Where Does All The Hate For Eva Come From?

[bogey]

for as much as people love eva there are just as many people who hate it. is eva just that polarizing of an anime? is it how it ended? out of all the classics in anime i'd say evangelion is the most hated

why do you think people hate this series?

[bigbadtyrant]

from my experience, its just that most people either dont want to, or just too lazy to understand what goes on. my friend literally just watched it to see EVA's fight...he didnt care for anything else because he said it was too confusing even after i tried to explain everything that goes on to him.

[The Eva Monkey]

from my experience, its just that most people either dont want to, or just too lazy to understand what goes on.

That's kind of an extreme stereotype. I've known people to dislike the show because they found the characters (Shinji and Asuka in particular) to be very unlikeable. Some people just don't like the show because it's a huge downer. Some people find it to be overly pedantic. Some people find it offensive to their religious sensibilities. Some people find its purposely obfuscated narrative aggravating. And then there are the people who think it's the worst thing to happen to mecha anime.

To say that most people are too lazy to understand it is tantamount to saying that everyone one like it if they tried to. That's not the case, people like and dislike creative works for a variety of reasons.

[Fireball]

2DEEP4YOUPretentious fandomTHE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH came for the robots raged at the angstOH MY GAWD what's with all these religious symbolsSHINJI IS A WHINY FAGGOTJSjnmFK;JWoverrated shitkjkRJV;Sf;sjdkfjaw

[Redaye]

I believe it depends on how it reaches the individual. In light of the topic, I think Kaji said it best:

"...knowledge of suffering makes you all the more capable of kindness to others, because that’s different from being weak."

I might paraphrase it this way: if you don't like or relate to EVA, chances are you're a more well-adjusted (but not better) human than others.

[Warren Peace]

There's that quote, "the unexamined life is not worth living". Eva fans tend to believe it. Non-Eva fans think that what you don't know can't hurt you.

That's kind of an extreme stereotype. I've known people to dislike the show because they found the characters (Shinji and Asuka in particular) to be very unlikeable. Some people just don't like the show because it's a huge downer. Some people find it to be overly pedantic. Some people find it offensive to their religious sensibilities. Some people find its purposely obfuscated narrative aggravating. And then there are the people who think it's the worst thing to happen to mecha anime.

To say that most people are too lazy to understand it is tantamount to saying that everyone one like it if they tried to. That's not the case, people like and dislike creative works for a variety of reasons.

There are legitimate reasons to be turned off by the show, but those are pretty superficial. I mean, if one is so sensitive that they're actually offended by the use of "Angel" in the series, they're not ready to engage the show (or much of anything else) seriously. If the series weeds out such people, all the better.

[The Eva Monkey]

I mean, if one is so sensitive that they're actually offended by the use of "Angel" in the series, they're not ready to engage the show (or much of anything else) seriously.

I personally am an atheist, coming from a Catholic upbringing, it doesn't offend me, but I can totally understand how someone can be offended by their religion being taken, and used in entertainment. Particularly one where heavenly light and the song "Hallelujah" is used to represent mental rape. You can be offended by something without getting bent out of shape over it, that's where I feel the real issue is.

[driftking18594]

I personally am an atheist, coming from a Catholic upbringing, it doesn't offend me, but I can totally understand how someone can be offended by their religion being taken, and used in entertainment. Particularly one where heavenly light and the song "Hallelujah" is used to represent mental rape. You can be offended by something without getting bent out of shape over it, that's where I feel the real issue is.

I too am an atheist from a Catholic background.

Speaking of "Hallelujah", there's a Rammstein song by the same name which deals with clerical sex abuse.

Personally I think all Eva haters are Narutards who fail to comprehend it.

[Trajan]

The Law of Hype Backlash

The more popular or well known a franchise is, the greater the likelihood that there will be a vocal group of individuals who denounce it.

[bigbadtyrant]

That's kind of an extreme stereotype. I've known people to dislike the show because they found the characters (Shinji and Asuka in particular) to be very unlikeable. Some people just don't like the show because it's a huge downer. Some people find it to be overly pedantic. Some people find it offensive to their religious sensibilities. Some people find its purposely obfuscated narrative aggravating. And then there are the people who think it's the worst thing to happen to mecha anime.

To say that most people are too lazy to understand it is tantamount to saying that everyone one like it if they tried to. That's not the case, people like and dislike creative works for a variety of reasons.

well as i said, its from my experience of trying to introduce EVA to my Mecha freak friends, otherwise i wouldnt have even brought it up because i try not to use EVA as an introductory anime . Also as i said they liked the mecha idea, didnt care much for any religous elements of it, but they found it annoying how there was more to it than just mechas smashing monster faces...they are just bein lazy in my opinion. Otherwise everyone else i know have no problems with the characters or the religious refences it has, but obviously i havent met people who would have problems with the show for those resons as of yet.

I come from an nonreligous background but I am actually a Christian and I just find the relious elements of EVA to be pretty awesome and what has kept me interested in it in the first place.

[The Eva Monkey]

Personally I think all Eva haters are Narutards who fail to comprehend it.

Try staking that claim in the wider anime fandom. They'll tear you to fucking shreds.

[driftking18594]

Also as i said they liked the mecha idea, didnt care much for any religous elements of it, but they found it annoying how there was more to it than just mechas smashing monster faces...they are just bein lazy in my opinion.

I'll admit the religious references threw me off a bit when I first heard of it. I thought it was produced by some kind of Japanese Billy Graham. I deserve to be pinned down while Asuka beats me while shouting "ANTA BAKA?!" in my face.

