Neon Genesis Evangelion. An impactful anime with heavy amounts of symbolism, metaphors, and representations of the human psyche and an exploration of human interaction and behavior in the relationships of human beings affecting one's own individuality and psychology whose main characters are representative of the idea that we know is truth in our hearts that, yes, 14-year-olds are little shits.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
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Well, who was to say it was supposed to be an emotional breakdown over his friend…
I dunno, him crying over the body of his friend might have been a clue?
or, to put it much better, that an emotional breakdown only has to be tears, and nothing else? People react to things so wildly sometimes, you never know.
By masturbating over them? Nobody does that, nobody.
More importantly, how does it really have nothing to do with the scene? Shinji has said NUMEROUS times that he hates himself because he's cowardly, sneaky, and pathetic. Even in the psycho-analysis episodes, it mentions how Shinji, at times, can do things he knows will piss others off… so that he can have more validation for his self hatred.
Shinji is supposed to be at his lowest point. It's basically "If you thought he wasn't any worse than he was in the first episode, then this will definitely change your mind". Y'know? The shock effect was important in showing how messed up he is. It also makes sense considering how his relationship with Asuka often dealt with them being forced to give each other subliminal, sexual messages due to how their personalities prevent them from showing how they feel for each other in a normal way. (the awkwardness of the kiss scene, Asuka's teasing of her boobs to Shinji on numerous occasions early on, then the episode where she and him almost kiss while's she's sleeping, etc.)
The shock value is pure exploitation, completely unearned, completely forced and completely vile. It's fine to have characters do dark things in dark moments but that was not something ANYBODY except the most vile, ireedeemable little shits would do. And we're still supposed to root for him? That this is supposed to represent a low point in a character arc where he comes back? Fuck that.
More importantly, I'm less interested in the rationale in story than the implications outside of it. Whether Anno wanted to make some pretentious offensive point about how boys will be boys or he just wanted to troll the fandom, it's still awful. Either he's a pretentious hack or he gave no shits about the project and turned it into his hate outlet, either way, it's still an awful, awful scene in an awful, awful movie mired with pretension and hate. It has no artistic value, I will reiterate, it is pure exploitation, the sort you'd find in garbage art house films by pretentious asshole directors who think they're oh so brilliant.
Lastly, Shinji is like your average 14 year old boy loser, - the only difference is that he's in near-apocalyptic world where he is forced to pilot a robot to save the world, a world full of people that he believes hate him. so of course they'd have a scene like this. It's perfect, in my opinion.
So you actually think so little of fourteen year old boys, that you'd think it's something they would do?
"Well, he's boy, what do you expect, for him NOT to masturbate over the comatose body of his friend? Come on man, those hormones!"
This is rape culture talk at its vilest.
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Shinji is honestly a reprehensible piece of human garbage that has no business being the main character of this series that I am supposed to root for.
Manga Shinji however, is pretty awesome. I've been talking about how the Manga fixed EoE? The comatose Asuka scene is among the changed things there.
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Shinji being garbage is balanced out by everyone around him (who are not Pen Pen) being pretty shit as well.
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Asuka actually felt like she had an arc. She may have been a messed up individual, but when the world needed saving, she jumped into her Eva and did something to get it done. I will NEVER stop singing the praises of Asuka vs. The Eva Series.
Meanwhile, Shjinji…. Shinji, just get in the damn robot!
Misato also was probably the least crappy of everyone else. While she has her problems, again, like Asuka she seems to genuinely take their "Saving the world" job seriously.
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Misato also was probably the least crappy of everyone else. While she has her problems, again, like Asuka she seems to genuinely take their "Saving the world" job seriously.
Meanwhile she fucks up her job of "act as some sort of parental guidance to emotionally stunted teenagers who will probably end up killing each other by the time they're 17."
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@Cyan:
Shinji being garbage is balanced out by everyone around him (who are not Pen Pen) being pretty shit as well.
You only think Pen Pen's alright because you can't speak Penguinese to hear all the unhinged horrible crap he shouts.
For all you know, he might be as messed up as the rest of em.
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You only think Pen Pen's alright because you can't speak Penguinese to hear all the unhinged horrible crap he shouts.
For all you know, he might be as mesed up as the rest of em.
Pen Pen's father abandoned him at a train station so he could hang himself, but got blown up by ADAM after trying to strangle Rei Mk. I.
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You only think Pen Pen's alright because you can't speak Penguinese to hear all the unhinged horrible crap he shouts.
For all you know, he might be as mesed up as the rest of em.
Pen Pen was secretly the architect behind Instrumentality. Gendo was really Pen Pen in a human suit.
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Pen Pen has tried to strangle Misato numerous times, but he simply can't manage to do the deed with those wings of his. Misato keeps mistaking his attempts as an act of affection and reciprocates with a hug, which in turn confuses Pen Pen sexually and only furthers his madness.
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Pen Pen has tried to strangle Misato numerous times, but he simply can't manage to do the deed with those wings of his. Misato keeps mistaking his attempts as an act of affection and reciprocates with a hug, which in turn confuses Pen Pen sexually and only furthers his madness.
