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Evangelion Reviewed In LA Times
peter_gzowski writes "Neon Genesis Evangelion, perhaps the greatest anime series ever, has been reviewed in the LA Times. This coincides with the release of the box set of the entire series (not including the movies, which come out on DVD in the fall). Hooray for mainstream credibility!" Best series if I can somehow overlook the final eps of the original series.
Unless of course you were somehow deluded into thinking this was some sort of mecha action kiddy show. :) :)
...Worst episode, ever.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
What is Evangelion ?
i think alot of people will agree with my saying this... WOOOOOT!!!
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
As someone who has never watched this series before, I would like to know how many of these DVD's I need to look for. Of course I'm only going to watch them because of the /. peer presure, and so I only want the good ones. I ended up reading LOTR because it seems to be a /. geek shrine, so I'll bite on this one too. So, what should I get?
Evangelion is kind of like Lain. Its not all supposed to make sense. The best anime I've found doesn't lead you around, rather, it lets you come to your own conclusions. Evangelion seems to be doing just this. I only have the first 4 out of 8 DVDs, but I'm loving it so far. I really reccomend this series to anyone that is tired of the good-guy-always-wins situation. This anime makes you ask, "What price is too high for victory?"
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
It's bound to have a good review if the reviewer has eyes bigger than their head and eyebrows that go out over their hair
This Box set is something I'll most likely be adding to my growing collection of crack gunslingers, bounty hunters and bandit killers
Of course, having monsters destroying a major city is cool, but nothing makes it more worthwile when Tokyo is being destroyed by a Zebra Beach Ball of Death or the Acidic Daddy longlegs of doom or my personal favorite, the Diamond of Destruction.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I'd have to say given the logistics of the craft there is no way in hell I could possibly give it a thumbs up when I'm probaly going to be filling an adult diaper every five minutes or so.
mass mounds of mctasty manchowder
There is no question. Maison Ikkoku is the best.
Ah, the joy of seeing my most hated of all anime characters in English. "I don't want to fly the Eva and save the world because my father hates me." Grrrrr.
My thanks to my anime club pres for the plush Shinji to torture.
I don't remember if it's at the end of the regular series or in the movies, but the one redeeming part of the whole show for me is Asuka's looks and attitude when fighting the white Evas alone.
as it is a summary.
Three actual reviews I like are found here. I Personally love this anime and have all the episodes on DVD.
Even the stuff on engrish.com makes more sense then that
Could Evangelion be going mainstream??? I don't know if i want it too...
PS: this might be posted twice since the submit button looks a hell of a lot like the preview button
then "Cowboy Beebop" and "Outlaw Star", I guess I'll be buying more DVS this weekend!!!
P.S. I read this while taking a break from studying. I've been teaching myself Japanese.
The only effective weapon against the Angels are the Evas (short for "Evangelions"), NERV's enormous cyborg robot-suits piloted by psychic teenagers.
Did i miss this(i have the adv dvds)? or did the reviewer add this?
You mean the part where they ran out of animation money and started scribbling on flash cards?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
No, Evangelion is the one where they mope around and philosophize, and a lot
of buildings blow up.
But I did. And considering the amount of Evangelion merchandise available right after its release, I think it probably saved me from being in the poor house. Apparently, it's saving me again. Me, I'm an Escaflowne fan. Now THAT'S a giant robot show. Mechs, in capes, fighting with swords. Pure genius.
I'll just wait until I can find a morpheus or winmx user who has all the episodes. Hey, it worked for the other series!
Anyone want to shed some light on the more profound themes in it? are there any? If so how do they relate to christian mythology?
Photos.
messed uo/cool/the best, wait till you see the movies. Damn good, uvun in subbed bootleg mode.
I want 2D games back.
The major characters are biologists and computer scientists, (and probably some physicists and mechanical engineers), and their children.
When do you have an anime (or any movie/tv) like this? I'd say that Evangelion is more intellectual than 99% of Hollywood movies.
As I've been reading this, I've only seen mention of fansubbed versions before this new boxset coming out. Well a brother at one of the fraturnities here at school lent my friends and I his boxset that had english proffesional studio dubbs and subbs of all 26 eps. And hes had that for months. Am I missing something?
Mountain, heavy are the mountains
But that changes, with the passage of time
Sky, blue sky, what your eyes can't see, what your eyes can see
The sun, one, only one
Water, it is agreeable, Commander Ikari
Flowers, so many the same, so many without purpose
Sky, sky of red, red the color, the color I hate
Liquid flows, it drips, ripples, and pours
Blood, scent of blood, woman who does not bleed
From the red soil the humans come
Humans made by man and woman
City, a human creation
Eva, a human creation as well
What are humans?
Are they creations of God?
Humans, that which is created by humans
This is that which is mine
My life, my heart
I am a vessel for my thoughts
The entry plug, the throne of the soul
Who is this? This is me
Who am I? What am I? What am I? What am I?
I am I.
This object that is, is myself
That which forms me
This is the self that can be seen, and yet this is not like that which is myself
A strange feeling
My body feels as if it is melting
I can no longer see myself
My form, my shape fades from view
Awareness dawns of someone who is not me
Who is here? There? Beyond me, here
Shinji
This person I know, Major Katsuragi
Dr. Akagi
People, my classmates
The pilot of Unit Two
Commander Ikari
Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?
youle be doing us all a favor
It is the one and only anime that has touched so many people, and at the same time pissed many more off. There is none other like it, and since Evangelion we've seen many other ripoffs, or more anime with a similar style. Nothing will ever compare to the original. If you do not have a conscience, can not think outside the box, don't like stuff that fux with your head, or if you are just plain stupid, don't watch this series. If you are in for a challenge, and want to expierience why this series is being hailed as a masterpiece, and has become so controversial then go out and rent it. BTW, don't diss the ending till you see the movies.
Come on, Evangelion is so Standard Anime Plot #1- Boy gets power armour/giant mech, battles evil for college credits. -Albeit, nicely done. Heck, I was almost turned off to the series because of the first few eps... It was like watching any number of "Boy and his giant" robot animes that have existed.
