Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most mediocre animes I have EVER seen.
The story is okay. The idea of earth being assaulted by unknown, quasi-supernatural/technological beings is one that has been handed down through the years, the most famous example being The War of the Worlds (which wins hands down by the way).
Ayanami Rei was okay as a character, but what on earth possesses everyone to raise Ikari Shinji to almost godlike status? The guy is biggest loser in anime (with the exception of Makoto for School Days - Nice Boat), and one of the biggest losers I have even seen in ANY story since Thomas Covenant. I honestly found myself wishing he was a real person so I could smack some sense into him. I've heard it mentioned that he is the most realistic character in the anime, and I have to wonder what planet the people who say such things were born on. I mean honestly.
This wasn't Hideaki Anno's best work by far. Top wo Nerae (Gunbuster), was a far superior sci-fi anime, and the characters were MUCH more believable. The story for Top wo Nerae beats Neon Genesis Evangelion hands down. I can only assume he was suffering from dementia when Evangelion was written.
A suggestion if I may, to end this rant. If you want emotion, trauma, passion, a great story, and all the rest, then watch some of the following animes:
Fullmetal Alchemist Barefoot Gen Flanders no Inu (movie) Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid NHK ni Youkoso! Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou Top wo Nerae Grave of the Fireflies Mushishi Chrno Crusade
There's a lot more that fit the bill. Watch them, then re-watch evangelion and see if it has the same feeling it did before (I would advise removal of the fluffy pink clouds of nostalgia in your head before rewatching).
I'm going to end this review here. I'm not going to tell you all not to watch this. I just hope that this review makes you consider what actually IS good in anime.
you know that kind of person that criticizes a van gogh painting for not being detailed, and then claims that this makes it worse than a photography that you took with your smartphone?
well, you're that kind of person. People like you belong in the trash.
Michael Thomas
take the advice in your pic OP, you'd obviously prefer it
Isaiah Allen
It has flaws. But flawless anime doesn't make a great anime. Eva is great. The fact is so many people identify with it and feel some emotional connection to the series and characters. There is no other shows like it.
Colton Howard
>Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most mediocre animes I have EVER seen.
Okay, im interested, what do you have to say?
>The story is okay. The idea of earth being assaulted by unknown, quasi-supernatural/technological beings
Dropped, you didnt get it, do research before posting here, literally everything is wrong in that sentence
Nolan Turner
What kind of bait is this? If you can appreciate Top wo Nerae then you should be able to appreciate NGE.
Ryan Allen
>animes Stopped reading.
Mason Clark
why do people have such a hard time understanding how Japanese plurals work? I can't tell you how often I hear people say tsunamis or samurais
Gavin Smith
Ok, riddle me this guys: NERV is a military organisation whose SOLE objective is the protection of the planet, by whatever means. This being the case, WHY THE HELL is Ikari Shinji the main focus of the story?
He doesn't want to pilot an EVA, and doesn't want to fight. Any self respecting organisation WOULD HAVE FOUND SOMEONE MORE WILLING AND MORE ABLE to do the job.
Asher Smith
Last time I checked, we are writing English. Enough people using animes, and it will be the correct one.
Josiah Brown
but shinji fit the requirements of being a whiny 14 year old
Jack Lee
it's not correct though, same goes for a lot of latin and greek plurals
Jason Wright
He is the only one who can accept or reject human instrumintality, he is kinda chosen in that way, also he has the highest connectivity level.
Grayson Morris
Let me guess, you didnt watch EoE
Leo Jones
Hey y'all, OP here. I'm actually a big Eva fan. This shit's all from a review on MAL, and reading it fucked me up. Just wanted to gauge how fucked up it'd get other fans.
in the closet homesexual producer has a mental breakdown, shits all over peoples hard work. gets praise.
trys to stay relevant and snd seek attention by saying controversial things with no substance.
