UrsusArctos wrote:I actually put up an Arqa blog post about Japanese narrative in NGE, in which I argue that the series actually has a clear structure to it down to being in "blocks" of four episodes each, and that the Angel battles actually have different thematic purposes depending on where they happen -
https://www.arqacrypha.net/post/japanes ... evangelion

Anno isn't so much a gardener and isn't an architect-type either, so the best analogy I have for him is an inter-war naval constructor. He's the sort of person who lays down the keel and hull members for a battlecruiser. Evangelion's analog here would be Ritsuko's namesake, the aircraft carrier Akagi, which began her existence as an Amagi-class battlecruiser. Since during construction Anno discovers that he needs an aircraft carrier, he rebuilds the ship laid on top of the original keel and structural elements and turns the battlecruiser into a carrier in a hurry. But the original carrier built has a weird structure with multiple decks for aircraft and for all its power needs to be rebuilt to a different standard, so then Anno has it rebuilt as a proper carrier, along the way making small but important additions and fixing little details that came out wrong the first time around.

You've posted about that before, and I think there are some interesting ideas contained inside it. However, I disagree with your idea that Rebuild was intended to be an improved version of the original series. It's hard to imagine a four movie series possibly being an improvement over a critically acclaimed 26 episode TV show, and I don't think Anno has that level of confidence in his storytelling abilities. I'm convinced now, more than ever, that Rebuild was intended to be more of a commentary on the original series, showing Anno's changing views on it over the years. It may have been intended as an improvement early in production, but I think that idea was abandoned midway through 2.0's script-writing phase.

UrsusArctos wrote:The narrative discussion aside, Rebellion...well, I find the whole "Homura turns into the devil and steals Madoka's powers" idea completely out-of-left-field and serves to sully her previously established character. This is no longer a girl who fights on behalf of her friend, this is now an obsessive monster who turns into the devil out of left-field without a clear arc for her character turning that way. It's as badly done as Daenerys flipping her lid and burning down all of King's Landing . Never mind if it happens in Witch's labyrinth, the entire thing about the girls doing cute things together ( ), kyubey being turned into a mascot who goes "kyuu"( ), the transformation sequences complete with dancing( ), the godawful cake song ( ), all of which goes on for a full half hour or more before it is revealed what is wrong ( ) all pretty much are fanservice aimed at a very specific portion of the male audience. It's the kind of thing that I hope Anno never, ever stoops down to in his old age.

I got to go see Rebellion in theaters, having finished the watching the television series on the last day of its theatrical run, and I really, really liked it.

I don't think Homura's character arc is that far out of left field, when you consider that her actions and driving motivations in the TV series pass "questionable" quite early on. Yes, she's ostensibly fighting to save her friend, but she's willing to pay any possible price, even when that involves other peoples' lives. Far from objecting to her sudden characterization as an obsessive monster, I feel more like this is Urobuchi smacking fans of Madoka Magica on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper: "You thought Homura and Madoka had a healthy relationship in my TV series?! Bad viewer, bad!"

But this is a thread about sexualization and fanservice, so as long as I'm weighing in on Rebellion... As I stated earlier, I did and still do like the film. Walking into the theater expecting more Urobutchery and getting treated to a saccharine-sweet, cookie-cutter (joke intended) magical girl story, complete with transformation sequence and cake song, only then to be granted the reveal that something was up? I loved it, and Rebellion still has great rewatch value for me because of it.

Far from being sexy fanservice aimed at a male audience, I think it's meant to be an indulgent experience for the people who are familiar with magical girl tropes in general. Cute girls doing cute things and with cute mascots are staples, and then the transformation sequence itself...! I need to take a whole paragraph to talk about this, because there's so much that happens in it. We have the foreshadowing that once the girls transform, they're not in the real world but inside something else. The animation is beautiful thanks to the wonderful supervisors at Shaft, the designs of the characters and backgrounds is wonderful, the little hints hidden inside each character's transformation of what's to come later in the story... it's a decadent visual spectacle that I would hate to dismiss as a tawdry "transformation sequence complete with dancing". And the cake song is cute. Yeah, I said it.

