clinically depressed people need to get over themselves.
If only there were anime shows with simple, hot-blooded robot pilots that just shut up and fought the monsters. Talk about depressing, I tell you what.
Now THAT would have been a great show.
Who wants to explore how depressed 14 year olds might actually react to having the weight of the world put on their shoulders as humanity is literally on borrowed time on the verge of armageddon? Yuck. Just fight the horrible cosmic monsters, you little bitch. His dad was so cool how he was completely distant and emotionally abusive to his child because his wife died. Only good character in the show, for sure. Shinji deserved it. Clinically depressed people need to get over themselves.
If only there were anime shows with simple, hot-blooded robot pilots that just shut up and fought the monsters. Talk about depressing, I tell you what.
Sarcastic post? Look at the rest of this thread and try to decipher the true meaning. If it's not too deep for you, that is.△ ▽ ◅ ▻ ▷ ◁ ◣ ◢ ◥ ▽ ◤ ◥ ▴ ▾ ◂ ▸ △ ▽ ◁ ▷ ⊿ ▻ ◅ ▵ ▹ ◃ ▿
I'd say give it another shot as EoE was basically created to give the series an actual ending and basically counteracts the ending of the series with the decision Shinji makes about the Human Instrumentality Project. There are obviously questions still but it answers a lot of the big ones and concludes most of the major plot lines.
Yeah shit's both intoxicating and therapeutic. The depiction of machinery in Evangelion is borderline fetishism. The world building in Eva is unparalleled and the style is unequaled. From the heavy use of the now iconic Matisse EB font to the juxtaposition of both fast cutting and long shots, Evangelion exudes style like no other, crafting an iconography that every series since has tried to replicate but have failed to do. Evangelion is unparalleled and it's so damn good.
Man I love Evangelion but I just rewatched Rebuild 3.33 and it made even less sense than it did the first time. I love most of it but it really falls apart in the last act. Upon rewatching it, almost everything up to that point is explained but after that it just makes no sense.
The movie was fine until the last 20 minutes or so. Then it just becomes ridiculously confusing.
Why are Lilith and the Mark 6 impaled together? How did that cause Third Impact exactly? Why does Lilith look like Rei/Yui of all things? Why does Unit 0 suddenly display Angel-like properties like having a core? Why is it constantly referred to as a Vessel of the Adams? Even Unit 01 is called that. Are all Evas Vessels of the Adams? Do Evas in Rebuild originate from Adam like they do in the series? How does Kaworu become the thirteenth Angel? Seriously, how? His becoming the thirteenth Angel is what triggered Fourth Impact but how did that happen and why?
Yeah, that.
Also Misato, Rei and Asuka were all drawn from aspects of women in Anno's own life, iirc. I think, in general, the show is all about women and mothers. Each of the three primary female figures in Shinji's life represent an archetypical mother figure but none of them are the complete mother her never knew. In a way, they are all trying to raise him to maturity. The Eva is literally his mom and he rejects it again and again through out the show. He doesn't know how to deal with any of these women.
All that shit is way more interesting than giant robots and overt christian symbolism.
I'm of the opinion 3.33 is taking a shot at the series and fandom as a whole. It just threw everything through a loop and I didn't care for it, mostly because the pacing was glacial and the pay off was just a bunch of random transformations and a lot of stilted eroticism as the Japanese see it. I actually liked how far they were willing to go for changing things but a lot of the stuff that happens was so contrived.
No one, and I mean no one taking at least 30 seconds to a minute to give Shinji the bullet points about what has happened between the end of the second movie and the start of the third it would have avoided everything. That was it and that was just one of many really weird almost incoherent story decisions.
Messofanego
Banned
Serial Experiments Lain has lots of electricity poles, too. Which fits with the whole wired world messing with the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_-OTZHBIuE
yanipheonu
Member
Eh it's definitely worth a watch for imagery, music and concepts alone. The evas, the machine porn, the angels, the strange usage of Christian Imagery by a Japanese Viewpoint, it's definitely fun to look at even if you're not a fan of the plot. And there's just some classic music and sound that can't be missed.
And for better or worse, it is the production created by a legitimately depressed person. It's got undeniably fascinating aspects regardless of its flaws.
It's worth watching at least to form your own opinion, and seeing a part of anime's identity.
It's a "you might not like it, but you probably should watch it" recommendation.
And for better or worse, it is the production created by a legitimately depressed person. It's got undeniably fascinating aspects regardless of its flaws.
It's worth watching at least to form your own opinion, and seeing a part of anime's identity.
It's a "you might not like it, but you probably should watch it" recommendation.
What they really need to explain was what happened at the center of Central Dogma. At least Shinji is as confused as the viewer.
Whenever we get 4.44 I expect it to just be the end of 2001 stretched out to an hour and a half with Eva's doing stuff at times and other insanity.
John Kowalski
Banned
The movie is very much about the
time skip
In some ways it's very meta about
exploring what it feels to have lived a life without knowing Evangelion while it grew and infected popular culture, then being asked to understand what it is and why it's so important.