anno, miyazaki, and bill waterson are hacks
Luis Lee
Eva is a good, solid, but severely overrated series. It has a lot of interesting ideas and premises and a solid execution, however the series is a lot shallower than it seems to be. The series creates a sense of artificial depth by using a lot of theological imagery and mentions a lot to draw very overt and blatant comparisons between it and, love or hate religion, scripture that has a lot of depth and debatable topics that it's been discussed and argued for thousands of years. However unlike a series in which the themes and motifs drive deep into the meaning if the show and are done subtly, Eva does things very blatantly with stuff imagery being direct parallels to its references. This is to not say it's not a bad way to do things, but rather than be a series where the deeper meaning or connections in its scenes have are key is more like they are done for atmosphere and give added weight. This is reinforced by Anno himself changing the meaning of EVA every few years, because there really is no deeper meaning in the original series and the surface level really explains it all.
To put it into perspective an anime with truly complex and interpretive meaning is like a metaphor, EVA is more like a simple as it directly spells out x is like y. EVA is a good fun show probably all anime fans should watch for being a solid, well executed series and possibly just for its impact on anime as a whole. However it's nothing truly amazing, there's far better mecha shows out there and there are far better allegorical thought provoking series out there.
Tl;dr EVA is good, but not great. Both haters and fanboys should fucking get over it.
Gavin Moore
>EVA is more like a simple More like a simile* my autocorrect is kicking my ass lately
Robert Cook
how can we get over it when anno keeps trying go in the public eye because hes mental? his work has been overshadowed by much better shows and he cant stand it.
Connor Smith
The fact that everything after the original anime, yes that's including EoE, is frivolous tripe should be indicator that the series and further installments should be ignored. Anno especially drives this point home with the fact that he literally wants to just tell the story again and again but trying to be "deeper" each time, almost as if he is trying to convince himself that EVA is deeper than it really is.
Basically I'm saying he is a hack fraud at this point and should more or less be ignored.
Samuel Ramirez
>bill waterson
Didn't see that coming
Nicholas Hernandez
>further installments should be ignored this, we need an Anno mechagodzilla movie, not another rebuild
John Brooks
How bout we all chill and look at some phat memes kids
Cooper Perry
the people that made this are the reasons why I'm a neet
Ayden Reed
>Miyazaki is a hack
Spotted the butthurt waifufag.
Jaxon Jones
That's not Nerv's real purpose, Shinji's there because of how Evas work, Evas work like that to guarantee Shinji would be there and involved in Nerv's real purpose, and Shinji is the best performing and most resilient out of the pilots. Plot holes aren't the same thing as plot you didn't watch.
Nathaniel Barnes
>Fullmetal Alchemist >Barefoot Gen >Flanders no Inu (movie) >FullMetal Panic: The Second Raid >NHK ni Youkoso! >Chrono Crusade Bad
>Top wo Nerae >Grave of the Fireflies >Mushishi Okay
>Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou Good
I guess Eva really is the best anime.
Tyler Davis
...
Jayden Torres
(you)
Adrian Lopez
Because the show isn't about the mechas you fucking philistine, it's about depression and the barriers between people. Did you even watch the show?
Only Shinji can pilot unit 01 because it contains the soul of his mother. They tried to replace him with the dummy plug and it didn't work because Yui rejected it.
Jeremiah Reed
(you)
Ian Brooks
...
Landon Morgan
I'm not OP, but seriously why were all the characters so boring. Literally the only character that had any kind of depth was Misato and Asuka to a lesser extent. Shini and Rei were some of the most boring MCs of all time.
Jose Rivera
I understand we have some kids on this board but in school you have literature and critical thinking lessons for a reason. You should never have to explain this.
Josiah Barnes
>Only Shinji can pilot unit 01 because it contains the soul of his mother. They tried to replace him with the dummy plug and it didn't work because Yui rejected it. Kind of. It was possible for Rei to pilot it, and the dummy plug (which is built from Rei clones) did work once. And then Yui got upset and Unit 01 stopped working with anything other than Shinji.
Dominic Morgan
You didn't find Gendo or Ritsuko interesting?
Nolan Brown
Censured episodes
Ethan Nelson
NERV doesn't have the budget to make giant robots out of everyone's mother. Yui merged with eva unit 1 and if shinji weren't to pilot it it would be a huge waste. Turns out, however despite his disfunctional personality, he has a really good sync ratio, so they want to use him.