That's not to say it isn't a damn good series. the plot gets original with a quickness after the first few eps. I guess I shouldn't complain really. It could have been much worse. Pilot Canidate comes to mind. Oh well. Opinions are like armpits; Everybody has two.
BTW, for anybody who's curious, Standard Anime Plot #2 is- Boy mistakenly gets engaged to multiple fiances, chaos ensues.
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Evangelion is probly one of the shows that I liked the least. I think I liked it about as much as I liked Sailor Moon (which was pretty little). It almost made me stop watching anime all together (the only thing that didn't stop me was that I knew that there were redeming anime shows out there, such as Hell Teacher Nube and such) I swear, NGE was probly the last time I watched any of the shows they brought over. It really gets on my tits when someone suggests this as the best anime series ever or anywhere close to it. There is no best series, and there is no worst series out there. .hack//sign which has really been entertaining as much as I have seen of it. Also, if you are looking for some of the best shows that were brought over here I suggest Bastard!, Love Hina (being brought over), Jin-Roe (sp?), and Goldenboy.
The shows I suggest for someone to take a look at (infact I had made a sampler CD of fansubbed anime episodes that covered a wide range of shows) are Kanon, Mahororomatic, Noir, Love Hina, Onegai Teacher, Nadesico, Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Read or Die (OVA series, not a TV show), and Lupin III. It is best to find the genre that you like best and the style that you like best and sample a bit of each show (maybe watch and episode or two of each series then decide what you think is best for you. I should update my sampler CD as it is pretty old and was full of real media encodes, and can't remember what was on it as I don't have the CDs any more.
Personally when i have to say what my favorite show is, I usually wind up picking Kanon or Hell Teacher Nube. Although, I am leaning towards a new show called
I have yet to figure out why so many people seem to like Kenshin, NGE, and Dragon Ball, and gundum. If anyone knows please tell me as I have yet to figure out why the masses trend towards these shows, and it would help me to create a better sampler (as finding similar shows is like shooting fish in a barrel, and most are still available as a fansub). Also, would like to know what everyone else would suggest I put in a sampler to try to turn people on to anime.
The series ends in a long collage of flashbacks and still artwork, accompanied by a protracted internal dialogue between Shinji and the other characters as he conceives them.
I couldn't think of a better way to describe it...
This is an amazing piece of artwork. When I first came to Japan, I was drawn to Evangelion just by the cover art, which clearly stands out among the hundreds of other animation videos in a typical video store...
Dude. If you dont like anime, turn it off in the preferences panel
.
Evangelion is one of those pieces of entertainment that people claim is deep because they don't understand it. Truth is its impossible to stand. It mixes religious metaphors like crazy. Add a dash of crucifixion with a pound of trancendentalism. If you haven't seen it, stay away. It will draw you in, but you will hate yourself when its done. I'm not sure why the plot is so interesting... The ability to save humanity rests on the shoulders of a 14 year old boy and his friends, and their ability to control gigantic robots.
If you want something good, I reccommend you check out TriGun. Its definately a lot lighter (excluding the manga, from what I've heard and read of it) and makes sense. You won't see Vash the Stampede fighting to stop an apocolypse so he can destroy the known world himself.
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Open Source Sysadmin
Evangelion is an awesome anime but fans of Gainax should also look into it's other completely amazing anime. "FLCL" or "Furi Curi", about a young boy who every once in awhile has large robots burst forth from his head and battle. Great Music and magnificent animation styles. Try and pic out how many animators work in each seen:)
The second to last and third to last episodes are very good, provided you have seen the prior ones. The last episode essentially consists of flashing white lines and ends with the whole cast of characters applauding Shinji, sappy stuff and an unfortunate ending.
Evangelion does not employ the best animation, and indeed recycles animation sequences and music a lot. So why watch it? Hard to explain. If you've ever seen (and liked) Princess Mononoke you'll be similarly hard pressed to come up with an explanation.
But, the ending is no exception; there are good and bad episodes (the one with the volcano comes to mind) in Evangelion; I'd peruse the DivXs of the series before investing in DVDs.
As for dubbing in American voices, forget it. I'd wager most people (anime geeks at least) prefer subtitles. Btw, has anyone else noticed how the subtitles in the opening song are sometimes (about 50% of the time) in Japanese ?
PS Little Rei is really freaky.
For the funniest commentary I've ever seen on the silliness that is Evangelion, start here. It's a condensation and parody and I anyone in the "it's such a great and moving series!" camp should read it. And take a cold shower.
Yes, they did suck. But there's a reason for that. Gainax actually ran out of money, so when they got around to the last two episodes, they had to do SOMETHING. Basically they took a bunch of concept sketches and put them to some strange voiceover so they could fulfill a 26 episode contract. The next two movies were their attempt to raise money for End of Evangelion, the real episodes 25 and 26. It turns out they ended up making a killing off the series and especially EoE, so their financial woes were over. I'll agree that they suck, but I also know that they weren't really what Gainax wanted to do with the series, but what they were forced to do. I still want the boxed set though. :)
Beebop has it all the way if you have to compare the two.
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Evangelion is good but it can be slow at times. For a livlier story that is just as wide ranging try out the first few episodes of Bugglegum Crisis. The characters are perhaps less troubled, but the animation is much more captivating. There's about 20 episodes is all I think.
my two cents worth
pithy comment
Oh God, if lain made sense I woould shoot myself...
I always said that you would have to be high to get Lain. My friend tried it...he still could not understand it.
I should befriend a Mushroom junkie and see if it takes a little more =/
forget it.
Eight new IIS security holes exposed
.htr file requests can cause a heap overflow. According to MS, an attacker can "cause [IIS] to temporarily stop providing Web services or, in very unusual cases, could gain control of the server." According to @Stake's Dave Aitel, who discovered it, "this heap overflow can be used to execute arbitrary machine code. In the default installation, this results in remote execution in the IUSR_machine security context." The difference in these two accounts is a matter of emphasis. In any case an attacker wouldn't get administrator privileges directly from exploiting it, but the ability to run arbitrary code means he wouldn't have terribly far to go. The relevant @Stake advisory contains a few details left out of the MS bulletin, and is worth reading. Aitel has also developed a free tool called Spike which finds the HTR and ISAPI overflow vulns, available here. Affects IIS 4.0 and 5.0.
