So I finished Evangelion

[Moniko]

I finished Evangelion and my opinion of it is still low. Very... very low.
I shouldn't have to read for 2 hours in order to have the entire story make sense. A good anime knows how to tie up all questions and concerning plotlines and generally does it without stacking movies onto the end.


The writers were bigger trolls than you think I am while you're reading this. All of these biblical references to Adam and Lilith, just what exactly the Spear of Longinus was, the White and Black Moons (not mentioned by their names in the original 26 episodes that I watched, but still known to me), the parallel races, etc. all took extensive outside reading to be explained.
You really can't have a character mutter about "the lilum" over and over, and how he suddenly understands what he came to "Adam" for (another bone to pick which I'll get to now), and then kill him off without explanation.


It brings me to my next point which is another example of not explaining a very central concept. Misato and Kaji mistake the angel kept in the GeoFront, Lilith, as being Adam, and THEY NEVER FUCKING SET IT STRAIGHT DURING THE ORIGINAL 26 EPISODES. This causes enormous confusion when Gendo has Adam's fetal form retrieved from the Dead Sea. It made me think that that same fetus had simply generated into the crucified figure, but as it turned out, the figure was Lilith and had been there from the start, and Adam (as I read) had been implanted into Gendo's right palm. Ridiculous. You can't expect someone to gather all of that from the series. Had the existence of a progenitor of humans under the name Lilith been mentioned at least once, I might have been able to make the connection.


The enormous accounts of missing information is the first of the three problems I have with the series.


The second is the fact that it's a mecha. Mecha's are childish. No matter how much blood or emotion you put into it, the idea that you have to scale shit up to the size of skyscrapers to achieve a sense of power in the weapons means that you (directing this at the writers of the series of course) aren't challenging yourself enough to create the beautiful symphony of balance in all of the elements of the show which can evoke emotion while maintaining a tasteful equilibrium of the extremes. That means no ridiculous sized creatures, no fucking ridiculous swords (Bleach), no ridiculous sized energy fields (Naruto), etc. But that's my opinion. I'm a meca-hater to the grave. When you enlarge things like that, you can't create those feelings of a really destructive weapon or depict the loss of thousands of people by the use of such a weapon because every damn thing is already like that, and you become numb to what is actually happening. It rapes the point of view, skews the vantage and ruins the opportunity to really impress.


The third problem I have with the show is how their character development was utter shit. I was BEGGING for them to kill off a character. And correct me if I'm wrong, but they never had the balls to. Even when I finally thought it happened with Rei several times and especially with Toji being crushed by Unit 01 under the dummy plug, all of them completely unexpectedly managed to UNDER SUCH INCREDIBLE 0.0000000000-fucking-1% ODDS EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN TIME SURVIVED. EVERY FUCKING TIME IT WAS "OH NO THERE'S NO WAY, THE ODDS OF US SUCCEEDING/THEIR ODDS OF SURVIVAL ARE 0.0000001%" oh but that's okay because it worked out.
As you know, the odds of two events happening in succession are the odds of each event multiplied by each other...
0.000001 or thereabout was mentioned one time.
Lets take two of those.
0.000000000001
(one trillionth if I'm correct)
The odds throughout this series are just fucking ridiculous

tl;dr I hate mechas, this series sucked at explaining things in it's given time, and THE FUCKING ODDS JESUS CHRIST.

Oh and 25 and 26 sucked balls and were 40 minute of wasted time because of the way they were presented, but I understand that the company reached their budget and had to do it that way. That's the only reason that the movies existence is somewhat excused in my mind. I was looking forward to 40 minutes of the earth ending, but now I gotta watch shittons more to see that. Movies, here I come. I better see some death.

Edit: and I suppose that my rant on the odds was a fourth problem that I had.

/rant

[TEAM_DERRICK]

lol trolled

[TEAM_DERRICK]

Also, mechas don't exist to exaggerate powers. They exist because they're coooooool.

You know how dinosaurs are awesome? Don't you wish we had machines like that? Don't you wish those machines were given weaponry that couldn't exist in real life to make them even better?

Now don't you wish that after 30 years of mecha anime someone comes around to create a show that's the polar opposite of everything that came before it?

[Moniko]

Yes on the positive side, the entire idea of this universe from the seeding of life, the first two angels, all the way to the end where the human goal is to smash all people and angels together to form a perfect being was absolutely AWESOME. Once I finished reading and understood everything I was like DEAR GOD THAT'D BE COOL, and I give it that, for a mecha, it was a very exceptional show, but the fact remains that I do still hate mechas. I'm a discriminative human, what can I say.
The storyline was fucking cool. I just have beef with the execution of it. I'll of course be watching the movies because I want to actually see everyone get melded into one. Although the (original) episodes 25 and 26 at the end hinted that Shinji was rejecting melding into one giant being, so I want to know what actually happened there.

