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EVANGELION
May 8, 2012
Three Views of Evangelion:
o "Neon Genesis Evangelion" was a huge hit in Japan
in the mid-90s, around the same time that "Ghost
in the Shell" was successful in the United States,
convincing people like myself that it was time to
pay attention to Japanese anime again.
Around that time I had a young teenage niece who
was really impressed with Evangelion. I watched
an episode somewhere in the middle, and wasn't
attracted or repelled by it: I didn't get what
grabbed her about it.
Much later, reading about the role Evangelion
played in Japan, I sat down to watch the
entire sequence (the *original* version):
The entire point seems to be that pressing
children into service as warriors would be In some respects,
traumatizing, and in it's first incarnation "Evangelion" reminds
the conventional narrative breaks down me of "The Watchmen":
entirely at the end and it goes off into a it's a "realistic"
surreal presentation of internal mental treatment of premises
states. that would seem crazy
if they weren't
established as genre
conventions already.
OTAKU_BASE
o Hiroki Azuma, in "Oatku Japan's Database Animals" (2001),
Compares "Neon Genesis Evangelion" to the older "Gundam"
franchise:
Gundam is a more classical, "modern" product:
Gundam was strong on mechanical realism (and it is true,
with Gundam you have the feeling that their suits are
clunky, clanking mechancial contraptions that someone
might actually build some day); Gundam also apparently
is meticulous about maintaining a detailed future-history
timeline throughout the entire franchise.
Evangelion, in contrast plays the role of "postmodern"
fiction:
There are multiple incarnations of it that differ
somewhat; the technology involved is magical
bio-science.
(He doesn't mention that it's
focus is psychological, because
that would make it more "human",
and potentially contradict his
Otaku Animal thesis.)
http://superfani.com/2010/04/10/otaku-annotated/
o A third view, posted by Pontifus on April 10, 2010
"Otaku annotated: adventures in moe, porn, and postmodernism"
"Azuma locates the turn away from 'fictitious
grand narrative' such as that constructed by UC
Gundam and toward stories that served as vehicles
for the data that were the true foci of fandom in
the mid-90s (37). And what franchise do you
suppose he suggests is the crux of this shift?
That's right, it's Evangelion -- the very show
that, in the U.S., convinced a generation of
casual viewers of Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon
(myself included) that they were actually fans of
a storytelling method capable of conveying deep,
meaningful, and consistent narrative
experiences. And while we were trying to explain
Christian symbolism in the context of Shinji's
journey, Japanese fans were dissecting Rei
Ayanami into component parts to be recomposed
later (by enterprising, market-conscious
creators) into Ruri Hoshino and others ..."
So for "American Otakus" younger
than I, Evangelion played the It is a funny detail
role of "Ghost in the Shell". that there were a number
of Christian names
deployed throughout
Evangelion: American
fans went crazy trying
to analyze these
seriously, but the
creators later explained
that they just thought
Upon hearing that, they sounded cool.
Dangerbaby remarked:
"It really is *hyperflat*, Apparently Christian
it's all a matter of mythology seems really
surface meanings." weird and exotic to a
lot of Japanese people.
It strikes me that that's
probably a good understanding DISTORTING_MIRROR
of the term "hyperflat"
(gleaned from years of "Giant CLASSIC_NAMES
Robot")...
But it isn't Azuma's meaning:
he instead talks about the attempt
at revealing inner layers,
presenting them side by side
flattened out onto one screen.
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