I've recently been thinking, with the release of Godzilla vs Kong, people once again discuss the human element in Kaiju movies and how much focus humans should have in them, with one of Alteori's videos catching my attention where she roughly says that GvK was a great film in-part due to the humans contribution to the story all revolving around the Kaiju themselves and any relationships between the humans is unnecessary and thus doesn't get focus

This got me thinking of Evangelion and how it's essentially the inverse of this, where the humans are the major focus, and the monsters' purpose is to help enhance this focus, with many of the Angel battles being reflective of the struggles the main characters go through in their day to day lives.

Anyone else have any thoughts regarding a topic like this?

It all depends on what's the themes & the genre/flavor we're going for/ talking about


That initial review might've meant something more like being glad they weren't made to sit through a largely tacked-on uninspired romance subplot or the struggles of yet another Generic Cardboard Protagonist when they came for sci-fi, horror or action content;
I'm not sure which of the three GvK would fall into.

"The human element" is often just a codeword to delegitimize sci-fi as a genre & I really dislike that phrase for that reason. Is dealing with themes of fear, responsibility and the unknown not quintessentially human?
Wanting to watch a city get smashed is very human, have you ever seen a kid knock down a tower of bricks? We're programmed to be obsessed with & have our imagination excited by what can kill us so that we are on guard, just as much as we are programmed to respond to boobs or social recognition.
The problem is really with the idea that sci-fi, action or horror cannot stand on it's own, and that, since it's often tacked on for sales, it's not even good romance or character struggle content.

When you consider this, it makes perfect sense that someone would be glad to have not to sit through drama scenes that just made them wish for the monster to show up again.
In this time where everything tries to be clever & meta and finger-wagging it's just nice for someone to be unapologetic about & committed to just making a monster movie, and making it a good one - in short, for them to understand WHY people even like monster movies.

But you can't really compare that to a show where the drama elements aren't so much tacked on as an integral part of the concept. They're not put in 'cause some exec though the monsters & existential questions alone wouldn't sell, but intimately interwoven with it.

I wouldn't call the appeal of EVA the exact same as a classic monster movie though. for those, the monsters are the most memorable part - EVA was sort of unique at the time in that figurines of Asuka and Rei outsold all the monsters and mechas.

I always think humans should be the main focus, and the kaiji should be the representation of humans' relationship or trouble.

Anno's favorite Return of Ultraman was focused on that.

A lot of the humans were not liked by the audience because they were not well handled or made connection with the kaiju plot.