I really wouldn't take the use of either deconstruction or reconstruction seriously on this site. They're both vague and pretty easily extended terms that anyone can take and apply to a show to further their own agenda.
It's been pretty well-known for a while that NGE isn't a deconstruction (nor is GGG or TTGL or whatever show a reconstruction), the problem is that no one is willing to undertake the monumental task of getting that crap off this wiki.
If NGE had any influence it was in the field of aggressively marketing female characters and being one of the shows at the forefront of the shift from the OVA format back to TV, but it wasn't groundbreaking as a mecha show at all.
edited 6th Feb '11 6:02:37 AM by Bask
I don't see why the characters being screwed from the start make it less of a deconstruction. One thing is not related to the other.
Anyway, what Eva deconstructed was not the characters so much (thus renderign your argument moot), but the genre itself. It took several common tropes, such as Improbable Age, Super Robot and Disappeared Dad, played them absolutely straight while taking brand new take on them.
The only way you can say it is not a deconstruction is if you say these things have already been done before. I am not too aware of the history of Super Robot genre to say for sure.
edited 6th Feb '11 6:55:31 AM by Heatth
Deconstruction
"pursues the meaning of a text to the point of exposing the supposed contradictions and internal oppositions upon which it is founded—supposedly showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible."
So, yes, Evangelion is a deconstruction. It deconstructs not only the common tropes of a mecha anime (young children piloting massive engines of war, combat fatigue, parental abandonment, alienation) but it also deconstructs The Hero's Journey, particularly the confrontation with the father figure. Compare Neon Genesis Evangelion to the original Star Wars trilogy.
Star Wars is a traditional presentation of The Hero's Journey. Call to Adventure, the Mentor figure, rescue of the treasure/damsel, a quest to gain strength, descent into darkness, a confrontation with the father, a rejection of temptation.
Neon Genesis Evangelion has all these same elements, but reveals that they are not as simple as they might seem. Shinji confronts his father, but there is never a clean resolution. Gendo will always be Shinji's father. Shinji longs for his approval and recognition, and yet he hates his father, and also fears him. There is no resolution to Shinji's father issues- nor can there ever be. That is a form of deconstruction.
Not to mention the use of Shinji, Asuka, and Rei to explore the alternative ways of humans to respond to threats. (Flight, fight, and passive resignation). Which in it's own way is a deconstruction of the human condition.
The reason Evangelion is so hard to summarize or assess is because it is a deconstruction, so it rejects any attempt to provide an "answer" or a "statement" that explains what it all means.
That doesn't mean you have to like it, or agree with. You can think it's all bunk.
Nor by the way do any of the objections raised have much to do with the question. Even if it is granted that nothing in EVA is original that does not any bearing on whether it is a deconstruction or not. There is no one deconstruction for each genre.
Nor does the merchandising success suddenly negate the deconstructionistic aspects of the show. (And by the way I doubt that EVA was the first show to cash in on it's female characters- not that makes it any less annoying, but blaming EVA for that seems rather blind).
edited 6th Feb '11 7:06:22 AM by Sackett
Hmmm, my view is this:
-Rei is The Stoic mostly, except she is female.
-Asuka is the Hot-Blooded man who Cannot Spit It Out , except she is female.
-Shinji is The Woobie The Cutie , Stepford Smiler etc.... and is suppose to be "The girl" as in the weak person of the cast who cries... except like the 2 other pilotes Gender Bent
What makes it interisting is the layer of psycology, and its take on the Mecha genre.
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That's the thing though. Them being screwy at the first place makes everything intentional. I consider it better if they could make it all incidental and such. Those struggles aren't really that unique, as even Voltes V has a similar struggle.
So gender reversal is enough to call it a deconstruction?
And it's fine to deconstruct a genre repeatedly.
The Lack of a Bright Slap was an added factor. (and Eo E got the Bright Slap and it didnt work)
The Fact that "The Hero" is a complete "Cowardly Lion" of Base Breaker proportions is the major deconstruction IMO
edited 6th Feb '11 7:51:50 AM by Raso
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!There's your problem. This is a conclusion which can only stem from a total ignorance of the genre being examined. A deconstruction looks critically at the foundations and standards of a genre and shows how they don't work. However, there are two problems with this. The first is that Evangelion doesn't do any of these things. The problems of children piloting giant robots, mechs being used in cities, parental abandonment, combat fatigue, the limits of "hot-bloodedness", damaged characters, living machines, the concept of robots as maternal figures rather than masculine fighting ones and the dangers of truly powerful machines were a fundamental part of the genre long before 1995-6. In fact, you can see most of them as far back as the Mazinger Z and Getter Robo sagas. The genre conventions that Evangelion supposedly attacked are an imaginary construction.
The second is that none of the staff on the show have ever claimed that the series was an attack on the genre, but the exact opposite. As Hideakki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto have stated in several interviews, the show is in many ways a respectful throwback to series they enjoyed in their youth such as Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Space Runaway Ideon, Devilman, Ultraman and Zambot 3. It draws on their traditions and does not try to approach them critically. In Der Mond: The Art of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Sadamoto mentions that they really wanted to make a show like Ideon and Devilman and borrowed from them for both the plot, characters and visual style. In the Devilman Tabulae Anatomicae Kaitaishinsho art book Anno gushes in an interview to Go Nagai about how much he loved Mazinger, Devilman, Shuten Doji and Getter Robo and wanted to cram in all the elements and cues from them that he could. Nagai returns to this in The Making of Mazinger Z manga where he mentions that the Evangelion staff often approached him, asking if it was okay that they imitated him so much in their show, and says that he was excited rather than offended.
If there are elements of deconstruction in Evangelion, it is towards the otaku lifestyle, but certainly not its genre.