[Mizagium]

The number one thing I have to say is: Lilith was mentioned. In fact, Kaworu was the one who identified her as such. He comes down into Terminal Dogma thinking he'll find Adam, but since he is the vessel for Adam's soul, he know Lilith is Lilith. He even says it out loud. Something along the lines of "Lilith...Lilim...I see now."

Honestly, knowledge of the White and Black Moons are really necessary to understand the show. They were only brought up in the N64 video game of the series/EoE so their overall relevance/important to the show is debatable. The Lance of Longinus was something I wish had been explained in the series, though.

For whatever reasons, the scene depicting Adam graphed onto Gendo's hand was cut from the episode it was supposed to air in, so...yeah. They dropped a huge ball on that one. But it shows up in Death and Rebirth, so if you regard the movies in a separate canon than the show, it alleviates some of rage, but not a whole lot. I know I might sound like I'm thinking of ways to defend the show, but really I consider the show movies separately.

And you are absolutely correct in saying that there was no character development. Nobody changed - some got worse. I honestly cannot say I liked Shinji throughout the series. He never shuts up about whining and he doesn't get better. Asuka is a bitch the entire series and I wanted to punch her in the mouth every time she spoke.

Technically Rei died...and so did Kaji.

Also, this paragraph: "The second is the fact that it's a mecha. Mecha's are childish. No matter how much blood or emotion you put into it, the idea that you have to scale shit up to the size of skyscrapers to achieve a sense of power in the weapons means that you (directing this at the writers of the series of course) aren't challenging yourself enough to create the beautiful symphony of balance in all of the elements of the show which can evoke emotion while maintaining a tasteful equilibrium of the extremes. That means no ridiculous sized creatures, no fucking ridiculous swords (Bleach), no ridiculous sized energy fields (Naruto), etc. But that's my opinion. I'm a meca-hater to the grave. When you enlarge things like that, you can't create those feelings of a really destructive weapon or depict the loss of thousands of people by the use of such a weapon because every damn thing is already like that, and you become numb to what is actually happening. It rapes the point of view, skews the vantage and ruins the opportunity to really impress."

Do you have any fun at all? The point of mecah is to see giant robots beating the shit out of each other. I enjoy a good plot and character development myself, but I can at least turn off my critical mind for long enough to smile at robots the size of galaxies throwing galaxies at each other. And swords are cool. Robots are cool. Size is directly proportional to cool factor. Just look at Dragon Ball Z. Big hair = big power. Big energy blast = cool. But I bet you don't like that either, huh?

You're forgetting something about the show, Ian: remember how whenever an Angel showed up, NOTHING EVER WORKED THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO? Every time that they tried to eject the Entry Plugs it never worked. "ITS NOT RESPONDING" is like the mantra of the entire show.

I didn't like the last two episodes either. After watching the show faithfully, putting up with all of the non-answered questions, and allowing KAWORU FUCKING NAGISA to walk in and DIE without questioning it, I was...pissed. For a good week I couldn't bring myself to watch End of Evangelion. But it was worth it.

I guess I just don't get your hatred of mecha anime. I really don't. I can understand why you might not like it - the reason being that you just don't like it. (Hell, I don't like sports really, but not for any real reason, it's just not my thing) - but I can accept when someone says "Nah, mecha is just not my thing." that's fine. Whatever. But when you go into that much detail about exactly why you don't like it...I just... I comes off as being really fucking snooty. Like I image you look on down on people who do like mecha and publicly berate them for it. You probably don't - I know you, you're cool - but when you rip something apart like that it just comes off as really pretentious, and I don 't like pretentious.

Remind me never to discuss mecha around you, that's all.

[Xelwes]

MISATO DIES DAMMIT

[Mizagium]

not in the series canon. Only Kaji, Rei II, and Kaworu died in series canon.

[Moniko]

Yes my opinion on mecha came off stronger than I intended... sorry about that. But it's definitely just an opinion, not a judgement on people. I don't like mechas because in my mind they're childish because... well the rest of that was already said so I'd just be repeating myself and that's not the point of what I'm trying to say. Anyways, I don't at all think that the people who enjoy mechas are childish, just the idea of a mecha itself. I don't think down on people who do enjoy it any more than I would look down on someone that prefers vanilla ice cream over chocolate, but I don't like it myself. Like you said, I just don't like it. The childishness explanation is likely a justification that only really formed as I was challenged as to why I didn't like it.
At least I know I'm not insane as far as character development goes. I wanted to kick shinji in the balls if he had any and kick asuka in the balls because she obviously had some.