You could say that his Pen Pen was confused
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The best phrasing would be "like father like son, eh?"
But… Gendo needs his hands for his trademark pose, doesn't he?
@Purple:
You could say that his Pen Pen was confused
Pen Pen just wanted to drift over the ocean on a block of ice, maybe settle down and start a family with a nice penguin female later.
Everything changed when the polar explorers attacked.
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Penji is actually a high school student on the verge of making his professional debut as a boxer, but who is killed in a suspicious motorcycle accident on his way to his first date with Misato, the girl of his dreams. An angel (Adamp perhaps) tells Penji that because of a celestial mistake, he can be reunited with Misato, but only if he lives out the natural lifespan of another animal, after which he will return to his human body.
Remembering Misato's love for penguins, Penji decides to be reincarnated as an Adelie Penguin, and he hatches from an egg in a Tokyo aquarium.
When Penji reaches adolescence, he escapes from the aquarium with his penguin friends, only to discover he cannot swim. He washes up in the harbor, where he is discovered by Misato. She takes him home and names him Pen-chan (at first thinking this to be an affectionate contraction of his own name, Penji is crestfallen when Minako reveals that she has selected this name because, in her words, "You're such a cute little pengin!".
The series depicts Penji's life with Misato, where he does his best to protect Misato from any man who tries to go out with her or simply "harm" her. Along the way, Mike and the other penguins from the aquarium help him once in a while and he meets fellow reincarnated humans.
He then gets entangled in an awful romantic comedy that somehow runs for 15 volumes.
But… Gendo needs his hands for his trademark pose, doesn't he?
His trademark budget saving pose. No lip flaps!
They'd make up for it by not animating something else.
Like when Kaji and Misato had sex offscreen for like 5 minutes.
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Shinji is honestly a reprehensible piece of human garbage that has no business being the main character of this series that I am supposed to root for.
Manga Shinji however, is pretty awesome. I've been talking about how the Manga fixed EoE? The comatose Asuka scene is among the changed things there.
Are you reading the manga right now? In what part are you?
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Are you reading the manga right now? In what part are you?
When we were talking about Shinji's character, I wanted to see how he was treated in the Manga so I grabbed a late chapter of the manga. I wasn't going to really READ it just take a quick look until I noticed that it was adapting point for point the events of EoE, so I JUST read the part that adapts the End of Evangelion movie. Having seen what I've seen tho, I intend to go back and start over soon.
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When we were talking about Shinji's character, I wanted to see how he was treated in the Manga so I grabbed a late chapter of the manga. I wasn't going to really READ it just take a quick look until I noticed that it was adapting point for point the events of EoE, so I JUST read the part that adapts the End of Evangelion movie. Having seen what I've seen tho, I intend to go back and start over soon.
You made a good decision! The manga is infinitely better than the anime without stopping being Evangelion! When Gainax decided to make Evangelion a multimedia project they should had put the author of Evangelion manga, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto as the director of the TV anime as well. Yep Anno had the original concept, but Sadamoto would certainly make a better job.
I just found that Sadamoto is not only the character designer of great series: Neo Genesis Evangelion, .hack//Sign, FLCL, Diebuster, The girl that leapt through time, Summer wars. But also Animator of Gunbuster and last but not the least one of the founding members of Gainax! This guy is amazing! I'm a fan now!
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Penji is actually a high school student on the verge of making his professional debut as a boxer, but who is killed in a suspicious motorcycle accident on his way to his first date with Misato, the girl of his dreams. An angel (Adamp perhaps) tells Penji that because of a celestial mistake, he can be reunited with Misato, but only if he lives out the natural lifespan of another animal, after which he will return to his human body.
Remembering Misato's love for penguins, Penji decides to be reincarnated as an Adelie Penguin, and he hatches from an egg in a Tokyo aquarium.
When Penji reaches adolescence, he escapes from the aquarium with his penguin friends, only to discover he cannot swim. He washes up in the harbor, where he is discovered by Misato. She takes him home and names him Pen-chan (at first thinking this to be an affectionate contraction of his own name, Penji is crestfallen when Minako reveals that she has selected this name because, in her words, "You're such a cute little pengin!".
The series depicts Penji's life with Misato, where he does his best to protect Misato from any man who tries to go out with her or simply "harm" her. Along the way, Mike and the other penguins from the aquarium help him once in a while and he meets fellow reincarnated humans.
He then gets entangled in an awful romantic comedy that somehow runs for 15 volumes.
But enough about Love Hina.
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@Cyan:
But enough about Love Hina.
Tuxedo Gin, actually.
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Regarding the whole "Was EoE trolling?" debate, I find this pretty interesting:
http://chezapocalypse.com/episodes/s3e2-end-of-evangelion-and-the-audience-author-membrane/
I'm not entirely sold on his brief initial musings, but he brings up some interesting points regarding the series finale vs EoE.
