Do we still love Evangelion...Why?

[Olin of Xephon]

It's been months since I posted on this site, the unfamilliar ceiling that is life got a whole LOT more unfamilliar as I dealt with some really big changes in my life but I'm back...And feeling a little nostalgic.

So here is my (rather dumb) question, do we all still love Evangelion?

I mean, when was the last time anybody here watched it? Does it still carry great meaning for you? Or has it somehow become dull or passe?

I ask this question because it seems a lot of anime fans are either growing out of Eva or forgetting why it was so good.

I was reading through Animerica, a magazine I used to buy a lot but become very dissapointed in when they switched format and become less informative (and interesting).

Any rate, one page in this month's issue is dedicated to the top selling anime and the latest EVA platinum DVD snagged 8th place.
"hmm...people still love it" I thought and then read the descrpition next to eighth place, which asks "Will Shinji be able to whine, moan, or cry his way out of this angel attack?"

I (and most of us) are no stranger to the Shinji hate issue, but the comment struck me as odd. This was the magazine that got me INTO Evangelion and here they are making dirty little snide remarks about what remains a amazing show.

I re watched the whole series last week and am set to watch both movies this weekend and have found that even with all my new anime addictions, Full MEtal Alchemist, GHost in the SHell TV, Gantz, Samurai Champloo, and Requim from the darkness, Evangelion is still a brilliant, touching, and rather deprerssing piece of art that still moves me.

A lot of anime mags and fans have dubbed Eva, old hat, or over rated, even those who were the first on the EVA band wagon.

So again, do you still love or even like Evangelion, or has some (or a lot) of the magic gone out of it for you?

By the way Evamonkey, Your Site is still the best Eva fan site around Kudos, and keep up the good work.

[Reichu]

Yes, I still love it. Too much. Why? I blame Asperger's. :P

[Dave]

Anyone who posts a reply would obviously say 'yes'. This is an eva forum after all.

[Olin of Xephon]

Obviously if your posting on this site you at least like Eva.
But it's not really a yes or no question. I guess I'm kind of wondering why you like Eva, assuming you still do.

And then again, even if you like it doesn't really mean you like it as much as you used to or even half as much as you used to.

It's natural to get burnt out on things, even stuff you really like, adn sometimes life has a way of completely re orginzing our tastes.

I kind of thought it was a obvious question, but I guess my question is more the "Why" then "If."

Of course, I'm notorious for using seven minutes to say something I could in two. Maybe I'm just reading into it all to much.

[DatDude]

I still like eva im not as into it as I use to be.

Eva still one of the best i've seen but I can't keep rewatching the same stuff every day its just not in my. I still post here often, I helped out once by riping the subs from the first 14 eps and giving them to Reichu, and I still think about some of the questions eva raised in my mind.

Why do I still like it

1.) it's a mind fuck

2.) It always raises questions I think are important in my mind. How to treat a child, meaning of life, Misato's boob's crap like that



I don't think i've gotent out of eva as much as moved on with intent to come back and visit often :P

[Mr. Tines]

Still? Hard to say for someone who only encountered the series less than 18 months ago. In the rough year since I first saw the whole thing from the mysterious thing swimming towards Japan through to those heartbreaking words on the beach, I think I've managed to wind down from obsession to fondness - humans aren't built to sustain strong emotions. But the fact, the memory, that it hit me as hard as it did, will remain.

I suppose the question is really "why does it sink its hooks in?" - and I think that's because it works on both an intellectual and an emotional level, as an uncompromising mirror on the human condition : but unlike most dreary works on that subject, it has giant "robots" and jailbait :twisted: as part of the misdirection.

As for the wider audience; well, when a thing is new, there is a large unrealised demand out there to be found; once that saturates, you have to wait for new people to move into the market slot. The same thing happened with pencil and paper RPGs - they saturated and peaked after about 5-7 years, once the market was glutted.

[Carl Horn]

I don't think we need to worry too much about people making fun of EVA. The series has a lot of comedy in it anyway, and as for mocking or confronting Shinji's cowardice, timidity, or bad attitude, Gendo, Asuka, Misato and Kaji all do it in their own way at some point in the series. We might sympathize with Shinji, and sometimes admire him, but I'm not sure we're ever supposed to exactly like him.

Shinji, of course, suffers from a condition common among alienated people--he thinks the burden is on others to try to understand and accept him, but he doesn't seem to realize the burden is equally on him to try to understand and accept others. Fourteen is pretty damn early to give up on the rest of the human race, every one of whom has their own A.T. Fields just like you do.

[thewayneiac]

I must still love EVA, considering that I'm buying a show I already own.

Anyone who posts a reply would obviously say 'yes'. This is an eva forum after all.

Makes sense to me. BTW, Dave, I replied to your PM, but perhaps I hit the wrong button? My reply has been stuck in my Out-Box for a week. Anyway, the Avatar is Shinku, from Rozen Maiden, (a show that everyone should watch immediately, my favorite of the last 6 months), and the title is a line from the opening theme.

[the_seventh_child]

Yeah i still love the series..They have this mystery that keeps you entertained every time you watch it.

[Sectre01]

Sure I still like it, but I haven't watched it in a while. Too much other anime to dowload. Why I still like it? Because it still has some of the most badass fighting sequences ever.

[Toilet Duck]

I'm a newbie. Don't laugh - I didn't really get into the series until the Platinum release came along, and I was hesitant at first due to the stereotype of Eva fans being rather obsessive.

I am clinically depressed and have attempted suicide a few times. Additionally, I have been taking counseling for several years, and I am currently interested in entering the field of psychology, so the structure of Eva seems to have struck a chord with me. I guess what this show has taught me is that nothing is as simple or general as it seems. We like to fool ourselves into believing that we can read others' minds, but just like Shinji's assumptions about the world are repeatedly shot down, our own assumptions are thrown right back in our faces eventually.

