Neon Genesis Evangelion

So after hearing about it for years, I finally decided to start watching NGE yesterday after finding out that it was only 26 episodes. I just finished it a few minutes ago, and I rather enjoyed the experience. As nearly everyone I talked to recommended, I tried to pay more attention to the characters and nuances than I normally would for any other series. To my surprise, I found that this was a very rewarding experience. It was interesting to try to understand the personalities and thoughts of the characters from their interactions with each other and the various stressful situations which they all faced. It seems like something that would merit a second watching, if I had the patience for that sort of thing.

However, something that has been bothering me about this whole thing is in regards to its status as a 'classic'. I only enjoyed it as much as I did because I put a lot of thought and effort into focusing on it. I wonder, would I have the same kind of experience from watching any other show in the same way? Was it really the show itself that was special, or did I just enjoy it because I forced myself to experience it in a certain way? I only really gave it a chance because of its apparent status as a 'classic'. Does the show itself really deserve the acclaim that it has built up around itself, or is it just a positive-feedback loop of people like me who watch it intently due to the recommendations of others, enjoy that, and tell others to do the same. Does the show actually have all the deep subtle nuances that everyone talks about, or are we just reading too deeply into some things, like we're high-school English teachers over-analyzing every word of a book. What I'm asking is, is NGE itself as deep as people give it credit for, or could it easily be replaced by another decent anime if it had the same reputation and we were all willing to watch it and look for more than face value?

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It was a massive success commercially, influenced a lot of subsequent anime production, and pretty much created the late night otaku slot for those later titles.

On a slightly unrelated note, I feel like I missed a lot from the show, specifically the last couple of episodes, due to me not being able to read Japanese. Every few seconds, the screen would switch to text, but it was in Japanese, so i couldn't understand it. This left me feeling like I was only getting half of a conversation. So, anyone know what was up with those last few episodes?

There are subs for these.

Eva was massive when it came out and changed everything. You're not watching it through 'nostalgia glasses'.

The characters are broken in a realistic way, for the most part, and acted out as such, whereas the drama in almost all modern anime is forced cringey shit. There were a couple of tropes in Eva, it's not innocent on that charge, but most of it played out akin to a film with actors, not 'fake anime personalities'. It was also quite mature in many themes.

Time constraints. The production got severely behind in the later episodes and they had to completely rewrite the last two episodes to make up for a lack of time. Also you need to watch End of Evangelion if you haven't already.

Not trying to troll (otherwise I would have made my own thread) but I seriously didn't life this show. Nor did I like Guren Lagann. I think I watched 15 episodes of NGE and dropped it. Giant robots fighting isn't my thing

>Was it really the show itself that was special, or did I just enjoy it because I forced myself to experience it in a certain way?

Do you watch most stuff with your brain off?

>I think I watched 15 episodes of NGE and dropped it.


Fuck i wish I had access to my reaction folder, because this is the biggest faceplant/lol I've had in a while. Episode 16 is universally known as the moment when the Eva plane-ride hits the Category 5 shit-storm. 1-15 builds the characters up like a nice castle made of wine glasses and 16-24 is someone throwing a bowling ball into it. Then nuking it with End of Eva.

Eva was never popular because of the 'Robots'. You dun goofed.

Your reaction is a bit disproportionate but I liked your analogy

>Giant robots fighting isn't my thing

> watch End of Evangelion if you haven't already.
Thanks, I'll do that. I felt like the ending was a little too inconclusive, so hopefully this will help.

Errr... Kinda? I mean, I'm obviously still alive and thinking about a show while I watch it, but I usually don't focus nearly as much on detail as I did when watching NGE

The good old Literal Translation Project rendering of the scripts is here -- plaza.harmonix.ne.jp/~onizuka/literal/evangelion.html

That image reminded me, was Rei replaced with a clone after she jihaded the angel in the cavern with a nuke? I remember that her eva and plug were pretty nearly annihilated, and everyone thought she was dead, but then she shows up soon after with only minor injuries. And then, upon seeing her room again, she said something about it being her first time seeing the place. But it was never confirmed onscreen that she was a clone.

(If this was explained in The End of Evangelion, ignore this post. I haven't seen it yet.)

Honestly I dunno man. I didn't really like any of the characters.

