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Evangelion is popular because it basically invented two very popular female character archetypes with Rei and Asuka. Also cool robots.
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Feb 18, 2022 07:09
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It is effectively the anime version of The Catcher in the Rye, a work that speaks to you in vastly different ways purely dependent on what time in your life you experience it for the first time, which for many people was in their teenage years, and it leaves and profound and indelible impression on you whether you enjoyed it or not. When you watch the series as a teenager you find yourself empathizing with Shinji, Asuka, and Rei. When you watch it as an adult, you find yourself empathizing with Misato, Ritsuko, and Kaji. Also there's a bunch of awesome giant robot, body horror, and transgressive religious poo poo that's cool as gently caress.
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Feb 18, 2022 07:36
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BTW, I received my replacement Disc from GKids for the Eva collection. It's unremarkable. But the delivery only took about a month so pretty speedy all things considered.
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Feb 18, 2022 15:29
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I agree age changes your perspective on evangelion, but big lol at sympathizing more with Misato when watching it as an adult. I watched it for the first time when I was 16 and for the second time when I was 30. In highschool I thought Misato was a cool fun character. As aj adult I found her to be an irresponsible, abusive piece of poo poo. I was surprised just how harshly my read of her turned, but it shire did.
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Feb 18, 2022 17:13
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Cephas posted:which isn't to say that it's an irrational, nonsensical show. it's just that certain types of questions require certain types of answers. A cut and dry response can reduce something vast into something banal. The question "why must I continue to hurt others and be hurt myself in order to have meaning in my life?" is almost impossible to get to the heart of in a straightforward manner. To reach the heart of the matter, sometimes you have to express things in the only language that seems suitable. and in the case of evangelion that language is a mixture of brutal machinery, alien religious iconography, and freudian sexual tension. I think this is a great point. When developing a narrative and writing characters, there's a difficult balance to be struck in how much you explain. If you explain everything, it stops being interesting - there's no room for your imagination to wander, there is no feeling of mystery. If you explain too little, it becomes confusing and frustrating as the reader/viewer cannot follow the narrative or understand the characters. I think NGE strikes the perfect balance, at least for my tastes. And to your point, the show tackles some questions that are nigh unanswerable, and it contemplates the questions without forcing concise, cut-and-dry answers that would be unsatisfying. Instead, it presents various characters who grapple with those questions and their possible answers, and tries to communicate the emotions those characters feel. I think that emotional depth and complexity is why it's stuck with me, not any one element like the lore or character designs or iconography. Those elements are all key tools in how it accomplishes that, but I think it's the emotional range that the show manages to cover using those tools that gives it staying power.
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Feb 18, 2022 17:54
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FilthyImp posted:BTW, I received my replacement Disc from GKids for the Eva collection. Shout Factory is also shipping very quickly.
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Feb 18, 2022 20:44
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Cephas posted:which isn't to say that it's an irrational, nonsensical show. it's just that certain types of questions require certain types of answers. A cut and dry response can reduce something vast into something banal. The question "why must I continue to hurt others and be hurt myself in order to have meaning in my life?" is almost impossible to get to the heart of in a straightforward manner. To reach the heart of the matter, sometimes you have to express things in the only language that seems suitable. and in the case of evangelion that language is a mixture of brutal machinery, alien religious iconography, and freudian sexual tension. Honestly, I think this ties into an honest failing with Eva, which is under the obscurity many of the questions it raises do have clear answers. Like, "why must I hurt and be hurt to have meaning in life" is vast and complicated in the general case, but in the specific situation Shinji finds himself in the show the answer is "because the people you're dependent on view you as a tool." It's the same "adults are the enemy" message that Gundam expressed in plain language a decade ago, and the fact here it comes across as irrational and nonsensical (or deep and mysterious, or whatever) is a problem.