Try staking that claim in the wider anime fandom. They'll tear you to fucking shreds.

There's a small anime site that I'm on where there's two guys who hate me for liking Eva so much. Wankers.

[Bagheera]

There's that quote, "the unexamined life is not worth living". Eva fans tend to believe it. Non-Eva fans think that what you don't know can't hurt you.

That's a pretty silly generalization on both counts.

There are legitimate reasons to be turned off by the show, but those are pretty superficial. I mean, if one is so sensitive that they're actually offended by the use of "Angel" in the series, they're not ready to engage the show (or much of anything else) seriously. If the series weeds out such people, all the better.

It's entertainment. Our reasons for liking or disliking something in that realm don't have to be deep. But even with that said it's actually not all that unreasonable to get a little irked at a cartoon using what may amount to holy scripture in one's belief system as window dressing because it looks cool.

[MightyWings]

Just about anything that becomes popular in a community will have love and hate. Some of the hate spawns from the fact that so many people love it and slap it in everyone else's faces. Some of the Eva-haters probably hate it for the same reason I hate MLP. If it weren't constantly being bombarded everywhere, I wouldn't care about it at all. Fanbases can really spoil things (eg, love Macross F, hate the "kawaii Ranka" spam). Others may find Eva overrated.

On the other hand, some people probably hate Eva simply because they hate it. Maybe they didn't understand it, didn't like the characters, found it uninteresting, etc.. That's their right and their opinion.

[Jayfive]

The polarising opinion is part of what makes Eva special.

Would you rather have a show/series/franchise that was just one among many?

Like with my preferred music of choice, I like stuff that makes people go 'Great googly moogly, what the hell is that?' rather than 'meh, 'salright I suppose'. Course then you can go too far and just be eliciting a reaction for the sake it. But I don't believe Eva knowingly goes that far.

Bottom line - There is mecha anime, then there is Eva. And thats why we're here

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Personally I think all Eva haters are Narutards who fail to comprehend it.

I would say that there are even some fans of Eva who utterly fail to comprehend it. Those guys can create a fandom of a good show that annoys me almost as much as misguided Whedon fans. They think the show is awesome, and most of the time they're correct, but they have no clue as to why it's an awesome show. So they say things like "It's original, and has never been done before," or something like that. Even Anno, who claims Eva to be the most original anime in recent history, does so in the same breath of saying that all anime is unoriginal. Almost as if saying "Hey, if everyone's already seen everything anyway, let's just stitch it all together in a non sequitur fashion. That's at least been recycled fewer times than anything else we can come up with."

[Warren Peace]

I don't think that Anno quote is self-contradictory. Eva is "unoriginal" in that it appropriates familiar mecha tropes, but is original in the ways it uses them. Still, no one has picked up the baton and transformed his tropes in any major way.

That's a pretty silly generalization on both counts.

FORGIVE ME!

Personally I think all Eva haters are Narutards who fail to comprehend it.

The internet rots ALL fandom eventually. We're living post-Phantom Menace, where people spew hate and frustration about their own lives into a bag and dump it on the rest of us. It starts with genuine critiques but becomes about what some girl did in the eighth grade. It's worth posting on the net (I think) for that 1/8th of the time that's real. The other 7/8s are just long Jar Jar discussions in different forms.

[Grand Duke of Yashima]

I have this discussion about if EVA is "good" or not with several of my friends and co-workers all the time. I tend to find that the younger, more "gamer" ones are turned off by EVA being too "pretentious." Of course, perhaps the younglings would rather be killing off stuff on SkyRim or D3 than having to think while watching something. The kids just want to be entertained and not distracted with things like analysis.

Among the older anime fans, the ones with the most dislike for EVA are mostly from the Gundam crowd. Comments tend to be like "it's too weird" or "I hated the ending (both of them)." Because EVA is in part a deconstruction of mecha shows, this response by Gundam "loyalists" is not that surprising.

My daughter, who was basically raised from a young age as an otaku, gives me some better insight. She interacts with nearly every type of anime fan and EVA often comes up in discussion about what the "best" anime is. Her own observation was that younger fans tended to put down or ignore EVA, while any older fans (around age 30 and up, and especially anyone who was a parent) consistently put EVA at the top of the list. Didn't GAINAX actually consider EVA to be targeted towards "older" anime fans? If that's true it's reflected in the viewership, at least here in the USA anyway.

The conclusion of this to me was that EVA is a sort of "graduate level" anime. If you've been into anime for any length of time and you've gone through all of the other sub-genres, fads, and watched everything else, you eventually end up at EVA. This pretty much is my own experience.

[driftking18594]

The conclusion of this to me was that EVA is a sort of "graduate level" anime. If you've been into anime for any length of time and you've gone through all of the other sub-genres, fads, and watched everything else, you eventually end up at EVA. This pretty much is my own experience.

TBH NGE was the second series I watched after getting back into anime. I was totally unprepared, I guess.

[Grand Duke of Yashima]

TBH NGE was the second series I watched after getting back into anime. I was totally unprepared, I guess.

I'm not suggesting you have to watching everything first to get into EVA. I once got a guy really into EVA by watching it first (he had seen nothing before, except stuff like Robotech). However, some anime fans who have watched literally everything out there tend to find themselves ending up at EVA partly because of an obligation to watch what's critically labeled "the best" and partly because they're older and having watched all that other stuff they get the context of EVA a lot better than 15 year olds who think that Gundam Unicorn is so cool.