Evangelion: What the Hell Was That?

[elfs]

So, I just mainlined the entire Evangelion original broadcast, all 26 episodes, no director's cut, no movies, in about eight solid hours. Up until about Episode 22 it was doing okay, and then it all fell apart. The end is a complete mess, the entire point of the show gets lost.

I even recognized the problem. The writer/producer/director thought he had something and then he woke up one morning, looked at his script, and said to himself, "I got nothin'." He flailed around for a week and then said, "I know, I'll tell everyone it's a deep mediation on the fact that I went through a really shitty depression phase in my mid-20s, throw out the story, and just mess with people's heads anyway." Who knows? Maybe Anno-san really did have something when he started and just ran out of steam. It was a beautiful, brilliant piece, it seemed to be going somewhere, and then... blah.

I also don't get why Ayanami Rei is such a popular character. She's a blank, a cipher, more annoying than Asuka ever could be. Part of the reason is that her relationship with Gendo is never clarified: why is she so damn perky in that one scene and then a complete waste the rest of the series?

And yet, I so wanted there to be more to this series. I'm so disappointed in it: I wanted Shinji to be more than a mouthpiece for Anno's fucking "I'm okay, you're okay" bullshit. I wanted Asuka to recover, and Rei to find herself, and all the other things that the characters deserved and didn't get.

I wanted to laugh, or cry, or have some reaction, however tritely elicited. Neon Genesis Evangelion failed, leaving me only annoyed and let down.

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and maybe piss someone off: Sousei No Aquarion is a better giant robot series than Neon Genesis Evangelion. The characters in Aquarion aren't as deeply wounded, and maybe that's to its detriment, but on the whole it's a better-made series. It has an arc, intent, and a proper ending, and, y'know, it's really made with as much courage, often for hilarity's sake as much as the dramatic ending, as Evangelion.

Comments

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

I think you're reaction to Eva is exactly what Anno was trying for. It is generally considered his big 'fuck you' to anime fandom. It also suffered from slashed budgets near the end, but then they made the movies and they don't really change it much.

Now they're making 4 more movies - apparently the first 3 will retell the story, and the 4th will be a new ending.

Like many things that are over-hyped, see also Akira, Eva changed the industry and we wouldn't have some good shows without it - like Nadesico, Dual!, and RahXephon.

Rei - I don't know. Maybe she hits the 'helpless girl who could be saved' nerve or something. I always liked Ritsuko the most of the women of Eva.

You can probably see why we got so much hatemail for writing Neon Exodus Evangelion - we messed with a sacred cow.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

So, Anno-san did it for the same reason Claremont did? Well, more or less. Anno seems to have run out of money, and Claremont ran into the idiot wall of Jim "No, you can't write the story you want" Shooter. Both then seem to have turned on their respective careers and written a Big F*cking Mess for the next generation to deal with.

[areitu.livejournal.com]

PenPen. <3