Which one was the better deconstruction of their respective genres? Which one did more for their respective mediums...

Which one was the better deconstruction of their respective genres? Which one did more for their respective mediums? Which one was better?

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>The Year of our Lord, CURRENT YEAR
>Still calling Eva a deconstruction

Both are fucking garbage. Being a shitty deconstruction of shit is still being shit.

>NGE
>Deconstruction
Explain.

People who know nothing about mecha anime like to pretend Evangelion is smart and deep because it makes them feel smart and deep

NGE was not a deconstruction of the mecha genre

the only thing it deconstructed was having teenagers as pilots. other than that, it brought grim dark and psychological horror themes to Mecha, but it didn't fucking deconstruct Mecha.

the deconstruction of mecha would be a series that deliberately tackles the issues of actually having Giant robots as weapons instead of a military.

watchmen wins by default, of course I personally like NGE better than watchmen

>>Deconstruction

I guess by deconstruction people means the TVtropes definition of a piece of media applying real world consequences to a fantasy setting.

For example in Super Robot shows the big robot saves the day and it's a friend of the children, the protag has fun piloting the robot.

In the "deconstruction" the Super Robot fighting causes collateral damage and kills the children, piloting the robot is mentally taxing for the protag that causes him to have mental breakdows.

>the deconstruction of mecha would be a series that deliberately tackles the issues of actually having Giant robots as weapons instead of a military.
So Gundam Wing?

>In the "deconstruction" the Super Robot fighting causes collateral damage and kills the children, piloting the robot is mentally taxing for the protag that causes him to have mental breakdows.
Mazinger Z and Gundam already do that pretty well, and they are known as the "codifiers" of Super and Real Robot.

>the deconstruction of mecha would be a series that deliberately tackles the issues of actually having Giant robots as weapons instead of a military.

Is Gundam 0079 a "deconstruction" then?

In a way, Gundam 0079 was a deconstruction of the Super robot genre that preceded it.

Zambot-3 also has some deconstructive elements.

What is Ideon.

the deconstruction would be a combinations of all of this

including

>heavy psychological toll on pilots
>actual reasoning for giant robots
>societal impacts of having technology for giant robots (i.E if we have the technology to build guit robots, whats the point we've reached a type 2 civ anyways)
>the issue of collateral damage
>the issue of some sort of monster showing up every week or so handled in a realistic way

>the deconstruction of mecha would be a series that deliberately tackles the issues of actually having Giant robots as weapons instead of a military.
That's literally what almost all the mecha series featuring themes and ideas related to military realism do. NGE is a deconstruction because it plays with the tropes of mecha and military and makes something new out of it.

NGE does most if not all of that already.

Is "Deconstruction" a Boolean concept? Does something have to be a perfect deconstruction of all aspects of something for it to be considered a deconstruction? Can we agree that Eva includes deconstructive elements?

>makes something new out of it.

I don't think that's what deconstruction means.

>the only thing it deconstructed was having teenagers as pilots.
Arguably though, that is the central aspect of the genre.

see

>no issue of collateral damage
>no actual reason for having robots

Not really. That's just animu's timeless old tricks.

People kept telling me That Eva was a deconstruction but it never seemed like that so I guess watchmen for actually being one?

Episode 2
Episode 7
Episode 22-26

The only thing that NGE deconstructed is the character interactions compared to popular archetypes.
The unlikely hero kid never assimilated to the situation, and reacted to shit like a teenager kid would.
The plucky hot-blooded heroine was an unlikable bitch with deep stemmed issues.
The mysterious shy girl is genuinely emotionless, dies when she starts getting a shred of agency and it's replaced by another emotionless clone.
The "abandoning dad" is genuinely abusive and uncaring towards his son.
Shit like that. BUT, that isn't to say there aren't already several works doing this kind of critique over normal story and archetype conventions. It's a big industry and it's hard to pinpoint which did it the same way as Watchmen.

Not him but NGE does both of those.

Toji's little sister is seriously wounded from the collateral damage caused by Eva Unit 01 vs. Sachiel in the very first episode.

And Evas are created from Adam and are literally the only things capable of actually hurting Angels, thanks to their deployable AT fields.