Yes, there are a few shots where the camera lingers on hips or thighs. I don't think the film would have changed that much were they removed. I also don't think it doesn't change the film all that much that they're there, since by the time you process what you've just seen, the film has already moved on to the next psychedelic transformation sequence. If I had to hazard a guess, those are shots that I would say were certainly put in for the people who appreciate that sort of thing. I don't have much to say to defend them, other than that I think the movie is no less watchable for their existence.

Zusuchan wrote:I don't know if NL does read the entire forum or not, which is partly why I suggested the idea. Well, if he'll reply, he'll reply, if not, then not.

I do in fact read the entire forum! But I've made my point when it comes to episode 10 and I don't feel like beleaguering it.

UrsusArctos wrote:That's an interesting point about the book's handling of these issue. However, I disagree about the comparison between both creators. Anno knew what point he wanted to make far better than George R. R. Martin ever did, and there were hints of EoE in Episode 25, such as Ritsuko lying dead and so on. Anno's difference is that he tends to work the best with time running out and his back against the wall, while Martin seems to be stretching things out indefinitely in the absence of a clear way of resolving a number of plot points/issues. I would say that Anno knows what the overall architecture of the series is meant to be like, even if he landed up changing several of those elements towards the end of the series and landed up showing instrumentality psychologically rather than physically.

Eh. I'd say ASOIAF has actually stuck considerably closer to its "outline" than Eva did. ASOIAF ballooned in scope, yes, but it's still mostly following a path that GRRM thought up decades ago. He's just having a hard time getting there. Come to think of it, NTE was also a project that massively expanded in scope and took way longer than anyone was expecting. Hell, assuming that TWOW comes out relatively soon, it won't be very far off from 3.0+1.0 in terms of how long the wait for it was - and I think ASOIAF is a considerably harder story to write. So I really don't think the comparison between them is very far off.

UrsusArctos wrote:Anno isn't so much a gardener and isn't an architect-type either, so the best analogy I have for him is an inter-war naval constructor. He's the sort of person who lays down the keel and hull members for a battlecruiser. Evangelion's analog here would be Ritsuko's namesake, the aircraft carrier Akagi, which began her existence as an Amagi-class battlecruiser. Since during construction Anno discovers that he needs an aircraft carrier, he rebuilds the ship laid on top of the original keel and structural elements and turns the battlecruiser into a carrier in a hurry. But the original carrier built has a weird structure with multiple decks for aircraft and for all its power needs to be rebuilt to a different standard, so then Anno has it rebuilt as a proper carrier, along the way making small but important additions and fixing little details that came out wrong the first time around.

I do appreciate the analogy here, but speaking realistically every writer has to be a little bit of both. GRRM is a self-described gardener, but we know most of the major beats in his story were planned from the start. The finer details are what change radically, what he "discovers along the way" as he's writing. So ultimately, the architect/gardener question is more about which side you lean. From how Anno describes his creative process, he definitely sounds to me like what GRRM would call a "gardener".

@baldur: I certainly hope he has those story beats planned out better than what D & D handed over. And while I can't claim to be an expert on NTE's production, I think I'm going to hold off commenting on the "planned versus unplanned" element of it because I don't have the full story on the whole thing. Even knowing Anno's work methods, I'm skeptical of the idea that NTE's ending was mostly or completely up in the air when the planning for Jo started. The man usually has a point in what he's doing, even if the way he gets there is convoluted.