Either that, or it's fun to see characters who are even more fucked up than myself. :p

[Mr. Tines]

I'm a newbie. Don't laugh - I didn't really get into the series until the Platinum release came along, and I was hesitant at first due to the stereotype of Eva fans being rather obsessive.

Welcome aboard, TD, and don't worry - we were all n00bs once. I thought I was a late starter, waiting for ADV's European release of the DVDs. I'd not heard about the obsessive fan-base - but now I'm one of them.

I am clinically depressed and have attempted suicide a few times. Additionally, I have been taking counseling for several years, and I am currently interested in entering the field of psychology, so the structure of Eva seems to have struck a chord with me.

Being the product of Anno's depression - a self-therapy - I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad one.

[Reichu]

I'm a newbie. Don't laugh - I didn't really get into the series until the Platinum release came along, and I was hesitant at first due to the stereotype of Eva fans being rather obsessive.

Stereotype... or reality?

[DatDude]

In some cases > hack-hackh< fangeek project >hack-hack<

[ice reaper]

i still love that which is evangelion. the thing that really got me at the beginning was that i was the same age as the children when i first whatched the series. but then as the story got deeper that feeling was replaced with deep depression and the consideration of suicide. luckily i didn't actually try it

i don't think eva will ever lose it's 'thing' with me.

[AchtungAffen]

Against of what my theology professor says, that it's natural for the human heart to tend to the eternal, or more lasting things (which in some sense is also true, very Utena), the beauty of Eva is it's life and death. Like the beauty of a flower. It grows and shines for then to die in a horrible shape. Because in the fate of destruction there's also the joy of rebirth, it also is natural for the human heart to feel completed not only with happiness and joy, but with the fate of finite things.

[Carl Horn]

Against of what my theology professor says, that it's natural for the human heart to tend to the eternal, or more lasting things (which in some sense is also true, very Utena), the beauty of Eva is it's life and death. Like the beauty of a flower. It grows and shines for then to die in a horrible shape. Because in the fate of destruction there's also the joy of rebirth, it also is natural for the human heart to feel completed not only with happiness and joy, but with the fate of finite things.

It's hard to say. Gendo and Yui seem to have thought their identity as parents granted them the wisdom to transform the world, when in reality they weren't even wise enough to raise one child to be happy. I think the greatest problem with theological studies is the difficulty of separating our vanity from our ideas about the divine. We want to try and talk about God, but how do we know when we're not just talking to ourselves, about ourselves?

SomethingAwful.com wryly noted that EVA is "too hot for the Christian Anime Alliance!"--too controversial a series for that particular fan group to discuss. But one of the ironies of such a stance is that EVA is in many ways a return to traditional religious concepts. In EVANGELION, mankind is definitely at or close to the center of creation, and there is in fact such a thing as divine power, connected or channeled to Judeo-Christian symbols and beliefs. Perhaps it isn't exactly as you were taught in church; the important thing in EVA is that much of it is real. Signs and wonders, giants in the earth, flaming swords that turned every way to guard the Tree of Life, then shall I know even as also I am known.

At least in terms of the story, EVA takes all these notions seriously, that there is a divine scheme that underlies prosaic reality; a scheme, which grasped, has the potential to reshape and alter beyond recognition the existence that we know. EVA's Angels are closer to the angels of the Bible--figures of fear and destiny like Gabriel, or the bizarre, Yoshitou Asari-like cherubim Ezekiel described, or the harbringers of wrath in Revelation--than angels as most Americans tend to think of them--sort of invisible friends who flit around, helping prevent you from getting into a car crash.

[Mr. Tines]

It's hard to say. Gendo and Yui seem to have thought their identity as parents granted them the wisdom to transform the world, when in reality they weren't even wise enough to raise one child to be happy. I think the greatest problem with theological studies is the difficulty of separating our vanity from our ideas about the divine. We want to try and talk about God, but how do we know when we're not just talking to ourselves, about ourselves?

The merely human can only creep up on the superhuman by analogy. Even those who state the problem can do little more. Even the best attempts at doing applied theology founder on our limitations, for all that they may shed light on the problems.

At least in terms of the story, EVA takes all these notions seriously, that there is a divine scheme that underlies prosaic reality; a scheme, which grasped, has the potential to reshape and alter beyond recognition the existence that we know. EVA's Angels are closer to the angels of the Bible--figures of fear and destiny like Gabriel, or the bizarre, Yoshitou Asari-like cherubim Ezekiel described, or the harbringers of wrath in Revelation--than angels as most Americans tend to think of them--sort of invisible friends who flit around, helping prevent you from getting into a car crash.

Yes, the angels, especially Arael and Armisael are truly bright and terrible; and it doesn't really matter to the mere humans whether they are supernatural or merely the products of some transhuman manufacture within the normal operation of this cosmos.

That was the real hitting home message of EoE to me - that the Techno-Rapture will be a terrifying thing to live through, however joyous the far side might be to those transformed beings beyond it. Anything that brings an involutary transformation of the self, even something so minor in the scheme of things as adolescence, is a fearful thing.

[RubberSoul]

I still love it, but not as much as I used to. I suppose it's because I haven't watched it in a long time. I watch the first few episodes, but I usually have something to do. I keep forgetting to watch the rest of it. I'm going to watch it again this summer.

[NinjaLobster]

In as much as I still have the DVDs on my shelf, yes I do!

Kidding aside, yes I do. But I haven't watched it in a good year or so. All things in moderation and all that rubbish.