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Feb 18, 2022 22:34
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Schwarzwald posted:Honestly, I think this ties into an honest failing with Eva, which is under the obscurity many of the questions it raises do have clear answers. Wittgen posted:I agree age changes your perspective on evangelion, but big lol at sympathizing more with Misato when watching it as an adult. Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 22:58
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im of the mind that "why doesnt he just get into the robot?" is an honest, valid criticism of the show, but the reasons why that question is pertinent are a lot deeper than many people consider. mecha anime and magical girl shows have a fair amount of subtext in common, most importantly that both are genres about otherwise normal or average people given special means that allow them to ascend into an idealized form. the promise is always clear: if you hang out with the talking cat, you can step into your power and protect the world from inter-dimensional witches. if you let the suspicious doctor with an eyepatch that yells about getter rays do experiments with you, you can do martial arts in his robot and get the Good Fights you've always been looking for. there's an exchange, a promise that if you do the thing (the pseudoscience or magic talking cats tend to be a shortcut analogue for having new friends, touching grass, and living your life), then there will be something better for you, some kind of self actualization through your new avatar. nge entirely rejects this premise. to be absolutely clear about my criticisms of the show, this is NOT INHERENTLY A FLAW. this rejection is why it is so commonly labelled as a deconstruction. the issue is in how it does so mechanically. shinji never steps into that power, even as he sees other people do it whether it is for himself or others. he refuses the symbol of self improvement. but the reasoning behind it never adds up, because its entirely in his head. he might be a tool, but only because he makes himself one. they need him. in the structure of the show, he is the randian superman. shinji can shrug at any moment, gently caress off to whatever he considers his galts gulch and doom humanity, his robot standing inert as an angel destroys everything. shinji from the very beginning has all the cards. misato doesnt press gang him, she rolls up and says your father needs to talk to you. its right there in the language! gendo needs shinji. again, i stress, this is all fine and not the issue with the show. the issue is that he never grows out of his initial cucked mindset until movie 4. what does paragraph 2 have to do with the first paragraph? the show fails to present shinji or even at times the viewer with the idea of the idealized notion of the robot as the actualization of the self. taking actions into his own hands and standing up for himself is thrown out as an option wholesale, both in the text and by the creator (which im not saying to accuse anno of being a hack, that was just also his depressed mindset at the time. it still negatively impacts the show as art however). shinji literally cannot conceive of the eva itself, of driving the eva, or even of reflecting on his experiences in the eva as helping himself or those around him.if you told early nge shinji that he was a tool, he would reply "how am i a tool if i cant be used to do anything" because his self opinion is less than dirt. shjinji experiences very, very mild growth by the end of the show/eoe, but it has nothing to do with the experiences he has piloting the eva. the action almost never literalizes an internal struggle or issue (which is part of the appeal of the mecha/magical girl genres. only notable example of the show actually doing this well: the dance fight episode) and it is clear that the act of having to drive the robot in the situations where he is forced or acquiesces never actually have any impact on him. he is repeatedly forced to become his best self, to at least go through the motions of self improvement, and it leaves no lingering impact on his outlook or opinions. he just reverts back to being a self absorbed sad sack. a protagonist having 0 momentum is not really that interesting! im not asking him to be guy shishio or domon or anything hot blooded, im just asking for this human being to be shaped and affected by the experiences we see him have slowly, and not very suddenly in the last 2 minutes of the last episode.
