Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

This is the place to start: Feel free to introduce yourself, have general conversations and casual discussions about all things Evangelion, including chit-chatty topics like "Sachiel is adorable" or "Which Eva kicks the most ass?"

Moderator: Board Staff

chaosakita
Leliel
Leliel
User avatar
Age: 29
Posts: 721
Joined: Nov 17, 2009
Gender: Female

Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby chaosakita » Thu Feb 18, 2016 1:48 am

One thing I love about Evangelion is that my relationship with the show continues to grow even as I get older! For example, falling in love for the first time, having a bad breakup, etc, really helps me connect to the show more. I think that unless you have actual life experience under your belt, you won't be able to relate to the characters as well as you could.
Avatar: Shinji and Kaworu get ice cream

amitakartok
Nerv Scientist
Nerv Scientist
User avatar
Age: 33
Posts: 1690
Joined: Jan 05, 2011
Location: The Ass End of Nowhere (TM)
Gender: Male
Contact:

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby amitakartok » Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:52 am

Same here, except growing up didn't help me relate to the characters.

It helped me relate to Anno: through the show, I can feel Anno's emotional state at the time he made it, as if I had made it myself. Same with the Rebuild movies. I'm no psychologist but when I watch Eva, I can somehow feel how Anno felt.

I only respect the man more for it.
Strategic Cyborg Evangelion : an average author's aspiring attempt at awesomeness. Currently at chapter 42.

Mana, Mayumi and Sakura: the TRUE goddesses of Eva

Compiling_Autumn
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Age: 34
Posts: 333
Joined: Jun 15, 2014
Location: Virginia
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Compiling_Autumn » Sat Feb 20, 2016 2:23 am

Growing up helped me relate a lot more to Misato.

The long and short of it was that I decided to become a teacher when I was 20-21. I spent three years volunteering at a community center, once a week. During grad school, I took on private tutoring assignments, the longest of those being about a year and a half. The kid was 14, shy, and had a lot of difficulty concentrating and learning the math. His dad was a merchant marine, meaning absent for weeks at a time, and his grandmother was the one who paid for my sessions. Sometimes the grandmother would be low on money or sometimes the kid would be at his mother's house (the mother would sometimes steal money from him too), and I would just be left at the door, no one to answer when I knocked. I didn't mind the flakiness, because tutoring that kid was the closest I came to taking care of someone else, really looking out for them like they were my own family.

Last year I burned out on teaching. It was three weeks into my internship and I felt miserable, knowing now that teaching was just going to be a lifetime of this misery for me. No time for writing, no time to even think, just a thirty-year blur of misery.

In the months after that, the sessions with this kid got less and less frequent. Now it's been months since I last saw him.

Misato's struggle to be there for broken children, and later, the grim realization that perhaps she has failed them, is much easier for me to relate to now than when I was in my teens.
"The will to lose one's will?"
"Absolutely. The will to make oneself completely free. Will is the wrong word, because in the end you could call it despair. Because it really comes out of an absolute feeling of it's impossible to do these things, so I might as well just do anything. And out of this anything, one sees what happens."--Francis Bacon

Eliaskar
Lilith
User avatar
Age: 29
Posts: 126
Joined: Apr 08, 2012
Location: England
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Eliaskar » Sat Feb 20, 2016 11:19 am

View Original PostCompiling_Autumn wrote:Growing up helped me relate a lot more to Misato.

The long and short of it was that I decided to become a teacher when I was 20-21. I spent three years volunteering at a community center, once a week. During grad school, I took on private tutoring assignments, the longest of those being about a year and a half. The kid was 14, shy, and had a lot of difficulty concentrating and learning the math. His dad was a merchant marine, meaning absent for weeks at a time, and his grandmother was the one who paid for my sessions. Sometimes the grandmother would be low on money or sometimes the kid would be at his mother's house (the mother would sometimes steal money from him too), and I would just be left at the door, no one to answer when I knocked. I didn't mind the flakiness, because tutoring that kid was the closest I came to taking care of someone else, really looking out for them like they were my own family.

Last year I burned out on teaching. It was three weeks into my internship and I felt miserable, knowing now that teaching was just going to be a lifetime of this misery for me. No time for writing, no time to even think, just a thirty-year blur of misery.

In the months after that, the sessions with this kid got less and less frequent. Now it's been months since I last saw him.

Misato's struggle to be there for broken children, and later, the grim realization that perhaps she has failed them, is much easier for me to relate to now than when I was in my teens.

