Wow, how'd I miss this thread for so long? Its been a long time since we've had one of these. I guess largely cause my mission to increase Ideon's awareness in english has been so successful. Anyway...
EvaXephon, I think the thing that upsets me the most is that you out and out quit simply because people dare to disagree with you. Thats disgraceful. Come back and act like a man. We're trying to have a civilized conversation with you but you cry like a little baby and run away. You're embarresing yourself, and you're embarresing Eva fans with your behavior.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm far different from the typical Eva fan, I certainly criticize it a lot more than most here and often take a contrarion view on commonly held principles of it. And frankly, a big reason for that is people like you. I like many loved Eva when I first watched it. For a time I thought it was the best anime ever. But the fandom was so absurdly over the top I couldn't stay as a part of the fandom in that way. This subject primarily. Thats why this is the only place I talk about Eva now, and even then its very rarely. And its largely because of the over the top people like you who call everything out there an Eva ripoff by flinging out flimsy reasons like all that stuff you posted. It reminds me of the arguments I had with people about Xenogears and Eva. People like you calling Xenogears a ripoff because of reasons like "both share characters named Hyuga". It was so absurd I wanted to vomit.
That said, I never would have gotten into the greatness that was Ideon if it wasn't for all the arguments about this issue, where the word Ideon first came up as an influence for Eva. So I guess its not all bad.
Your problem is you can only come up with flimsy reasons. And any item that has more than flimsy superficial backing is something Eva didn't even create! I think you'll find a lot of similarities between Eva and RahXephon is because they're both in the same genre, and hence both picked up a ton of cliches that have been in the genre for a long time! Angsty pilots have been along for decades you know! So have giant monsters like Angels and Dolems! That's right, Eva didn't invent them!
What's the worst thing on your site though? Probably this:
"Remember - while Evangelion did borrow from other giant robot shows, it also contained many original and unique aspects that previous giant robot shows did not contain"
That is so ridiculous I want to vomit. Because the majority of your site is stuff so vague that you can claim RahXephon ripped of pretty much any show out there! Then you dare to say that all this stuff was original and uniqute stuff Eva made up? Nonsense!
Let me educate you. In 1979 Yoshiyuki Tomino revolutionized the mecha genre with Gundam and Amuro Ray. Anno proceded to take Amuro, the most well known angsty teenage boy mecha pilot who uses his dad's mecha, and formulated Shinji's entire character after him, although he took him to more extremes than Tomino did.
Then in 1980 Tomino made Space Runaway Ideon. Anno proceded to lift the entire main concept of Eva, Instrumentality from Ideon. It was Ideon that first featured an entire race of humans being evolved into a single existence. It was Ideon that first featured a higher power deciding humanity was too corrupt and had to be made perfect by being absorbed into that perfect single being. It was Ideon (and Tomino's Zambot a few years earlier) that featured the mass murder ending where everyone had overly gruesome deaths. It was Ideon that had the main mecha being proclaimed a God. It was Ideon that had the live action footage. I could go on and on....
Now I'm not saying that Eva sucks because of that, as you are doing with RahXephon. And I'm not even saying that Tomino invented these things. The Ide/Sixth Civilization stuff in Ideon was obviously influenced by various religious concepts like reincarnation and nirvana. Although Tomino did bring them to anime and Anno then later took those concepts that Tomino revolutioned and put in his own anime. That doesn't mean Eva sucks, surely not! I'll admit right here and now that Eva is a better written show than Ideon! But to say that Eva came up with all these concepts like you do is pure absurdity. Evangelion is a mass conglomoration of popular mecha anime themes and obscure stuff from old school Tomino shows. It hardly invented anything.
I'm not gonna go through your similarities one by one and tear them to shreds, it would be a waste of time. You don't seem to care what we have to say so I won't bother.
Well alright, I do want to address a few of the more ridiculous ones.
The first Evangelion movie, Death, is a recap of the series. The second Evangelion movie, End of Evangelion, is an alternate version of the last two episodes.
The RahXephon movie is a recap of the series, and an alternate version of everything that happened.