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Feb 18, 2022 23:28
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Schwarzwald posted:Honestly, I think this ties into an honest failing with Eva, which is under the obscurity many of the questions it raises do have clear answers. i know this goes a bit beyond "the artist is dead," but I watched an NHK documentary about Anno's process of working on Rebuild 4 and thought it was really interesting. He talked about how his father worked in forestry and lost a limb during a work accident, and how that opened a hole in his father's heart that made his father very detached and bitter. I agree that there's an importance in being able to decisively and soberly say, "some people are too toxic to keep in your life." A story whose messaging fails to convey that truly might have a severe narrative or thematic shortcoming. but i also think that there are some relationships that are so important, when a void opens up and cuts you off from what's supposed to be the proper flow of the relationship, you can't help but feel profound despair. I think the void that Shinji feels in his relationship with his absent mother and horrific father has some crucial differences between the way the Federation treats the newtype children of White Base. The Federation reduces children to a wartime cost-benefit analysis--"you're useful if you provide more utility than you cost." Amuro's relationship with the Federation is something like: "As far as the federation is concerned, I only exist to be a weapon. Mankind is heading in a new direction of deep understanding of one another, but the warring states only care about killing each other. If I live by their standards, I will become less and less human the more I kill." Gendou's relationship with Shinji is different from that. Shinji recognizes that a father is "supposed" to love his son. And Shinji even recognizes Gendou's love for Yui, and sees how he still seems to look for her in Rei. But Gendou cares about Shinji only as far as he can bring his dead wife back. So the relationship between them, while similarly exploitative and dehumanizing, is different. It's "My father is supposed to love me. I know he's capable of love. But he only loves my mother, not me. He only cares about me as far as I can get him closer to my dead mother. He would rather have me dead and have my mother alive. I seem to exist only to die and be replaced with someone more worthy of love." i think the profound despair of the second relationship dynamic requires a different type of expression. i think you can see how a "robot" as a motif plays into both stories, but the dynamic in eva is different from the dynamic in gundam. I think it's really interesting how in MSG, Amuro basically sends a zombified headless gundam off at the end of the show, and his heroic superpower is a telepathic bond with his comrades. He sees the gundam with clear eyes in that moment, as a tool rather than something that gives meaning in itself, and is willing to discard it easily. In Evangelion, it's so much harder for Shinji to shake the "get in the robot" impulse, because the robot literally stands in for his mother, and his primary struggle is "my father wants me to disappear into my mother." edit: in that same documentary, the interviewer asks Anno, "surely you take some pride in creating a story which has affected so many people?", to which Anno replies something along the lines of, "I can't take pride in that because I don't know if the effects it had on people were good effects. If they were good, then I could be proud." I think that really does speak to what you're talking about WRT Evangelion having a problem. I think that's probably also why Anno felt like he needed to make the Rebuild series. Cephas fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 23:43
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Paper Lion posted:the show fails to present shinji or even at times the viewer with the idea of the idealized notion of the robot as the actualization of the self. taking actions into his own hands and standing up for himself is thrown out as an option wholesale, both in the text and by the creator (which im not saying to accuse anno of being a hack, that was just also his depressed mindset at the time. it still negatively impacts the show as art however). shinji literally cannot conceive of the eva itself, of driving the eva, or even of reflecting on his experiences in the eva as helping himself or those around him.if you told early nge shinji that he was a tool, he would reply "how am i a tool if i cant be used to do anything" because his self opinion is less than dirt. shjinji experiences very, very mild growth by the end of the show/eoe, but it has nothing to do with the experiences he has piloting the eva. the action almost never literalizes an internal struggle or issue (which is part of the appeal of the mecha/magical girl genres. only notable example of the show actually doing this well: the dance fight episode) and it is clear that the act of having to drive the robot in the situations where he is forced or acquiesces never actually have any impact on him. he is repeatedly forced to become his best self, to at least go through the motions of self improvement, and it leaves no lingering impact on his outlook or opinions. he just reverts back to being a self absorbed sad sack. a protagonist having 0 momentum is not really that interesting! im not asking him to be guy shishio or domon or anything hot blooded, im just asking for this human being to be shaped and affected by the experiences we see him have slowly, and not very suddenly in the last 2 minutes of the last episode. Shinji is child soldier.