It's not. Souls in Eva are both actual things and transferable. So the clone you are referring to isn't actually a clone, it's still Rei, but in a new dummy body. The difference in her demeanor can be nailed down to two factors, which are minor memory loss due to a new body and possibly the reunification of her soul, which was split to control Unit-00.

Rei is toast after she self-destructs vs the ring of light angel, that's when the new one appears and Shinji visits her in hospital to find she'd motquite all there.

*she's not quite

>it's still Rei, but in a new dummy body.

Ohhh, that makes so much sense now. Does Rei know that she's been getting new bodies all along, or what? Also, are souls necessary to pilot an eva?

Yes and yes, all EVA Units possess souls, all of which are related to their pilots in some way.

AT fields are projections of the soul. Synching with the EVA is attuning to the mother's soul (or in EVA-00's case, a bit of Lilith's soul) resident in the EVA.

So how did the dummy plug work then? It was stated that they were based off of the clones of Rei, but it was also stated that the clones had no souls. So if a soul is required to control an Eva, and dummy plugs have no souls, how was a dummy plug able to control unit 01?

I think she begins to understand everything towards the end of the show, when she's salvaged into the final Rei body.

Yes, souls are necessary to pilot EVAs. Specifically it's the mothers of pilots' souls.

Now there's the whole thing with Unit-00 and the soul that is in that EVA. It's implied that a portion of Rei's/Lilith's soul was split and used in Unit-00. That could explain why Rei III started to act more "aware" and powerful (using her AT field in Terminal Dogma to negate Karwou's AT Field when he broke in there with Unit-02).

Sorry, I misunderstood. A soul isn't required to pilot Eva, they're only needed for the Evas themselves.

Has EoE been released in dual audio yet? I can't find it.

uhh yeah, you should be able to find it. legit copy or pirated though?

I can't find it in HD and dual audio on nyaa

try kickass

Just wait till you see the End of Evangelion, that's the real ending and a fucking classic movie.

If you were underwhelmed by 25 + 26, EoE is going to blow you away. Just get ready for everything you know to fly out the window.

This is a very accurate analogy.

hmmm, found one by bonkai77, any good?

Yep, that's the one I found. That'll do just fine

Is EoE a replacement for 25+26 or an addition?

16 was the giant ball of shadow right? If so that was an amazing episode.

Oh and I hope you enjoy it! I wrapped up the TV Series and was kinda upset with the whole "congratulations!" shit. EoE really was a great end to the series.

Think of EP 25+26 as instrumentality from Shinji's perspective. EoE, is more along the lines of the definitive conclusion.

the mecha isn't the point of NGE

also episode 15 is still in the buildup

Okay, cool, thanks. I'd just never heard of that encoder before. Strange that it's not on nyaa.

I feel you. The people in this thread are right to say that it's after episode 15 that the series really comes into it own, but I completely agree that the characters themselves just aren't that well written, despite the whole emphasis on psychoanalysis the series goes with. Even near the end, I couldn't just a fuck about Asuka's problems or what she thought of her mother, it just felt over dramatic in a way that left no genuine impact on me and I only came away feeling emotionally numbed by the whole things. I definitely hold that the fans tend to assume the series is way more concrete and rationally intelligible than it reasonably is.

You aren't supposed to give a shit about them because of their problems, you're supposed to give a shit about them because they're genuinely interesting and charming characters.

>Think of EP 25+26 as instrumentality from Shinji's perspective. EoE, is more along the lines of the definitive conclusion.

There really isn't much reason to think this. This is another one of those things that it's become a meme for fans to assume, despite there being no real evidence for it. It honestly does make more sense to see EoE as a replacement, as there's no clear way the events and character development in either match up to the other.

I just realized something on my second viewing. The point of the angels attacking are that they want Adam back, correct? Also they keep on getting smarter and more intelligent to communicate with humans after each battle, right?

>you're supposed to give a shit about them because they're genuinely interesting and charming characters

But I don't find them so. I don't have anything against them as people, but I do find the way they are presented makes their thought processes largely unintelligible, despite that the psychological issues they deal with are highly relatable. Because of this I can't get into them. For instance, I have little context for what Shinji's life was like before the events that are shown, and this makes it hard to get a sense for how typical his actions or motivations are in the context of his life, even despite the soul searching scenes. In many other series, this wouldn't matter that much, but in Eva it feels jarring.