>Evangelion

youtube.com/watch?v=mEOHGIEqyX8

After watching this I hate Shinji even more

>heavy psychological toll on pilots
Happens in Mazinger
>actual reasoning for giant robots
Happens in Mazinger
>societal impacts of having technology for giant robots (i.E if we have the technology to build guit robots, whats the point we've reached a type 2 civ anyways)
Happens in Mazinger, Photon energy.
>the issue of collateral damage
Again, Mazinger does this in the very introduction
>the issue of some sort of monster showing up every week or so handled in a realistic way
Also happens in Mazinger.

>hating Shinji

He is the most courageous and based protagonist in all of anime

>And Evas are created from Adam and are literally the only things capable of actually hurting Angels, thanks to their deployable AT fields.
See, this is the issue what that "actual reason for having the robots" thing is dumb, do you people thing other series don't justify their mecha? I mean, some don't but let's look at Gundam for instance.
The necessity of Minovsky particles for functioning practical fusion reactors. Because Minovsky Particles jam electromagnetic signals at higher concentrations, the expected long distance combat becomes impossible, creating a new age of close range combat. In addition, the limbs of a Mobile Suit, while in space, can be moved in ways to help turn and maneuver the suit without the need to waste fuel constantly firing all of its verniers.

>no societal impact form the EVA's

probably the biggest one, you can argue that selee is literally the Illuminati, but this has to be the biggest one

That's exactly what it means. Take Watchmen as an example, if only it was playing around the tropes of Capeshit while telling a normal Capeshit narrative, it would be either called a parody or a subversion. But it plays around the tropes and makes something completely new out of it. That's deconstruction.
Look at Miller's Daredevil, it plays around the tropes of Superhero/vigilantism, but it's not a deconstruction because it's still telling a Superhero story with all those ideas about how a relationship between a hero and villain remains or how much a hero sacrifices but still remains heroic. That's subversion. A parody for Superhero genre would be something that's making fun of the tropes.
Anime equivalent of subversion would be something like Madoka which is a subversion of something like Sailor Moon or Prequre which in itself is a subversion of their older predecessor. Kill la Kill on the other hand is part parody, part revisionist piece.

>not seeing Eva as the ultimate expression of Anno going apeshit

>but it never seemed like that
The battles in the show were largely psychological, and there was a distinct focus on the consequences and ramifications of having children pilot giant robots in crowded cities. And then after that, it dives downward and starts taking a literal approach to the concept of self-actualization and how it relates to human suffering.

It's anything but standard.

this IS what I see eva as, it's an expression of anno's loneliness and isolation

Then Bokurano is better than EVA

And not just Anno, but the end of the TV series, it was the whole production staff going apeshit

Gundam wing was star wars: the boyband.

So Bokurano.

>no actual reason for having robots
>And Evas are created from Adam and are literally the only things capable of actually hurting Angels, thanks to their deployable AT fields.

Evas aren't exactly mechas though even if they show up in some Super Robot Wars games, they are more like human restrained kaijus , closer to cyborgs not quite robots.

The only 100% mecha in Evangelion was the useless nucler-powered Jet Alone.

>no societal impact form the EVA's
I mean it does and doesn't work in that manner. There's clearly a lot of things going on because Angles appeared, because EVA have to fight them, but you could argue that it's a premise of a lot of Mecha shows. But on the other hand it doesn't affect the society same as the appearance of Super beings in Miracleman or in Watchmen.

At being a deconstruction?
Possibly.

As a series, though?
Kitoh's works suffer from his tendency to create shallow disposable characters who only exist to die. He also relies too heavily on the "horror of the unknown", providing no real depth for the origin of the conflicts. What, you're interested in where this giant robot came from? Fuck you, that's where.

In allegory, it's like a muddy pond; You can't see the bottom, but that doesn't mean it's a lake.

>Evas aren't exactly mechas though even if they show up in some Super Robot Wars games, they are more like human restrained kaijus , closer to cyborgs not quite robots.
Wouldn't that support the argument that Eva is a deconstruction then? That the only thing capable of hurting the monsters of the week were cybernetic genetic monstrocities cloned FROM the same being that gave birth to the same monsters trying to kill all of humanity?