That's interesting, seems like a unique situation which ended up putting a character in a new light for you.

As a side note; i'm in University at the moment studying History but want to do a year's course on teaching afterwards as I am thinking of becoming a teacher. Could you tell me more about your experience briefly and why you decided not to become a teacher?

Nuclear Lunchbox
Agent Ahegao
Agent Ahegao
User avatar
Age: 26
Posts: 10623
Joined: Dec 13, 2012
Location: Nippon
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Nuclear Lunchbox » Thu Feb 25, 2016 6:03 pm

I first watched Evangelion when I was younger than any of the main characters. As I get older, the aspect of the show about having these fourteen-year old kids piloting these gigantic cyborgs stands out in much harsher relief to me, as well as everything they have to go through along the way.

robersora
Laissez-faire in Moderation
Laissez-faire in Moderation
User avatar
Age: 32
Posts: 4437
Joined: May 17, 2011
Location: Europe, Austria
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby robersora » Fri Feb 26, 2016 7:32 am

Obviously I now relate much more to the grown ups, whereas as a kid I saw the world much more from the perspective of the children.
Kinda shows how strong the character writing is.
2Q||3.33 _ 神殺しを行う
Decadent Stoned Slacker Socialist

IronEvangelion
Bridge Bunny
Bridge Bunny
User avatar
Age: 36
Posts: 1569
Joined: Oct 14, 2014
Location: [Data Expunged]

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby IronEvangelion » Fri Feb 26, 2016 1:54 pm

Well I'm able to empathize with Shinji much better than I could when I first watched it. I don't hate Asuka like I did the first time either. And if I had seen 3.33 when I was a teenager I would have thought Misato and the Wunder crew were being cruel to Shinji, but since I watched it as an adult I fully understand why they treat him the way they do, and IMO they're completely justified in doing so.
[Redacted]

zlink64
Israfel
Israfel
User avatar
Age: 34
Posts: 456
Joined: Sep 10, 2006
Location: brooklyn ny
Gender: Male
Contact:

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby zlink64 » Fri Feb 26, 2016 5:10 pm

I feel less sympathy for Gendo. Don't know if that cause of growing up or because I just have different life views now.

Now that I'm like a man and not a kid I feel bad for Hyuga and sometimes when I watch the show I feel like I would totally get me at least 1 night with Misato if I worked at nerv and Kaiji wasn't around.

Still feel the same towards the kids. Never hated any of them.

I now think Risiku is stupid for falling for Gendo. And now I feel very sad for her but she was dumb.

Other than that nothing else. Show still gives me same sad feeling when I'm done. Kinda wanna just hug all of them after a sitting.

In general I think I relate more to the adult characters now than when I was younger.
hmmm
http://animeanalysis.com /(Blog where I write anime stuff like above)

lily liver
Embryo
User avatar
Age: 30
Posts: 37
Joined: Mar 07, 2016
Location: ohio
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby lily liver » Mon Mar 07, 2016 9:26 pm

View Original Postchaosakita wrote:falling in love for the first time, having a bad breakup, etc, really helps me connect to the show more. I think that unless you have actual life experience under your belt, you won't be able to relate to the characters as well as you could.


this is basically what i'm going through right now. i discovered the series when i was 12 or 13, and i could sympathize with the characters and the show made me depressed, and i loved it, but looking back on it i had a very superficial understanding. i still love it, but i initially liked it for very shallow reasons. this may not have been because i was inexperienced at life, but rather that i was just too young to understand the full complexity of it.
now after having fallen in love and going through a bad breakup in 2014, i'm going to school out of state. i have no social life and no friends here and have never felt this level of social isolation before. i used to watch eva once a year or so, but i haven't seen it in years. watching 3.33 last week rekindled my interest and i'm thinking of marathoning the series with death & rebirth and EoE this weekend to see if i'll have a new understanding, relate to it more, pick up on plot points and subtext i was too stupid/immature to understand until now, etc.
Last edited by lily liver on Sat Mar 12, 2016 7:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Sicarius VI
Tokyo-3 Resident
Tokyo-3 Resident
User avatar
Age: 25
Posts: 1149
Joined: Aug 12, 2014
Location: United States
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Sicarius VI » Tue Mar 08, 2016 12:03 am

I need to come back to this thread in like a few years and answer the question, I don't think a little less than 2 years equates to me being able to answer.