Why are there so many Eva threads being made now?

>and this makes it hard to get a sense for how typical his actions or motivations are in the context of his life, even despite the soul searching scenes.
This is the entire purpose of the middle arc of the show. It's supposed to show the characters at their baseline before putting them through hell. You're supposed to assume that that is how they normal act.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they're realistic, but they're broken in a way that's much more nuanced and layered than most shows. I think that sense of being forced you get is prolly just that a lot of shows expect the edgy to be enough to characterize someone, instead of it being this functional, working part of their personality.

Who's soul linked with toji then?
Also whatever happened to him after his EVA was destroyed

End of Evangelion put me down for two whole weeks and this awful feeling came back often for more than one year after watching it.

Be prepared

I guess I shouldn't have worded it as it being from "shinji's perspective."

My corrected answer is "episode 25 and 26 from the TV series is the rushed ending, due to budget/time constraints. EoE is the retelling of episode 25 and 26."

But they're not interesting or charming. They're horribly two-dimensional, simple, stereotypical. The only one remotely interesting was Misato and that's why she's the best girl, but that's not saying much for this show. Everyone in this show are horrible, miserable assholes to each other and I know that was by design, but that doesn't make them "deep" or interesting.

>They're horribly two-dimensional, simple, stereotypical.
That's not true at all though. Each and every one of them exhibits a wide range of emotions and behaviors and none can be entirely described by a character archetype.

I'm totally with you on this. Eva's depth of characterization is in no way exceptional for anime and it is by for the most overpraised aspect of the show. Misato is arguably the exception, but even at the time there were a fair number of magical girl anime with characters at least as thoughtfully constructed as her, and I'd argue that even then she's not coherent enough a character to stand out.

Well that's just your opinion, man. NGE just isn't for you, no big deal, mate.

That's true of some of them, but it does apply to many of them, and if you disagree there are tons of series with characters with at least as much depth. It's important not to confuse depth of psychological significance with depth of character. Toji's interactions with Shinji are psychologically significant in that his bullying and reformation is more realistic and relatable "in its nature" than many other bully characters, but as a character Toji doesn't have that much depth to his thought process and there isn't much to reflect upon about him, nor are his motivations that strong or well thought out.

Kill yourself.

You aren't wrong, but to use a moderately important side character as an example for why a show has uninteresting characters just doesn't convince me. All of the mains have much more interesting interactions and characters than Toji does, and even the adult side characters are far more interesting than Toji.

I wouldn't say that's their main point. They ultimately aim to initiate 3rd Impact to wipe Lilith and us to make the world suitable for them. Now, I think getting to Adam's embryo is part of that plan. More so, they try to get into Terminal Dogma to initiate their version of 3rd Impact, just like how the humans got to Adam in Antarctica and caused 2nd impact. However, humans did that to reduce Adam's form to that embryonic state.

>Each and every one of them exhibits a wide range of emotions
How fucking delusional can you get? Wow, what a nostalgiafag. Asuka only has one type of response to anything Shinji does, Rei has the personality of a 2-by-4, Ritsuko is a total bitch, Gendo is the shrewd scientist/buisness-man, Kaji is a player. The only character who has something slightly resembling a character arc is Shinji, but it's only a slight change that happens before he slips back into his old ways. The only character with some nuance to them is Misato, but there are other, deeper, much more interesting female characters in other anime.

I had a very similar feeling. However, Shinji at least provided me a character I could project onto and empathize with when I was having a really hard time at that pint in my life, and definitely helped me in some way.

>15 episodes
You quit before you got to the parts that make it memorable.

>Nostalgiafag
I watched the show for the first time about a year ago

Anyways, you're still wrong. Asuka not only has a multitude of responses to Shinji but her attitude toward his changes significantly over the course of the show. Rei shows an unexpected response as soon as episode 5, and you've entirely missed the point of both Gendo and Kaji. I think you're the one who's delusional.

Have you ever thought that you should watch every show like how you watched Eva?

Art is more rewarding when you don't just consume it like a brain-dead vegetable.
Forcing yourself to "experience it in a certain way" is just called having a more critical and analytical way of thinking when watching a show.

