The Anti-Escapism Themes of "Neon Genesis Evangelion"
(reelrundown.com)
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Evangelion is such a simple series to follow yet people act like its a cryptic enigma. Death/Rebirth has Shinji literally scream out the point. All the wacky symbolism is just because the Japs think Christian shit is edgy and cool looking, the same way we do with other religions here.
The guy's summary is pretty good, though its far too short to truly prove its point because there are bunches more examples of it he missed. Which is important when trying to counter the both pro and anti Eva narratives that have been going for 25 years.
Its also why Rebuild isn't nearly as good. Instead of being knee deep in depression, Anno has long since conquered it and is now super famous. So it has that far less raw emotion and instead feels written to be about a message, instead of simply being about it. It also turns his raw hate for Otakus, and his fans in general, into a bludgeon he wants to use instead of screaming at both them and himself to get over it.
Hideaki Anno taught me that the cure to depression is GET MARRIED AND GET LAID.
Makinami Mari Illustrious was based on his wife.
Explains why such a boring character was added to replace a superior one.
Depression prone and simping, name a more iconic duo.
Reportedly, at one point she even says "But I have boobs and glasses."
Quoting the "has boobs, has glasses" meme NEAR-VERBATIM.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. The surface level is indeed very easy to follow, but they put a huge amount of effort into the small details so every time I watch it I notice things that I never saw before. For one example, I didn't realize at first that Misato/Kaji were being paid to seduce Shinji/Asuka to ensure their cooperation with the project (probably because I was around Shinji's age when I first saw it).
True, my point isn't that it isn't deep.
Its that the meme of "SO DEEP ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO FOLLOW WHATS GOING ON!!" When its pretty easy to follow even until the end when shit starts going well off the rails as long as you pay attention and don't chase rabbits going nowhere.
Then again, most people skip Death/Rebirth thinking its just a clip show, so they end up missing most of the context needed for EoE's last chunk and the entire understanding of Instrumentality and Shinji's rejection of it.
Yea, I think it's really the last couple episodes where people get lost. Without watching the movie as well that would be incredibly hard to piece together.
Right, I could understand a Japanese person getting messed up watching it as it aired and not having the full collection. Same with US in the West seeing it on Adult Swim back in the day (did the movie even air there? I don't remember seeing it ever).
But that's 15+ years ago, so people relying entirely on their ancient memories without ever finishing the series are foolish.
Not sure I follow your train of thought there. Anyone can watch it for the first time at any point, and watch as much or as little of it as they want. We aren't bound to TV schedules and release dates. I feel as though you're trying to invent situations in your head that make it easy to look down on people who may or may not even actually exist.
My point being that if you came away massively confused because you were watching it as it aired, that makes sense. EoE came out over a year later in Japan from the end of the series, and I'm not certain if it ever aired on US TV. Without the complete package, it can be hard to understand the finales.
I was giving benefit of the doubt to people who call it incomprehensible that they hadn't watched the entire series at once, and their understanding was piecemeal of childhood TV watching and then watching the movie years later.
Right, and at the same time you deny the benefit of the doubt to everyone else, despite the fact that there is no reason at all to expect they binge watched the entire series + movie.
I'd guess that's where the "meme" originally came from, people having just watching the original series and giving their reactions. Over time people just latched onto that idea and exaggerated. That's ok for random comments but I agree if someone is going to sit down and write a thesis on how incomprehensibly deep the themes of Evangelion are, they had better have watched all available content first.
It was supposed to be a direct continuation of Nadia a century later but the money wouldn't approve it.
As someone who part watched the series, but watched all the Rebuild films, I'd say it wasn't just escapism but depression itself. Hell the film titles spell it out (you're not alone but you can't move forward and you cannot redo your actions), the final film not using the number 4 was a good way to end it (you can't redo but you're not alone)
One of the most powerful scenes was just Shinji sitting down, slowly coming to terms with everything, knowing there's no quick fix he's got to face it head on, not run away.
The very end of the Rebuild hit this on the head in such a beautiful way - same with EoE but that was a little harder to wrap ones head around
it's "misogyny bad, women dindu nuffin, men have to serve women or else they aren't men". Emasculated jap projecting his insecurities onto the world. Many such cases, yet sad.