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Feb 19, 2022 00:05
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Schwarzwald posted:Shinji is child soldier. He is shaped by his experiences because he develops PTSD. yes, and the literal tends to get sidlined for the abstract (or the abstract literalized) especially in this genre. what matters is he is presented something that we as an audience casually understand to be self improvement (the robot is not always self improvement itself but can also be the action of improving ones self) and refuses it through circular logic. the reason why the rebuild movies are so much better is because that circular logic is missing. its an actual story about growth, not a story about stagnation with the ending being the protagonist realizing growth is even an option. original nge/eoe is just far less satisfying, not only in a crowd pleasing general way but also in a real pointed message (rebuild being "get out of your shell and bet on yourself, you can do it!!!" not only makes for a more engaging and dynamic story, but also provides multiple angles with which to look at it. not everyone deals with being a tool or the hedgehogs dillemma, but everyone deals with insecurity and picking up their lives. seeing ordinary people do so is part of the trio's big final development in 4!), and original nge/eoe runs the risk of being misinterpreted by sadbrains. Paper Lion fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 00:10
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Paper Lion posted:the show fails to present shinji or even at times the viewer with the idea of the idealized notion of the robot as the actualization of the self. taking actions into his own hands and standing up for himself is thrown out as an option wholesale, both in the text and by the creator (which im not saying to accuse anno of being a hack, that was just also his depressed mindset at the time. it still negatively impacts the show as art however). hm. why would it have to do that? Why should the robot represent the actualized self and not the alienated self? why does the rejection of action inherently make it worse art? Paper Lion posted:shinji literally cannot conceive of the eva itself, of driving the eva, or even of reflecting on his experiences in the eva as helping himself or those around him. if you told early nge shinji that he was a tool, he would reply "how am i a tool if i cant be used to do anything" because his self opinion is less than dirt. shjinji experiences very, very mild growth by the end of the show/eoe, but it has nothing to do with the experiences he has piloting the eva. the action almost never literalizes an internal struggle or issue (which is part of the appeal of the mecha/magical girl genres. only notable example of the show actually doing this well: the dance fight episode) and it is clear that the act of having to drive the robot in the situations where he is forced or acquiesces never actually have any impact on him. he is repeatedly forced to become his best self, to at least go through the motions of self improvement, and it leaves no lingering impact on his outlook or opinions. he just reverts back to being a self absorbed sad sack. a protagonist having 0 momentum is not really that interesting! im not asking him to be guy shishio or domon or anything hot blooded, im just asking for this human being to be shaped and affected by the experiences we see him have slowly, and not very suddenly in the last 2 minutes of the last episode. don't think I agree with the bolded in its premise. seems more like the thing evangelion rejects is the idea that the robot is any kind of self-improvement at all. not like anyone else achieves actual self-improvement via the Eva. the giant robot that turns the everyday pain of recognizing oneself as both subject and object into a literal weaponized field that pushes others away doesn't seems like a great way to grow. also just generally Shinji actually gets in the robot a lot. it's kind of a big thing that he does in fact shut up and get in the giant loving robot Valentin fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 01:24
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the point im making is that the show is very muddy about those things though. like i said, its not inherently a bad thing for the robot to not represent an idealized form or self improvement, its that it generally always does (and viewers at the time were certainly not primed for any other interpretation, consciously or subconsciously) so the initial impact of whether anno intends it that way, along with the show showing us that whether or not he wants to do it, it is objectively the correct thing to do (otherwise everyone dies, which is generally not the morally correct outcome!!!) just leaves a confusing mess. why SHOULD i empthasize with shinji, a person that isnt trying to do anything or have any real reason that outweighs getting in the robot? he also as you say does get in it, but he never chooses to, which to me is a big part of why he takes nothing from the experiences. its nothing but false dichotomies, which again are just not interesting no matter how sympathetic i am to anno who was at the time living with mental illness severe enough that his real actual life looked similarly to those false dichotomies.
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Feb 19, 2022 01:44
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https://twitter.com/MaxScoville/status/1103337830485352449
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Feb 19, 2022 01:48
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This is a lot of words when you could just say I would prefer it do something else. Though what you prefer seems extremely cheesy so trying to present it as real art is kind of funny
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Feb 19, 2022 01:49
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it's not the only option. there are infinite cloned reis, and asuka exists, and the rest of the children as well, and eventually the dummy plugs. shinji is very explicitly not the only option for defending tokyo-3, despite his unique link to unit-01, and he is told this in the very first episode. he chooses to enter the robot initially because he recognizes it as a uniquely painful burden and, unlike most other people in his life, is not desensitized to the pain of others (and rei's in particular, as nerv is desensitized), though his depression can make it hard for him to recognize that pain or know what to do with it. the fact that the robot usually represents self-actualization (frankly a read I'd take issue with in relation to giant robot shows generally. the robot pretty explicitly sucks for amuro and kamille, too) doesn't necessarily make Eva's use of it muddled. you should be primed for the robot being bad from the moment Rei is rolled in on a gurney to serve as its pilot. sitting in the cockpit requires voluntarily drowning yourself in lcl. the shows imagery and text is not very subtle on this one and it's not the text's fault if "wow cool robot" turned out to be an unusually strong tendency in the audience. Valentin fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 01:52
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Though I’m imagining Evangelion were Shinji punches an angel so hard it fixes his daddy issues
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Feb 19, 2022 01:55
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sorry I'm just. The evangelion's first actions in the show are to trip catastrophically badly and then to go berserk in a way that's pretty explicitly more feral and horrifying than the thing it's fighting. being in it knocks shinji unconscious and repeatedly injures rei, and obviously will eventually kill Rei II and Toji, and using it has massive collateral damage effects (Toji's sister). also fixating on the Eva as an expression of will and power is definitely part of what is loving with asuka's head so hard throughout the show. what part of that seemed like an ambiguous presentation?