And while the series finale didn't exactly blow me away, I know for sure which ending I'd rather rewatch. End of Eva was just so…miserable and depressing, and felt massively jarring from where the series had left off with Shinji. No, I'd take budget-constrained abstractions and self-help with corny, uplifting Congratulations!!! than the despondent sack of shit who masturbates to comatose friends, when he's not busy trying to strangle them.
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EoE is pretty much the anime movie equivalent of shock sites. It's filled with disgusting crap and mind fuckery, but once you get past all that there's really nothing deep or special about it. Hell, the plot can be summed as:
Shinji faps, army attacks, Asuka dies
Shinji: I hate everyone! They should all die!
Rei: Okay. Everyone gets turned into tang
Shinji: Actually, I changed my mind. Can we all go back to life?
Rei: Sure, but only if they want to. Until then, they're stuck as orange juice. But for consolation, here's Asuka.
Shinji: FUCK NO GET AWAY DIE BITCH. Strangles Asuka, yet fails to kill her, much to the disappointment of everyone but her fanboysAnd yet, people somehow keep falling for the pretty yet meaningless symbolism and argue that it's DEEP and COMPLEX.
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@TLC:
I dunno, him crying over the body of his friend might have been a clue?
I already explained what I meant before
By masturbating over them? Nobody does that, nobody.
The shock value is pure exploitation, completely unearned, completely forced and completely vile. It's fine to have characters do dark things in dark moments but that was not something ANYBODY except the most vile, ireedeemable little shits would do.
Just because it doesn't fit your predetermined expectiations, that doesn't automatically made it a bad scene.
No offense, but I think you're really only bashing on this because it's different than you'd expect or want based on you're own moral guideline or whatever. "This is gross, therefore, banish this shit".
And we're still supposed to root for him? That this is supposed to represent a low point in a character arc where he comes back? Fuck that.
Again, open up your horizons. Just because he's the main character, that doesn't make him a good hero that you must root for, "or else he is terribly written". I don't know how else to explain this without coming off as rude (I don't want to sound rude by the way, forgive me if I already have), but a lot of you're criticism seems to come from you're pre-determined, set-guidelines for what you personally think stories should be like, instead of addressing actual, plot problems, and it seems a bit entitled to be honest.
More importantly, I'm less interested in the rationale in story than the implications outside of it. Whether Anno wanted to make some pretentious offensive point about how boys will be boys or he just wanted to troll the fandom, it's still awful. Either he's a pretentious hack or he gave no shits about the project and turned it into his hate outlet, either way, it's still an awful, awful scene in an awful, awful movie mired with pretension and hate. It has no artistic value, I will reiterate, it is pure exploitation, the sort you'd find in garbage art house films by pretentious asshole directors who think they're oh so brilliant.
How did you get this from the film? It was supposed to attack that. (hence Shinji calling him self the worst/so fucked up). And why nothing works out for him in the end.
And what do you consider "artistic value"? Art usually is an expression of something, and this film was an expression of his mind. Call his mind fucked up, but that doesn't change anything. So what about this movie is "awful"?
So you actually think so little of fourteen year old boys, that you'd think it's something they would do?
"Well, he's boy, what do you expect, for him NOT to masturbate over the comatose body of his friend? Come on man, those hormones!"
This is rape culture talk at its vilest.
I literally addressed before you even posted this.
"Shinji is like your average 14 year old boy loser, - the only difference is that he's in near-apocalyptic world where he is forced to pilot a robot to save the world, a world full of people that he believes hate him. so of course they'd have a scene like this."
To add onto that, his whole world is fucked up. It's only a matter of time before he does something like that.
Overall, it seems like because something is so inappropriate to imagine, or because it doesn't fit you're predetermined paradigm, it's automatically bad, and that's not really fair. Just because it's more disturbing than what you imagine, or because it's not what you already wanted from the start, and that's similar to a confirmation bias. You're ignoring the outside circumstances (the dialogue, the setting), and letting what you didn't expect to happen in general be the sole thing to take away from it.
(and please don't leave out parts of this post when you respond, because you did that left time.
Shinji is honestly a reprehensible piece of human garbage that has no business being the main character of this series that I am supposed to root for.
Manga Shinji however, is pretty awesome. I've been talking about how the Manga fixed EoE? The comatose Asuka scene is among the changed things there.
So because he's not the most likeable person, he's automatically a bad character that isn't worthy for being the main protagonist?
What makes a character good or bad DOES NOT, and SHOULD NEVER depend on his personality. Or else almost all characters in fiction would be bad characters.
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You made a good decision! The manga is infinitely better than the anime without stopping being Evangelion! When Gainax decided to make Evangelion a multimedia project they should had put the author of Evangelion manga, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto as the director of the TV anime as well. Yep Anno had the original concept, but Sadamoto would certainly make a better job.
I always wondered, though, if Sadamoto had the freedom to do whatever he pleased with the manga, as Anno "owns" the franchise. Did anyone ever talk about about?
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I always wondered, though, if Sadamoto had the freedom to do whatever he pleased with the manga, as Anno "owns" the franchise. Did anyone ever talk about about?
The only think that I know is that Evangelion is an original concept of Anno and that the Manga Story and Art is totally Sadamoto! Also the Character designs of the anime are from Sadamoto and Anno is the anime Director. I would guess that Gainax, the company, owns the franchise!