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 11/04/2002 at 00:13 GMT
There are eight new security stuff-ups affecting various editions of Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server), the most serious of which will enable an attacker to take over the system, MS revealed today.
If you're wondering why you haven't heard about them before, chalk it up to Trustworthy Computing, a Redmond policy which leaves everyone exposed to attack until MS is satisfied with its patches and spills the beans. We prefer to know these things as soon as possible so we can look into temporary workarounds and shutter the window of opportunity straight away, but MS is clearly opposed to that approach. (One workaround we rather like is called Apache, but we digress....)
Before we get into the gory details, we have to mention that we've received anecdotal reports that some of the MS patches have been breaking some of the machines they're installed on. So do test them before integrating them into critical systems. If you've installed one of the patches, I'd like to hear from you whether your experience was good or bad, in hopes of confirming the problem or, alternatively, putting the rumor down.
And now for a brief roundup.
First up, a buffer overflow involving chunked encoding with the ASP (Active Server Page) ISAPI filter. This can be exploited to crash or run arbitrary code on the machine. Essentially, an attacker can cause IIS to miscalculate incoming data and so allocate undersized buffers. There's a good writeup and a sample exploit by eEye, which discovered it, posted here. Affects IIS 4.0 and 5.0.
Next, a mysterious one which Microsoft claims to have discovered and which it says "is related to the preceding one, but which lies elsewhere within the ASP data transfer mechanism." Whatever it is, it appears it can be exploited much like the chunk encoding flaw above, and affects IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1.
We have another buffer overflow involving HTTP header processing, in which an attacker can spoof delimiter checking and persuade IIS that delimiting characters are present when they're not. Thus a malicious URL with bogus HTTP header field values can overstuff the buffers created to process them. Affects IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1.
And we have yet another buffer overflow, this time caused by a bad safety check for server-side includes, which MS caught. It's possible for an invalid and very long file name to pass the include safety check, resulting in a file name bigger than its intended buffer, and obviously a buffer overflow. Affects IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1.
We have one more, this time involving the HTR ISAPI extension in which malformed
For a change of pace, we've got a denial of service vulnerability involving the way an ISAPI filter included in FrontPage Server Extensions and ASP.NET generates a errors when a request is received containing a URL exceeding the maximum length set by the filter. IIS attempts to process the URL while returning an error message, resulting in an access violation which causes it to crash. Affects IIS 4.0, 5.0, and 5.1
We've got another denial of service vulnerability where an attacker can establish an FTP session in which a status request can interfere with normal error reporting, causing an access violation. This can crash both FTP and HTTP services. Affects IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1.
And last but not least, we've got three CSS (Cross-Site Scripting) vulnerabilities, which MS has lumped together thus: "One involving the results page that?s returned when searching the IIS Help Files, one involving HTTP error pages; and one involving the error message that?s returned to advise that a requested URL has been redirected."
"All of these vulnerabilities have the same scope and effect: an attacker who was able to lure a user into clicking a link on his web site could relay a request containing script to a third-party web site running IIS, thereby causing the third-party site?s response (still including the script) to be sent to the user. The script would then render using the security settings of the third-party site rather than the attacker?s."
If you'd like to know what that means, you can check out a Web page by Thor Larholm which tells you a few things MS neglects. Such things as how CSS allows for "stealing cookies from any IIS site, cross-domain scripting to any IIS site, hijacking Hotmail and Passport accounts, elevating privileges through ActiveX components, hijacking the MSN Messenger client, etc." Affects IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1.
The Microsoft bulletin, from which much of the above has been drawn, is located here . It also contains links to the three patches MS has released, with cautions, caveats and useful advice. And don't forget to check out the IIS lockdown tool, and the URL Scanning tool which MS provides free. ®
There is so many different ways of trying to explain NGE. Is it Foucault's Pendulum with mechas? Is it the Red Chamber Dream with Hebrew cosmology instead of Buddhist? Or is it just a heap of anime cliches? I still don't know, and I am a pretty dedicated Eva-no-Otaku. But I tried to explain it here:
Why I love Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Oh please. Eva was good, but not *that* good. On the other hand, I still consider Eva to be a "new" series, having been in to anime since '91. But when I compare it to some older series, like Nadia, or some newer series, like Utena, I don't think it's that great. To me it feels like the "Ranma effect" - something gets so hyped by the fanboys that it has to be good...
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
When did Linux become hip? Was I unconscious? Must have happend while I was watching Evangelion...
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Who needs it? What does it gain you? Why can't the little things that we enjoy, like anime, be kept amongst the people who love and care for it? Why would we be eager to submit it to the scrutiny of the mainstream, where it will be homogenised and shrink-wrapped into a format palatable for network executives?
Ash OS durbatulk, ash OS gimbatul, ash OS thrakatulk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul! Uzg-MS-ishi amal fauthut burgulli.
Don't you like the 'parallel universe' part (where they go to school in the morning)?
Does any one know if/when they will release the final movies on DVD?
I was pretty surprise when I first look at the storyboard(from a magazine, before any film was being made) of Evangelion - it's entirely anti-christ in the eyes of religion people. I'm not a Christian myself, but I was worrying that the use of religious concept would ignite anger of sensitive Christians.
It turns out a great success. There aren't much discussion on the contraversial religion elements in it but instead the film was being appraised for the creativeness.
People nowaday has higher tolerance to imaginative stories based on derived interpretation of popular religions, it seems.
It's called a bootleg.
After Speed Racer, it all went downhill from there.
And burned (literally) all the original cell art. It's enough to make any anime fan cry... Unless the anime is something like Pilot Canidate ~shudders~
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http://e-hentai.net/pics/series/eva/eva.html
Not to play Jeff Bezos, but if you liked Evangelion (and Lain) you might also like Boogiepop Phantom.
Oh, and I would have to say that my vote for best anime series ever would be Cowboy Bebop. Also not a good-guy wins type show.
