porschelemans
Since: Sep, 2012
08/30/2013 00:00:00
I agree with a lot of what you say, but personally I think NGE got its pacing pretty much right.
I'm so sorry that my avatar doesn't appear fully in the shot, but the cat was threatening the photographer.
lilpurplebird
Since: Oct, 2011
01/01/2014 00:00:00
Pretty much agreed throughout. It was enjoyable, and a nice character study, though I personally never got emotionally attached to any of the characters, I just couldn't. Didn't make it any less enjoyable.
And yes, Shinji's not the whiny little bitch everyone makes him out to be. I can't blame him for what happened, he had a very, very messed up, hard life, and it never got any better because he didn't know what to do. He can't exactly take care of himself as much as he would like. Even when he tried, he couldn't make it right. It's pretty tragic, in a way.
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Nen Gansus Evanjellyneon
I enjoy this series.
There. I fucking said it. THE END. THAT'S ALL FOLKS. FLY ME TO THE MOO-
But you bastards aren't satisfied with that, are you? Well, let's get cracking.
Now, I liked this series. I liked it a lot. I think it's flawed, certainly (the pacing is horribly slow at times, the characters occasionally lapse into outright unlikability, and the animation clearly has a lot of cheap cop-outs), but I still overall enjoyed the series.
For instance: I enjoyed how Shinji was depicted. He is not the whiner that so many people try to paint him as. Rather, he's a flawed individual who tries to do the right thing, and...well...is more or less a child soldier. This is something that people seem to forget all of the time. He's a kid. And he's experiencing unimaginable pain after a lifetime of parental neglect. And yet he still tries to do the right thing. I could argue all day why I enjoyed him as a character because of his flaws and attempts to do things right (and failures) but that would bog down my own review.
Overall, the series is a character study of several people forced to fight horrors from beyond man's understanding. I enjoy it because it examines the typical mecha show and says "Guys...I think that the people involved in this would have to be pretty fucked up." It's certainly not the first series to do that, but it's one of the few that does it well.
That said, it's also aged horribly. The many techniques and ideas that originated here have been used ad nauseaum. It's why the series doesn't feel as new or original as it did at the time of release. And...unfortunately, it's some of the shittier ideas from the series that were repeated, i.e. "Let's have the camera linger on this for several fucking minutes. ENTHRALLING PSYCHOLOGICAL ACTION".
Overall, it's a damned good watch, and I do enjoy it, but I recognize that it's flawed, and occasionally it does seem to be staring up the cavernous, echoing walls of its own ass, but it dared to ask the question of "What would happen if these cliches were pulled off like this"? And that's actually admirable, in its own way.