I hope WOW comes out soon and I intend to give ASOIAF a second go when that happens, because I sincerely hope GRRM can find a way to prune the finer details down and bring things on track to where he wanted to send them going. There's no denying that ASOIAF is harder to write in its own way, being an entirely different medium (book as opposed to anime) but I guess one of the things with being a gardener, metaphorically speaking, is pruning your garden. Even with the huge gap between 3.0 and 3.0 + 1.0, I think Anno did a better job of not letting plot points hang in the air or plunging into too deep an exploration of the finer details. Things like the suggestive William Blake references, Mari's backstory or the true nature of the International Project Evangelion Agency mentioned in Ha are things that Anno made a point to skip entirely - conversely he planted the seeds for other things, such as a suggestion that the Evangelions are actually ancient and that a pre-human world exists. A different writer would probably have expanded tremendously on all these elements, at the cost of Shinji's story. I imagine that a writer like GRRM would have let those particular plants grow; Anno keeps pruning them and tossing them into the background in order to stick to his central narrative.

Is one form of gardening better than the other? That's a matter of perspective. What matters is how each creator found their way around it. Anno found his way around his depression and inability to complete Evangelion post-3.0 and finally delivered (how good or bad or otherwise 3.0 + 1.0 is a discussion for the spoiler subforum, of course), the question is how and when GRRM will deliver WOW. I am skeptical, but if GRRM delivers a really good book, I have no qualms about admitting that I was wrong.

@Nuke: I understand. I had a similar argument with Derantor about Episode 10 (Derantor laid out many of the same strong points that you did), so if I have anything to add about it, I'll do so after a rewatch.

BusterMachine4 wrote: However, I disagree with your idea that Rebuild was intended to be an improved version of the original series.

Eh? I don't know where you got the idea I said anything like that, because I don't agree with it. Rebuild is a whole different continuity and has been so from the start.

UrsusArctos wrote:

BusterMachine4#921381 wrote: However, I disagree with your idea that Rebuild was intended to be an improved version of the original series.

Eh? I don't know where you got the idea I said anything like that, because I don't agree with it. Rebuild is a whole different continuity and has been so from the start.

I mean, of course it’s a different continuity. When I said “improved version of the original series,” I meant what you said previously, that the Rebuild series was intended to fix issues of the original and change things that didn’t work the first time around. You made similar statements previously, saying that Anno will try to make Rebuild’s ending more satisfying than the endings of the original series. I’m saying that I disagree with you about what Anno’s goals were: I don’t think he was setting out to make something better than the original series.

UrsusArctos wrote: However, I disagree about the comparison between both creators[.. .]Anno's difference is that he tends to work the best with time running out and his back against the wall, while Martin seems to be stretching things out indefinitely in the absence of a clear way of resolving a number of plot points/issues. I would say that Anno knows what the overall architecture of the series is meant to be like, even if he landed up changing several of those elements towards the end of the series and landed up showing instrumentality psychologically rather than physically.

The first book in GRRM's intended trilogy was supposed to end with the Red Wedding. Now, this is an exceptionally rough estimate, but that would mean the first book would have to have been...roughly 1942 pages or thereabouts long. The problem isn't that GRRM doesn't have a clear way of resolving things, it's that his original estimate was far too optimistic-there's simply no way for him to make a huge epic fantasy with dozens of POVs, while retaining all of the books' narrative, character and thematic complexity, along with the "feeling" of an epic work. I think it shouldn't be too hard to say that the idea of GRRM condensing the entire plot points of the first two and a half books (once again, very rough estimate) into one book that wouldn't be too long (i.e around, let's say, 800 pages) is too optimistic.

The best example is "the Meereenese knot". In GRRM's own words:


And that's the thing-GRRM has the general plot outline of his entire story at hand, same as Anno, but he doesn't have a clear-cut way of how to get there and that tends to create problems. But that's how he writes the best and the results so far have been amazing, so he can do it.

I know about your Japanese narrative ideas and I agree with them, and with the analogy of Anno as an inter-war naval constructor. Still, I think Anno is far more of a gardener than an architect and shares with GRRM a certain sort of flexibility when it comes to the "technical" side of storytelling.

I certainly hope he has those story beats planned out better than what D & D handed over.