No wonder why it went berzerk in the first ep... Evangelions using windows... It'd explain a lot.
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In my personal opinion, the best Japanese anime series of 1996 (Shin Seiki Evangelion was shown from late 1995 to early 1996 in its first run in Japan) was not this series.
The last two episodes just confused the heck out of me, to say the least.
The best anime series for calendar year 1996 was Tenkuu no Escaflowne (known in the West as The Vision of Escaflowne), which had WAY better animation, superior storytelling and of course the excellent musical score by Yoko Kanno, a legend in Japan for her work on music for anime series.
I avidly watched the series and was left hanging because I could never see the movies! Huzzah for DVD!
... now all I need's a DVD player. Shit.
Does this make my brain look big?
No, you didn't miss anything. They were not psychic in anyway. I guess you could stretch that and say that while in the EVAs but I wouldn't call it that.
utterly unlike any American animated film.
Slowly, surely, inevitably...
anime, because of its stories and quality...
overtakes the U.S. animation companies...
and leaves them behind.
The Metropolis review, the popularity of Toonami, the 20 feet of DVDs at Suncoast and now this. It's no longer a question of 'if.'
Toonami's popularity was described as "out-of-nowhere." Isn't it funny how executives always describe genuine quality-driven popularity as "out of nowhere?" Of course, the two shows that built Toonami: Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, weren't exactly "out of nowhere," but we can't actually expect the cynics to do any work now can we?
That an animated series can generate so much substantive discussion should just about wrap it for the "animation is for kids" crowd.
The real message to the animation industry:
better wake up.
I'm getting really sick of people telling me how good Evangelion is. So sick, in fact, that I may have to give it another go. Normally anything gainacky is going to be great, but I watch the first few episodes immediately after watching all of Giant Robo, which (for the first few episdoes of Evangelion, at least) has exactly the same plot. Which meant I gave up after (I think) for episodes.
So, before I relent and get the first few DVDs: it does get better, doesn't it?
So DVDs aren't evil this week? Oooh... shiny!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
YOu mean like "The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat"?
The point is a valid one since Evangelion's initial draw was a giant robot theme. Hell, you didn't find out exactly what it was until about 3/4s through the series. And he's also correct on the carefree mish-mashing of religious elements that form something strangly watchable. I think it's the X-Files element, personally. For me, it wasn't the plot that you knew, but all the stuff you didn't that kept me hooked.
;)
I can also second TriGun. Peace and Love, baby!
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The DVD's of the boxset were released individually starting about a year or two ago. The series was divided initially started as a tv series(whose content make up the new boxset), but two feature length movies were release afterwards; these movies haven't come stateside yet, outside of bootleg/fansub form.
I mean, seriously, its almost as if ADV wasn't really trying that hard. Sure, they're decent dvd's, but if you compare them to the offerings of a company like Bandai (and their excellent Bebop and Love Hina discs), ADV loses by a landslide.
And to make things worse, Manga (who has the rights to the 2 Eva movies) has been pushing back the release dates for about two years now, with no end in sight.
I loved Eva, and it was the first full anime series that I had seen, but ADV seriously needs to spend a little more than four minutes on quality control on the video. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was pissed at the annoying "bounce" two frames before AND after almost any cut in almost any episode! Unacceptable! Take off the Spanish and French dubs (or whatever the other 2 were) and use that extra space for the VIDEO!
Actually, this wouldn't be an issue if there were a good 5 or so episodes per disc (which could've saved the consumer from buying 1 more dvd for the set), but most of the discs only have 3 (yes, THREE) episodes on a disc. Unacceptable, really.
What the problem is with the last episodes.
Fan service and the general silliness of certain episodes aside, Evangelion is heady stuff.
No, it's not all about Unit 01 scarfing down an S2 engine and then noting, "Zeruel! The other white meat!"
Anyone who thinks that episodes 25 & 26 sucked largely misses the point of the whole series. In brief, what NERV was attempting to do was improve humanity. In the case of the series ending, they were successful. In the case of the movies however, Gianax wanted to show what happened if NERV fucked up. Shinji represented, for intents and purposes, the whole human race in BOTH versions of the ending. Both are equally valid and make sense from this context. Personally, I find episodes 25 & 26 to be more meaningful than just watching the entire human race die.
Why bother.
evangelion is the 'usual thing' -- as evidenced by it's writeup, which (aha!) happens to coincide with the US release
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I've seen a few anime so far in the past year (Evangelion, Lain, Noir, Keshin OAV and the 15 first episodes, Lodoss War OAV and finally, X TV), and while Evangelion has been a really interresting anime (it was the first serie I watched, and the second anime I watched, after Ghost in the Shell), as I discovered other series like Lain and X TV, I realised that it Evangelion wasn't *that* great. Sure, the episodes are nice, and the movie ending is jaw dropping, it doesn't come near X TV for character development and action. I think people mix the concept of very complex story line that is almost incomprehensible and great storytelling. Evangelion is just a really messed up story line. There is even have a FAQ for people to understand the movie ending. Too much is going on, and not enough time to explain everything. X TV, on the other end, presents it's characters one at a time, and, even tough the ending is a bit rushed, it is simply the best anime I have ever seen, and most of my friends who've been watching and reading anime/manga for a while agree with me. And people I know who weren't interrested in anime before got hooked by X TV.
It won't make any sense after that, either.
anime is for pedophiles who don't have the balls to truly fuck children. Here, you perverts, maybe I can help:
How do you make an eight year old cry twice?
After you are done fucking her, wipe the blood up with her teddy bear.
What is the worst thing about fucking an eight year old?
Getting the blood off your clown suit.
Fucking pedophiles. Eat shit.
Wasn't that New York?
eh, forgot to make it clicked link :P
Evangelion pr0n
I've read some interview excerp with the author about the ending, and he said that the serie ending was done this way because Gainax cut the funds for the last two episdes because of it's too many biblical ramifications and though they'd get bad press. So the show writer had to make up some ending. Later, when the fans wanted a movie, the show creator was given full control about the movie content and made the movie based on the original ending scripts.