I always felt like the presence of Evas pretty obviously had a major impact on society, it's just that the staff chose to focus on other aspects, namely the psychological development of the main characters.

you're not getting what I'm saying, by no actual reason for having mecha's, I'm talking about the actual reason why they absolutley have to be MECHAS, or giant robots, and they just can't be some sort of super weapon or ship or something.
in EVA's case, The "mechs" are captured angels correct? and they need the captured angels because of AT feilds right? logically the next step in military action would be to create a weapon with anti AT feild capablilties, like an anti AT canon or a net or a field or something like that, there really isn't a justifiable reason why they're made into walking robots.

the other thing is that EVA doesn't really have a societal impact because of discovering EVA or the angels, sure maybe you can't harvest energy out of it, but there would be tons of repurcusions
>evidence of life on other planets
>evidence of intelligent life
>evidence of our creation
>evidence of maybe even a God or Godlike figure

but none of that really shows up in EVA, granted I know Seele pulls strings sometimes, but like there's never any sort of politcal repurcusion or everyone sort of getting angry that EVA's could potentially cause the end of the world.

The AT Field is strictly of biological origin and a manifestation of a person's ego. In the series, a company tries to do it and is ultimately sabotaged by NERV for this reason.

Robots can't have AT feilds no matter how hard you try.

>but like there's never any sort of politcal repurcusion or everyone sort of getting angry that EVA's could potentially cause the end of the world.
Actually, the series shows that a lot of misato's job is dealing with the UN and people complaining that their homes were destroyed by the angels.

The basic issue is that NERV really does not have the time or resources to give a fuck, and at most negotiates to only have 3 active at most.

>and at most negotiates to only have 3 active evas at most.
Fixd

>logically the next step in military action would be to create a weapon with anti AT feild capablilties, like an anti AT canon or a net or a field or something like that, there really isn't a justifiable reason why they're made into walking robots.
Did we ever find out exactly what allowed Evas to be able to generate AT Fields? Were they even capable of putting that in some kind of "anti-AT cannon"?

Also, the bipedal "design" of the Evas give them a multi-purpose role that allows them to be more flexible than something like a cannon or a net, allowing them more creativity in responding to threats. I'm not sure if that's an in-universe explanation but it make
s enough sense to justify them as "mecha".

>but none of that really shows up in EVA, granted I know Seele pulls strings sometimes, but like there's never any sort of politcal repurcusion or everyone sort of getting angry that EVA's could potentially cause the end of the world.
SEELE pulls a lot of strings and keeps the public mostly ignorant to a lot of things. I doubt the public even knows what an S2 engine even is.

There's no societal impact from having Evas because we don't "have" Evas. They're eldritch black boxes we've managed to jury rig as fighting vehicles while barely understanding the basic principles behind them. The whole point is that the Evas aren't a triumph of human technology. They're monstrosities that are just as likely to bite our heads off as help us.

Now as for the societal impact of the war which makes the Evas necessary, that's pretty much obvious.

>In the "deconstruction" the Super Robot fighting causes collateral damage and kills the children, piloting the robot is mentally taxing for the protag that causes him to have mental breakdows.
Gundam does it
youtube.com/watch?v=JHwxkPl6FuI

>implying post-modern deconstruction is a good thing

>Did we ever find out exactly what allowed Evas to be able to generate AT Fields? Were they even capable of putting that in some kind of "anti-AT cannon"?
We did. Kaworu explains it before his death.

It is the physical manifestation of a person's ego. Angels basically have th willpower of god, hence why theirs manifests so powerfully. Humans have them too, but the most we can do with them is keep ourselves fully constituted. This is why you see people in Evangelion turn into goop so often; because they get so thoroughly mindfucked that they just collapse into LCL.

Either way, it's not something you can give a machine.

I like both, but I'm a much bigger fan of Evangelion. I viewed it as an examination of the fragility of humanity. Humans always feel alone, and seek out other humans to validate their own existence via interaction and conflict.

>Wouldn't that support the argument that Eva is a deconstruction then? That the only thing capable of hurting the monsters of the week were cybernetic genetic monstrocities cloned FROM the same being that gave birth to the same monsters trying to kill all of humanity?

That's more or less the same "main mech is made of the enemy's technology and the only thing actually viable in fighting the MotW" shtick found in countless other robot shows.

>Watchmen
>deconstruction

>NGE
>deconstruction

No one thinks you're funny, user.