GRRM is a significantly better writer than Benioff and Weiss. Even when GoT followed the books, there was still a noticeable difference in quality for a fanboy of the books. GRRM devotes his time to making a great work-do D and D? Arguably not. (There's also the fact that GoT and ASOIAF diverged considerably-there's a lot that's different between the two even when discounting the last three seasons. There are entire storylines and plot threads that never made it to GoT.)

I also have to really disagree with the way you contrast ASOIAF and NTE because those are two very different stories with two very different modes of storytelling. ASOIAF was intended to be a long work of epic fantasy, with all the worldbuilding, attention to details and rich writing that implies. It was also intended to be told from the viewpoints of several characters both because of themes and the necessities of getting all the important events covered. It is also a work that has a high degree of narrative complexity due to the abundance of ground that needs to be covered. NTE by contrast is a story in which Shinji was intended to be the main character around whom most actions revolve and which, despite being amazing, was not intended to be the sort of epic work to require detailed descriptions of several plot threads and doesn't really have the narrative complexity of ASOIAF, either, IMO. So it seems to me like you're making a mistake by conflating two divergent means of storytelling used for two different types of stories.

Sorry if I come off as a bit too aggressive, but I am a big ASOIAF fan.

I would say that only the worldbuilding and detailed writing could be argued to be "excessive", but IMO that's part of ASOIAF's nature and its richness.

the godawful cake song ( )

BLASPHEMY!
Jokes aside, I agree with NL that Homura's arc actually makes sense. I really liked PMMM when I watched it, but one thing I found strange was that Homura's obsession toward Madoka's wellbeing wasn't actually properly addressed for my taste. It seemed to me as if the show either didn't understand the negative connotations of such an obsession or chose to present them as good because of some misguided notion of "all's well that ends well". (An already misguided notion in itself, but that's different topic.) I ultimately shrugged it off because I did really like the show and thought that maybe watching Eva recently had made my tastes a bit too high-strung. But when Rebellion came around, I loved it precisely because it pointed out the darkness of her obsession with Madoka.

As for the fanservice stuff, it's possible that it just flew over my head somehow, though then again I don't remember any significant sexual fanservice and what there was that I realized as fanservice seemed to me to be pretty redeemed by the fact that I was confused about the happy-go-lucky aesthetics and literally the entirety of the first half, but when the revelations came, I chalked them up as a part of the illusory, escapist desires the "world" in Rebellion consists of.

...That having been said, this is getting considerably off-topic, so maybe it would be better to continue this discussion in the Madoka thread and maybe a newly created ASOIAF one?

Well, yes, I have to say my examples of fanservice done poorly, as opposed to done right, landed up turning into a whole different discussion. I apologize for that. I guess this is one of those instances where an off-topic discussion turned out to be very interesting.

Since my perceptions of ASOIAF and Rebellion are so different from yours I don't think there's a point in continuing the discussion in either the Madoka threads or ASOIAF: I'm afraid that I'll land up rehashing the same points, but since you have already made a very eloquent defense of ASOIAF and Rebellion, I think that's where I'll let the matter rest, at least until I have a different perspective on either of those works. I suppose my participation in the discussions on Episodes 07 and 10 will likewise have to wait.

BusterMachine4 wrote:I mean, of course it’s a different continuity. When I said “improved version of the original series,” I meant what you said previously, that the Rebuild series was intended to fix issues of the original and change things that didn’t work the first time around. You made similar statements previously, saying that Anno will try to make Rebuild’s ending more satisfying than the endings of the original series. I’m saying that I disagree with you about what Anno’s goals were: I don’t think he was setting out to make something better than the original series.

Seriously, what statements? I have no idea what you're responding to.

UrsusArctos wrote:

BusterMachine4 wrote:I mean, of course it’s a different continuity. When I said “improved version of the original series,” I meant what you said previously, that the Rebuild series was intended to fix issues of the original and change things that didn’t work the first time around. You made similar statements previously, saying that Anno will try to make Rebuild’s ending more satisfying than the endings of the original series. I’m saying that I disagree with you about what Anno’s goals were: I don’t think he was setting out to make something better than the original series.