Overall, I preferred Gasaraki over Evangelion. Gasaraki has giant robots, political intrigue, interesting characters, a great musical score, better production values, a complicated plot, and bad-ass hardware. Fewer confused teenagers in skin-tight outfits, but, well, everything's a trade-off, I guess.
Evangelion had a slow start, but just kept getting better, until it had me rivited near the end... until the final two episodes. Yes, I understand them. Yes, I "get it". No, I didn't find them to be very good.
Gasaraki, at least, got to finish its story, and it is very similar in certain ways -- most notably the "click your heels three times and think of home to defeat the bad guys" ending many giant mecha animes seem to have. Still, far more satisfying than the interminable idiocy of the final Evangelion.
"Congratulations! Congratulations!"
This is the only word that can be used to describe what Eva does to you. If you want to see some fucked up shit, see the End of Eva movie (before you do that, watch all of the episodes in the series, as it is a SERIES and no episodes should be skipped or watched out of order). I'll try not to spoil, but the bulk of the clustermindfucking is done in the last half of the movie, and that comes to a head just before (perhaps 15 seconds before) the very end. I guarentee that after watching this, you will find yourself crying naked in a corner, covered in your own excriment, unable to speak. Yes, it's that good.
Also... to those not aquainted with the world of Ultra-CMF (see title of this post) viewing: if The Matrix is a 0 on the CMF scale, and Eva is 100 (and it is)... then Ghost in the Shell is roughly a 93, Serial Experiments: Lain scores about an 85, and Akira scores a good 25. EVERY GEEK SHOULD WATCH THESE.
Though, I'll offer a word of warning: once you have viewed the above titles, your opinion of the bulk of Hollywood movies will go down the shitter. Personally, I find myself watching The Matrix and other movies that I had previously found to be "profound" and thinking to myself how blatently obvious they are.
As for the rest of the world of anime, I generally stay away from ~99% of it, as it is underbudget, retarded crap. Of course, if it's something you're in to collecting as a hobby (as CmdrTaco is), then that's your own thing.
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It is the monkied monkey that monkies with another monkey's monkey. Monkey.
You shouldn't give up freedom.
Aside from the fact that Yukio Mishima was Japanese and the Sea of Fertility did end as the author of the piece describes, what's the connection with Yukio Mishima? Or was that just some academic name dropping?
Any search should turn up lots of information on Yukio Mishima, but a short and rather jumbled summary follows:
Yukio Mishima commit ritual seppuku in 1972 at a Self Defence Forces base after finising the fourth book of the Sea of Fertility tetrology that morning. He seized control of the base with his private ultra-rightest army but, failing to convince his audience at the base of the need to return to the nationalistic heroic ideals of pre-war Japan,he cut open his stomach and an assistant decapitated him.
He was a homosexual, but very much obsessed with esthetics and traditional society. His novels which dealt with his own struggles between heroic idealism, homosexuality and aging disallusion were highly acclaimed in Japan and abroad, though you would be hard pressed to find many contemporary Japanese lay people under the age of 40 who have read his novels.
Evangelion?
Evangelion is ok, but
For an amazingly good (and humorous) Anime check out Martian Successor Nadesco. It's (to some extend) a parody of Evangelion.
Well, frankly there's a lot of 'Mericans who generally make the same "What the hell just happened?!?" comments with many animated series/movies, happened with Akira, happened with Mononoke Hime, it was inevitable it would happen here as well...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
U keep using the sayme old payg wydening shit and I havn't seen it werk in IE, Mozilla or linx. Y du U Still bothr?
:)
U used 2 be cutting edge tr0ll, 2. Wht happned? Got Old? Can't thnk of somthing that werks?
U R VARY lame. Plz fix. mmmk?
Thnx!
Geez, I can not believe how low some peoples standards are. Eva started off interesteing: Kewl robots and conspiracies. But the series falls flat. The characters are bloody awful and there are plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. For instance all of Shinji's classmates were potential "Eva pilots". The whiney brat wasn't even necessary. Auska was totally incompetant. Rei had no personality of her own. The gun's given to the Eva's were pretty much totally useless. Let's not forget the idiotic synchronized dance routine that Auska and Shinji had to do, and the fact that Rei could do it with her eyes closed.
Sorry guys, I don't have to worry about "End of Eva" or the last couple of episodes, I was sick of the bullshit long before that and gave up on the series.
I think your time would be better spent watching something interesting, like Escaflowne, or Trigun.
Just because a show has the subtext of "Your children are not tools" and plenty of Jewish mythology doesn't make it interesting or even good.
Comparing Eva to Escaflowne is like comparing the "Lensman" anime to E.E. Doc. Smith's "Galatic Patrol". Or even better "Phantom Menace" to "A New Hope".
What I got out of the series was that the goal NeRV was trying to accomplish with the Human Instrumentality Project was a breakdown of ego boundaries to allow humans to become something much more, linked, a kind of planetary consciousness.
/. (and like nuclear weapons and /. trolls) the speed of idea spawning will accelerate at an exponential pace.
This is drawn more from the movies than the last two episodes, IIRC, because the last two eps, for me, were more of an "it's okay to be human and fucked up, don't worry about it because everyone else is just as fucked up as you, maybe they just hide it better" message. But it has been a while since I've watched the series so YMMV. (MMMV on a rewatching as well)
I liked the whole bit about "there is a you you, a you in your head, a you in his head, her head, etc. etc." Saying that perceptions matter as much as actual reality because the two are indistinguishable.
And since we already exist multiple times, let's just bypass computer networks and go for direct human networking. Like how the whole OSS/Linux/etc. movement would be much smaller in scope and impact if it weren't for the net to allow collaboration on such a scale. Imagine what might happen if we were to bypass the ego boundaries and join at a pure energy level with one another.
Chaos at first, maybe, but just the building of networks inside your brain produce great (and some technically great but not so good) things like quantum physics and
What else would be the next step in human evolution after forming singular conscious, after all?