Madison Paige
Member
EVA is great. I watched it a few years ago during one of the worst depressions of my life (caused by a breakup), and End of Evangelion was actually the thing that helped me come to terms with the negative feelings I was feeling towards myself at the time. It's an intensely personal work that very elegantly depicts what I can best describe as a mental breakdown fueled by loneliness, desperation, and coming to terms with the most toxic parts of unrequited love. At least, that's what I got out of it. Every once in a while, someone links a clip from it, and I get all choked up and whatnot.
That being said, the series is vital to watch before it (including the original ending, which I feel is half of the puzzle) and it's also worth knowing the context it was produced in. At the same time, I feel most of the series is somewhat generic (not that it isn't enjoyable, it's just not really the main attraction), but yes, it's definitely necessary in order to understand the full arcs of the characters portrayed in the film. I also recommend watching Death & Rebirth into End of Evangelion, as it not only serves as a great little hype piece, but the experience of watching it with the intermission timer counting into End of Evangelion is not one to be missed.
That being said, I know people out there disagree with me. One of my friends says that EOE is one of his favorite movies of all time, and yet he also says that he spends a considerable amount of time wondering if watching the series was even worth it, even though without it the film would have had less context and a lot of the ideas coming across wouldn't have been anywhere near as powerful. I guess it depends on if the films message is something that you personally need to hear. For me, it was seriously life changing.
That being said, the series is vital to watch before it (including the original ending, which I feel is half of the puzzle) and it's also worth knowing the context it was produced in. At the same time, I feel most of the series is somewhat generic (not that it isn't enjoyable, it's just not really the main attraction), but yes, it's definitely necessary in order to understand the full arcs of the characters portrayed in the film. I also recommend watching Death & Rebirth into End of Evangelion, as it not only serves as a great little hype piece, but the experience of watching it with the intermission timer counting into End of Evangelion is not one to be missed.
That being said, I know people out there disagree with me. One of my friends says that EOE is one of his favorite movies of all time, and yet he also says that he spends a considerable amount of time wondering if watching the series was even worth it, even though without it the film would have had less context and a lot of the ideas coming across wouldn't have been anywhere near as powerful. I guess it depends on if the films message is something that you personally need to hear. For me, it was seriously life changing.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Shinji might have been the least likable and least interesting character in fiction that I've ever been exposed to.
BudokaiMR2
Member
They are very different, but it's pretty obvious it's more than just superficial with Amuro. Also his father is an actual tragic figure by the time you see him later in the series. Especially compared to Gendo in the original series who is basically a cartoon villian posing as his father. There are dozens of parallels between the two such as their reactions to the accidental killings of Lalah and Kaworu.
There is also the fact that Bright is basically acting as a surrogate father to him although he is literally scared of Amuro and constantly pushes him away. Amaro also only sees himself as useful because of his ability to pilot the Gundam so when that is about to be taken away from him he breaks down.
I also just think it falls apart because although his depression is realistic, it doesn't really match the catalyst that causes it. Him actually being able to pull through 90% of the time despite the fact he not only has deep-seeded issues but those are exacerbated by being literally mindfucked by Lovecraft-esque cosmic horror drags the entire thing down for me.
Depression, especially on a cosmic horror exstitensial dread level, is not something that you can push through with desperation and gumption. The ending of the series is where I feel like it really goes off the rails because despite all he goes through he basically manages to beat his depression. This is why I feel like EoE is a much more concise work.
I still think it is entertaining series with a lot of cool ideas even with the flaws. I just don't think it is some amazing work with a realistic breakdown of the human psyche as some seem to think. It is worth noting that I find EoE much better in that regard.
Least interesting? Wow.
I can understand hating Shinji but there's a lot going on there. The least interesting characters are bland, generic protagonists.
Messofanego
Banned
Least likeable but that made him the most interesting protagonist out of any action anime I've ever seen. Great examination of depression.
Beren the Empty-Handed
Member
Boundaries come in all shapes and sizes, man. Not that I really agree with your assessment.
katsubento
Member
So...you didn't like it.
Ordinaryundone
Member
I feel that some of that has to do with the relatively vague nature of SEELE and Gendo's motivations and the nature of Instrumentality, the consequences of which are sort of obfuscated by the crazy visuals that accompany it. Everyone important to the story is hinging their bets on being the one "in charge" of Shinji and Unit-01 when Instrumentality happens so when it happens somewhat unexpectedly and Shinji himself is in the driver's seat their (Gendo, SEELE) motivations don't really matter anymore. Everyone else just has some sort of drama or emotional hang up that gets explored, I feel, pretty thoroughly over the course of the story (Misato and Kaji, Asuka's mental issues, Rei and Gendo, etc.) Evangelion isn't really about its plot, as others have said it's more of a character study and WHY these people and groups want the things they do is more important than what it is they want, or how they plan on getting it. The EVAs, the Angels, Instrumentality, it's all basically just plot devices through which we explore Shinji, his comrades, and their relationships.
For what it's worth I think EoE gave a pretty decent conclusion to the actual plot of Evangelion if an actual finale to the events of the show is what you were looking for. It explains pretty clearly what Instrumentality is and what everyone actually wanted to get out of it, wacky visuals nonwithstanding. And it's not wrong to feel the way you do, lots of people were fairly cheesed off with the way Eva originally ended for the exact reason you were; a lack of "definitive" conclusion to the narrative elements of the plot.
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