Seriously, what statements? I have no idea what you're responding to.

Didn’t you have a thread about the whole “Japanese narrative” thing, where you said that Rebuild would attempt to fix Shinji’s and Misato’s character arcs and make the conclusion more satisfying? I remember there was a sentence along the lines of “the reason 3.0 diverged so much from the original story is so the series could finally be brought to a proper conclusion.” You also said why you thought the already existing endings weren’t a proper ending to Shinji’s story and why you thought Misato’s character arc was incomplete, and gave ideas on what Rebuild might do to fix it. If that thread doesn’t exist, then I must be in some parallel universe right now.

^ Parallel universe? No, you completely misread what I wrote.

Of course, if you want to talk about that, you'd have to do it in the spoiler subforum now that 3.0 + 1.0 is out.

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:I'm pretty sure you and I are in agreement in that some of Evangelion's sex appeal tells a story, and some of it... is just for the audience, is surface-level, and may not have a deeper explanation. I'm flashing back to all the arguments about Quiet in MGS5 and how people argued over "She needs to breathe through her skin!" vs "She just looks sexy!" (At least Yoko Taro, the creator of Nier: Automata and 2B, is honest about his intentions!)

It's fine for fanservice to be servicey. Sometimes a show wants to make its viewers feel good.

I might even go so far as to argue that feel-good fan service can have story relevancy in and of itself. I find it weird and kinda creepy that many argue that only "fan service that makes me feel bad" can be considered "narratively important" sex appeal.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:I might even go so far as to argue that feel-good fan service can have story relevancy in and of itself. I find it weird and kinda creepy that many argue that only "fan service that makes me feel bad" can be considered "narratively important" sex appeal.

This just depends on what "feel-good fanservice" means in this context. I already talked in this thread about the importance of asking who's being catered to, who's being made to "feel good". A lot of people say "the audience" when they mean "perpetually horny straight men who feel completely at ease with female objectification in media".

If by "feel-good fanservice" you're talking about male-gazey shots, I've mentioned that I think those can, in fact, be used in a way that contributes to the narrative. But those are still not exactly moments where fanservice is being "played straight" because, again, I think the term inherently refers to a very specific type of cheap gratification. So, yeah, I think it kind of has to be used in a subversive manner to be narratively important, because the 'typical application' of fanservice is to be indulgent garbage with zero narrative purpose.

baldur wrote:This just depends on what "feel-good fanservice" means in this context. I already talked in this thread about the importance of asking who's being catered to, who's being made to "feel good". A lot of people say "the audience" when they mean "perpetually horny straight men who feel completely at ease with female objectification in media".

Truth. This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. The unconscious assumption that only perverted straight men would ever want to watch anime needs to die. Women watch anime, gay people watch anime, and people who aren’t fine with fiction drooling over women’s boobs and butts constantly also watch anime. If you want to “please the audience,” excluding several demographics that might want to watch your show is just wrong.

baldur and BM4, those are very good points and I'm entirely with you on this.

As to why the "audience" is considered to be perverted straight men to the exclusion of all other demographics, I suspect there's a kind of Keynesian beauty contest going on here. By this I mean the creators of a show fill it with fanservice of the indulgent garbage variety because they want to conform to what they think others consider the "audience" rather than the actual possible audience which includes all demographics. Garbage fanservice may not even be a result of individual creator opinions on what audience should be "indulged" but rather on a phantom, and given that Japan tends to be strongly conformist I wouldn't be surprised if there are creators who include fanservice simply to conform to the expectations of the "audience" they're expected to cater to.