-neko
p.s. is anyone else pissed off at the fact that when queried about a year ago that ADV said the had no present or future plans to put out a boxed set. Because NGE was so wildly popular that the wanted to milk all the collectors that couldn't be patient. I'm glad I only bought one DVD. At 30 bucks a hit it would cost 240 bucks for the whole set, which I pointed out to them was quite a lot.
`/\/\
(^.^)
(")(")
not quite an analog pussy, just a cat that plays with vinyl
Evagelion's bombastic, sarcastic use of theme music in some scenes (Worthy is the Lamb, the Ode to Joy) is another place where The Prisoner's influence (especially that of "Fall Out") is apparent. (The Prisoner came well before Kubrik's Clockwork Orange, let alone Reservoir Dogs.) More generally, both shows took a popular genre of TV action serial and subverted it into a statement about the human condition, full of weirdness, symbolism, and angst. HIDEAKI Anno probably owes Patrick McGoohan a beer for that one.
For those out of the know: The Prisoner is not Prisoner: Cell Block H . The Prisoner is a British TV show from the 1960s. ITV is a UK commercial TV channel. The Prisoner is a one-hour show with 17 episodes. The Prisoner is the Greatest TV Show of All Time, Ever. (So far, at least. :) )
Honneamise and Gunbuster will be GAINAX's masterpieces for the foreseeable future.
If you like Eva, you must check these titles out.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Please, what does this anime crap has to do on /. ?!
There is nothing nerdy or geeky about it. It is not related to science or even news.
So, what interest has some local newspapers' (LA Times) review of a poorly drawn cartoon series to Slashdot readers? In my view, none.
Please, use this valuable space for the valuable stuff.
People keep saying how deep Evangellion is. Isn't that how they measure shit?
Lain about an AI software girl (Lain) who was created by a researcher (the old white guy with the beard)
The experiment (the program) got stolen (or hacked) by a group called "Knights" who played with Lain.
Near the end, Lain found out that she was in fact a program (as with the girl at the beginning who commited suicide, and the professor dude). Lain is just one of many AI "agents" in the artificial world that "got smart"... (This is why the "knights" are interested in her...)
Once she found out that she is an AI, she becomes a "god", kind of like "the matrix", and she can do wierd shit.
There are wierd parts thrown in to trick you, like Lain's sister. (She got "erased" and "replaced" by a dumb AI because she started to know too much). Also, the fact that people from the outside knew how to get in the Lain world "matrix style".
The key phrase in the series was "The real world and the computer (navi) world" are really the same. This means that Lain's world (you would think "real world") is really the computer world. Also, notice that the artists draw the real real world (non-Lain world) in MUCH more detail than the Lain world.
The last episodes of Evangelion make a lot more sense if you are familiar with Taoist philosophy (and no, not those stupid self-help books you find in bookstores or in "mystic" stores). Despite the Kaballah mythology throughout Evangelion, the ending is very Taoist in nature. In fact, the ending could very well be seen as the Taoist version of "enlightenment" or "heaven".
Why do publishers always call complete collections "perfect"? This bit of stupidity comes from the Japanese word "kanzen" which means complete. Kanzen can also mean perfect, in the sense of perfectly complete, but that's not how it's normally used.
Several years ago some idiot decided to translate kanzen as perfect because it sort of made sense to call a game guide book a "perfect guide". But now we have "perfect sets" "perfect series" "perfect collections"... the whole thing is just BAKA.
The best thing about Evangelion is that it's very complex yet just vague enough so that hopeless otakus like me can hyper-analyze it. Then we can engage in heated debates(read: flamewars) about it ranging from Misato's Elektra complex to the entry plug being a phallic symbol.
Correction:
There are not two alternate endings. End of Evangelion is the end of the story.
The last two TV episodes represent part of Shinji's mind when he and Unit 1 are absorbed into the Lilith's black moon/egg in EOE. Death and Rebirth is just a recap of the TV series and the first 20 minutes of EOE.
At least IMHO. =)
I discovered interesting parallels between Evangelion and Homer's Iliad, as I once posted on USENET.
Both are about a young hero's (EVA: Shinji, Iliad: Achilleus) fight in a war that affects many people (their entire world, in a manner of speaking).
Both heroes have a father who they need to live up to.
Both heroes have a super-human mother.
Both are the champions of their respective sides, and appear to be almost invincible due to mysterious superhuman qualities. They appear to be indispensable to their cause.
Neither are fighters due to a personal choice: fate has brought them to war.
Both heroes retreat from the fight due to a crisis in personal values. Both are plagued with doubt as to what good could come from their struggle in the war.
The leaders of both sides appear to be blinded by pride in the face of their best fighter's retreat: Shinji's own father, and Achilleus' superior Agamemnon.
Both heroes are begged to return by their respective sides, and both refuse.
Both heroes rejoin the fight after their companions are almost defeated, and only when a loved comrade is injured/killed due to their own inaction.
Both heroes acknowledge that cruelty will be an unavoidable consequence of their return to the battle.
As a climax, both are ultimately driven to kill the character in the story that most resembles them: Shinji kills Kaworu, Achilleus kills Hektor.
Both are driven by the search for meaning within meaninglessness.
Both wake up and affirm their dignity as humans in the face of a meaningless existence.
Both find their identity through struggle, for the alternative is death and obscurity.
Both stories are allusions to the human condition: life as constant and meaningless struggle (with meaning found in one's own values).
Granted, perhaps the Iliad analogy may not be what the creators of Evangelion had in mind, but the parallels are there. These may have influenced Evangelion directly, or indirectly through Homer's towering influence on prior literature.
Toasty Frog thumbnail theatre
I hear alot of people whine about the last two episodes, but if you think that the internal struggles of the main characters and the philosophical questions about the mind and reality are inconsitent with the rest of the story, I find that usually it is because of at least one of the three reasons:
1) You were watching the series expecting intense action, setting aside the insightful moral and philosophical dilemas that the story offers. (Manime == 'Anime based on action and flash rather than interesting story')
2) You did not pay any attention to the slow parts of the story or you zoned out during those moments.
3) You are an idiot.
WARNING: DO NOT LET DR. MARIO TOUCH YOUR GENITALS. HE IS NOT A REAL DOCTOR.
However...
