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10 Years of Neon Genesis Evangelion
smooth wombat writes "Mainichi Daily News has a lengthy, multi-part article on the history of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The article looks back at the 10 years since Evangelion appeared and how it changed the world of manga." From the article: "In a series of 26 episodes, Evangelion told the story of a 14-year-old boy called Shinji Ikari, who piloted a biomechanical combat robot called an Evangelion, which fought against mysterious extraterrestrial monsters known as Angels. But Shinji was also a regular junior high school pupil, and his school life featured strongly in the anime's plot too. As did psychotherapy and the Old Testament, which director Hideaki Anno attributed as influences while creating the series. Evangelion become a huge hit across Japan, attracting fans across generations, sparking a massive public debate over its controversial final episode -- which many criticized for leaving the work unfinished -- and sparking unprecedented merchandising sales that set the scene for the current manga market."
I couldn't believe they had spent the ~$30 per 4 episodes to collect this set!
If you don't care about spoilers or have seen all the episodes and movies, check out the Wiki page on it. That has the best definitive analysis of this series that I've ever read. I know that since I am not a native Japanese speaker, I probably missed a lot of this implied meaning just by being preoccupied with reading the subbed script. I honestly always predicted something very Freudian about every relationship in the series but I think it was just because of the father figure and strange emotions that were sometimes appearant.
There's not much I can say without ruining any plot so I believe I'll hold my tongue.
Yes the episodes were good but I don't agree with: That's both ridiculous and preposterous! The episode completely wrapped up and
My work here is dung.
Considering she's 99% cyborg, how is GITS any different than other inside-a-robot animes? It's one of the underlying themes of the series.
Just like evangelion just uses the powerful imagery of mecha as a vehicle of introspection into human psychology.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Other way round. Death and Rebirth was a clip-show of the series, followed by the first half of End of Evangelion (Air). EoE was the full alternate ending, consisting of some awesome battles followed by a brainfuck.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
"Considering she's 99% cyborg, how is GITS any different than other inside-a-robot animes?"
Well... She can't just pop out of her body like a pilot. If she is a Robo-mecha that pretty much anyone else is.
And gits follows a different plot line. 99.9% she is in her own body unless you count her being in cyberspace not.
In a Giant-robo movie. Most of the time the lead character does his thing outside the robot... The conversation... The drama... And then all of a sudden a big baddy arrives in the city to wreck havok and they lead character jumps in his big robot and fights the thing off and then you have the ending scene with the character usually leaving the robot.
In GITS (especially Stand Alone Complex I and II)... You are treated to very dynamic and well thought out plots. Yes there are guys in mechanized suits and the spider robots (tachikoma's) but these are done realistically and not key feature of the plot. Tachikoma's are often thought of as comic humor relief, but during many episodes these robots are contemplating deeper issues like "The Meaning of Life" and what happens to you after you die while the lead characters often kept a more serious down to earth attitudes.
Most of the plots are semi-realistic or believable enough but still "out there" enough to be considered sci-fi. That and the technobabble is kept to a minimum.
Overall I do have some minor complaints about the second series plot direction (but it maybe because the viewer is supposed to be frustrated with the current events), but it is far better than most average Giant-Robot anime.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Yes, but haven't you seen a bunch of this before, too?
I liked the giant robot teens in Voltron.
It wasn't particularly well-drawn or anything, but it was different. And there were a lot of shows like that.
Now, though, anime kids with giant robots has become a genre. And the differences are smaller even than the differences between sitcoms! Dexter's lab actually spent a whole episode making fun of it. At this point, that's what it's good for.
Right now, I see three genres of anime that are on TV:
1) actual new stories
2) giant robots - same old shows, but now designed to get kids to buy giant robot action figures to play with.
3) cards/animals/toys that help people fight or fight themselves. Designed to get kids to buy cards/animals/toys because those things make the kid better at the things the characters on the show do, and therefore better people.
I can't stomach the last kind at all. The second kind is just annoying. The only ones I even consider are the first kind.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
OK, here goes:
The Three-Minute Summary of NGE
NGE is the story of a program initiated by a secret council of powerful old men in order to make themselves immortal. The program uses genetic material from "aliens" (who are actually not aliens, but rather the original inhabitants of Earth, related to humans but not the same species) to create living "robots" that can only be operated by children who have been traumatically separated from their mothers - the bodily fluids of the mothers are used to provide an interface to the "robots". The original plan was to have the old men take over an immortal fusion of human and "robot", but this was hijacked by the lead scientist on the project who was aiming to be reunited with his dead wife (the mother of one of the child pilots). This also goes awry, and the result is that all of humanity undergoes an involuntary fusion with everybody else, but this is interrupted by the rejection of this union by the child pilot who acts as the medium for the unification, when he realises it will mean those closest to him being able to know his most secret thoughts. The ending is ambiguous as to how the whole mess works out.
If you want a series similar to Evagelion, I suggest checking out RahXephon. In my opinion it's vastly superior to Neon Genesis in almost every way. Better artwork, better story (and more understandable), less annoying characters and some decent humor. Oh, and giant frickin' robots. Where would anime be without giant robots? RahXephon also has a lot of symbolism and mystery, and a lot of things that really set it apart from NGE. I shouldn't give anything away. I'm only on episode 20 myself...
Electric Monkey Pants