Jason Robinson
>Fullmetal Alchemist >Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid >Grave of the Fireflies >Chrno Crusade
I have seen all of these. I can confirm they are not better than Eva. Good day.
Ian Sullivan
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a tough show to rate. According to Anno, if you're a normal, well rounded person then you won't learn anything from the show. While this may be true in some cases, the things that one can learn from the show are juvenile at best. Many of the older fans of NGE have a tendency to view the show through the rose tinted lenses of nostalgia, and while this is not a bad thing, it inhibits the ability to view the show objectively. Many of the younger fans, on the other hand, are fiercely loyal to the show, and have a tendency to react harshly to any criticism of the show. The unfortunate side effect of this is that the show has gained a certain notoriety that it could have done without, and many people who watch the show for the first time, do so with certain preconceived notions already embedded in their heads.
NGE is one of those shows that could have been great. Unfortunately the glaring flaws in the plot, coupled with the lack of develpment amongst the other characters in comparison to Shinji meant that I, at least, only found the show to be mediocre. NGE was a let down for me as I am a big fan of Top wo Nerae, the show that is effectively the older sibling to NGE (and is considered by quite a few people to be the superior show).
I'm not going to suggest anyone watches the show, as that is a decision you should make for yourself. Likewise the choice of whether you love it or hate it is something that only you can decide. The only thing I can say about the show is that, when watching it, be as objective as you can.
NGE is no Top wo Nerae by any measure, but it is a classic. Unfortunately, it really isn't Anno's best work, and the rebuild is making the same errors all over again.
Robert Foster
makoto is alpha not a loser, fuck you
Josiah Mitchell
They would have if they could have but Rei was injured, Asuka was in Germany and it would have taken them too long to sync and train another child from their school. They literally had no other option.
Parker Hall
How many characters can even be worth a shit in Gunbuster anyway? Isn't it only like 2 or 3?
Jeremiah Barnes
You're a fucking idiot. Not because of your conclusion, but everything before that was pure nonsensical babbling with words like theme and motif thrown in. You really just sound like a retard who googled "Eva imagery analysis" and was dissapointed there weren't any conclusions to plagiarize as your own thoughts. Surprise, not every work is going to have the creators perfectly outlined sparknotes so you can feel like you "get it." There is no "artificial depth." That's just your pseduo intellectual brain trying to comprehend that something might not have a clear origin or explanation. Maybe it just looked cool? Did you ever consider that? Is NGE somehow not intellectual enough for you because of that? Maybe it must be since your criteria for what makes an anime good is whether or not you think the "metaphors" are hidden well enough.
Its funny that while you try and downplay NGE as something not up to your true intellect, you actually missed out on what makes the series so great. Protip: it's not the english101 breakdown of the imagery, symbols and their meaning. It's the characters inbetween all that where Eva really shines. The portrayal of those 3 characters and how they cope with everything is where NGE tackles it's bigger ideas. You were probably too distracted by the biblical names and trying to connect it to something that you missed it. The dialouge and characters are at the forefront, the rest is just part of creating a cool robot show.
I even agree with you that NGE is overrated, but it's not because it isn't up your warped sense of judgement.
Jace Edwards
here of another (You). Only for (You).
Justin Gray
If you think that this series doesn't have a reputation of being "deep" then I welcome you on your first day to the internet, you must be excited to discuss your new hobby of anime. I think the strength of this series is interpersonal relations and how they were executed. I also think people who think there's more to this series than that are delusional or reading into things that aren't there.
When it comes to being a series about introspection and disseminating social structures/relationships, it does an alright job of it just other series before and after it have done it better. What made this one particularly special was, pardon the buzzword, deconstructing mecha which always involved young pilots leading war mechs to save the planet. EVA took the idea of if you actually put real kids in those mechs and put them into these dangerous situations what would actually happen, and that is the strength/depth of this series not some horse shit about angels, theology, and existence.
Nathaniel Collins
>he's a loser therefore he's a bad character and unrealistic ??????????????????????