Who hates their industry more?
Moore or Anno?

Moore hates the rabid fans, Anno is hated by rabid fans.

Neither.

I couldn't make half way through NGE when I tried to watch it.
I liked Watchmen.

I'm not being funny.

All of these threads 404 in half-points and failed arguments, with zero basis in the literary concepts that such a nuanced discussion of the topic normally entails, instead replaced by TVTropes plagiarism, irrelevant and baseless evidence, and embarrassing surface level knowledge of both mediums that the works are a part of, and, most importantly, the school of cultural analysis that such an assertion would be founded on in the first place.

The people who insist NGE is a "deconstruction" haven't watched enough mecha, never-mind anime, and the ones who say the same of Watchmen haven't read enough capes, never-mind comics.

You really aren't any good at shit posting.

>Watchmen
>Deconstruction
KEK. Now this is a deconstruction

I do like how almost everyone in Eva on some level are broken terrible people Gendo as a manipulative coward whose willing to do anything just to reunite with his wife Shinji an over emotionally depressed teenager misato desperately wants someone in her life going so far as to actively trying to fuck Shinji rei is an unemotionally person but actually tries to improve herself and that just a few of the characters

can't it be argued that artistic meaning derived from the eye of the beholder also has merit, in addition to that of the artist?

But does that mean that everyone's views are equally valid, or that their views should affect the work itself?

>The last half of a brilliant comic you were reading turns into a self wank of author's self fantasies about Ubermensch philosophy
Truly user.

'Valid' in some context. The point I was trying to make is that it's more about what people take away from something given the lenses through which they view it.

The Ubermensch rute was the only way.

Instead of being a contrarion retard, either contribute or fuck off. Your post literally reads like a tryhard saying everything to look pretentious but you lack the self awareness to even pull that kind of shitpost off.

I'm no shitposting, and I'm not being contrarian. Contribute to what exactly? The same thread we've always had, with the same empty ideas and unfounded evidence?

Both works are so clearly not in the realm of deconstruction, but I'll look at any evidence or arguments presented, since the burden lies on the initial assertion. I'm not opposed to that. Just stating that this has happened before, and is happening now, and will happen again.

There's nothing there or here. Try otherwise, I am interested.

Yeah but it was done really poorly. It throws all the realism out of the window and reads like a first year philosophy student just read a bunch of Nietzsche and decided to write a thinly veiled fictional thesis about it.
At least when Watchmen tackles the stuff like utilitarianism, predeterministic and other ideologies, it doesn't come as amateurish.

Let's start with you telling us what deconstruction is and how Watchmen isn't a deconstruction.

It's not even deconstruction.

Hands down watchmen.

I don't think Asians have any creative talent.

Not how this works, and yet it pops up every fucking time this thread occurs. Guaranteed.

I'm not make any assertions, due to the zero point, you are the one asserting in the positive, for the existence of an element. That leaves the burden of proof on YOU for the sake of this argument. I don't need to say anything in regards to how it's *not*, you have to provide evidence that it *is*.

So, when making an assertion in the positive, it's always up to you to provide a.) what is the basis of your argument, b.) how the argument is supported by evidence and reasoning, from both the work itself and critical theory, and c.) the conclusion of the implications in regards to the initial basis and applied analysis.

I can't *prove* Watchmen ISN'T a deconstruction, since I can't provide evidence of something that doesn't exist. It's up to you to provide the reasoning for your claim, in which then I provide the counter.

The direct before the cross, as it were and always is.

Asians have some of the earliest-written creative works in the history of mankind.

You can at least tell what deconstruction actually means fuckwit. How Watchmen is a deconstruction has been said a thousand times, it's up to you to prove how it isn't a deconstruction and provide an example of what a deconstruction is since you're going against the grain. I'm not going to write a blog here and say the stuff that's already been said, least of all because you'll dismiss every point by saying that's not a deconstruction or that's been done before while not actually telling what a deconstruction means to you clearly. There's an objective definition of the phrase deconstruction out there and I doubt yours is that.

You should read Hindu mythology if you want creative.

>How Watchmen is a deconstruction has been said a thousand times
Post one example.
>I'm not going to write a blog here and say the stuff that's already been said
Just one.
>There's an objective definition of the phrase deconstruction out there and I doubt yours is that.
A single link.

by that logic Watchmen isnt a deconstruction

Throw that all aside and teach me about deconstruction in literature and media user. What is your definition? We can shitpost all day and go round and round, why not take an initiative.