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Just because it doesn't fit your predetermined expectiations, that doesn't automatically made it a bad scene.
Oh, do not give me this stupid "You just don't get it, it's art, man" bullshit.
No offense, but I think you're really only bashing on this because it's different than you'd expect or want based on you're own moral guideline or whatever. "This is gross, therefore, banish this shit".
It's absolutely fine to have horrible things happen to good people or good people do horrible things. One of my favorite book series of all time is a Song of Ice and Fire. But you know what, stories like that earn those things through careful and deliberate set-up and context in the story giving it a point. This is just shit Anno threw in because he's pretentious/didn't give a shit. It's pure exploitation going just for the shock value with no other merits to it. And it's disgusting because of that.
Again, open up your horizons. Just because he's the main character, that doesn't make him a good hero that you must root for, "or else he is terribly written". I don't know how else to explain this without coming off as rude (I don't want to sound rude by the way, forgive me if I already have), but a lot of you're criticism seems to come from you're pre-determined, set-guidelines for what you personally think stories should be like, instead of addressing actual, plot problems, and it seems a bit entitled to be honest.
But we ARE supposed to root for him. Again, do NOT give me this arthouse "artists should be free to do what they want" bullshit. Good storytelling isn't throwing a bunch of shit haphazardly and calling it art, it's not abstract like a Picasso painting, there is actual craft to it. It's like cooking, you're free to experiment but there are combinations of things that work and that don't, it's a technical skill where what you add NEEDS to have a reason for being there, where you need to take into account the reaction of your audience, you need to take account how this element will affect them in relation to the story and characters. I've seen this so many times where poor writing is excused because it's not following the big bad book of rules on good writing. Well like a cookbook, it's fucking there for a reason. If you want to try to break them a la Tarantino, you damn better know what the fuck you're doing, you can't just do random shit and expect it to be good just for the sake of it being random.
Regarding Shinji, I've read so many stories where the main character is deplorable, be it for a redeeming character arc or be it solely that he is an irredeemable scumbag who we're just waiting for to crash and burn. There is absolutely nothing wrong having an awful scumbag as a character. Breaking Bad, Scarface, Wolf of Wall Street, There will be Blood these characters are interesting to watch sheerly through the complexity of their characters and their drive and ambition. Shinji has none of these.
But you know what's more important? WE ARE SUPPOSED TO FUCKING WANT SHINJI TO SUCCEED! And do not even argue this, this is inarguable, it's built into the story that this is about Shinji getting out of his rut and making something better out of himself. So yes, him being a vile, detestable, IRREDEEMABLE piece of shit IS a bad thing and IS awful. That makes him terribly written. Because if he is an awful piece of shit, then we as the audience do not care about him and his story of redemption, we want him to fail and die horribly and so we have no interest watching a story where he comes out on top. You see what I mean about the deliberateness of good writing? Good story-telling is about judging how your audience will react to your story. Throwing shit in and calling it art is only shit pretentious hacks do.
How did you get this from the film? It was supposed to attack that. (hence Shinji calling him self the worst/so fucked up).
Uh huh, so now you're changing your argument from it's just Anno trolling the otaku to it's actually an attack on rape culture! Right,…
Allow me to retort then. So the fuck what if he called himself out on that? He still fucking did it. It still gave me a vibe of emotional conflict. "How could he do that? But he's a horny teenage boy, it can't be helped!" which is disgusting. Or maybe it was a legitimate attack on rape culture. or maybe it was Anno not giving a shit and attacking Otaku. EITHER WAY, it was awful, vile, forced, completely inappropriate, completely unearned and downright EXPLOITATION.
**@ShinigamiKing:
And why nothing works out for him in the end**
Other than him getting a happy ending where everyone is brought back to life. Then he chokes Asuka for no reason.
And what do you consider "artistic value"? Art usually is an expression of something, and this film was an expression of his mind. Call his mind fucked up, but that doesn't change anything. So what about this movie is "awful"?
Again, check earlier in my post, if you think movies get the same pass as cubist paintings, you know nothing about film or good story telling. Yes, Anno has a fucked up mind. Or maybe he didn't care. Either way EoE is a hate filled miserable piece of garbage. Now if you want to argue that it was intentionally so, that Anno has a pathetic, miserable mind and wanted to express it on the big screen, go ahead. But we as the audience, don't want to sit through two hours of pointless misery and teenage wangst. That's why it's awful, because it's not a movie, it's just one fucked up asshole's self indulgent wanking. Or again, maybe he just did not give a shit and just wanted to troll the audience. Fair enough, either way this movie has no artistic value because it was made with no craft, structure nor desire to tell a good story, no desire to make a movie for the audience, only desire to satisfy his own selfish needs.
I literally addressed before you even posted this.
"Shinji is like your average 14 year old boy loser, - the only difference is that he's in near-apocalyptic world where he is forced to pilot a robot to save the world, a world full of people that he believes hate him. so of course they'd have a scene like this."