Austin Reyes
Confirmed for 2deep4u
Christopher Bennett
>its a "i can't see past the surface level story which is obviously just an allegory for the actual themes of the show" episode
stick to naruto or DBZ kid
fun fact: a childs brain isn't fully developed until the early 20s
James Powell
I don't know why you act all tsun with the insults only to agree with everything I said. As for people coming up with their own fan fic tier nonsense, sure they exist. Theyre a big part of why NGE is called overrated because it's a response to the people you mentioned.
I don't know exactly what you mean by disseminating social structures but that is probably something that depends on the person so I can't argue. All I'll say is Eva is stil a great series for me because of the impact it had on me as a kid watching it for the first time on TV. I think a lot of people who really love Eva watched it during the same period of like 13-16 and at the time it was like nothing else I'd ever seen or even had access to. I can see why if someone were to watch the series with all these expectations of how deep and amazing it was, they might be let down by the teen angst and feeling of "that's it?" I think NGE is so highly rated despite it's flaws is that it has a special place for a lot of people who watched it at an ideal time. And for whatever reason it's still the only show over 20 years old that still gets daily threads and mentioned in discussions. Love or hate it, it's almost like required viewing as part of the culture and for that reason i hold it as a great series.
Jackson Ortiz
My issue is the age old meme of deep coming from people claiming Anno had some bigger picture in mind and that this was truly some kind of thinking man's anime. The metaphors are very blatantly about social interaction, for fucks sake at fields are literally personal space, and the cool imagery was exactly that just cool imagery. It does not help that Anno himself perpetuates this idea there is even deeper meaning EVA than the obvious, even though what he says that meaning is changes every few years because there is none. I think you have the right outlook of EVA: its a good show that most of us saw in the formulative period that got you into anime, it isn't the best but it's worth watching.
EVA is a solid show that's a good, strange ride from beginning to end and should be watched almost for its effect on the industry alone. And everything after the main anime is shit.
Jason Clark
Define depth. What makes a show "deep" and what anime are "deep" if eva isn't.
>While this may be true in some cases, the things that one can learn from the show are juvenile at best So? I've never read or watched a work of fiction that has taught me anything that I haven't learned through science, pholosophy or just living. But I don't watch film for that, I watch it because art can reflect on certain themes through creative narratives. The message of Evangelion (or anything I've seen) wasn't anything mindblowing but it presented it through well written characters, an interestingly put together narrative, unique setting, design and directing.
Gunbuster wasn't on Eva's level in any of those areas. In fact not many anime at all are.
Jayden White
Post more eyecatches
Gabriel Lopez
...
Alexander Barnes
Not him, but Evangelion is not remarkably deep. It's pretty apparent about what it's trying to communicate. People might get held up on all the meaningless pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo than Anno stuck in there because he thought it sounded cool. But that's all a red herring and meant to give the series some flavor.
I don't really think any anime I've watched is especially deep - it's all entertainment. Monster is great and all, but it's just a psychological thriller and the end of the day.
Mason Sullivan
Stop giving (you)s to shitty pasta.
Ryder Diaz
>what anime are "deep" if eva isn't. Lain, Texhnolyze, Ergo Proxy, the list goes on...
John Bell
How about you define depth instead of making an arbitrary list. What do those shows do that Eva doesn't and why is that depth.
Alexander Young
As someone who has seen all of those, they're somewhat deep except Ergo Proxy but not much more than Eva if at all. EP has somewhat deep filler eps but the main plot isn't that deep. I actually like it more than Tex or Lain due to style though.
Bentley Bennett
It's okay user this show is 2DEEP4U so don't feel bad if you didn't get it
Kayden Myers
...
Elijah Thompson
This is pasta right? >reviewing on Sup Forums >lists entry level trash for his top cartoons
saged for blogging
Brayden Phillips
He copied a review from MAL
Oliver Hernandez
>NERV is a military organisation whose SOLE objective is the protection of the planet, by whatever means. >he actually believes this
Owen Williams
Eva is the Dark Souls/Bloodborne of Anime minus the mecha.