It is and is the best one.

>I'm not sure if that's an in-universe explanation
They're cyborgs with mechanical parts grafted on. Most of them were cloned from a giant humanoid, the First Angel. Unit-01 was created from a different angel, but one that was also humanoid.

So, they're bipeds because they're clones/cuttings from other giant bipeds.

Well one is something normal people know what it is and the other is stupid weeb shit no one cares about.

is Watchmen the Akira of Sup Forums

Just because something is a deconstruction doesn't mean it is deep.

That's a mech vs mech war setting. EVA is the more fantastic mech vs kaiju setting.

You're not actually deconstructing something without simultaneously actually reconstructing the thing you're deconstructing . Simply applying darker and more "realistic" themes to something is nothing more than making something edgy.

and Eva is neither

Considering how nothing else short of complete nuclear anihilaton can even kill most angels cyborg-alien angel clones jury rigged into being piloted machines with emotionally unstable pilots was basically there only option

Honestly everyone should just watch Mazinger instead of NGE.

>logically the next step in military action would be to create a weapon with anti AT feild capablilties, like an anti AT canon
SEELE already did that with the synthetic Spears of Longinus wielded by the mass-production Eva series. But by and large, the world's governments don't have access to the ancient alien tech that would let them manipulate AT fields at all.

Did you watch the show and End of Eva? This is all shown front and centre in the series.

Probably better to read Mazinger, I'm pretty sure the TV series is watered down for kids. [Spoiler] Though I haven't watched it myself, last time I tried, all I could found were the Crabstick subs, pic related [/spoiler]

Neon Genesis: Evangelion hands down. its not even close

People who like NGE tend to like it for the characters and the believable depictions of depression and self loathing not the 2deep4u psychology 101 stuff.

I know that, I like Eva myself, I was describing people who call it a deconstruction

>Kitoh's works suffer from his tendency to create shallow disposable characters who only exist to die.

This is why Bokurano basically didn't work at all. Narutaru (the manga not the anime), while having it's own problems, did a better job since it focused more on fewer important characters.

Then fair enough. The problem in my mind is that the term deconstruction has lost pretty much all meaning at this point so there's no way to say if it is or isn't one.

Well, this argument never goes anywhere, but let me drop my two cents.

Let me preface this by defining what a deconstruction is, at least to me. A deconstructive work is a work that subverts and criticized the fundamental appeal of its genre. Now, this can be as easily done with a grimdark or a lighthearted atmosphere, there's no requirement. There's plenty of comedic films that subvert gritty movies, for example. So to People go to Cape comics for a power fantasy, to see cool battles, and for the exhilaration and catharsis of watching good triumph over evil. Watchmen pretty deliberately does away with all three, emphasizing that power is a burden, battles are violent and senseless, and that morality isn't so clear most of the time. Compare that to, say, Ruin. Which also subverts genre convention and makes everything "realistic" and "dark" but never attacks these genre pillars at all. It's simply a dark interpretation of the genre, not one that criticizes the genre itself.

Eva is a bit of a nutcase. The show starts off actually exceptionally genre-positive. I'd argue that the first 12 episodes are what makes Eva such a cultural icon, not the dark second half. Eva was really the first show to take multiple disparete genres of anime and fuse them together into something almost everyone could enjoy. There was a healthy mix of drama, action, comedy, etc that takes tropes from every previous popular anime. It was decidedly postmodern, but certainly not a deconstruction. A pastiche is a better word for it. But as Anno's depression worsened, his love for anime turned to contempt and the second half was spent on a refutation of everything the former established. You could call it a deconstruction of mecha, but as Eva had swept so many genres into itself, and then attacked them en masse, probably more accurate to call it a deconstruction of ALL anime. That scene in EoE where it shows the audience before telling Shinji to get a fucking life sums this attitude up.

>I'm pretty sure the TV series is watered down for kids.

Pretty much all of Go Nagai's manga are watered down for kids in anime form. Case in point: Devilman.

Even though you could get away with nudity in anime directed at younger people in the 70s/80s you've always been able to get away with much more in manga.