To add onto that, his whole world is fucked up. It's only a matter of time before he does something like that.
If you think so little of men, that you'd think it's only natural that a boy does that, I do not want to talk with you anymore. No really, I am legitimately creeped out by you right now that you think all male fourteen year olds are an emotional breakdown away from raping a woman. As a feminist, this argument offends me.
Overall, it seems like because something is so inappropriate to imagine, or because it doesn't fit you're predetermined paradigm, it's automatically bad, and that's not really fair. Just because it's more disturbing than what you imagine, or because it's not what you already wanted from the start, and that's similar to a confirmation bias.
You can take your bullshit hipster paradigm shit and eat it. I already addressed why this argument is bullshit.
You're ignoring the outside circumstances (the dialogue, the setting), and letting what you didn't expect to happen in general be the sole thing to take away from it.
No, YOU'RE ignoring the outside circumstances on why this scene should NOT happen and trying to excuse it with a poorly made argument about artistic expression and nihilism. You're ignoring what the character WOULD do in that situation or how it will affect the character in bearing to the story and how we as an audience would react to him. But I've already repeated this argument several times.
Stick a fork in it, you're done.
(and please don't leave out parts of this post when you respond, because you did that left time.
I didn't leave any po
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People relax a little and Just read the manga and see how the story should be told!
Here the beginning of the manga: http://mangapark.com/manga/shinseiki-evangelion/s1/v1/c1
Here is how the comatose scene that you are discussing for so long is in the manga:
!
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People relax a little and Just read the manga and see how the story should be told!
Here the beginning of the manga: http://mangapark.com/manga/shinseiki-evangelion/s1/v1/c1
Here is how the comatose scene that you are discussing for so long is in the manga:
! http://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/15.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/16.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/17.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/18.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/19.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/20.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/21.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/22.jpghttp://2.p.mpcdn.net/9005/141495/23.jpg
It's almost like fap page is missing between her being in coma and strangling him.
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It's almost like fap page is missing between her being in coma and strangling him.
Did Asuka wake up from the coma and strangled Shinji in the movie? I don't think so!
I didn't removed any page, Seriously! If you want to see to yourself check chapter 75: http://mangapark.com/manga/shinseiki-evangelion/s1/v11/c75
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The only think that I know is that Evangelion is an original concept of Anno and that the Manga Story and Art is totally Sadamoto! Also the Character designs of the anime are from Sadamoto and Anno is the anime Director. I would guess that Gainax, the company, owns the franchise!
Sadamoto is the character designer, sure, but didn't he ever get any input whatsoever from Gainax/Anno? I don't know…at the very least, a list of rules of what he could/couldn't do sounds plausible. This usually happens when a third party handles a manga based on a franchise created by a company or other author.
As for the copyrights, don't forget it's Anno's Studio (Khara) producing the new Evangelion movies, not Gainax. He has to credit Gainax somewhere, but Anno is the true "father" of the franchise.
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Sadamoto is the character designer, sure, but didn't he ever get any input whatsoever from Gainax/Anno? I don't know…at the very least, a list of rules of what he could/couldn't do sounds plausible. This usually happens when a third party handles a manga based on a franchise created by a company or other author.
As for the copyrights, don't forget it's Anno's Studio (Khara) producing the new Evangelion movies, not Gainax. He has to credit Gainax somewhere, but Anno is the true "father" of the franchise.
Sadamoto is one of the founder of Gainax, together with Anno, so obviously they talked and probably a lot about it! He still probably got creative freedom to do the title! In the end the anime ended being a group of ideas not very well implemented nor explained, while the manga ended being a coherent story with begin and end and with a lot of explanations. And notice that there wasn't any big deviation in the main points between the anime and the manga. While in the anime the fans say that you need to watch it 3 times to understand, in the manga you just read 1 time and everything makes totally sense. By reading the manga even the TV series makes more sense.
Well, maybe Anno is the on with the ownership and he just gave the adapting rights to Sadamoto.
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….But who shot Kaji?
It was Kensuke Aida, wasn't it?
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….But who shot Kaji?
It was Kensuke Aida, wasn't it?
LOL, no it was an unnamed hitman working for SEELE if I remember well. I believe that it was pretty well implied that after he rescued the vice-president of NERV(I don't remember his name :P) he run away, but then got found and killed. Well the moral of the story is that Kaji doesn't know how to hide!
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Robby was just jesting… but it definitely wasn't mentioned who it was on the show or even if it was an unnamed hitman
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@Purple:
Robby was just jesting… but it definitely wasn't mentioned who it was on the show or even if it was an unnamed hitman
In the manga, after saying that Seele would kill him, you see an adult silhouette, a sophisticated pistol and that the person uses gloves. Also nothing indicates that his somebody of relevance! Kaji just make a joke about the guy being bad(slow and having a bad aim). Does in the anime they imply is somebody of relevance? I don't really remember, but is probably something that the TV anime would do, mainly to seem more complex and mysterious.
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shrugs idk, but it does give fuel to speculate on rather than "oh it was just some nobody"
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In the manga, after saying that Seele would kill him, you see an adult silhouette, a sophisticated pistol and that the person uses gloves. Also nothing indicates that his somebody of relevance! Kaji just make a joke about the guy being bad(slow and having a bad aim). Does in the anime they imply is somebody of relevance? I don't really remember, but is probably something that the TV anime would do, mainly to seem more complex and mysterious.
Kaji says "Oh, it's you." Completely casually. So, someone he recognizes, and was half expecting to see. And doesn't expect to kill him.
Totally Kensuke Aida.
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It was Pen Pen .
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@TLC:
It's absolutely fine to have horrible things happen to good people or good people do horrible things. One of my favorite book series of all time is a Song of Ice and Fire. But you know what, stories like that earn those things through careful and deliberate set-up and context in the story giving it a point. This is just shit Anno threw in because he's pretentious/didn't give a shit. It's pure exploitation going just for the shock value with no other merits to it. And it's disgusting because of that.
So because it didn't take its time, it's automatically some exploitative shit?
Shock value is automatically bad now? It's glorifying behavior like that?
Either way, I'm glad you at least explained why it's a bad scene aside from you personal comfort level, and I respect it.
But we ARE supposed to root for him. Again, do NOT give me this arthouse "artists should be free to do what they want" bullshit. Good storytelling isn't throwing a bunch of shit haphazardly and calling it art, it's not abstract like a Picasso painting, there is actual craft to it. It's like cooking, you're free to experiment but there are combinations of things that work and that don't, it's a technical skill where what you add NEEDS to have a reason for being there, where you need to take into account the reaction of your audience, you need to take account how this element will affect them in relation to the story and characters. I've seen this so many times where poor writing is excused because it's not following the big bad book of rules on good writing. Well like a cookbook, it's fucking there for a reason. If you want to try to break them a la Tarantino, you damn better know what the fuck you're doing, you can't just do random shit and expect it to be good just for the sake of it being random.
what the hell? There's no law that says you must root for him.
The main character/protagonist is the main focus of the story, or whom the story is told through the viewpoint of.
That's all. Any other expectations you have for him are unnecessary.
Regarding Shinji, I've read so many stories where the main character is deplorable, be it for a redeeming character arc or be it solely that he is an irredeemable scumbag who we're just waiting for to crash and burn. There is absolutely nothing wrong having an awful scumbag as a character. Breaking Bad, Scarface, Wolf of Wall Street, There will be Blood these characters are interesting to watch sheerly through the complexity of their characters and their drive and ambition. Shinji has none of these.
This is more of an opinion thing, so there's no need for me to argue here. I understand what you mean, and why you feel that way. Personally, for me I think, I believe Shinji fit the "crash and burn" role, with the only difference being that his axiom wasn't "bad guy", it was "depressed guy". From the first episode, he's a confused teen. And we all expected him to rise up and be the man like every other piece of literature. But instead, he became more fucked up mentally to the point where his worst traits (sneakiness, cowardice) got multiplied up to 11 and he turned into a real piece of shit tool by the end.
Usually he would rise up, but given what went on (his father being a total prick, Kowaru betraying his trust, NERV and Misato hiding stuff from him, Asuka bullying him, Rei's cold exterior, dealing with the pressure of pilotign the Eva and fighting monsters that could potentially cause an apocalypse to your already miserable world), it would have been cliche as fuck if Shinji rose up.
In my opinion at least. Again, I respect your opinion on this front, so i just wanted to share mine.
But you know what's more important? WE ARE SUPPOSED TO FUCKING WANT SHINJI TO SUCCEED! And do not even argue this, this is inarguable,
Just read what I put up above in this same post since it answers it quite well.
it's built into the story that this is about Shinji getting out of his rut and making something better out of himself. So yes, him being a vile, detestable, IRREDEEMABLE piece of shit IS a bad thing and IS awful. That makes him terribly written. Because if he is an awful piece of shit, then we as the audience do not care about him and his story of redemption, we want him to fail and die horribly and so we have no interest watching a story where he comes out on top. You see what I mean about the deliberateness of good writing? Good story-telling is about judging how your audience will react to your story. Throwing shit in and calling it art is only shit pretentious hacks do.
Have you ever heard of a deconstruction?
Read that article. Because that's basically what Shinji is.
His character is basically asking the question "Why do characters have to succeed in the most dire circumstances, if doesn't always make sense?"
And again, members of an audience are different. Some audiences like seeing terrible people come out on top if their character was interesting enough. (For instance, a lot of people wanted Light Yagami to succeed even though he was a pretty bad person.) In your opinion, "bad person" and "succeeding" don't go together, so making him be a bad person, and stay a bad person is bad storytelling. But that's not the gospel though.
Uh huh, so now you're changing your argument from it's just Anno trolling the otaku to it's actually an attack on rape culture! Right,…
Allow me to retort then. So the fuck what if he called himself out on that? He still fucking did it. It still gave me a vibe of emotional conflict. "How could he do that? But he's a horny teenage boy, it can't be helped!" which is disgusting. Or maybe it was a legitimate attack on rape culture. or maybe it was Anno not giving a shit and attacking Otaku. EITHER WAY, it was awful, vile, forced, completely inappropriate, completely unearned and downright EXPLOITATION.To the bolded, I don't see how those two coexist, since, you know, a large part of the otaku cultue is considered sexually weird, fucked up, and pervy and rapey. So no, I'm not really changing any argument since they kind of go together.
