How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby Evangelion217 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 5:16 pm

An online buddy named Eva Yojimbo recommended the anime to me and I heard about all of the praise and critical acclaim that it got. So I bought the Platinum edition and I was immediately blown away by it’s brilliance. I think NGE is arguably the greatest work of art ever made and it got me into art and literature as a whole.
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby Amalgam429 » Sat Feb 09, 2019 1:23 am

This is actually a great story

I was watching a "meme compilation" youtube video but it's like, trumpet sheet music. It's pretty much play along to meme songs and the like, I'm a trumpet player but I usually didn't watch that stuff but I was kind of just killing time. All of a sudden, Zankoku na Tenshi no Teze pops up as one of the songs. Keep in mind, its pretty much just crappy trumpet midi. Regardless, I kinda thought to myself "thats kind of a kickass song. I wonder what it's from!" So I google the song and watch the op.

I watched the entire series, the rest is history. It was my first ever introduction to anime. No regrets :D
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby shinryujimikihiko » Fri Mar 15, 2019 3:43 pm

A friend who was getting into something esoteric called "AMVs" showed some of us this video, among others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTftkNwWZP8

Clearly these two lovebirds were the couple of my dreams: childhood friends who were both inducted into this cool giant robot army to fight the foes of mankind, and who can't quite admit that they love one another, but really obviously do to everyone else around them.

Yeah, I had no idea.

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby Blockio » Sun Mar 17, 2019 6:42 am

View Original Postshinryujimikihiko wrote:Clearly these two lovebirds were the couple of my dreams: childhood friends who were both inducted into this cool giant robot army to fight the foes of mankind, and who can't quite admit that they love one another, but really obviously do to everyone else around them.

Yeah, I had no idea.

"Cool robot" was my initial reaction to seeing Eva snippets for the first time, too. Hoq innocent I was :P
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:47 pm

View Original Postshinryujimikihiko wrote:A friend who was getting into something esoteric called "AMVs" showed some of us this video, among others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTftkNwWZP8

Clearly these two lovebirds were the couple of my dreams: childhood friends who were both inducted into this cool giant robot army to fight the foes of mankind, and who can't quite admit that they love one another, but really obviously do to everyone else around them.

Yeah, I had no idea.

I'm not even going to look at the link, but let me guess... It is the everything you want AMV?
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby shinryujimikihiko » Mon Mar 18, 2019 8:05 am

View Original PostChaddyManPrime wrote:I'm not even going to look at the link, but let me guess... It is the everything you want AMV?


Correct. It could hardly be the "I used to love her" one could it?

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:40 pm

View Original Postshinryujimikihiko wrote:Correct. It could hardly be the "I used to love her" one could it?

:cringe: I love Asushin but so cringey shit.
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby shadowcloud1433 » Thu May 16, 2019 1:42 pm

I first saw one episode late at night on Toonami (maybe 2004 or 2005?) but didn't watch the entire series until the tail end of 2006 when I left for college.

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby xtr00kvltcorex » Mon Jun 24, 2019 11:29 am

Saw an ad for the VHS in a Godzilla magazine I got in 1998, went out and asked my dad to rent me a few of them. Didn't get a chance to finish the series until Adult Swim's run and my friend let me borrow his EoE DVD.
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby pearisdriving » Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:00 pm

Our local music TV station had a Rammstein weekend at some point in the mid 2000s. Basically two days of nothing but rammstein. Videos, live performances, interviews etc. One of the videos they played at some point was the AMV by Kevin Caldwell "Engel" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIcOIc7AFww (this seems to be the somewhat higher quality version but editing/scenes are exactly the same). It's what got me into AMVs and got me curious about the series. Then I watched a bunch of other AMVs that featured it, mainly the ones by Ermac with Nine inch nails songs. Eventually I managed to get episodes 1-14 from someone but couldn't even play them properly because those were some very high quality releases by KAA(if anyone remembers them) and my PC was beyond crap.
Didn't want to settle for worse quality so waited for two years that when I got a decent PC and finally watched it. To be honest I was only impressed by the mindfuckery on some very shallow level and some of the characters(Misato and Asuka). I was on the 'Rei is a emotionless doll' bandwagon too but at least I wasn't on the Shinji hate train like many people seemed to be. After that I never rewatched it for the next several years but it was always in the back of my head mostly through AMVs and occasional threads on /a/. Decided to rewatch it finally and I was a lot more impressed by it on that second viewing which was almost like a first time experience despite of me remembering some of the plot points. Since then I've watched it 3 more times in 2 years and a couple of partial rewatches.