Of course, it could be that most showrunners simply don't bother to think for themselves about whether the inclusion of fanservice is a good thing or not. Those who are the least likely to throw in indulgent fanservice in their works - like Anno and his old friend Miyazaki - are the ones who are the most independent-minded and openly critical of Japanese society. There may be quite a few others who agree with both of them but who are afraid of the consequences of speaking up or acting according to their own interests. (Better to be a conventional mediocrity than be an unconventional success, or worse yet, risk being an unconventional failure...)

Freaky wrote:I might even go so far as to argue that feel-good fan service can have story relevancy in and of itself.

Yes, I'd certainly put all the warship fanservice in Episode 08 in this category. "Fanservice that makes me feel bad" seems like a touch of a contradiction in terms - perhaps the correct term is "fan disservice", which I see has a TVtropes website entry of its own.

UrsusArctos wrote:
Since my perceptions of ASOIAF and Rebellion are so different from yours I don't think there's a point in continuing the discussion in either the Madoka threads or ASOIAF: I'm afraid that I'll land up rehashing the same points, but since you have already made a very eloquent defense of ASOIAF and Rebellion, I think that's where I'll let the matter rest, at least until I have a different perspective on either of those works.

Fine by me.

UrsusArctos wrote:As to why the "audience" is considered to be perverted straight men to the exclusion of all other demographics, I suspect there's a kind of Keynesian beauty contest going on here. By this I mean the creators of a show fill it with fanservice of the indulgent garbage variety because they want to conform to what they think others consider the "audience" rather than the actual possible audience which includes all demographics. Garbage fanservice may not even be a result of individual creator opinions on what audience should be "indulged" but rather on a phantom, and given that Japan tends to be strongly conformist I wouldn't be surprised if there are creators who include fanservice simply to conform to the expectations of the "audience" they're expected to cater to.

Agreed, which in turn pushes other demographics away, reinforcing the notion in a self-perpetuating cycle.

Redo of Healer, the infamous fantasy anime from the Winter 2021 season featuring numerous sex scenes filled with violence, rape, and gratuitous nudity, received a greater than average percentage of female viewers during its run. Anecdotally, I assumed it would do very well with men and fall completely flat with women. Clearly, I was incorrect and learned from my mistakes. This is an extreme example, but I think it bears relevance to the current fanservice conversation.

It sounds like we're dipping into the territory of claiming to know what women like. Perhaps some of our preconceived notions are incorrect.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m assuming what women like. I’ve acquainted myself with feminist media criticism long enough to know what their main points are. And they definitely don’t seem comfortable with overbearing female sexualization. I know that the feminist movement doesn’t represent all women, but online feminist groups have what could be considered one of the largest concentrations of women online.

And unless someone does a survey, we can’t know for sure why women liked that “Redo of Healer” anime. Maybe the plot about taking revenge for repeated sexual abuse resonated in a country where women being groped on trains is a common occurrence. However, I highly doubt they watched it because women were sexualized in the series. I imagine straight women react to female sexualization in anime the same way straight men react to yaoi.

“Knowing what women like” is a red herring anyway. All you really need to learn is what your significant other likes and you’ll be good.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:“Knowing what women like” is a red herring anyway. All you really need to learn is what your significant other likes and you’ll be good.

That's not what I meant!

BusterMachine4 wrote:Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m assuming what women like. I’ve acquainted myself with feminist media criticism long enough to know what their main points are. And they definitely don’t seem comfortable with overbearing female sexualization. I know that the feminist movement doesn’t represent all women, but online feminist groups have what could be considered one of the largest concentrations of women online.

Groups these days that call themselves "feminist" can vary hugely, both on and off line. While many (most?) still stand for fair rights for women alongside men (and perhaps some compensation for the inequality they have often experienced), there are also those who are instead specifically anti-men, and then there are the unspeakable TERFs, who get a lot of publicity - not least in countries where their demonization of transgender people is accepted by many people (commonly the more religious).

But if I say more I will be stepping into the "Serious Discussion" territory that this forum doesn't wish to host.

Suffice it to say that it is prudent to express your own views, and to be cautious about ascribing them to "feminists" in general.