Valentin fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 01:58
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also Shinji doesn't stagnate, he spends the whole show actively becoming less and less healthy and functional and stable. piloting the Eva and seeing what he does takes an unimaginable toll on him, just as it does on asuka, just as it does on rei, just as it does on toji. he repeatedly injures the people closest to him and is forced to kill the only person he's ever known to offer him unconditional love (which 3.0+1.0 nicely acknowledges has its own issues). it turns his relationship with his surrogate mother/big sister figure toxic and abusive from the jump. it grinds him down into nothing until he literally vanishes into nothingness for an extended period. not all trajectories are upwards!
Valentin fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 02:04
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CharlestheHammer posted:This is a lot of words when you could just say I would prefer it do something else. i didnt say anything about "real art" or denigrate what nge is, i just said i dont like its execution or how muddy it is. the thing i prefer is rebuild, and if you think rebuild is cheesy then thats your opinion too which is fine. and i also acknowledge that rebuild would not have the impact that it does without having to piggy back off the stinkfest of nge/eoe, so taking all of them together as a whole does mildly elevate my opinion of nge/eoe, though i still am not a fan. ive also posted my particular experience with the show before, and am well aware that i have a very particular and unique experience with the franchise that it is likely almost no one else does, and that this colours my negativity somewhat. people are very defensive in this subforum re: if the robot is even idealized/self actualized at all, it does give amuro and kamille the power they envision for themselves and the abilities to fulfill their dreams, but this does not inure them from political realities or the whims of those around them. amuro may start out wanting peace, but through years of child soldiering for the federation and the pain of war, hes basically a lovely cop by cca. kamille self destructs under his own power due to the influences of the previous generation. tomino is showing what happens to the potential of children when adults poison them, and part of that is cultivating ideals for children to grow into. amuro and kamille dont get to upgrade their gundams, others decide what they need and upgrade for them. compare this to the much healthier relationship loran has with the turn a, which is explicitly described as a doomsday machine, yet by his own will and ideals is used to bring peace between
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Feb 19, 2022 02:18
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also the rebuilds aren't about how the robots are a route to self-actualization, and Shinji's attempt to pursue that line of thinking in 2 and 3 fucks everyone over twice and sends him into a catatonic depression. the end of 4 is very explicit that the route to self-actualization means rejecting ideas like "if you get in the robot and fight hard enough you can reshape the world to your liking," because that's a mug's game where your losses in pain and trauma will always inevitably exceed your gains. what puts Shinji in position to make a better world and grow in the end is that he healed his relationships with the people around him (particularly Gendo and Misato), which has nothing to do with the robots. e: being in the robots too often in the rebuilds literally makes you unable to grow. Valentin fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 02:25
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you are being too literal again, "get in the robot" just means "do something to improve yourself", its just that shows in this genre use the robot to literalize something that is normally hard and/or boring to depict in a visual medium like mild character growth or revelationof/adherence to value systems. shinji DOES get in the robot and solve all his problems in 3.0+1.0: he sits in the village and is given time to finally work through his problems and develop as a person. he chooses to do it, he sits down, he gets in, and he pilots that mother fucker every day. anno makes the choice of showing it in an agrarian post apocalypse rather than a fight. when he does literally get in the robot, its only to clad himself in his progress, grow a literal spine and use it to pursue his father and talk to him the way he wished someone else could have talked to him. he doesnt need to be in a literal robot to do this, but anno wanted something visually interesting (whether he achieved that with all the cgi is up for debate, i think it looked fine). hopefully i am making sense.
