Neon Genesis Evangelion

I'd say Eva still holds up. Its a good series with solid ideas behind it. There were some not-so-solid points to it, but that doesn't discount all it did right. It did quite a bit right.

I honestly don't get the idea of shunning what came before in favor of what built on top of it. If I did that, I never would have read the likes of Jojos Bizarre Adventure (or Fist Of The North Star). That would have been very unfortunate seeing how much I enjoyed that series.

SO yes, other things have gone to the places Eva have gone, and other things will in the future. It doesn't make Eva any less of what it is.

NGE was a product of its time (otaku culture gaining notoriety), but at the same time something very special that only Anno and colleagues could have made, in both its strength and its flaws. Nowadays it is less strikingly different from the competition, but it always had major flaws which few other shows have had since.

So less potential to amaze, just as much to intrigue, endear or anger.

The series has aged a bit visually, thematically and such - like it's still an okay series, but it shows its age now pretty clearly. It hasn't aged too well, which isn't to say that it's not still good or watchable - I'm just saying that compared to something like Cowboy Bebop (which, to give it credit, came out like 3-4 years later) you can clearly see the flaws in the series due to the animation method, the era in which it was made etc.

End of Evangelion, being my favorite part of the franchise and one of my favorite things ever, I feel more positive about. End of Eva stands on its own for the sheer fuckery that goes on with it - the motherfuckin' apocalypse, a graphic on-screen evisceration, a giant woman falling to pieces slowly and in loving detail, and probably one of my favorite parts - the live action sequence. For the boundaries that it crosses, I'm willing to say that End of Eva isn't quite as dated as the series for the experimentation and insane bullcrap it pulled.

The characters are what makes NGE age well imo.

Evangelion really gives attention to its characters while they can be taken at face value, it is still amazing what you can learn about the chatacters as well as yourself through their experiences.

edited 6th Oct '14 12:22:09 PM by GAP

On the topic of E Va characters, anyone here familiar with The NERV White Paper RPG? If so, does Maria Vincennes get any Character Development whatsoever? Because I was wondering how much freedom can a fanfic writer take when making an O.C. Stand-in out of her, in the same vein as pre-Rebuild Touji's Little Sister and Hikari's two sisters (Nozomu and Kodama).

So, I tried watching the original series, but I didn't get very far; could I watch and understand Rebuild?

As someone who started with Rebuild and didn't watch the original until after 3.0: yes. There will be some things that you and I will view differently than those who had the context of the original series, but you will know everything you need to know. You will need to rewatch 3.0 a couple times, but that goes for everyone.

edited 7th Oct '14 12:54:16 PM by TheAirman

Thanks for the answer!

I'll let you know now, 1.0 is more-or-less the first six? episodes (up to Ramiel/floating diamond Angel) compressed into a much more beautiful film with only a few differences in plot/scenes.

edited 7th Oct '14 12:57:08 PM by TheAirman

It cuts out a lot of the filler dialogue, which is already a big plus.

I think the films can stand on their own, though some things of value were cut and you will likely come off with a very different feel for the characters (a much worse one).

Please define "worse".

I'm not really sure what "worse" means. Heck, I actually prefer many of the characters in Rebuild.

However, there is one exception, and that's Gendo. Even ignoring the fact that he's basically a near Complete Monster in Rebuild as of 3.33, his plan, especially in said third film, is absolutely ridiculous. Just to compare:

Original Gendo: Take out all the Angels with the unwitting help of his son and the rest of NERV, while making Rei easy to control, so as to create an artificial Thrid Impact to re-unite with Yui, who is trapped in Unit 01.

Pretty straightforward and believable for the most part. Heck, his plan in the first two Rebuild films were also pretty easy to understand.

Rebuild Pre-3.33 Gendo: Hope that Shinji and Rei form a close bond with each other so as to bring about the next Impact, even if that involves hoping that Rei II just so happens to be absorbed by Zeruel, so as to make Shinji want to rescue her at the cost of himself.

I mean, that plan is kinda dubious, but still believable for the most part. Then comes 3.33...

