Late summer/early fall I asked yall for some manga recommendations for my nieces for Christmas and I got a bunch. They really love Attack on Titan so I got them the first volume omnibus and I’m told they absolutely love it. I got them some others but I like the fact that I’ve been able to bond with them over manga/anime. If only I could get them into old school super hero comics.
I love all the book and manga recommendations here but I probably will still be reading them well into retirement
I wouldn't waste your time on either frankly. Fairy Tail is a very mediocre battle shonen series with a very long run. Evangelion suffers from a reputation that is derived solely from everyone seeing it when they were a teenager and thinking it was "deep and meaningful" instead of seeing it for the pretentious pile of flaming garbage that it is.
Watch Cowboy Bebop instead. That show still holds up.
Evangelion is fine once you realize its a fucking Japanese product and they think Christianity is "cool fun exotic stuff" which makes all the details pretty much fluff, as always. People always forget this part, and Evangelion is probably the biggest offender.
Once you stop focusing on those, its a pretty simply story that remains consistent to its "message" throughout and concludes on the two main stories (Shinji and Asuka's) just fine.
No, it was a bad show with bad characters, bad writing, a bad plot and bad pacing. The penguin was the show's sole redeeming quality, and he barely had any screen time.
I will not be swayed on this. Evangelion is a terrible anime and everyone who defends it is a herd animal or saw it when they were a stupid and impressionable teenager who wanted to think of themselves as some high brow intellectual when they were really just a pretentious teenager.
And of course, you are a free thinker who'd never just follow the popular narrative about something. That's why you are here with the very controversial and totally not mainstream opinion that everyone else has in 2024 and has had for over a decade.
Next you'll break out "Dbz is just like all filler" and "SOA is bad."
Fuck you too.
I watched it 2-3 years ago with low expectations and I was 25 or so
Here's the reality:
You didn't pay enough attention to what was going on. Then again most people didn't so you can't really be faulted too much for that.
Evangelion is an anime that doesn't directly tell you what its core messages and themes are, as that's part of its point.
Many people mistook this as Evangelion being open to interpretation (and while some aspects of it are indeed that, the core messages are concrete). The average person, as it turns out, isn't very perceptive, which is probably why the Rebuilds exist.
Evangelion's audience is pretentious and focus on the wrong things about it, but the work itself is sound.
Cowboy Bebop on the other hand, is the opposite.
trash taste detected
Whatever helps you cope with disagreement bro lel
I definitely have Cowboy bebop high on my list to watch. Is it also based on manga?
Surprisingly no. It was built from the ground up as an anime, which is a bit unusual within the medium. I recall Miyazaki at the outset of his film career wanted to make Nausicaa straight away but all the publishers/studios/whoever controlled the purse strings basically told him "lol, no. There's no manga to base it on, get fucked." So he proceeded to write the manga version first in order to get them off his back and let him actually make the film. Now I'm of the opinion that the manga he put together was the better of the two works, but it demonstrates just how ingrained that pattern is within that medium.
Already watched Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion I don't think isn't really my thing to begin with even though traditionally I veer towards sci-fi I have a major prejudice against those invasion battle for survival style stories because they're often pretty badly written. As for mediocre, the sad thing is even pretty mediocre anime these days is a million times better than most modern woke western crap. The fairy tail soundtrack is excellent so I'm tempted to give it a shot at least.
I'm still kind of watching currently airing things though so I'm not exactly lacking for entertainment been pretty happy with a lot of the stuff this year and looking forward to more.
I've praised it before, but check out Synduality Noir. Nothing ground breaking, but pretty dang fun. Adorable android waifu is a plus too, of course.
Yup, it's a bit of a double-edged sword. I watch a fair bit of anime nowadays, and some of it's...not so great. Makes me feel a little guilty for enjoying it but, I mean, Western crap is so meh, as you say, mediocre anime is still better.
I second this. Fairy Tale is noteworthy for being long, hilariously lacking in verisimilitude, and having a decent soundtrack.
Cowboy Bebop however is one of the very best.
The funny thing is everybody praises Cowboy Bebop but I liked Outlaw Star more.
I love them both tbh, but they're very different shows in terms of substance.
I really do need to make a point of watching that at some point. It's been on my backlog for ages now.
Evangelion is one of the greatest anime ever made on a craftsmanship, concept, thematic, and legacy level. It's flawed (like everything) but an acute and truthful look at the pathetic subject Anno fixed himself on, in all senses of the word including pathos. Yet, despite its reputation, in the end it is hopeful and uplifting.
I'll agree on Cowboy Bebop, though - I tie that with Eva as #1 for all time.
Evangelion is bad amateur slam poetry which inexplicably has the reputation of Wagner or Beethoven.
Poetry isn't music, slam or otherwise. It's quite explicable.