Evangelion is good because there's more than what's at "face value".
Are there other anime that have this trait? Yes.
Are most of them better or as good as Eva? No.

I think you are oversimplifying the characters unfairly. I don't remember much but Gendo was obviously more than than a "shrewd scientist" from his relationships with Shinji, his mom, etc.

>that pint in my life
alcoholism's one hell of a condition

You fucked up.

Just based on the series itself, I'm not convinced the Angels had a common motivation at all. Like, Leliel appears, swallows an Eva, and hovers in place for 16 hours examining what she's caught without making any move on the Geofront. If Sahaquiel cared at all about preserving the prize or having enough left of herself afterward to claim it, her plan is the riskiest thing anybody attempts all war. Gaghiel doesn't even approach Tokyo-3, she only responds to a briefcase and an Eva being dragged right in front of her nose. And the smartest Angel may even have been Iruel all the way back in 13, attacking in a way not even answerable by an Eva.

OP here. I just finished watching End of Evangelion, as per everyone's recommendation. I still have so many questions though. First off, where is everyone getting all this extra information about the universe of the series? People are talking about stuff like Lilith being the soul in Eva 0, Rei's soul fracturing, and stuff like that. The name 'Lilith' is only said about 3 times in the whole show, how are people figuring all this stuff out? Secondly, where was Adam this whole time? Adam was involved in the whole instrumentality shenanigans at the end, right? But where was he throughout the whole series? Lastly, why was Asuka there with Shinji at the end, and why was Shinji choking her out?

And I'm not even going to start asking about wtf was up with Rei.

>she only responds to a briefcase
What was in the briefcase though? I don't recall that ever being explained, only that it had something to do with instrumentality.

>Asuka only has one type of response to anything Shinji does
Look into Asuka and *why* she acts this way towards Shinji. Compare and contrast Asuka and Shinji and you will notice that though Asuka is about the polar opposite of Shinji, yet they actually are VERY similar.

>Rei has the personality of a 2-by-4
well, there's a reason for this. Don't get soo drawn into the lack of personality, but *why* she lacks some to begin with. Think of the circumstances that drove her to be the way she is in the series.

>Ritsuko is a total bitch
Again, there is a reason why she appears to be that way. The show covers her relationship with her mother and Gendo.

>Gendo is the shrewd scientist/buisness-man
Yes he is. Look into his relationship with his son and Yui, his speech to Yui/Rei/Kaworu during Instrumentality, and what happens shortly afterwards in EoE.

>Kaji is a player
He plays a good role in this show. look at the insight he provides to Shinji, throughout the series.

Look dude, Anno had his own vision for the show. I don't think character arcs were the main focus in it. He presented us these characters who were all fucked up in their way. You zero in on Shinji in the beginning and think, "wow, this dude is messed up." Through out the series you notice that in fact, everyone is messed up in their own ways. Stop drilling in soo deep into the characters also man. Just watch and reflect or some shit. Look at the series in a bigger scope and perhaps you might start liking it, who knows.

It's not really a 'deep' anime, it's just pretty damn interesting and good. If it had any sort of message it wasn't a deep one, it was a very elemental one.

In short: It's not good because it's deep, it's good because it's interesting.

>Not trying to troll (otherwise I would have made my own thread) but I seriously didn't life this show. Nor did I like Guren Lagann. I think I watched 15 episodes of NGE and dropped it. Giant robots fighting isn't my thing
That's fair, personal taste does exist.

Adam is in the briefcase.

You're underselling a number of things, but I don't disagree with you.

Asuka is a tsundre with an overbearing desire to both be needed by and be better than others. That's her whole character pretty much summed up. I don't recall any display of behavior deeper than that. The stuff with her mother added on near the end doesn't make any of her earlier actions any more interesting.

> Rei shows an unexpected response as soon as episode 5
But what does this amount to? Her behavior is alien and her thoughts inexplicable. Even her interactions with Gendo are more about giving Shinji reason to be more perplexed and jealous of both of them than about adding intelligible depth to either. Eva does far more to imply the idea of the characters having more depth than we can understand than it does actually bestow complexity on them.

>it's another spoonfeed a newfag thread that will be hailed as the best we've had in a while
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his shitposts?