When it comes to mechas, they automatically start in my mind with negative rating and depending on how kick ass the fight sequences are, they can easily get better. My opinion of the show wasn't as low as I implied, but my post was a 4am ragepost so...
But yeah, if they could have thrown in some more berserk sequences... those... oh god those were the gem of the series. Seeing the eva go from being a giant robot (the element which I hate) to a terrifying monster was where it was at. It hunches over, runs suddenly and with fluidity and tears the shit apart. It actually becomes a being of itself instead of a giant suit. It's especially nice when it starts chewing the shit out of an angel.
Its roars were weak though. When it opens it mouth and roars, I wanted to hear a powerful, deafening battle scream, but what I got was something that might have been a roar drowning inside ridiculous amounts of background noise, completely nullifying the effect.

I'm sure the movies have more of what I want though. I'll be getting to those during christmas break.

[Moniko]

God that post is a mess, sorry. Didn't really proofread it.

[Mizagium]

About the movies: EoE is just that. And end to the series.

Rebuild, however, is...shit I don't even know how to explain it. Shinji seems to get better, Asuka appears to lighten up. And those berserk sequences you want? Wait until the end of Rebuild 2.0

But seriously; it goes berserk in episode 1, and then...never again until Leliel SORT OF and then not until it EATS FUCKING ZERUEL. AND THEN NEVER TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN.

I love the show, but I'm not afraid to point out things that they could have done so much better. That's partly the reason why I'm writing Neon Psychosis Evangelion. And also why everybody else writes Evafics.

ALSO: Something I didn't mention before berserk modes aside, the Evangelions were really to point how just how ridiculous and impractical giant fighting robots were. Which I enjoyed. I liked how it was connected to a cable the whole time because, seriously, how much power WOULD something that big need? A whole fucking lot, that's how much.

[TEAM_DERRICK]

For the record, character development is a fictional phenomenon. People change over the course of years. Keep this in mind.

Shinji is meant to represent your average kid. Well, maybe your average kid with parental issues. The reason why most people don't like him is due to one simple fact. If placed in his position, you'd do the exact same thing. People watch TV as a form of escapism. You want the main character to say all the right things and do get the girl in the end, because in reality, life is just a cobbled mess of spur of the moment decisions. Sometimes you'll do the right thing, sometimes not, more often you end up hitting some sort of vague middle ground that keeps you up all night wishing that you'd done something different. Shinji is a bitch because he's realistic. Sticking a fucked up kid in a fucked up situation only makes things worse and by the end he's completely lost everything he once held dear. He'll even his sanity just says, "I'm outta here. later!" towards the end.

The point is, the show was meant to brutally deconstruct the mecha genre by destroying the typical mecha protagonist. And it succeeded beautifully.

TL;DR
You hate Shinji because you're Shinji. And there isn't a single person on Earth who could qualify to be your usual fictional protagonist due to basic human flaws.

[Mizagium]

Real life development happens over years. Most times though, stories - movies, comics, video games - are considered flawed if the main character does not experience some kind of development. Because the aforementioned media are not real life, they are fiction. Fiction is meant to tell a story. Neon Genesis Evangelion told a story.

I hated Shinji. I hated Asuka. The two of them together nearly ruined the show for me because the show is very character centric - which was sort of the point of the last two episodes, but that's beside the point. The fact that neither overcame their insecurities nearly made me hate the show. Knowing that their mental instability was the point of the series only barely saved it. The bottom line is, the series ending was unsatisfactory and there is nothing you can say to change that. End of Evangelion was a batter ending IMO because Shinji had more growth in that hour and a half than he did in 26 episodes. Sorry, but that's how I feel. Not knocking the show; I love the mental instability of everyone - I just wish they actually, you know, developed.

[TEAM_DERRICK]

Shinji developed in EoE? He's clearly very disturbed at the end.

[Mizagium]

Well, I count going from nihilistic to accepting of pain as the price of individuality as development.

My point is, yes, character development is a fictional phenomenon - at least on the short timescale - but this is fiction. And in something like this...the lack of development amounts to nothing was accomplished. Which can be cool, but after 26 episodes...I was expecting more. An ending.

[TEAM_DERRICK]

Cosmic Horror Story. That is all.

[penis]

show sucks

[TEAM_DERRICK]

1/10

[Calefrun]

I honestly don't see what's childish about mecha. Now, it's impractical, yes. But the entire point is to be awesome, not practical.

I actually didn't really mind Shinji and Asuka as much as most people seem to, actually. Shinji's whining annoyed me at times, but I actually like having a protagonist who can be somewhat related to, the protagonists who always get everything right are the ones that bother me. And Asuka... well, some thing about loud, easily angered women doesn't bother me... though I will admit she could have been less of a bitch.

And did I rage so hard last time I left this site that I deleted my account, or did somebody else do that?