It is NOT a cooler ending than the ending of 'Brazil'.
And this is because the point Evangelion makes is much less interesting than the point Brazil makes. It's NOT that hard to use art to cut away a person's foundations- you just make them identify and then put the protagonist through a lot. It's much more interesting to give a sharp twist, not to the viewer's self-worth, but to their view of reality and the value of sanity, which of course is the brilliance of the every-bit-as-shattering ending of Brazil.
I Doubt anyone will read this, but the Angels are actually as mis-translation. They should be be called Disciples, as they are the messengers from God
and only $6k in plane fairs!
You could also just go on that "internet" thing.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Eva, is the German name for Eve.
This should be a pointer towards Adam, the first Angel, which the EVAs originated from.
Like the most other things (Seele = soul, etcetc) this is a germanism.
The Evangelion in NGE refers to something like
"The book of the new Beginning", which makes more sense after all.
Ohh... This story is like some other story! Shocking!
Anyway, Eva was cool, but I wouldn't really call it a "mindfuck" unless you had a pretty fragile mind.
It was OK. Nothing special, not anywhere near Cowboy Bebop. Btw, do you really think the "emotions" in Eva were stronger then those in CB? For most people they probably wouldn't be, because CB builds characters you care about, while Eva just goes off on insain tangents.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Please. Eva isn't hard to understand, its just stupid. I dunno, maybe if I was religious I would get more into it, but I'm not. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. It was entertaining, but I don't think I would call it deeply insightfull or anything.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The big fighting robots and monsters from space? Metaphors. As cool looking as anime is, even the most-american friendly stuff is still pretty bewildering to many.
There's nothing wrong with the last couple episodes the same way there's nothing wrong with some other foreign film you've watched and didn't quite "get" but it did look pretty.
The synopsis of epp26 was hilarious :P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
hrmm your probably thinking about the vhs boxset, it first came out on vhs, dvds were nonexistant/brand new at the time it first was released. 300$ price tags on the no frills dvd players...
tho the dvd is worth it just to see gendo talking in french lmao
Nice review; my box actually came in yesterday (actually, it came in on the 4th; fucking Canada Post never bothers to actually try to deliver packages,and often forgets to actually drop off the pickup slip) and the review will be a nice little primer for my wife, who's getting into Anime. Too bad the reviewer seems to watche the dubs, though.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Ive seen quite a lot of comments that are complaining that Hideaki Anno created End of Evangelion in order to spite the fans.
This is simply not true.
This is a horribly old rumor, and there is no backing to it whatsoever. Id like to kill it right now.
Anno does not hate the fans! He never has!
Actually, the man just got married. I hate to think what his kids will be like *shudder*
no
That's probably what I ment to say to begin with ;)
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I should just learn to stop buying DVDs (that'll never happen)... after I shell out for an entire series, a year later it is released in a box set. (Still the only series that has compelled me enough to go buy the entire thing)
Well, at least I earned a zillion dollars in Media Play gift certificates while doing it.
Gasaraki was Ok, but man it was slow as molassus getting anywhere, and when it did, it wasn't that exciting, frankly.
I think that's why it Evangelion edges it out in my opinion. EVA keeps an even pace between action and plot. And it has confused teenagers in tight outfits (though I so wanted to kick Shinji's ass throughout most of the series... One of the most hatable anime characters I've stumbled across). Not to say it's my fav by any stretch of the imagination, just entertaining.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I think that Neon Genisis is both the best and the worst Anime. After watching the last episode my wife disavowed all knowledge of the series. Since then we have been working on collecting the whole thing on DVD. I've got to agree with some of the prior comments saying that it is a very intellectual series, and requires a fair knowledge of religon (just about all of them, lots of references to Budism, Hinduism, Christainity, Jewdism and Islam) and Christian/Jewish mysticism to understand. Over all it is a pretty good mind f**k and you probably shouldn't watch it if you would rather watch DBZ. Neon Genisis is to Blade Runner what Trigun is to Mad Max and DBZ is to Black Mask.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Please warn about spoilers in the subject line. Not everyone has seen it.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Ok, I'm done now. Thanks for listening!
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Anime went mainstream LONG ago. Evangelion has been popular for a long time also. Maybe you missed the 90s.
I didn't like the ending of Evangelian much either. But hey, most great anime series (Escaflowne, Key the Metal Idol) have rather difficult endings. Possibly it's a cultural difference, like how Americans always want happy endings.
Still, aside from the ending Evangelian is a VERY cool series, with some incredible plot twists.
Hooray for mainstream credibility!
Darn! It went mainstream! Now I'm gonna have to search for something non-trendy again..
The fall of humanity from grace - expulsion from the Garden of Eden. And what the human race is trying to do to get back into the Garden.
Metamorphosis - becoming more than you are. The old saying, "What you are is your gift from God. What you become is your gift to God." However, becoming more than you are requires that the dross of the old die to make room.
There's a large amount of Hebrew mysticism in Eva as well.
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
A friend of mine said this about Serial Experiments Lain: "Even though I watched the whole way through, I felt like I'd missed a few episodes in between each one."
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
Am I the only one who finds anime a bit stupid and very repetitious?
I'll admit I got a charge out of Akira w-a-a-y back in the day, but everything I've watched since is... well, almost exactly like everything else. A lot of perky teens (or brooding adults), shiny robots, spiky hair and "deer-in-the-headlight" vacuous stares.
If I wanted to watch the same cartoon over and over again, I'd watch "Scooby Doo", which at least has a talking dog hyped up on some derivative of canibus.
I look at my video shelf with it's Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and other anime titles (whatever happened to the term "japanimation"?), and I realize I am so over the fad. I just can't be bothered anymore.
T(H)GSB
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
www.animeboards.com has an excellent collection of Evangelion information on it's "Evangelion Discussions" board. It helps to clear up many of the questions that are answered vaguely in the show and might not get to you the first (twenty) times you watch...
Oh. Before seeing Evangelion, I thought that all anime is Pokemon-like crap. Now I don't. And I bought the boxed set, and wait anxiously for D&R and EoE.