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Feb 19, 2022 02:34
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maybe take another run at it honestly because everything you've said until now has made it pretty clear you're talking about Shinji literally getting in the Eva, from talking about how it's the only option or Tokyo-3 is destroyed or saying that Paper Lion posted:shinji experiences very, very mild growth by the end of the show/eoe, but it has nothing to do with the experiences he has piloting the eva. the action almost never literalizes an internal struggle or issue (which is part of the appeal of the mecha/magical girl genres. only notable example of the show actually doing this well: the dance fight episode) and it is clear that the act of having to drive the robot in the situations where he is forced or acquiesces never actually have any impact on him. he is repeatedly forced to become his best self, to at least go through the motions of self improvement, and it leaves no lingering impact on his outlook or opinions. or that Paper Lion posted:the initial impact of whether anno intends it that way, along with the show showing us that whether or not he wants to do it, it is objectively the correct thing to do (otherwise everyone dies, which is generally not the morally correct outcome!!!) just leaves a confusing mess. why SHOULD i empthasize with shinji, a person that isnt trying to do anything or have any real reason that outweighs getting in the robot? make it seem very much like the argument you're making is that getting in the robot represents no self-improvement or actualization in the language of these shows, and by rejecting that anno is muddying the waters and rejecting growth, and that Shinji should be happy about getting in the robot or it negatively impacts the art. in Eva, self-actualization and improvement happens entirely outside the robot, which is instead a regressive trap that perverts transcendent knowledge and a mother's love into a tool of war. shinji never chooses "self-improvement" because he spends 24 episodes stuck in that trap. He does choose "getting in the robot" repeatedly in the hopes that it will do good things (help Rei, make his father love him, maintain/improve the surrogate family he has in Misato and asuka, save the people of tokyo-3), and it can't do any of those things because the assumption of power and rejection of human connection that the robot inherently requires are anathema to those goals. e: also you should empathize with Shinji because he's a 14 year old whose father explicitly doesn't love him and whose mother is dead, and who has no one and nothing to support him? not even his peers like him. it's not an emotionally complicated question. and, even if your gripe is that he's unwilling to choose self-improvement, he tries to repeatedly but has been lied to about what will actually lead him there. Valentin fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 02:45
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Valentin posted:sorry I'm just. The evangelion's first actions in the show are to trip catastrophically badly and then to go berserk in a way that's pretty explicitly more feral and horrifying than the thing it's fighting. being in it knocks shinji unconscious and repeatedly injures rei, and obviously will eventually kill Rei II and Toji, and using it has massive collateral damage effects (Toji's sister). also fixating on the Eva as an expression of will and power is definitely part of what is loving with asuka's head so hard throughout the show. what part of that seemed like an ambiguous presentation? It only kills Toji in the manga. He survived in the anime. (I know that wasn't the plan, but it impacts how the show played out in that arc, so it is relevant) And Shinji's trajectory isn't all downhill. He starts as isolated, but he gains real friendships with Kensuke and Toji. He starts only wanting to be left alone, but gains a sense of responsibility and awareness of the good and harm his decisions can cause. He's broken in the end, but he's built up first. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 02:48
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my apologies that's correct: it doesn't kill toji, just mangles him so badly that iirc he simply does not appear in the show again. e: this is also wrong he appears in 19 in the hospital before leaving the show, I think. very much agree that he is built up before being broken down and his trajectory isn't permanently downward, but it's very much the case that piloting is negative in an ongoing way. getting better at piloting isn't even really a worthwhile goal, because becoming a better pilot means improving your synch rate, which means losing yourself to the Eva, both mentally and physically. the show pulls this out of focus in the middle around the Israfel ep in particular, as Shinji uses piloting to get closer to his peers, especially asuka, but Toji's maiming via bardiel reveals this for the misdirect it always was; the Evas are a hindrance to these bonds, not an aid. Shinji bonding with asuka and rei through piloting is ultimately pretty bad for all three! Valentin fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 02:57
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You are stumbling headfirst into a new enterprise, surviving by forcing yourself into a rage to make this project get off the ground. You are new to all this. You feel supported sometimes by those around you and get closer to people, but then your work hurts someone deeply and you can’t see them the same way anymore and neither can they you even if the order lies with the project lead. You did your job. You’re good at accomplishing the goals set out but you’re sometimes arrogant about it. The people you trusted just want you to keep going because too much is riding on this for you to give up, it’s not just you on the line. Technically anyone can do your job but it’s not that simple, you have experiences and connections that make you feel as if you can’t separate yourself without hurting others even more. Do you quit halfway through this? Do you throw this to someone else? Get back into your seat. Now your colleagues are failing and more is required of you. As everybody collapses around you, you grasp for anyone, any soul that can help you. But why would they? You will not hear, “congratulations”. More likely “thank god it’s over”. Why did you want to do this in the first place? A great work? Approval? Love? What do you receive instead? Disgusting.