It seems that the creators of RahXephon were so desperate to copy Evangelion's formula, they combined the premise of both Evangelion movies.
The first Ideon movie, A Contact, is a recap of the series. The second movie, Be Invoked is an alternative version of the ending of the TV series. Well actually its the real ending, which wasn't able to air on TV (same as Eva). Be Invoked doesn't have ending credits, like EOE (the real version, the american release by Manga botched it by adding on ending credits that weren't really there)
It seems that the creators of Eva were so desperate to copy Ideon's formula that they combined the premise of both Ideon movies.
You offer plenty of examples of close dialogue. The problem is you're using an english translation. Thats invalid. Please quote the actual Japanese dialogue. Like me for example.
In Ideon episode 33, the character Bento says 'Wakaru no ka' (how should I know?!)
In End of Eva one of the male bridge guys (Aoba I think) says 'Wakaru no ka' (how should I know?!)
Uh oh... huge ripoff there!
In RahXephon, Itsuki sees a vision of his true love, Quon, before he dies. In the Evangelion movie, the characters see visions of Rei or visions of their true love before they die.
Like in Ideon how when Sheryl dies her soul sees a vision of her beloved Gije.
In both series, a man creates a god, and the theme of god creating man and man creating god eventually becomes a central theme. Also, in both series, that god is the main robot that is piloted by the main character.
And in Ideon, the Ideon is a God created by the Sixth Civilization. And the Ideon is the main robot piloted by our main characters.
As you can see, many of your stuff wasn't invented by Eva, and as I've shown, I can do the exact same thing and argue how Eva ripped off Ideon in the same exact way. And this doesn't even touch some of the more absurd ones like 'blushing kids' or 'opening door' which I have only realized now were invented by Eva!
On to stuff brought up in this thread...
Those articles are full of glaring errors of their own, though. I'm pretty
sure the author has disclaimed their content. Even if he has not, I'm certain that they shouldn't be used to support any point other than the influences from Ideon that Evangelion took.
Aside from anything else, most of it is just plain opinion, which varies.
No, I haven't disclaimed them. The only one I disclaimed was the one about how the TV ending and movie ending were completely different from another after a long discussion at this board. Even so, I'm not 100% on board with that theory anyway. Everything else there I fully stand bye. Let me know of any mistakes, I don't think there are any in there.
Ironically the biggest reason I wrote those in the first place was because of people like EvaXephon. Seeing people like him type out lists about why Rah or Xenogears, etc... were so alike to Eva with such flimsy reasons caused me to do the exact same thing and type up how Eva was a ripoff of Gundam because White Base had 3 mechas, because they both had suicidal blonds, etc... Great parody, although not enough realize thats what it is when reading it. Many of the others have little to do with the ripoff arguments (like the people saying Eva would never air on TV, I clearly explained why it could, and years later was proved right when Adult Swim picked it up)
The essays are still available on Eva Monkey's site.
That article is one of the ones which is right on the mark. The author is probably the foremost expert on Ideon outside Japan.
Thanks for the compliment!
Well it's not a cheap rip-off (the animation is more fluid) it just follows most of the parameters that evangelion used which made it a legend. But Evangelion was first so it's viewed as a rip-off. RahXephon is no more a rip-off than Dual!, Blue Gender, Gilgamesh, Technolyze, or Gasaraki are.
Eva wasn't the first. Thats the point. Eva was one in a long line of mecha shows in that fashion. It was essentially a combination of Ideon and Gundam, with a tighter and more consise storyline. I won't deny that Eva hit all the right buttons in terms of popularity and mystique which made it such a huge hit, but it is only one in dozens in its genre, and the stuff contained within it was done by Tomino 15 years before Eva aired.
I won't deny that there are homages to Eva in RahXephon. Thats pretty obvious at times. Which is why a small sliver of your comparisons are valid (although they were done that way on purpose, not because they were ripping off Eva as you claim). But the fact remains that RahXephon was influenced most by Raideen, not Eva. And Eva's so called originality doesn't exist, it came mostly from Ideon and Gundam.
Originally posted on: 07.23.2006, 03:07 AM
