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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?
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?
If you read the article, its a Japanese Anime that about giant robots that defend earth... Its much much deeper then that with many allusions to the Bible. The character development is supurb, in fact it seems as if the whole series is about these 'tragic' heros, who no matter what, can never seem to win. I dont want to spoil it for you, for it is an excellent series, well worth the time and money. also the end of evangelion movie can get pretty confusing and has elements of frued and odepius.. absolutly amazing it is
Sun is Warm, Grass is Green
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
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?
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.
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?
Dude. If you dont like anime, turn it off in the preferences panel
.
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 14 year old boy and his friends, and their ability to control gigantic robots.
Did you finish the series? If so, then you should know that they are not 'gigantic robots'. BTW, I have never heard anyone referring Asuka and Rei as Shinji's 'friends'.
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.
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.
Actually, I really liked the change in Rei's voice. That voice is much closer to the rest of Megumi Hayashibara's roles. If you've heard her as Ranma Saotome, Faye Valentine, etc. it's as though she's flashing a "Hi! This really is me." Amazing.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Intellectual?? Come now...it's still a cartoon that has big robots fighting each other :P Not to diss it, I really enjoyed it, but saying it's intellectual etc, is just kinda stupid.
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.
They do it in FLCL, too, but at least it's in small doses and not the last hour of the series. They also make fun of themselves for doing it ("Can we get back to regular anime?")
- 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?"
Just because it isn't weighed down by the personality quirks of real actors doesn't make the story any less compelling
No it doesn't, but you could also say "just because real people movies aren't weighed down by the personality quirks of artists doesn't make the story .... etc." Besides, I even said I really enjoyed Eva...my point wasn't to insult anime as a form.
Yeah, not nearly as intellectual as red pills and blue pills.
I wouldn't call the Matrix particularly intellectual either...most of TV and hollywood isn't about intellect it's about action and entertainment. Again, I'm _not_ saying this as a bad thing, just that calling a show that much of the plot revolves around giant 'robots' fighting angels intellectual isn't exactly right :P
>>> 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.
> However, they all meet the requirement for not
> being eligable for a sampler CD/DVD, and that is
> they are licensed over here.
Nadesico and LH are licenced over here, BTW, as are ROD and some, but not all, of the Lupin movies, although Lupin TV's still unlicenced. And Noir... well... ADV has Noir, but they're still not admitting it, so... well... =P
Intellectual?? Come now...it's still a cartoon that has big robots fighting each other :P Not to diss it, I really enjoyed it, but saying it's intellectual etc, is just kinda stupid.
Ummm...If big robots fighting each other is all you got out of Eva, you really weren't paying attention. While it's not the most intellectual thing I've ever experience, its certainly a few IQ points above american telvision.
Why?
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.
-------------------------
It is the monkied monkey that monkies with another monkey's monkey. Monkey.
Eva could never go main stream, with the exception of Encore Action Network. Encore is the only national network that shows uncut anime. And they don't even show it all that often, plus no one really watches the network much. (If you live on the west coast there are some cool PBS stations, and if you can speak japanese you could get TV Japan on Dish Network)
Eva deals directly with religious symbolism. Even mild religious references are a no-no for Cartoon Network. Screening rights would not be cheap, Anyone big enough to afford it wouldn't want to play it.
Besides ADV is more than happy to sell yet another set to people.
Yes and no.
The child pilots (Shinji, Asuka, Toji, etc) were children who had been born after the Hall of Souls had become emptied. Ritsuko references this in the room-o-clones scene after Kaji's death: it's a bit of early Christian myth about a room of souls for those that have not yet been born. This was also given as the explanation - if anyone else tried to pilot an Eva, two souls in one body would somehow conflict.
As for Rei, she's not entirely human, for reasons explained explicitly in the plot.
You might be thinking of the ability to create an AT field. Kaoru claimed that all humans had one, and that rare people could extend it outside their own bodies - Rei can, but Shinji and Asuka are fairly normal.
ok, so there were a HUGE number of biblical and kaballic references (lillith, angels, spear of longinus, crosses, various other symbols throughout, the 3 magi, and plenty of others I'm forgetting) ... great ... That doesn't make it intellectual. Great it told a story in a s.f. setting, again, great, that neither makes it intellectual OR unique. (Disclaimer: as I've said for the third time now, I *LIKED* Eva, I'm not trying to dis it)
On a side note, I HATE it when people make comparisons of anime -> american tv. "Anime is this, american is this" etc. That's foolish. Anime is not any one thing, neither is american tv. Some anime like Cowboy bebop isn't very "animeish" (ie, what one typically things of as anime artistic style (big eyes, flashing fight backgrounds, etc etc)). Some anime is giant robotcs, some is rpgish, some is comedy, some is drama, some is romance, some is porn...ok, there's not ONE common thing other than that they are all animation, and all from japan. American TV is equally diverse. If you want an intellectual TV show, try Law & Order as one example. There are PLENTY of others (such as non-entertainment tv).
thanks
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!
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!
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.
Toasty Frog thumbnail theatre
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.
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.
it's still a cartoon that has big robots fighting each other :P
Big robots? Maybe you should watch it again, there are no robots in the show.
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.
I thought the point of Taoism was to achive physical immortality through some kind of elixer.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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
Hooray for mainstream credibility!
Darn! It went mainstream! Now I'm gonna have to search for something non-trendy again..
Alrighty, troll, I'll spell it out. Calling the tools (DVD) evil, as opposed to the wielders (MPAA) is very much like calling the tools (Linux) evil, as opposed to the wielders (crackers and scriptkiddies.)
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
Yup. It's just enough to get you in the groove, thinking 'Yeah, Giant Robots! I know where this is going. No problem.' Then it says "Oh yeah?" and YOINK!
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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?
Intriguingly, SBS here in Australia screened NGE in its entirety, twice, back in 1998. It was the dubbed version though.
Still, you'll find here in Australia that a lot more people know what NGE is than in many other parts of the world. Mind you, SBS is clearly our best TV station, showing everything from South Park to freaky cult movies presented by the legendary Des Mangan. And that's just on the one night.
Unfortunately they passed on screening Serial Experiments Lain...
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
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
[spoiler]
Ok, so they are angels, or cloned angels which wear armor and seem to have very many electrical components (the pods, human-angel interface, etc.) Not to mention they run on batteries (again, it's not totally clear, but batteries seem necessary). So no, they're not robots in the PUREST sense, but I think the definition fits. Besides, I didn't want it to be a spoiler.
The angels were the messengers of god, as well as his personal hit squad. The diciples were the students of Christ. Big difference; Christ says 'turn the other cheek' and 'love thy neighbour.' God says 'Turn around' and 'his neighbours aren't going to like this.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.