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.

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The real message

[The Cat]

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.

Re:It's a remarkable sucess

[GospelHead821]

I wasn't particularly bothered by the Christian themes presented in Evangelion. I considered it as an alegory of the Garden of Eden.

And the Lord said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. KJV Gen 3: 22-24

I always supposed that tampering with Adam was part of humanity's effort to acchieve instrumentality, which I understood to be an immortal group mind. The Angels, of which Adam was only one, were the Cherubims, set to protect the garden of Eden, "lest he [mankind] put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"

The only objectionable theme I found was that humanity defeated the angels. However, the symbolism of this is not clear. I have considered three interpretations and cannot decide which, if any, is correct.
1. Man is more powerful than the servants of God. It is his destiny to suceed at achieving eternal life by his own power.
2. God, having been created by man, may also be destroyed by man. Thus, his servants are ineffectual.
3. Man thinks that he is greater than God, an so names his enemies 'angels' so that he can affirm his own superiority. He is deluded and ireverent.

The first two, obviously, are critical of Christianity, the third is critical of man. Which of these, if any, was intended, I don't know.

Re:It's a remarkable sucess

[Uller-RM]

There were two possible results of the Human Complementation Project. Both would result in the annihilation of mankind as it's known today - one would simply be the complete destruction, the other would join and merge all souls into a single uniform being, continuing life with a single soul. The former would happen if an Angel came into contact with Adam, the first angel, the latter through a a ritual involving Rei. (There's actually a third option, also, below.)

The series portrayed NERV (the organization behind the Evas) as a puppet for a council of planners called SEELE - a group of old men who had a hand in the original discovery of Adam, attempting to save their own skins. According to the script, they used technology pioneered by Dr. Katsuragi (Misato's father) to force Adam to revert in time to an embryonic form, allowing them to restrain him - however, the energy produced triggered the melting of the ice caps. (No debates about embryos and life please, that's another topic for another time.)

Thus, the Evas were created to prevent the Angels (sent by God) from coming into contact with Adam before they could complete the ritual and trigger the "good" type of complementation. In the first episode containing Asuka, Kaji is carrying around a cryogenic container holding Adam - it stays with Gendo Ikari after that.

As for the ending... in the original series ending, the "good" ending is assumed to occur, and the final two episodes trace what happens to Shinji as he merges with the souls of his cloest friends. (The ritual that triggers this is left undisclosed.) I thought it was a great ending - however, it left a lot of questions unanswered, and many fans complained. So, Gainax dragged Anno back, and released the movie End of Evangelion, which presents a different ending. In EoE, the ritual and creation of the group being is very explicitly shown, along with the freeing of all souls on earth - however, at the last minute, Shinji (inside EVA-01) rejects the new life form, and it all falls apart. The movie doesn't say what happens to the souls of humanity explicitly - they're shown coasting back to earth, and most people figure their bodies will reform.

(The whole idea of the ending was that the so-called AT field was the intangible, inpenetrable barrier of the soul, keeping us in human shape; if our AT fields were somehow countered, the human body would break apart into base elements - which Eva calls LCL - and the soul float free.)

Personally, I don't see a need to interpret it in terms of my religious beliefs, just because it has symbols and imagery from it. I just enjoy the series for what it is, and for the philosophical issues it presents :)

Just another Prisoner reference :)

[Roland Walter Dutton]

The Prisoner 's influence on Eva goes beyond the deliberate references (such as Magi error code 601, "cannot be computed"). ITV's telephone lines were jammed solid after "Fall Out" (The Prisoner's final episode) was shown, and Patrick McGoohan was being assaulted in the street in the following days. I could continue expanding on the similarities between the ending of Eva TV and the Prisoner's confusing, chaotic, magnificent final episodes, but suffice it to say that there were plenty of people who had expected "a more finite and clear ending to the story".

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. :) )