Still haven't watched the rebuilds because by the time I restored my interest in the franchise 3.33 had already been out for some time and had a really bad reputation among many of the fans of the original run. I think I will watch them when 3+1 comes out unless the overwhelming consensus is that it is terrible.

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby xtr00kvltcorex » Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:22 pm

View Original Postpearisdriving wrote:
Still haven't watched the rebuilds because by the time I restored my interest in the franchise 3.33 had already been out for some time and had a really bad reputation among many of the fans of the original run. I think I will watch them when 3+1 comes out unless the overwhelming consensus is that it is terrible.


Slightly off topic, but 3.33 is amazing and easily among my favorite Eva releases. It comes out of left field story-wise, but it's so good. Definite recommend.
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby snow344 » Thu Jun 27, 2019 9:07 pm

I found this GIF in Reddit, years ago.
Image
Not sure which subreddit, though.

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby shinryujimikihiko » Mon Jul 01, 2019 8:51 am

View Original Postsnow344 wrote:I found this GIF in Reddit, years ago.
Image
Not sure which subreddit, though.


Please repost, thanks.

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby snow344 » Mon Jul 01, 2019 11:00 am

View Original Postshinryujimikihiko wrote:Please repost, thanks.

Sorry, I'm not sure what happened but here it is.
Image

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby Domi » Mon Jul 01, 2019 9:35 pm

All the way back, in 2015 I was having trouble finding an anime that I liked so I went to a random anime gen. The first thing to come up was Neon Genesis Evangelion, and for the next few days its all my life revolved around.
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Postby Ollow » Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:27 am

Hi, I'm Ollow and I'm new to Evangelion!

Technically I did watch a bit of it when I was pretty young but this was back when dad randomly bought anime movies thinking anime in general is suited for kids so I ended up watching End of Evangelion without any context and... yeah... That scene where Asuka gets speared repeatedly never quite went away.

Despite all the good things I've heard about the series over the years, I've avoided trying to watch the series proper for various reasons like the fact that it was a mecha anime (only other mecha show I liked was Code Geass), that it was pretty old, and also not that easily available. But then it was all finally on Netflix earlier this month so I decided to give a go.

Things I ended up liking about the series:
  • the nostalgic 90s feel and tech
  • the creativity behind each crisis - that time when the entire city was under a blackout was my favourite purely for the novelty that it's the first time I've seen such a practical problem tackled in anime.
  • the music - tbh I've been a fan of the OP song since before thanks to anime music compilations but the use of classical music in the show is so good.
  • The watercolour bgs - while they don't always look as nice as bgs in modern anime, there are times when they are just damn gorgeous and lend a special touch to the scene.
  • A true 'show' and don't 'tell' approach - While it's annoying that the mysteries behind the show never get spelled out or given any exposition, I'm a fan of how we get our bearings in this show by having to completely take in everything that's happening on the screen; not everyone always says what they mean and every action/inaction is a tell. The show also somehow manages to do this without being completely surreal (for the most part) and I really respect that.
  • The strong character drama coupled with the simple character designs - i guess I'm fascinated by this cast where no one is really happy but who all continue to struggle to live (or die) on their own terms. Though maybe it's a bit like not being able to look away from an oncoming train wreck. I also can't believe how memorable these simple looking people are, Shinji especially because he's practically the face of the quintessential normal Japanese boy. Before I watched the show I'd think the cast to be pretty boring but now I don't think I'd fail to pick them out in an all-anime character lineup collage. It's a real testament to the great writing behind them.

The thing I hated most about the series is Asuka's hyper sexuality. I understand that her trauma makes up a huge part of her aggression and need to be loved in any way she can, but even in a show full of body horror and other disturbing topics, having to see a 14 year old girl desperate to bang an adult male and being all sweet to him, but being an absolute witch to Shinji while shoving her assets at him (most times without his consent) is just. Ugh :facepalm: I'd take eldritch horrors over that mess any day.

The lack of that is one of the reasons why I love Rebuild more than the TV series but I want to dedicate my thoughts about Rebuild in it's own thread eventually.

Favourite Character: Kaworu
The only main character in the tv series who managed to stay true to himself despite all the controversies built into his very existence. I get that he gets a lot of flack for being fujoushi bait, but there's no question that his honest interactions and affections for Shinji are like a breath of fresh air in a show where everyone else is emotionally lacking or constipated. I think I've read around here that he tends to be dismissed as fantasy/escapism but I don't think that's true at all. I really want to talk about him in his own thread.