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I'm not saying that marketing undermines the show, but not even characters like Minmei or Lum became the same kind of moe fetish idols as Asuka or especially Rei. That's its legacy.
edited 6th Feb '11 7:57:18 AM by Bask
Again, this doesn't matter, at all, for a deconstruction. Watchmen is also clearly screwy from the start, but still a deconstruction. What matter is Evangelion pick some tropes, plays them straight, but with a different view. Eva is very cliched, but it is why it is a deconstruction, not a subversion.
@Bask,
Aren't you confusing what a deconstruction is? The fact all the elements of Eva already existed beforehand is what makes it a deconstruction. It also doesn't need to be a deliberate attack to what is being deconstructed. The fact the author loves the genre means absolutely nothing, really. In fact, because he loves the genre he might have wanted to explore it a bit more.
Also, why did you ignored Sackett(or, better, focused on a single paragraph which is not even it most important paragraph)? He speaks much better then I do and said some good points.
edited 6th Feb '11 8:09:28 AM by Heatth
How does doing something the same as your predecessors make something a deconstruction? Imitating conventions without being critical or subversive with them means you're just making a standard show.
And my post covers both of you, that's why.
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Shinji isn't as much of a coward as people make him out to be and not all that worse from his predecessors, really. And the Bright Slap is a dumb meme, it never worked like that in the show.
edited 6th Feb '11 8:23:55 AM by Bask
Not doing the same. Using the same premise but varying in it presentation. Or applying more of Real World logic to it. As I said, I can really say Evangelion deconstructed the genre itself (as I don't know much about it genre), but at last some of it tropes.
As a quick example and question: did some other previous work explored as much of the implications of having a super powered sentient non(exactly)-human piloted being fighting monsters for(with) you? Eva showed the concern of NERV that the EVA might go out of control and that they are ultimately as dangerous as the Angels themselves (in fact, one of them is what caused the 3rd impact in the end). The (admittedly few) shows I watched never bothered that much.
Yeah, it's not much of a deconstruction, since it's been done before. Mazinger Z had moments where he has struggle, when the Getter Robo trio were newcomers they had times where their asses were almost handed to them, and Zambot3... almost killed one of their pilots.
Done to death by Getter Robo and Space Runaway Ideon, also present in some Mazinger Z entries like Mazin Saga. If you want a really obscure series there's also Skull Killer Jakio.
Deconstruction is not an attack or rejection of an established genre.
It's the exploration of the common tropes and the recognition that their interpretation and effects are far more complex and contradictory then the current dominant interpretation.
Which EVA does.
You are trying to define deconstruction as something other than what it is.
Nor is "It's been done before" an argument that EVA is not a deconstruction. Besides, it really hadn't been done that much before. Your other examples flirted with the extra complexity of story, but ultimately maintained the overriding thematic elements of Hot-Blooded idealism. They did not take those complexities to their logical extreme as EVA did. Which is exactly why EVA is a deconstruction of those other shows.
edited 6th Feb '11 9:06:37 AM by Sackett
I defined it as
Sounds pretty similar to me, except I maybe put less emphasis on complexity than I did contradictions. Either way, Evangelion doesn't apply to either of our definitions.
Watch or read these other series please.
edited 6th Feb '11 9:11:30 AM by Bask
Ookamikun: No, it is not a deconstruction due the flip, it would still be a deconstruction without the genderflip.
But it would be a few deconstructions less i guess. But the difference would be that you would have fem-Shinji being circlejerked to instead of Asuka and Rei. Rei would have seem less out of place(she is a genderflipped sterotype), and Asuka would be closer to a sterotype except that she in the end fails insteads of being as compensate as she is suppose to be. The fanbase would have raged more over Mansuka failing too.
Shinji is partially a important part of the deconstruction. At the least for the audience. It should be noted that the original audience it is written for is the japanese, a partially xenophobic society that still have several ton of gender behavior norms that is slowly eroding.
A part of what makes Evangelion good is that adding in a Bright Slap would not have done anything to Shinji, because he is not just a Spineless Bastard but a properly written Spineless Bastard. He got a reason to be "Spineless", and that won't go away by slapping him.
But lets say we flipped Shinji: The result would be that her being mostly useless and insecure would have been quite a lot acceptable, and we would have felt sorry for her. And that is without the entire deconstruction element that makes us feel sorry for Man-Shinji.
You can't look at it one scene at a time, and judge it's deconstruction on that merits: Lots of series have had similar elements to EVA before, but Eva was built from the ground up as a deconstruction: The entire thing from beginning to end. It's not just a few moments in an otherwise standard story.
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy EntOh, I'm not sure it's specifically a mecha deconstruction, as much as a deconstruction of heroism in general. The bits it does with Super Robot stuff (limited power and range, lack of control etc.) are relatively minor parts.
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy EntMaybe the creators don't have to explicitly say something is a deconstruction for it to be so? Or, maybe they don't even have to intend it all?
We claim the land for the highlord, God bless the land and the hiiighlooord!Arilou said:
This implies a conscious effort.

Just a random trail of thought, but I saw a topic in /m/ regarding that... and it actually makes sense.
The characters were already screwed to begin with, so it isn't really providing much of a deconstruction. EVA itself worked by pitting the character in a psychological strain... so yeah, it isn't really that much of a deconstruction when it is... well... forced. It's not the first time mecha pilots already have mental and social problems after all.
Compare to Zambot3 where the progress was rather there, as we slowly see the Jins suffer, and the brashness of a kid can almost destroy a formation.
Maybe because it's due to limited references to mecha shows? Maybe because it's the only thing that is remembered?
edited 6th Feb '11 5:03:56 AM by Ookamikun