DarkBluePhoenix wrote:What...................................??? Which EVA does this refer to?
This appalling thing (consult the first results). Images were posted in-thread not too long ago, though I suppose they didn't flaunt her attributes as much as they could have...
I don't doubt that a lot of the stuff makes sense in context, but there's a difference between making sense on its own crazy terms, and making sense as a follow-up to NGE. (Apologies if I sound like a broken record here.) I mentioned that NGE movie scenario for a reason: it is not
Anima length, and the most detail-heavy parts of it have already been translated, which hit you right up front with a cannonball of insane crap that has very little resemblance to NGE. Yamashita seems to, like many creators, carry a lot of his fixations from one project to the next, so the scenario functions as a sort of incomplete prototype of
Anima, providing some insight into what to expect.
I don't think a full translation is really necessary to judge the integrity of a proposed sequel, either. NGE is not exactly subtle with its priorities, and ludicrous, overindulgent mecha porn is not one of them. (Not talking about Rebuild, which of course is a different work with a different feeling and mission from NGE. I'll happily bitch about some of the mecha design choices in that, too.) It's a character piece through and through, to the point that the mecha are basically characters themselves (not an exaggeration for Eva-01 especially); they're used sparsely and are painstakingly integrated into the themes. In
Anima, this is by all indications reversed; NGE's cast is a vehicle by which Yamashita can sandbox crazy mecha concepts, up to and including towering fetishistic crap that would make 2.22 blush. NGE was crafted as a TV show with a definitive end point it was building towards, and canceling out this, and all the character, story, and thematic resolution that comes with it, is on a very basic level a betrayal of the original work. If the only way to make a sequel to something that was never meant to have a sequel is by saying that part of the work never happened... well, the gentlest thing I can say is that maybe any such undertaking and its sense of priority should be reconsidered somewhat.
Okay, so that's judging a sequel in terms of thematic integrity, not necessarily plot and mechanics and so forth, which, I agree, in the absence of a translation is impossible to fully gauge unless you're fluent and can read the thing (which to my disgrace I am nowhere close to being). Regardless of Anima's content, this is probably going to boil down to "YMMV", since stuff like prehistoric Evas and mysterious artifacts and catgirls and Seele wanting to get all up inside Kaji aren't strictly speaking RULED OUT by anything in NGE, and how well these kinds of elements "fit" is going to vary wildly from one person to another. (I'd
like to assume that nobody in their right mind would think a catgirl a logical way to expand upon the world of the original anime, but the fanbase can be pretty disillusioning so you just never know...)
But when it comes down to it, this is yet another variation upon that most overcooked of needless alternate
Eva scenarios: "artificially extend NGE storyline by having 3I not happen so new Evas and other completely unnecessary 'innovations' can be grafted on".
(I'm, like, close to 100% sure it was overcooked even when Anima first came out. The early years of Eva fandom were quite prolific, even if, with most of that material being restricted at best to the Internet Archive today, a relative newcomer would have little way of knowing.) I assume the main (or only) reason anybody cares is because Yamashita is behind it, and his nifty illustrations together with the stray translated tidbits suggest that there's something within that isn't necessarily
good, but might at least be an entertaining distraction.
This isn't bad, necessarily. And I don't know anything about Yamashita's motivations for taking on this project, so for all I know it was never meant to be anything other than good honest fun. Just, me being me, I would feel much less cynical about the enterprise and more receptive to everything non-Eva-like about it if it was packaged only a little differently.
This had the potential to be even more ranty and insomnia-fueled than it turned out to be. But sadly the most entertainingly livid part was permanently lost in a tragic clipboard accident. Oh well.