I'm a big fan of the series, and unlike Hemos, I really enjoyed the last few episodes. They were unlike anything I had seen in anime until that point. Perhaps a grand final victory against the evil aggressors would have been more satisfying to "low" urges, but as it was you think about it and talk about it for a few days after watching it. It had a real emotional impact on me, more than say, even bigger explosions would.
I really admire the director too, it takes balls to make a set of feature films to augment the series ending, and make it even darker and more violent.
The LA times site wasn't slashdotted, so I got a chance to read said article.
The reviewer made it very accessible and interesting to non-geeks, which is good. I've been evangelizing this show for a long time (pun intended) but he put his finger on what makes it good.
Gainax works (Evangelion, FLCL, KareKano, Mahoromatic) may get pretty wacky sometimes, and certainly give way too much fan service, and Hedeaki Anno has a rather bipolar approach to direction, but their works are passionate. The premise in Evangelion was outlandish. But the premise in Gasaraki (along with the plot, character development, and "acting"), like so many other Sunrise shows of the same ilk (namely Argento Soma, Brain Powered, and Scryed), is ridiculous and forced.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Sheesh. A big long review like that, and somehow Rei and Shinji are the lead pair of characters while Asuka is relegated to no-name status. Perhaps the Asuka-haters might like that but it isn't an accurate depiction of the show. Rei, Asuka, and Misato were the triad of women in Shinji's life and dreams, and Shinji was definitely the main and central character.
(Side note - somebody do a Music Video for Evangelion to the tune of "Three Libras" by A Perfect Circle)
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
"Erste!"
That kicked ass. I already bought and sold this series, but I'm definitely buying End of Evangelion on DVD, just for the ass-kicking red Eva.
Isn't that also the one where Shijni masturbates on Asuka?
I dunno. Evangelion rocked until the last angel came... that didn't make any sense.
Yes, having checked it, you're right. I still stand by my other assertions, though.
Evangelion is certainly not the best anime series.
Evangelion sucks. Really.
At the beginning it was a great mecha-action show with excellent characterization.
Then they destroy everything. Viewers are made to
"hate" the characters they've gotten to know.
The characters don't develop, they regress.
A load of B.S. philosophy that was obviously intended to maliciously bash western religion was made the center point of the show. None of it makes much sense any way you put it.
Then, in typical Gainax fasion, they save money with low-budget crap (such as elevator rides and still frames), using "tricks" to make it seem "artistic."
And the only good thing about "End of Evangelion"
is that it is a nice thing to show before another movie. It is so crappy and depressing that it will always make the movie shown after seem 1000 times better.
If you want a GOOD "artistic" anime with philosophical themes, then I suggest Lain.
It is much better, lets you know what to expect at Episode 1, and actually makes much more sense.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Either I spoil the plot twist or I am uninformed. I chose not to reveal the truth because its largely useless in the context of my comment.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
is the perfect collection dubbed or subtitled? or can you choose between either?
what about the movies? i know that they arent part of the boxed set but are they even out yet?
I've never understood this anime thing. I mean, I like a good cartoon movie now and then (Warriors of the Wind, Akira, and other good manga) but the way I see some of you people act when it comes to anime is just plain scary. One of the reasons I don't go to cons any more is because I saw too many over weight people dressing up in Star Trek or Star Wars costumes... now you see some lard ass sporting a Sailor Moon or Apple Seed costume... and it's a man!!! Ahhh! My eyes!
And another thing... hentai. Is there not enough real pr0n on the net that some of your fellow anime freaks have to draw nikkid pictures of their favorite anime characters? Ahhh! My eyes!
In summary... if numerous folds of skin hang over your belt or your bras have to be tailor made by Goodyear then for Pete's sake don't go out of the house in an anime costume. And if you find youself drawing pictures of anime characters being chopped to bits while having alien tentacles stuffed in every orafice then please seek professional help.
Have a day.
The BEST....PERIOD
Mod Me UP
NO SIG
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaa.
Did you know: The creator of the original Manga was involved, heavily, with the creation of the Anime. There were supposed to be two more episodes to close out the series, however the creator went Terminaly Insane. Yes, terminaly. He is crazy enough that he will eventually die from it. Explains a lot, eh?
A good introduction to Mishima is "The Sound of Waves"-- it's not very Mishima-ish, relatively speaking. (anybody feel free to correct) It's one of the few novels that Mishima wrote where the relationships are not "perverted" in one way or another, and I suppose that (along with the "boy-gets-girl" ending) makes it more accessable to Western readers.
Also, the film "Mishima" also makes for interesting viewing purely in terms of following his life, but perhaps reading the Sea of Firtility novels would be a better method of understanding the man himself.
Just to pick nits, Mishima was in fact bisexual- -, yes, he was gay, but he married and had children, who, as some may recall, strongly objected to the gay bar scene in the autobiographical film "Mishima".
-Frobozz
Brought to you by the friendly folks at FrobozzCo....
What most anime fans complain about is the accuracy of the subtitles nowadays and whether or not the subtitles were taken from the original Japanese script or the dub English script. AFAIK, Eva's subtitles are fairly accurate and are based on the original Japanese dialogue. I don't know enough Japanese to verify what is said, but I think there would have been more complaining if it was a "dubtitle" script.
In more recent anime DVD releases (not Eva but recent releases from Bandai, Pioneer, and Right Stuf amongst others), even signs and other characters (you know those random "Boom!", "Zoom!", "Bang!"-type words that express actions/feelings) are only translated via a removable subtitle track, so there is even less touching of the video. There are usually 2 subtitle tracks. One that just has the signs for the dub viewers, and another that has both the signs and the translated Japanese dialogue.
I really like DVDs more than past VHS and laserdisc releases just because not only do you get better video and audio, it's a format that allows subtitles and dubs to coexist eliminating tension amongst dub versus sub buyers. It really is helpful to foreign film buyers as well. I hope any future format will keep if not build upon DVD's features in this area.
I have the entire series in VHS in japanese, english subtitles for a long time, and want to have them in spanish, or, if it isnt possible, with spanish subtitles.
Wonder how many people have the same request for other languages.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.