Least Favourite Character: Gendo
I'm purposely misspelling his name (not including a proper 'u' at the end) as a show of my spite for this man. He's actually very much like Kaworu with his laser target love for a single person, in this case Yui. But here's a question: How many people has he hurt to get what he wants? Compare this to Kaworu whose invasion of Central Dogma resulted in only one casualty, i.e. his own. If Kaworu is the show's epitome of selflessness, then Gendo is the epitome of selfishness. I also question his 'love' for Yui in that he probably only listens to her as long as he has her; when she's not, everything goes out the window until he gets her back again. I could probably make a post about this guy too but uuuugggghhhhhhh.

My opinions on the Netflix changes:
  • Really wish they could have kept Fly Me To The Moon because while the Rei II track is nice, the whole series comes off as more moody and dour than it needed to be.
  • I didn't turn on the dub voices except to verify the one instance below, so I won't comment on this.
  • I have no qualms with the change from 'I love you' to 'I like you' because that's 100% accurate and keeps the ambiguity from the Japanese lines intact. What I do have a problem with is at the very end in the dub where Shinji started talking about Kaworu. They changed "Kaworu said he liked me" to "Kaworu said I was worthy of his grace". He said 好き/suki!!! 好意/koui wasn't even anywhere near that dialogue!!!!!! I personally think this is the worst offender.


And yeah, that's it I guess for my view of the TV series. Nice to meet you all!

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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby choerry » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:38 pm

it literally just came out on netflix. so i watched the entire thing lol. i've been meaning to watch it for like 3 yrs now but i finally got off my ass and watched it. lmao
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby 天使 | Nyo | 天使 » Fri Sep 06, 2019 11:10 am

I personally heard about it initially from a Youtuber named "GoatJesus", he did some fantastic analysis videos on Fullmetal Alchemist (which is how I stumbled upon his channel), but I later found his videos on Neon Genesis and liked the idea of the show. I found out it was on Netflix (yeah, I know not and decided to give it a go...definetely one of the best decisions I've made in my (small) life. I've been hooked to it since then and I'm watching it again in the ADV 1997 Dub version, it's a little cheesy but in a good way. :D

It's done a lot for more honestly, more than I could really describe in a tiny forum post here. But let's just say it's changed me as a person, which is something I've never experienced a show do before...I may be a little obsessed... :shifty:
Yeah, I change the things I'm interested in on a dime. Seriously, one day I'll be playing SMT, the next day it's VRChat, then it's just whatever I'm feeling like playing at that point. "Oh wow, you're uhhh...something that's for sure." -Anyone who meets me for the first time basically.

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Postby SawItAtAge10 » Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:15 pm

View Original Post天使 | Nyo | 天使 wrote:I've been hooked to it since then and I'm watching it again in the ADV 1997 Dub version, it's a little cheesy but in a good way. :D



Hey, congrats on discovering Eva! And good on you for watching the ADV dub, it really gets better as it goes along and the VAs get more acclimated to the characters, especially in the latter half of the show and in the movies. :)
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Re: How did you first get into Evangelion?

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Postby MirrorUniverseAsuka » Fri Sep 06, 2019 8:42 pm

Back during the first run on free to air tv in Australia I lived in a crappy little town with 3 tv stations, one local and two nationals. One of the national stations, SBS, was showing Eva and while the tv guide had the [Japan] tag it didn't have the [ANIME] tag they usually had. So because of that and the title I assumed it was some lame live action documentary series about Christianity in Japan. I ignored it for a fair while, but one night while bored I started channel surfing...

Suddenly some cute anime chick comes barreling out of a building and starts freaking out about some guy called Shinji going 'over 400%!!!' and then this huge purple monster goes insane, kills another monster and starts eating the damn thing. Cue a bloke who looks like a criminal mastermind smirking about how it's all going according to plan. I had no idea what I had just watched but it was awesome. The next episode started up right after and I was even more confused, these two characters were having sex but... They had no genitals? Were they androids? Were they clones? I had no idea of anything except that I had to know more.

At around Episode 23, I think, SBS announced that they were going to be re-showing the series from EP 1 on the following Mondays at the same time, so while I was going through Instrumentality I was also seeing the first few episodes of the show.

It was quite an experience.
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