Rebuild 3.33 Gendo: Create a whole bunch of Rei clones to help run Neo-Nerv alongside Fuyutski and Kaworu. Wait for 14 years until Shinji can be retrieved. Hope, that WILLE goes to try and rescue him. Hope that they are able to succeed. Hope, that they don't just kill him on sight since he unknowingly caused untold amounts of suffering. Hope, that Rei II isn't able to be rescued as well. Hope, that WILLE doesn't inform him about Rei II's true status. Then send Rei Q to retrieve him, and hope that he will be willing to go with her, since hopefully, WILLE has treated him poorly. After that, hope that he bonds with Kaworu. Hope that he is told the truth about Rei II by Fuyutski so as to further convince him to try to retrieve the Spears. Also hope that Kaworu's bond with Shinji will be so strong that he'll want to go through with the plan. When said plan starts to occur, hope that they can reach the Spears no problem. Finally, hope that Shinji will pull them, even if others, including Kaworu, realize that this is a bad idea at the last minute and try to stop him. For that matter, also hope that Shinji doesn't realize that he's playing right into your hands and hope that he ignores the pleas of the others, including Kaworu, to not pull the Spears.

Seriously, I'm calling bullcrap on this stupid Gambit Roulette of his.

edited 8th Oct '14 1:46:50 AM by LDragon2

Who's to say it was all of that was his planning? He could've of just planned to have him pull the spears out, and any action resulting to that by chance allowed it to happen.

The thing is that Shinji had to be the one to pull the Spears, meaning that he had to be in the mindset that he would be driven by desperation to do so, and that he would even be able to get to them in the first place. So basically, all of what I just mentioned had to have happened exactly like that, or in a similar fashion, for the plan to have worked.

The best explanation I can think of that makes it easier to grasp is that Gendo has a mole in WILLE. That's the only way I can justify him being able to know all of this.

We kind of have no actual clue what happened during those 14 years.

Which is one of the reasons I keep saying that Anno screwed up big time by thinking that he could pull this off with only four 2-hour movies. Yes, that does mean that I'm not holding my breath over EVA 4.0: Final being able to address all the open plot threads.

That isn't how you spell 3.0+1.0. Or its eventual Blu Ray release: 3.33+1.11.

But yeah, I don't expect everything to be explained; I mean, one of the big things about Evangelion is the idea that you have to find your own answers, not everything is just going to be given to you simply because you want it. I do anticipate a bloody brilliant conclusion to the plot of Rebuild.

edited 8th Oct '14 12:57:30 PM by TheAirman

Rebuild should had been a series of OV As or a new series altogether as some stuff needs to be expanded on.

"Address" does not equate to "elaborately explain in full detail". The original series at least didn't have a huge mid-story Time Skip and all important events that must have happened in it (the certainty being due to seeing the effects, which necessiate the existence of a cause) as a massive Noodle Incident for no good Doylist reason.

edited 8th Oct '14 5:20:17 PM by MarqFJA

You know, with as much merchandising and crap that GAINAX puts out for Evangelion, they could release End of Evangelion on Blu-Ray easily. Or put another line of DV Ds in print. Hell, maybe Section 23 Films/Funimation/Whoever the hell has the rights to the EoE dub could rerelease the bloody thing on DVD.

Of course it's not that simple, but it's so hard to find a legitimate copy of End on DVD nowadays. And I'd say it's just that little bit worse that I'm from Australia - I can't even buy an overpriced copy from Amazon, because they all ship from America. I just want to own it on DVD, help round out my collection with one of my favorite movies.

I'm just going to watch a pirated copy for Halloween, it looks like.

Sorry about what I said. I rewrote that sentence several times, and what it should have said is that if you watch the series after the Rebuilds, you will come off with a worse interpretation of the characters. Asuka especially, Soryuu was just about unbearable in the original while Shikinami is hostile without being abusive and actually shows some affection. Though in the Rebuild they grow and it backfires, while in the series they were blocked by clear author fiat. So you could say they are more responsible for their troubles.

I dunno - I like the Sohryu version of Asuka more, because she gets vastly more depth and development, whereas on account of the vastly small amount of screen-time in Rebuild, a lot of the characters come off as much more shallow. They may be less overtly flawed, but they are also much less developed. And I do think a lot of characters suffer for it.

Side effect of trying to cram more plot into shorter screentime.

i agree. for example, kaji and ritsuko are basically non-entities in rebuild.

Say, which of the three broad categories of Nearly Normal Animal would you guys place Pen-Pen in, both in his canon incarnation and the most commona fanon depiction(s) of his character?