Neon Genesis Evangelion: Required Reading?

Is there any literature you should familiarize yourself with before viewing this series and it's films? I understand it touches upon religious and Freudian themes and symbolism frequently, I'd like to make the most of my understanding of it

Look up Oedipus, the Freudian death drive, the Jungian shadow and 'The Mysterious Stranger' short story by Mark Twain.

You think that's sufficient for me to get the jist of the themes and such?

Essentially, that covers the bases for the psychological stuff, and all the religious symbolism is, as Anno himself said, basically there because it looks cool only, so you only need to cover Freud etc. If you want more, look up interviews with Anno and other people from Gainax when you finish it.

just read devilman and mazinger

it's what anno pretty much based eva on

Being an intelligent idividual that pays attention and gives it some thought is enough to understand it.
You don't need to fancy lables from classic literature on it to get a profound understanding off the characters and themes.
The content of NGE and almost every other piece of media is based on life itself. Not on works trying to make sense off it.
You don't need to read a book that revolves around loneliness to understand when a character is lonely.
Assuming you're an adult with some life experience.

I guess you're right, I just wanted to make sure that nothing went over my head

Oedipus and Childhood's End are the main influences.

NGE is full of references and shit but I wouldn't say that not getting the references means things went over your head or anything, it just means that you will see certain themes for the first time in Evangelion rather than where they got them from.

Don't forget the bibble

Please need the image
Mecha prota before and after shinji.

Was the imagery really only there for the "cool" factor or was Anno just fucking with everyone?

I swear to god the punchline to all of this is that I first saw the deeper religious stuff in a goshdarn shounen manga than the work that's literally called 2deep4u.

I guess I'll finally get around to watching Eva.

No author ever does something as extensive as all the biblical imagery in NGE just for the heck of it, but that also doesn't mean he had some intricate master plan for it. Also a lot of authors are self-effacing when asked about this sort of thing.

So like can I just be blunt and flat out ask if anyone else is getting profound religious enlightenment from mainstream anime and manga these days?

Yes.

No.
The symbolic shit is there so you would feel mystified by it rather than to convey any sort of profound meaning.

The mystery is the appeal of mystery, and dont overananalyze or dig too deep into explaination either, leave it charmingly obscure.

That's silly.

There's a rhyme and reason for everything in a work - sometimes the answer is as banal as "I wanted things to look cool", but sometimes even that banal answer is just a self-effacing excuse from someone with a lack of confidence in the execution of his work.

The point is that you search long and hard enough until you find an answer that sits right with you.

Well they are dealing with the shit that created humans and other life.
If you go too sci-fi technical about it you get the Engineers.
Giving them divine feel is appropriate so you dont end up with wit another boring space aliens.

If anything those things are more like Lovecraftian Eldritch gods than anything else. But Lovecraftian narrative could never properly adapted in to anything ever with a single exception of Bloodborne.

Not to mention all the divine aspects in Eva are from Christianity, which is something the Japanese are still largely unfamiliar with, so if your goal is to not only make it divine but also vaguely mysterious it makes sense to use Christianity and not something the native Japanese audience is more familiar with like Buddhism or Shinto.

They wanted you to feel curious and thrilled, they wanted to give you a special feeling when watching the show, rather than to have you dig to the bottom of it.

If you actually do it that kills the magic.

Derrida

Those aspects are for the cool factor rather than an important message.

EVA is not a show about defeating the god by creating cyborg beasts of god's flesh and mad scientist moms.

It's a show about the character's personal tragedies using crazy cool shit with robots as a backdrop.

Jungian Psychology in general, not just the Shadow, makes you appreciate Leliel a lot more.

It's a bit of both. There are two examples of the Christian imagery not being complete gibberish that I can think of from the top of my head:
>The scene earlier in the show where a shadow of a cross is behind Gendo, symbolizing him "carrying a cross."
>one of the various themes in the Bible is of Rebirth, the show is all about Rebirth, to the point where that's what the Japanese title translates to. Shinji is also rebirthed.

Then there's stuff like the explosions just being crosses, which is 100% just for the cool factor.

I don't think there's a message in that imagery itself but I think it contributes a lot more to the show than just being "cool", I think saying it was all just for the cool factor is to really diminish the importance of it in the show.

Fuck, I forgot to put closing tags at the start there

I know a guy who says NGE enlightened him, but considering he's an atheist he probably meant it another way.

Considering how hardcore he is about the show it might as well BE his religion, though.

Can you give any examples?