To the rest, this again reeks of "it's disgusting, therefore bad". The fact that Shinji realizes the awful shit he did and calls himself out on it, and is shown and depicted as a pathetic miserable prick throughout the movie should be enough to dispel the "vibe 'it can't be helped', so therefore is exploitation" argument.
And "either way"? Really? It's an attack on rape culture/otaku trolling (in which rape culure has a noticeable presence in). So again, based on your reasoning, it sounds like you're saying the whole scene was bad just because it was incredibly disturbing, vile, inappropriate and awful - which it was, but that doesn't inherently make it bad if there's a reason.
But whenever I explain that reason, you think I'm justifying the act, which I'm not. I'm simply explaining why it was in the movie, that's all.
Other than him getting a happy ending where everyone is brought back to life. Then he chokes Asuka for no reason.
No one is brought back to life yet. They have the choice, but it hasn't happened yet, and he and Asuka left alone, Shinji is still a complete garbage wreck mentally and is deranged, no one is to be found, the sky and sea are dark red, and a lot time has passed. He thought he was gonna bring everyone back to life, but it hasn't happened the way he though. So his life is still as fucked up as it was (arguably even more fucked up than it was) before third impact. How's that really a happy ending?
Again, check earlier in my post, if you think movies get the same pass as cubist paintings, you know nothing about film or good story telling. Yes, Anno has a fucked up mind. Or maybe he didn't care. Either way EoE is a hate filled miserable piece of garbage. Now if you want to argue that it was intentionally so, that Anno has a pathetic, miserable mind and wanted to express it on the big screen, go ahead. But we as the audience, don't want to sit through two hours of pointless misery and teenage wangst. That's why it's awful, because it's not a movie, it's just one fucked up asshole's self indulgent wanking. Or again, maybe he just did not give a shit and just wanted to troll the audience. Fair enough, either way this movie has no artistic value because it was made with no craft, structure nor desire to tell a good story, no desire to make a movie for the audience, only desire to satisfy his own selfish needs.
If you want to argue that it wasn't a good film because it didn't desire to do anything/it didn't do anything good storywise or even character-wise, I understand where you're coming from. But I don't agree with your "we as the audience" bullshit. It sounds fucking dismissive and entitled as fuck.
If you think so little of men, that you'd think it's only natural that a boy does that, I do not want to talk with you anymore. No really, I am legitimately creeped out by you right now that you think all male fourteen year olds are an emotional breakdown away from raping a woman. As a feminist, this argument offends me.
What the hell? WHERE DID I SAY IT WAS NATURAL?!?!?! WHERE DID I SAY TI WAS NATURAL FOR BOYS TO DO THAT? READ WHAT I FUCKING WROTE FOR ONCE.
I can't believe you're accusing me of such bullshit all because your taking my words are out of context. I said that Shinji's actions (which are fucking detestable) aren't random given the combination of his mental fucked up mind and his near apocalypse world where everyone hates him.
Saying that DOES NOT equal "it's okay to rape women when it's upset".
Are you retarded or something? You're interpreting this worse than you interpret Evangelion in my opinion.
(see that insult I did there? you like that? now you know how it feels like to make some off-shoot really serious personal attack like that. That's fucking messed up. I still can't believe you did that.)
You can take your bullshit hipster paradigm shit and eat it. I already addressed why this argument is bullshit.
Jesus Christ at the first sentence.
For the second sentance: All you did was explain why the film sucked (which mostly consisted of you being disturbed, with only a couple of logical points that I actually thought were pretty good reasons), instead of addressing your set paradigm that you do have, and have shown.
No, YOU'RE ignoring the outside circumstances on why this scene should NOT happen and trying to excuse it with a poorly made argument about artistic expression and nihilism. You're ignoring what the character WOULD do in that situation or how it will affect the character in bearing to the story and how we as an audience would react to him. But I've already repeated this argument several times.
Stick a fork in it, you're done.
I didn't leave any po
I'm ignoring it because you're only response is "it's disgusting". That's almost literally the basis of you're argument for why the scene sucked in a just a few words.
In response to "what the character would do", I already explained it before, but you ignored it and said "so that's how you think boys are? creep! you're messed up", and I explained to an extent earlier in this post.
I still can't believe that comment about the rape thing though.
How the fuck could you say such shit like that? That fucking hurts me. I'm fucking swearing a lot more than usual online because of this. That legit shook and stunned me. And this coming from someone who's views line up with feminism.
Overall, I'll say it again. My opinion on the Shinji scene does not mean that I condone that type of shit. I was simply explaining why it made sense within the context the story. If you could come up with a counterpoint to that, that doesn't involve you repeating that it was disgusting or without accusing me of saying it's normal, that would be fine.
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And who it is, is never than revealed? Yep, that seems to fit well with the Evangelion TV anime. I bet in it being Shinji!
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It was Kaji
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This series could have been something awesome if it did not have its head so far stuck up its own pretentious ass.
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And who it is, is never than revealed? Yep, that seems to fit well with the Evangelion TV anime. I bet in it being Shinji!
Wasn't it Ritsuko? Been a long while since i watched Eva but that was always my impression, even reading the manga too.
It fits his reaction (and her own actions, afterwards) and she would do anything for Gendo.I really don't want to believe it was a random, unknown person as it would make the way the scene was presented pretty ridiculous.
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Wasn't it Ritsuko? Been a long while since i watched Eva but that was always my impression, even reading the manga too.
It fits his reaction (and her own actions, afterwards) and she would do anything for Gendo.They never bring that back!
In the manga, he doesn't show that he knows the person that shoots him whatsoever. Here are his lines after he is shown bleeding from a gunshot wound and found by his pursuer "Ah! Finally. Almost to late", "Go ahead. And try to aim better this time."
Also in the manga is obvious that is not NERV that is after Kaji, but SEELE. If this was a plot twist and indeed Gendo sent somebody to kill Kaji, than it would be referred somewhere in the rest of the manga and if it was Ritsuko it would play an even more important role later in the story.In the anime everything is confusing just for the hell of it. So basically you can assume anybody and even anything.
Ritsuko would do anything for Gendo, True, but in her area of expertise, not anything else. At least that is what was implied by her actions! Where was even implied that she done other things for him?
She, just like her mother, were all fawning for Gendo and for his ambitions developed and/or managed the NERV AI System, the EVAs and Rei clones. Even after doing all that Gendo would only care about Rei.
The destroying Rei containers and trying to interfere in his master plans, are all things that humiliated and hurt women in love do(or are normally shown doing in Series): Destroy the guy real/current love and/or destroy the guy ambitions, ambitions that she made everything to help him achieve it and was hoping for appreciation, but in reality she was just being used.
Skip Beat is a great manga that centers on that aspect! Humiliated and hurt women in love trying to destroy the bastard ambitions. Yap, a Shoujo manga that at least in the beginning, at least 8 volumes(where I am right now), wasn't focused on love but on hate. -
Is Evangelion that popular in Japan?
I noticed that Rebuild only made 25 Million USD at the Japanese Box Office, and was the 28th ranked movie of the year.
Even the 3rd (which grossed the highest) only reached 6th.
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Is Evangelion that popular in Japan?
I noticed that Rebuild only made 25 Million USD at the Japanese Box Office, and was the 28th ranked movie of the year.
Even the 3rd (which grossed the highest) only reached 6th.
Yep, it is!
Box Office:
Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: Jo [You Are (Not) Alone] -> 18.7 Million dollars
Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: Ha [You Can (Not) Advance] -> 40 Million dollars
Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0: Q [You Can (Not) Redo] - > 58.9 Million dollarsFrozen -> 249 Million dollars
Wind Rises -> 112.7 Million dollars
One Piece Movie Z -> 72,8 Million dollars
Wolf''s children - Ame and Yuki -> 53.9 Million dollarsDVD+BD sales:
Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0: Q [You Can (Not) Redo] - > 176,834 copies
One Piece Movie Z -> 125,667 copies -
Is Evangelion that popular in Japan?
I noticed that Rebuild only made 25 Million USD at the Japanese Box Office, and was the 28th ranked movie of the year.
Even the 3rd (which grossed the highest) only reached 6th.
I think it's sales figures have nothing on the sheer influence Evangelion has on the modern anime industry, along with an endless army of merchandise.
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Yeah, I was just wondering why the sales weren't high.
I mean, I understand why the first movie wasn't that highly sucessful, since it was just the first six episodes recapped. But still.
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Yeah, I was just wondering why the sales weren't high.
I mean, I understand why the first movie wasn't that highly sucessful, since it was just the first six episodes recapped. But still.
Keep in mind that the Japanese film industry is nowhere as huge as in America. Rebuild 2.0 did better than 1.0 because it was at that point when the franchise began taking a completely new direction, hence why 3.0 is even more successful. For an animated film, grossing about 60 million USD is no mean feat. For comparison, Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods grossed 30 million in Japan only. The fact that Rebuild outsold Dragonball, which itself is a huge cultural phenomenon in Japan, by twice as much speaks volumes about Eva's popularity.
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True, but One Piece Film Z outsold all of em, so..
But yeah, Evangelion has done wonders for animation as a whole in Japan I think. Anime used to be treated like how cartoons are treated here, but Evangelion opened it up to adults (and forced people to take it more seriously) and allowed people to feel free and comfortable expressing their love for anime. Unfortunately, this led to where the current state of anime is today… (it's not the only reason of course, but it was noteworthy.).
It's like a japanese equivalent of Star Wars I think, in terms of its ubitquity. I don't know though, I'm still learning.
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You can't compare OnePiece and Ghibli movies to anything else. Those are the all time high-grossers in Japanese theaters.
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Also, is there any source to cite that evangelion really was a game changer for japan?