Maybe a Re-run somewhere?

25+26 is sorta like Shinji accepting instrumentality and showed his experiences, EoE was him rejecting instrumentality.

reasons =/= depth

Would you mind providing examples of characters that are three-dimensional, complex, and atypical? Part of the reason that people call Eva a deconstruction of Super Robot anime is that it takes traditional anime tropes and character types and then rips them apart to expose their fragile inner psyches. If you could illustrate what you thought about them was simple and two-dimensional then perhaps we might be able to illuminate some things that you had missed.

>Asuka is a tsundre with an overbearing desire to both be needed by and be better than others.
Yes, but that's just a description of her character. Pretty much any character can be described in simple terms like this, but the interesting part comes from the complexities. Like the user above said, considering why Asuka takes these actions is a good place to start, which is why the stuff with her mother is interesting, as it provides important context to her actions.

>But what does this amount to? Her behavior is alien and her thoughts inexplicable.
That's not really true though. It's pretty clear that Rei slapping Shinji in the face is because she has an attachment to Gendo, and we're even shown why she has that attachment. It's really not inexplicable in the slightest.

Shinji rejects Instrumentality in both endings

What does equal depth then?

Like I said, you're underselling things a bit, but I completely agree that having plot excuses for their lack of intelligible depth doesn't make them great characters.

Gendo is probably the most extreme example of this. The series more or less constantly implies that there's way more to him than meets the eye and that he might well know a ton of shit that the other characters aren't privy too which allows him to manipulate the situation into his bidding. Yet his real feelings on most matters are either utterly opaque or completely underplayed and we end up barely being able to tell is he is a genuinely uncaring person or to what extent he might be deliberately hiding his feelings or his core reasons for this, with only a few short quotes on this matter to make any sense out of. He *would* have to be incredibly complex in order to act the way he does, but we only get the vaguest idea of how.

>First off, where is everyone getting all this extra information about the universe of the series?
Most discussion comes from the show itself, the manga, and a game that has some info that is recognized as canon.

> People are talking about stuff like Lilith being the soul in Eva 0, Rei's soul fracturing, and stuff like that.
Rei talks about how her soul comes from Lillith, You also see that Shinji feel's Rei's presence in unit 00. Too long to get into in a muiltiple response post.

>where was Adam this whole time?
> Adam was involved in the whole instrumentality shenanigans at the end, right?
>But where was he throughout the whole series?
A brief history of Adam: Land in Antarctica, found by Seele, caused second impact, body reduced to embyonic form while it's soul is implanted used to create Kaworu, body shipped to an European Nerv Branch, stolen by Kaji, given to Gendo, implanted in Gendo's hand, Embyo stolen by Rei, Fuses with Lillith and causes third impact. Knowing its biography should answer all those questions.

TV Asuka isn't a Tsundere, at no point does she become dere towards Shinji. She becomes moderately more cooperative, but even at the end of EoE she's still hostile towards Shinji. Rebuild Asuka, however, is a different story.

>First off, where is everyone getting all this extra information about the universe of the series? People are talking about stuff like Lilith being the soul in Eva 0, Rei's soul fracturing, and stuff like that.
Through out the series, you are given explanation for stuff. With these said explanations and other implied messages, one could come to a likely answer on certain questions.
The soul inside Unit-00 was a big question that came up. We know that Yui's soul is in Shinji's EVA, and the maternal portion of Kyoko is in Asuka's EVA. This allows both to control their EVAs. But what about Rei and her EVA? Who's soul is in hers, she doesn't have a mother, right? It's never flat out answered for us by Anno, but it's implied that Lilith (Rei's very soul) is somehow connected to the soul used in Unit-00.

>where was Adam this whole time? But where was he throughout the whole series?
In the possession of Seele in the beginning (in an embryonic state from 2nd impact), until Kaji stole it and brought it to Gendo. Then, Gendo fused Adam to his hand to begin the Forbidden Ceremony. He wanted to become God, but Rei denied him that chance and she took Adam (Gendo's arm) and returned to Lilith to become a God.

>Adam was involved in the whole instrumentality shenanigans at the end, right?
Yes, to complete the Forbidden Ceremony to become a God. Adam has the Fruit of Life and Lilith has the Fruit of Knowledge, combine both and you become God.