To say, within this like year and 3/4 of a year, I have figured out a lot about the show compared to when I watched it first after Freshman year, so maybe that compares?
"I'm not going there to die, I'm going to find out if I'm really alive." - Spike Spiegel

Fuyutsuki_Fan
Embryo
User avatar
Age: 67
Posts: 4
Joined: Mar 11, 2016
Location: USA
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Fuyutsuki_Fan » Fri Mar 11, 2016 7:18 pm

I have personality disorder/issues exactly like Shinji. I love and hate the character as for me it hits home hard.
Emotionally I am a mixture of sympathy/dislike but often find myself siding with the people who don't like the character. Internally I often yell,
"Stop whining and running away! GET IN THE DAMN EVA AND KICK ASS!" if only because, like Shinji, I've ignored and ran away from issues all my life.

Anno has created a wondrous work that will forever be in my favorites among fiction.
"Your truth can be changed simply by the way you accept it. That's how fragile the truth for a human is."

lily liver
Embryo
User avatar
Age: 30
Posts: 37
Joined: Mar 07, 2016
Location: ohio
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby lily liver » Sun Mar 13, 2016 3:18 am

I finished re-watching it last night and something very surprising did change. It emotionally affected me far less than it used to. Maybe my emotions were more erratic as a teenager.
I also noticed more small details because I was actually paying attention to what was on the screen. I never noticed all of the mother imagery in EoE, like that the souls of humanity enter Lilith's hands through vaginas on her palms. It makes perfect sense. The chamber of guf = a spiritual womb.

Compiling_Autumn
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Age: 34
Posts: 333
Joined: Jun 15, 2014
Location: Virginia
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Eva?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Compiling_Autumn » Sun Mar 13, 2016 2:12 pm

View Original PostEliaskar wrote:That's interesting, seems like a unique situation which ended up putting a character in a new light for you.

As a side note; i'm in University at the moment studying History but want to do a year's course on teaching afterwards as I am thinking of becoming a teacher. Could you tell me more about your experience briefly and why you decided not to become a teacher?


In short, I did student teaching for three weeks before dropping out of the program. It became clear to me that teaching would mean spending every ounce of myself and my potential for something that would, in the end, end up meaning little to me. Stress, compassion fatigue and self-loathing for abandoning my passion for writing, these were what I had to look forward to.

I don't know how things are in England, but in America, teachers are routinely overworked and given little administrative support. The issues with low teacher pay are well-known, but what few people consider is that teachers have so little free time or mental energy to really enjoy surplus money (not that their wages shouldn't be higher). There are a number of issues that have led to the 'breaking' of the American public school system, and while some of these are being addressed, schools are a bit more miserable than they were twenty years ago, especially for the teachers.
"The will to lose one's will?"
"Absolutely. The will to make oneself completely free. Will is the wrong word, because in the end you could call it despair. Because it really comes out of an absolute feeling of it's impossible to do these things, so I might as well just do anything. And out of this anything, one sees what happens."--Francis Bacon

Jere98
Embryo
User avatar
Age: 26
Posts: 4
Joined: Mar 15, 2016
Location: Argentina
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Jere98 » Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:14 pm

Well ,the first time I saw it I was 12 years old, so I didn't understand what was it about, although that I watched all the episodes. Last year I found out that there was a movie about the anime (End of Eva) so I re-watch the series. I can understand more the characters now, like Shinji, who I hated in the past but now I felt sorry for him through the series.

TheCarkolum
Tunniel
Tunniel
User avatar
Posts: 163
Joined: Jun 07, 2017

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby TheCarkolum » Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:22 am

YES. I used to love the Rebuilds back in 2009, so...
“The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old but that one is young.” - Oscar Wilde



"Remember kids, a smart man knows when it's time to RUN LIKE A LITTLE BITCH!!"

OtherNigel
Embryo
User avatar
Age: 20
Posts: 13
Joined: Jul 08, 2017
Location: Minnesota
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby OtherNigel » Wed Jul 12, 2017 12:04 am

