Someone help me to like Evangelian!!!!!

[Rackhir]

I fall into a middle ground on this series. It had a lot of interesting elements and aspects, but ultimately failed to deliver on it's promise.

The main thing I liked about the series was the "X-Files"-ish feeling of dark, sinister motives, actions and generally lots of hidden stuff taking place just off screen. Stuff like, What exactly were the EVAs. Who was backing NERV. What was Gendo Hikari up to, etc...

Unfortunately the series did suffer from the classic escalation problem. Which is especially problematic for series that revolve around things being kept mysterious. Like Twin Peaks, the series kept droping a lot of vague hints and suggestive moments and building towards a implied mindblowing conclusion, but without (I feel) a real idea of where it was all going. So that when the end comes the conclusion was not the equal of what was lurking in the audiences minds.

Personally, I just think of the series as having ended in the ep before the last two "Shinji's Psychotherapy" episodes. A quick summary analysis of the two endings that I read, which makes a fair amount of sense, is that the last two episodes were the happy ending and "The End of Evangelion" was the bad ending.

A note though, I find that with a lot of the Evangelion style shows/materials, a lot of the appeal of the show depends on how much you are willing to relax and just accept the premises of the series for what they are. If you hit a series like this with a negative attitude, then you will never enjoy it. I had this problem with the similiar Raxehphon series.

With anime or any science fiction series there are several "idiotic" propositions that you have to be willing to accept in order to enjoy the series. For a lot of the mecha shows, it's that Giant humanoid robots are in fact the ideal weapons of war. For most SF it's FTL travel and ray guns. Otherwise there is rarely much of a shortage of opportunities to mock and make fun of the show.

 

[Wehtam]

I liked Evangelion

Until the last two episodes.

I would like to preface my comments by saying that I like a grand total of 4 anime series: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop and Mobile Suit Gundam The 8th Mobile Suit Team.

I'm not going to even try to begin to try to make the beginner of this topic like Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is either something you like or you don't like. I happened to like it because it mixed an intresting story with giant robot action. It's a series I'll whip out once a year and watch selected episodes because I think they are really neat and get my creative juices going. I liked how they kept continuity through the whole series.

The one moment that hooked me was when they are undergoing the first attack and Shinji is trying to decide whether or not to pilot the Eva, and a giant piece of the ceiling is knocked down and the Eva, without a pilot, bats it away. That is when I knew this series was going to be different.

That's my plug nickel on this whole matter.

 

[argo]

Personally, I just think of the series as having ended in the ep before the last two "Shinji's Psychotherapy" episodes. A quick summary analysis of the two endings that I read, which makes a fair amount of sense, is that the last two episodes were the happy ending and "The End of Evangelion" was the bad ending.

That is one theory and a very good theory as well. Another which I am somewhat partial to is that "Shinji's Psychotherapy" takes place in a split second durring "End of Eva". Remember that in both cases Shinji begins by wishing for a world without boundaries and conflict but then regrets it when he finds it isn't all that he wanted and changes his mind. Also remember that at the beginning of Ep 25 they say the Insturmentality is happening all over the world but they only have time to show you the Insturmentality of this one person, Shinji. There are other clues as well.

A note though, I find that with a lot of the Evangelion style shows/materials, a lot of the appeal of the show depends on how much you are willing to relax and just accept the premises of the series for what they are. If you hit a series like this with a negative attitude, then you will never enjoy it. I had this problem with the similiar Raxehphon series.

Yeah, but in all fairness Eva demands a lot more out of its audience than most other shows. Arguably more than it should considering the payoff. Which is why I won't try to argue with people who watch the show and don't like it, it's understandable.

 

[Rackhir]

The one moment that hooked me was when they are undergoing the first attack and Shinji is trying to decide whether or not to pilot the Eva, and a giant piece of the ceiling is knocked down and the Eva, without a pilot, bats it away. That is when I knew this series was going to be different.

When I was watching the first episode, it struck me that they were tossing Shinji into this thing with absolutely no training or information on how to pilot it and this little conversation popped into my Mind.

"We've tried the highly trained military forces and none of them have had any effect on the angels. We've no choice left. We've got to use someone with absolutely no training."

"Yes, but I'm concerned. What if he's accidentally managed to learn something from playing video games? Can we take the chance that he might not be untrained enough?"

"I know, but its a risk we'll have to take. Go pick him up and pray he knows sufficiently little about what he's going to do..."

 

[Rackhir]

That is one theory and a very good theory as well. Another which I am somewhat partial to is that "Shinji's Psychotherapy" takes place in a split second durring "End of Eva". Remember that in both cases Shinji begins by wishing for a world without boundaries and conflict but then regrets it when he finds it isn't all that he wanted and changes his mind. Also remember that at the beginning of Ep 25 they say the Insturmentality is happening all over the world but they only have time to show you the Insturmentality of this one person, Shinji. There are other clues as well.



Yeah, but in all fairness Eva demands a lot more out of its audience than most other shows. Arguably more than it should considering the payoff. Which is why I won't try to argue with people who watch the show and don't like it, it's understandable.

There's a multitude of ways to interpret the various endings, but I find that past a certain point, it is generally pointless trying to figure out what was going on with that kind of ending. According to rumor/legend the japanese don't feel it's necessary to have a definitive ending for stories. Also I kind of get the impression that often the "mysterious" endings have a tendency to happen simply because they ran out of ideas and decided to have something strange and puzzling happen so it's not obvious.

I was at the anime con in NYC two years ago and Yoshiyuki Tomino was there for a screening of "Char's Counter Attack" in a theater. For you non-gundam fans the movie ends with the hero trying to stop an asteroid base from hitting the earth and killing everyone. As it is burning through the atmosphere, he and the antagonist (Char) are talking about their shared history and then suddenly this energy starts spilling out everywhere and the screen goes white. It then cuts to the asteroid suddenly going back into orbit while the energy and this little T piece of the mcguffin flies around and creates a glowing ring of multi colored energy surrounding the earth. Various scenes of different characters watching this event from the earth and finally I think, shots of a house in the winter with the energy ring overhead and the sounds of a baby crying.

Now since every gundam fan I ever knew has been puzzled as to exactly what the hell was going on, as you might expect in the Q&A session after the movie he was asked what exactly the hell was going on at the end of the movie. He flatly (with some humor) refused to say anything about it, stating something to the effect of "You would laugh if I told you".

 

[Mog Elffoe]

Hmmm... I've had the DVD of Char's Counterattack for over a year now and still haven't gotten around to watching it. I might just have to dust it off and pop it in the player now.