>Lastly, why was Asuka there with Shinji at the end, and why was Shinji choking her out?
This was actually the subject in a thread from yesterday. Simply, she was brought into instrumentality and she rejected it also. Shinji choked her to feel the existence of another person. To confirm (make sure of) rejection and denial. Remember, he just got out of Instrumentality, so he probably didn't know if he was in the real world. who knows, maybe he was continuing where he left off, when he was choking her during instrumentality?

TV Asuka is a deredere, because she's 100% dere towards Kaji

Gendo's entire character is explained in EoE. He fell hopelessly in love with Yui and everything he does is done to reunite with her. The rest has to be implied, but Yui's dialogue with him seems to reveal that he genuinely didn't and moreover felt he couldn't love Shinji, and that he doesn't give a shit about anyone besides Yui.

Having to rely on a movie that came out 2 years after the show for any semblence of depth from the character Gendo is evidence of poor writing.

>Yui's dialogue with him seems to reveal that he genuinely didn't and moreover felt he couldn't love Shinji, and that he doesn't give a shit about anyone besides Yui.
how did you get this. EoE reveals that it's not that he didn't love Shinji but that he was scared of him because didn't know how to relate to anyone not named Yui.

The flashbacks reveal this too. what EoE adds is why he failed to be a father to Shinji. But his whole deal with people and Yui is there in NGE.

It's the Messiah myth done right. Several other works of art do this too (Dune, Harry Potter, etc) and it usually juzt werks.

Many other things make NGE great, but when it comes to basic plot, it's not insanely original.

thanks for pointing that out, i've always been a little been puzzled at everyone saying that when there is one small but crucial difference between 25-26 and eoe

But who's the messiah? Depending on how you see it there could be 3 messiahs.
The obvious one is Shinji as the MC entrusted to accept his destiny to save the world etc, etc...
Kaworu as the memetic 'gay space jesus' though to me on a deeper reading he comes off as more of a John the Baptist: The proto messiah who must awaken the real messiah and ultimatelly loses his head.
And then there's Rei, who is the one that actually dies for the sake of humanity, comes back to life and whose 'second coming' brings the end of times and start of a new age.

Does that really disprove his theory in any way?
But the actual answer is Shinji, because he's the main character.

Wow. That was amazingly insightful.

There isn't supposed to be a great amount of depth in these characters to begin with. In this series, you are presented these characters. Throughout the series, you are presented with background info on some of them and you ultimately see how they all interact with each other, until the fateful 3rd Impact happens. It's not super elaborate. It's more of an emotionally-driven story, than a super 2deep4u story. It's literally art.

I felt empathetic for the characters, but didn't observe every bit of them that was presented under a micro-scope. Just watching it and feeling what the characters were going through made it an enjoyable series to watch in my opinion.

I mean the fact that you have to bend backwards to make 3 messiahs makes it seem like the story doesn't fit the messiah myth archetype. As far as I know, the Christian imagery and motifs are purely circumstantial - Japanese still use crosses and etc. as fashion symbols even today. It's like the way westerners view Buddhism - totally exotic.

I wasn't disproving it, Just kind of adding to it, it's a good messiah story because it's not a straight forward one but a muddled one. With three legit candidates though I don't think Shinji gets the biggest claim just because he's the MC, in my opinion Rei & Kaworu have better claims to the title. And even if it's Shinji, you still get a complicated messiah. Humanity's savior is a kid so far off the deep end that on the opening movie he sexually asaults an unresponsive girl, and it's not even like that's so far from his character he also tries to kiss when she's asleep.

He tried. In his own impoverished way. Episode 1 is only their first meeting in 3 years because Shinji ran.

Sure, the christian Imagery was chosen because it's cool and exotic, but once that decision was made it's not only the imagery that they use, but the symbolism and some themes not as great insight into Christianity or Judaism itself but as elements to make their own story interesting.

Exactly how I felt. For all the extraordinary circumstances, I always saw it as a human drama at heart. Rebuild lacks all the subtlety and honesty that made the original so memorable.

>The rest has to be implied
Yes, and the issue is that's a heck of a lot to be left implied. If anything, this dialog reveals how little he was thought out at all and makes little real sense of his previous behavior beyond providing the most gross motivations for him.