Xenogears

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Quiddity
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Xenogears

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Postby Quiddity » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:31 am

As a new viewer of 3.33 (rewatched it last night after seeing it for the first time around a month or so ago) I found it very interesting to see two segments that reminded me a lot of the late 90's video game Xenogears. Xenogears was often compared to Eva as it is a mecha anime style video game where religion plays a big part. Personally, I always felt the comparisons were super overblown; Xenogears takes influence from a bunch of mecha anime and sci-fi beyond simply Eva and a big influence for it was the Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood's End which contains a concept very similar to instrumentality so it seems like both were drawing from similar influences. Nonetheless, topics on this were very common in the Xenogears community back in the day and I actually got into Eva in the first place due to people bringing it up so often.

The first is the choker/neck bomb that Shinji has strapped around his neck by Wille. In Xenogears there is a point in the game where the hero is held captive in a city and everyone, himself included have a device put around their necks that is set to detonate if they stray too far from the city or otherwise cause problems.

The other is Gendou and Fuyutsuki's deleting of SEELE. Xenogears features a SEELE-like council of elders called the Gazel Ministry who exist as computerized data after having their human bodies killed hundreds of years ago. There is a segment in the game where after the Ministry activates a key that only they are able to do, another antagonist promptly has them all deleted. The sequence is extremely similar to what Gendou & Fuyutsuki do to SEELE in 3.33, with them being deleted one by one and turning into greyed out screens. Here's a Youtube clip of the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqd3XtX23l8

No idea if these were intentional or coincidence (the first one is something I've seen in other works of fiction, such as the Saw movies, but the second one is really similar), but I do find it really interesting this dynamic of the rebuild movies being possibly influenced by the very works that many claim were influenced by Eva.
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Re: Xenogears

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Postby Reichu » Mon Oct 24, 2016 1:48 pm

On that note, here's part of a post I made a while back:

View Original PostReichu wrote:For all of the initial comparisons of Xenogears to NGE, it feels considerably more like the new movies (3.0 especially), which is really evident in disc 2.

There is the fact that Shinji himself has this terrifying potential to turn giant mecha into forces of apocalyptic destruction, comparable to Fei's "Id" and the effect it has on his own mecha. Both individuals are not fully aware or in control of this potential, and both are punished and/or suppressed by others for the risk they pose by simply existing.

Gendo and Shinji, with their attachments to Yui and Rei respectively, roughly parallel Lacan/Grahf and Fei's attachments to Sophia and Elly. Grahf and Gendo both "cope" with their losses by pursuing immeasurable godly power. Their plans also involve the significant manipulation of someone who is basically a younger, more innocent, less angsty, and more intrinsically powerful version of themselves. (A son and a reincarnation, respectively.)

The imagery of Deus absorbing everything in a gray goo tsunami (...) is vaguely reminiscent of the large-scale coreification in 3.0. This is reinforced somewhat by the fact that at the center of the gray goo monstrosity is a sometimes-floating giant artifice which contains at its center the comparatively tiny life-form intrinsically behind it all. This is not altogether unlike the Black Moon being nested within the coreified landscape and containing Lilith. The fact that Merkabah spews out swarms of "Angels" (who had once been human) and the Black Moon spews out hordes of inert Eva-things (who had possibly also once been human) just solidifies the creepy similarity.

Also like ENT, Xenogears has an apocalypse occur during the actual storyline, albeit also basically offscreen. ;p

The good guys even have an airship that they deploy their mechas from.

EDIT: Also, Seele have basically become the Gazel Ministry in ENT -- immeasurably ancient entities controlling the world from the shadows, while having long abandoned or lost their original bodies and existing only in data form. Both organizations also come to an end when their data is deleted by the superior puppet-master, albeit under somewhat different circumstances.

This probably doesn't mean anything, but it is making the game a bit more entertaining this time around.


Another potential comparison to the Angels/Aeons are the Mark 04s in 3.0. We don't know exactly what the hell these things are, but it's implied that they're connected in some way to Eva-04. As we saw in 2.0, Eva-04 was at the epicenter of an Impact-like event, so there's a fair possibility that the Mark 04s are the transfigured members of the US base. Like the Aeons, the Mark 04s seem to act in the interest of the Big Bad (Karellan/Gendo).
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Re: Xenogears

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Wed Jan 11, 2017 12:32 am

Wow. Zap and I just discussed this weekend due to our series + NTE rewatch how Xenogears' plot is more like 3.33 than NGE. I lurk a little, then stumble across this :lol:

I think what was immediately evident to me was the Seele situation, though that's standard "sci-fi upload" fare...

Great analysis/comparisons in here! :asuka_thumbsup:
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Re: Xenogears

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Postby Jurrasic » Wed May 24, 2017 12:56 am

I was working at EA Canada when Xenogears was released. Because of a recent agreement, a number of Squaresoft games for the PlayStation were released under a partnership between Square and Electronic Arts, Square/EA so I was able to get copies of games for production price at the company store. I took a total chance on Xenogears, and was rewarded with what I still feel is the greatest JRPG of all time. I was an absolute freak for Xenogears, played it every chance I could, to the point of neglecting my wife and new baby, it was that damn amazing. Never had a story in a game felt so involving and thought-provoking. Even though the random combat percentage was far to high, especially in areas where you had to perform platform jumps in huge mecha and start all over again when you miss (I will hate Babel tower to the end of my days) it was and remains my go-to title when I have to defend JRPGs.

Somehow, I missed these glaringly obvious parallels to the storyline in 3.33!! :facepalm: Thank you for pointing this out! I actually logged in for the first time in bugger-knows how long just to post this. I've got some pondering to do now.
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