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Feb 19, 2022 04:03
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Love seeing Salviati and Simplicio going back and forth about Eva.
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Feb 19, 2022 06:33
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Valentin posted:the fact that the robot usually represents self-actualization (frankly a read I'd take issue with in relation to giant robot shows generally. the robot pretty explicitly sucks for amuro and kamille, too) thinking back on it, the first time amuro pilots the gundam, doesn't he inadvertently kill his father and essentially destroy his home? the robot as self-actualization indeed edit: i've always found the sentiment that the problem with the series is that shinji doesn't will to power out of all his problems mildly disturbing for reasons i can't entirely put my finger on GhostofJohnMuir fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 06:53
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Amaro climbs into the mechanical womb, forsaking his humanity and is Reborn. His act as a new being is to perpetuate the cycle of Patricide inherent in all men. His home lay in ruins as he has adopted a new origin.
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Feb 19, 2022 07:10
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:thinking back on it, the first time amuro pilots the gundam, doesn't he inadvertently kill his father and essentially destroy his home? Nah. He only thinks he killed his father. He actually only gave his dad permenant crippling brain damage! The thing with the mech genre isn't that the hero always achieves success with his newfound power. It's just that he has power. He's able to enact consequences, for good or ill, far beyond what an ordinary teenager could do. Both Amuro and Shinji have mixed track records with getting in the robot. The main difference is that Amuro is ultimately surrounded by a mostly-functional surrogate family that gives him something to come home to during the war, while Shinji has everything that he comes to rely on torn away. (Notice how Kaji, the closest thing he has to a positive parental figure, is the first of the main cast to die, while Kensuke and Toji, his actual friends, move away. Even Rei, the pilot who he managed to form a somewhat positive connection with, 'dies' and is returned without being able to resume things where they left off.) It means that when Amuro kills Lalah, he can get things back together, even if he's still haunted by her death, while Kaworu's death leaves Shinji near catatonic.
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Feb 19, 2022 07:29
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This conversation reminds me of one I had in high school where a guy was saying Evangelion was boring because the Ramiel episode was mostly people talking and the fighting consisted of 2 immobile people firing 2 shots, meanwhile I was nodding to myself and going "Yeah, that poo poo owns." To be less glib: Shinji attempting self-actualization and failing because of toxic systems and people is a feature of the show, not a bug. GimmickMan fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 11:18
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chiasaur11 posted:Both Amuro and Shinji have mixed track records with getting in the robot. The main difference is that Amuro is ultimately surrounded by a mostly-functional surrogate family that gives him something to come home to during the war, while Shinji has everything that he comes to rely on torn away. (Notice how Kaji, the closest thing he has to a positive parental figure, is the first of the main cast to die, while Kensuke and Toji, his actual friends, move away. Even Rei, the pilot who he managed to form a somewhat positive connection with, 'dies' and is returned without being able to resume things where they left off.) Even then, Amuro only kills Lalah because they were both conscripted into the war effort. His growth and actualization happen in the moments he's not in the robot, and in the moments where he is in the robot, he (and Lalah!) kills people. GimmickMan posted:To be less glib: Shinji attempting self-actualization and failing because of toxic systems and people is a feature of the show, not a bug. Yeah, and I'm a little surprised that me saying "the parts where Eva disguises stuff with needless obscurity" lead the discussion in this direction. NERV being toxic and eva piloting being traumatizing is one thing the show is super clear about. The bad guys' evil plot in End of Eva is literally to get everyone in the robot! It's a bad thing! Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 16:26
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Get In The Robot has always been a horrible read. It's counterfactual in that Shinji is far and away the most consistent, effective pilot. It's counter metaphorical in that it completely misses all the meaning the show lays down. But it does allow for the channeling of unreflective embracing of gender norms, and people love that poo poo. I think the get in the robot response is an articulation of people's discomfort at Shinjis discomfort with toxic masculinity. It's not that Shinji doesn't get in the robot. It's that he's not sufficiently enthused about fulfilling his role as a man.