Though I am still in early adolescence, I can conclude that my view of the show would be different years ago.
When I was 11 my parents announced that we would be moving from our home town that I had grown up in. I went into denial of my feelings towards the move, and consequently became very anxious.
I began to have panic attacks as violent thoughts about hurting myself or my loved ones appeared in my mind, and I worried that these were my actual feelings. I didn't want to think that I held such a hidden animosity towards any of my family members. This persisted until an abrupt stopping point, after I got on medication, but the ride didn't end. I became severely depressed, and suffered from extreme fatigue.
Then, when we finally moved, I was thrust into the hierarchical society of middle school. After being shut out from human contact for at least a year, my hate towards the student body increased. I began to research school massacres, murders, etc, and became obsessed with right-wing terrorism, as most of my bullies were black.
Fortunately, I snapped out of my funk, and I have no violent intrusive thoughts.
I realize that I would never, ever be able to kill another human being (I'm very sensitive), but it still scared me nonetheless.
I was introduced to Eva in a chatroom, and was given the impression that it would be an action/super-robot mecha. As soon as I hit the major character development episodes, I realized how much I resembled Shirji. A scarred, overanxious person with reluctance to do anything. In a way, Eva helped me to heal. It helped me to come to terms with the fact that I was not the only one out there with similar problems. If I had watched it before my anxiety, I sure as hell wouldn't have such a deep connection to it.
Sorry for the long post, brevity is evidently not my strong suit. :3

CommanderFish
Shamshel
Shamshel
User avatar
Age: 24
Posts: 266
Joined: Jul 31, 2016
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby CommanderFish » Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:47 pm

^Thanks for sharing this, man. That sounds like some scary stuff, so I'm glad Eva was able to help you work through it.
"The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth"

The Flying Fortress
Adam
User avatar
Age: 27
Posts: 52
Joined: May 14, 2017
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby The Flying Fortress » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:41 am

Going totally against the others on this topic, Evangelion has lost some of his charm to me, I do not know what happened, sometimes I seem to want to just see the flaws of the anime now, there are some things I preserve, the lessons he has gone through (Especially the last two episodes), I hold with great appreciation, what I can say best about Evangelion is that it helped me better understand my personal problems, although I did not find the solution. About admiration, I think some things are intact, as you can see I have an avatar of Ramiel, I really like this guy, he is almost an icon of the anime, many speak in Sachiel, but he does not have the appeal of raw power as Ramiel. I also preserve my admiration about Eva's Sci-Fci universe, although I think it could have been better explored, I also like the whole strategy and tension involving fighting against the angels, I like that the fights do not be a gratuitous prank between Robo and Alien as in so many other mechas, I also think that many fans of Eva despise me because I look like a Military-Otaku saying this, sometimes I only see people arguing about social relations in Eva, I'm already tired of it, if there is Something that has certainly worn itself on me, was to know that Eva has almost indecipherable mysteries, you can understand the main purpose of the anime, but certain things, even if you watch 1 bi times will not find, it's all so fragmented, I I feel so discouraged that I often need to know the important spoilers of the story, feeling guilty, am I so dumb? , No, it's not my fault the anime is not clear, I know there are people who admire this plot game believing it to be an interesting mystery, but there is a difference between mystery and being something almost impossible to discover. Anyway, I'm still here, because I think there are interesting things to discuss, I'm not a hardcore fan, nor do I want to be one, if I ever had any special ties this has already passed, today it's just the rational side.

Sachi
Oh Daddy!
Oh Daddy!
User avatar
Age: 30
Posts: 10171
Joined: Aug 29, 2006
Location: Hollywoo
Gender: Male

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Sachi » Sat Jul 15, 2017 10:32 pm

I think it's natural for the dynamics of a relationship to change as years go by. I enjoy different things out of Eva now than I did before. There has been times where I feel NGE is uplifting for my depression, and there are other times where I feel stilted by it. It's helped keep things in perspective regarding feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing, but on the other hand, it may have caused me to focus more on those aspects of my personality than I might have otherwise. I also find myself relating more to the problems of the more adult characters as I've grown up, particularly Misato and Ritsuko, and I care less about the problems of the teenagers.
- Sachi

I host the discord server for the EvaGeeks forums. Join us! https://discord.gg/aBQ3F6M9yp

Reichu
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 24046
Joined: Aug 21, 2004
Location: Sailing for the white shores
Gender: Female
Contact:

Re: Has growing up changed how you relate to Evangelion?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Reichu » Sat Jul 15, 2017 10:40 pm

....
.....
.........
............"growing up"?

I'm not sure I've changed as much in the past seventeen years as I would have preferred. I'd like to think that Eva defines me less, and now it's more me defining Eva... or something? I don't really know. I have nothing really useful to add, alas.
さらば、全てのEvaGeeks。
「滅びの運命は新生の喜びでもある」
Departure Message | The Arqa Apocrypha: An Evangelion Analysis Blog


Return to “Evangelion General and Chit-Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests