Evangelion interest waning?

[The Imperialist]

This is just experience form real life (as the internet will have everything- also, sod real life)

Is it just me, but is the interest in Eva going down? It only seems to spike during announcements of new films, and these days Eva referencing in media has decreased a lot since the 2000-2010 period.

Of course, if I talk to slightly older people or those of my age or perhaps a year or two younger whose adolescent years had Evangelion as one of the major anime that was constantly being blared on about would talk about Eva fondly (or quite critically in the case of Rebuild- I have yet to make a proper opinion as it has not been completed)

This will be not real life, but 2chan has all but stopped mentioning Eva except for some announcements, while in the past there was a constant Eva thread somewhere... now, those are generally replaced by discussions of more recent anime, that tend to pander to a certain demographic I might add.

So the question is, as a general trend is interest in Evangelion decreasing?

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I don't think it's possible to have a "general trend" for this sort of thing. If media attention is decreasing, that doesn't necessarily mean that overall interest is down. If less boards are featuring pieces about it, that doesn't mean that there aren't tons of people rewatching the series in their garages. Interest does seem to peak around the times that new films are being released, but that's to be expected; it's a shiny new thing that everybody wants to play with. However, to answer your question, I think that interest fades over time for everything. There's always going to be a group of hardcore fans, though, so you don't have to worry about the fandom disappearing completely.

[The Imperialist]

I am not generally worried that the fandom will disappear- at the least not with Eva where it was huge at one point and still has dedicated followers (along with the fact that Anno made everything vague which means debates continue. In which the debates will only stop if Anno actually decides to write a book explaining everything which is not going to happen realistically any time soon)

It is just that it is a kind of nostalgic feeling and a bit of sadness, along with a slight anger. My nostalgia and sadness, I do not really need to explain, but my anger stemming from the state of the industry these days. Not quite as bad as a few years ago, obviously improving (at the least from my point of view) and the fact that things that are not quite as good as you want to be (names withheld) gets pushed up so much is quite infuriating.

I also have to say that including this forum, activity involving Eva has kind of decreased. (However, much more active then the last time I came back from hiatus)

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Well, Evangelion is kinda old, save for the new movies. I'm not surprised that interest is gradually waning away.

[Rena]

Whenever I try suggest Evangelion to a friend, a common complaint is "But it's so old!"

I got into it because my TEACHER recommended it to me. I didn't even know about Eva when I first got into anime, because all my anime-fan friends only watch newer anime. In some of my friends eyes, if an anime is older than 3 years, it's old and not worth getting into.

People don't want old. They want new. That's pretty much it.

[Practice]

Eva was my introduction to anime; what made me really explore the medium and see the impact it can have (I previously had the notion that it was all Naruto nonsense ). While I can't say I've watched a ton yet, nothing has even come close to Eva and I have a feeling that nothing ever will (on a personal level), and I'm fine with that. If anyone uses the excuse that Eva is too old then they need their head checked. In my opinion Eva is a timeless work. Controversial to be sure, and certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but timeless nonetheless. Interest may rise and fall, but I don't think Eva is going anywhere.

[Yaywalter]

Whenever I try suggest Evangelion to a friend, a common complaint is "But it's so old!"

I got into it because my TEACHER recommended it to me. I didn't even know about Eva when I first got into anime, because all my anime-fan friends only watch newer anime. In some of my friends eyes, if an anime is older than 3 years, it's old and not worth getting into.

People don't want old. They want new. That's pretty much it.

Yep, sad but true. But I don't think Eva will fade away into obscurity anytime real soon... not until the current fanbase tangs, anyway.

Plus there will always be the smart people who realize that age is hardly a good metric with which to decide what is and isn't worth your time. Approximately 90% of media of any given period of time is garbage, so either you can choose to settle for the trash of your time period once you deplete the 10% of actual good stuff, or you can seek the vast 10% of good stuff from times past. But most people's taste are pretty lowbrow, so they usually just dive straight into the mediocre stuff and never grow beyond that. I know I'm one... I didn't watch Eva until 2010, and didn't even think about or realize how old it actually was.

I guess that's partly due to it being created after my birth... generally speaking, things don't really feel "old" to me unless they were created before I was born, since I'm 21 and I consider that "young". With anime, pretty much anything before the 90's I might have the perception that it's "old". With other things that age better, such as music, I might not perceive it as old until it's from a couple decades before I was born. But while I might be slightly less inclined to try things I perceive as being "old", that won't necessarily stop me from doing it. I've watched and enjoyed movies 75 years older than I am of my own volition, some of my favorite music is more than 20 years older than me, etc. I can understand why someone born in the late 90's or early 00's might not be too keen to check out NGE, but refusing to watch something that's a mere 3 years old is pretty absurd.

For people who say Evangelion is "too old", try to get them to at least watch the Rebuild films. Watching them before the series might not be the ideal order, but it at least creates a possibility that they'll become fans and eventually decide to check out the original series despite its age. "A one percent chance is better than zero", right?

[The Imperialist]

Another reason I brought this up is because Eva was the first non-Doraemon-esque anime I watched (age 13-14 ish) so I have a lot of sentiments attached to Eva.

It is just annoying to see things as interesting as Eva just being downgraded to some 'old shit' by the general interest gauge.

It is kind of similar to how Wagner is only really being appreciated by Wagnerians or bunch of 'plebians' who have either only heard of the Ride of the Valkyries or the Bridal March (Lohengrin) and that is the only thing they know about Wagner's music. A bit of guilty pleasures here and there is fine, but just as Wagner's music is just not the two sequences mentioned, anime is just not the more recent productions. Never mind the fact that most of the anime these days had some sort of influence from Eva since the inception of Eva.

[Darkwing]

Well the age factor sadly can be part of it. Sigh I feel old now. Dumbest thing Bandai ever did to the Gundam franchise in the states was put the spotlight on the original after Gundam Wing.

Another thing to note is that I don't think Eva is quite as unique anymore. It has had some follow the leader. Want something full of psychological horror and soul tearingly depressing moments? Their out there. Want something that people who didn't like Eva would describe as "Eva done right/If Shinji didn't suck?" Lot's of those. Want Rei clones? Oh yes, in some ways that's the most copied thing of Eva's.

Another thing that probably doesn't help endear new fans to Eva is now it's end is fairly infamous. Honestly I don't know if I would have watched the series if I'd known how it'd turn out. And I bet there was at least some part of the series that tore at your heart. Not everyone wants to do that for entertainment.

Finally times change. Something that would have reverberated and been a huge hit in one decade, is not nearly as much in the next.

[The Imperialist]

Finally times change. Something that would have reverberated and been a huge hit in one decade, is not nearly as much in the next.

True. However, anything that has tried to best Eva, always has the shadow of Eva lurking in the background.

[Dream]

Another thing to note is that I don't think Eva is quite as unique anymore. It has had some follow the leader. Want something full of psychological horror and soul tearingly depressing moments? Their out there. Want something that people who didn't like Eva would describe as "Eva done right/If Shinji didn't suck?" Lot's of those. Want Rei clones? Oh yes, in some ways that's the most copied thing of Eva's.

Another thing that probably doesn't help endear new fans to Eva is now it's end is fairly infamous. Honestly I don't know if I would have watched the series if I'd known how it'd turn out. And I bet there was at least some part of the series that tore at your heart. Not everyone wants to do that for entertainment.

None of the examples you mentioned make Eva any less unique, and actually make it more worthy by comparison. Series that focus only on deppressing moments or Eva done right are many things, but good or unique is seldom a quality in them.

Regarding the controversy of the ending, i wasn't aware of such thing. And while it's true that NGE is a very emotionally draining work, that's a great part of what made it so unique and stand the test of time with such strenght.

On-topic: I couldn't really say, since i'm not very aware of what's up in Eva fandom outside of EGF. I would agree thought that Evangelion seems to have dimmed recently, aside from Rebuild.

[The Eva Monkey]

Interest in Evangelion has ebbed and flowed for years. It's spiked multiple times over the years due to various occurrences:

DVD release
Movies
Director's cuts & Live Action Eva
Platinum
Rebuild movies

At the moment, EoE is out of print, and 3.33 is between theatrical and home release. Expect interest to spike once in a month when fansubs of 3.33 become available, and then again when Funimation starts its release cycle.

This year may be an interesting one, 3.33 coming to video, Final coming to theaters, and Sadamoto supposedly finishing his manga. It will be interesting to see two major portions of the franchise concluded simultaneously.

[user-02]

There's an easy, if not entirely perfect way to check general interest at a glance: search volume over time. Fortunately, for that we have Google Trends.



To no great surprise, it seems that search volume -- which we use as a proxy for interest -- has been driven in recent years by big home video announcements (i.e., Rebuild). Overall, there's been a slight decline in interest (both on average, and in the size of the peaks) from 2004 to present. But the decline may or may not be statistically significant.

Now let's see what happens when we narrow in a little bit and gauge interest from 2010 to Present:



Seems like we're about on par with where we were 2-3 years ago -- and currently in a local peak, at that.

Obviously there are more sophisticated analyses we can run, but this is a good starting point to test out the hypothesis "interest in Evangelion has been waning."

[riffraff11235]

@user-02 I'm interested to see what will happen to these graphs once April 24th passes.

[user-02]

Just for the hell of it, let's see how certain characters stack up against each other in popularity (in the US). Note: I am intentionally using the timeframe of 2009 - Present, because that's when Mari first appears on the scene.



It seems that teh Rei has always held a commanding lead and still maintains it, though she's in relative decline right now.

Shinji and Asuka have been battling it out over the years, with Asuka historically in the lead. Shinji, however, has recently started emerging as the favorite.

Mari peaked in June 2010 (roughly corresponding with the Japanese 2.0 home video release date, which would have made news in the US), and she's been somewhat stagnant ever since.

Note that the general popularity of all four characters is highly correlated, which we should expect to see, given that it follows pretty closely with general popularity of the series at large.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I'm surprised that Rei holds such a gigantic lead over everybody else. I expected it to be more similar (except for Mari, since she's new.) The Asuka and Shinji curve is interesting. Maybe the two keywords go hand in hand?

[user-02]

I'm surprised that Rei holds such a gigantic lead over everybody else.

Well, she does do more nudity than the others.

In all seriousness, though, I'm also a bit surprised by this finding. Typically we like to make gut-level assumptions about who "speaks to the Japanese audience," who "speaks to the American audience," etc. But it seems as if Rei appeals pretty strongly to both. Precisely why would be a good question, but we can probably figure:

- Rei is more mysterious than the others (this adds appeal, but it also raises more plot- and character-related questions, causing her to get searched more often)

- Rei is used in a lot of Eva-related iconography, branding, fanart, etc., coming out of the Japanese fanbase. When Eva news and info spreads from Japan to America, Americans start with whatever baseline and tone the Japanese before them have set. Japan loves Rei, so America gets a lot of Rei.

- Rei is not a polarizing figure the way Shinji and Asuka can be. People either love or hate Shinji and Asuka. With Rei, it's more like a love-or-meh relationship. There's not as much abject hate, but there's still a lot of love.

- Rei is more exotic looking (not ethnically, but in the "has blue hair and red eyes" sense).

- Rei is second only to Shinji in terms of plot importance and centrality, w/r/t Asuka and Mari. (Arguably more important than Shinji, even, but I'm talking about this from the perspective of the dramatic story arc, not the in-world perspective).

The Asuka and Shinji curve is interesting. Maybe the two keywords go hand in hand?

From the graph, it doesn't appear that Asuka and Shinji are necessarily any more correlated than the others. They all appear to be more strongly correlated with one another than not.

[EvangelionFan]

Final coming to theaters

I have been under the impression that Final's tentative 2013 release date was considered moot since the date disappeared from their site around the time 3.0 came out. There's probably a thread around here somewhere, but yeah, I haven't seen anything that says they are still aiming to have it done for release this year.

[Darkwing]

Also Rei seems to be the most likely charecter to get copied by other shows.

[Fireball]

I'm not sure with all the Rebuild hype going on that it's waning, but I can only speak for myself that I don't think my interest in Eva has ever been this low. When I watch Q it will probably rekindle my flames but currently I'm way too deep into other series.