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Feb 19, 2022 16:37
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Cephas posted:a good post I largely agree with your thoughts here; the character dynamics are excellent and a real strength of the show. When I talk about Eva's obscurity being a problem I mostly mean Eva's obscurity in regards to the plot. We don't learn what NERV actually wants to accomplish until very late in the series, and even then we mostly have to piece it together through inference. What the Angels want to accomplish is also revealed late, and again we mostly have to piece it together from what Kaworu says he doesn't want. The late introduction of SEELE, the second even more secret conspiracy, is clunky. There's a ton of information, some which give real insight!, that is only very briefly shown and requires pausing the video to make out. The end result is that we get a very strong sense of how characters behave and relate to one another, and some idea as to what their motivations are...but we don't know much at all as to what they concretely want to accomplish or how they are working to achieve that. That can be fine when you're talking about dumb teenagers like Shinji and Asuka or even a reactive (and immature) character like Misato, since they don't really know what they want to accomplish. But when you get to characters like Kaji or Gendo and especially the overall organizations, this lack of explanation becomes a real hindrance to the storytelling. It's too clever by half. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Feb 20, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 17:36
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Feb 19, 2022 18:50
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Wittgen posted:Get In The Robot has always been a horrible read. It's counterfactual in that Shinji is far and away the most consistent, effective pilot. It's counter metaphorical in that it completely misses all the meaning the show lays down. Yeah this makes sense to me. Shinji by the end of the show is the pilot who has any success with the Eva as Asuka flounders. I feel that because end of eva lets her redeem herself and since Shinji does nothing but get used at the end it gets reinforced that Shinji does nothing. Now one could argue that Shinji succeeding is reflective of patriarchy or nepotism because it’s his connection to his mother that fuels his success piloting because she will go berserk for him more readily than asuka’s Eva ever does. Or his position as Gendo’s son. But he also does his job fairly consistently and despite moments of brashness and endangering himself he gets out alive and able to fight the next time. Most of the big stressful fights for Rei and Asuka might’ve been resolved if he was allowed to pilot but SEELE puts a stop order on his use of Eva 01.
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Feb 19, 2022 19:23
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When I rewatched Eva I was struck by how straightforward of a show it is. Basically everything it wants to get across is stated explicitly in the last two episodes episodes.
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Feb 19, 2022 19:30
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This is the "dad took me to a brothel when I was 11 and got duck then kicked the poo poo out of me when I cried" of anime readings. Just a massive amount of projection and ignorance of Shinji's pov lol.
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Feb 19, 2022 21:16
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| # ? May 24, 2024 04:16 |
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Wittgen posted:Get In The Robot has always been a horrible read. It's counterfactual in that Shinji is far and away the most consistent, effective pilot. It's counter metaphorical in that it completely misses all the meaning the show lays down. This is a really good summary of what makes me feel weird about people who get mad about shinji not getting in the robot. It's a weird horrible complete lack of empathy for how a person who's been abandoned by everyone who was supposed to care about him and told that he needs to get in a literal monster to fight giant aliens or else they're going to force hospitalised girl to go get killed trying to do it instead. In the series the EVAs are far from liberating and freeing, they're a horrible anchor around the neck of a kid who's caught up in the weird world domination schemes of a bunch of adults who don't give a poo poo about him.
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Feb 19, 2022 21:27
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