Introducing Others to Evangelion

[Guy Nacks]

Six.


One was a girl who I had started courting a few weeks prior and seemed to be into the whole nerd scene, not to mention having more than a little in common with our humble protagonist, one Mr. Shinji Ikari. Not that I mentioned that to her exactly, but we watched the first episode after which, she called the show "weird" and had no interest in continuing further.

Needless to say I'd moved on from her after another month after getting fed up with how much of a debbie downer she was and trying to coax some form of positive emotion out of her. Coming from someone who's had more than his share of depressing moments and episodes, this is saying something.

[SEELE]

A couple of people.

1. Brother and relatives
- my brother hated it, 2 cousins hated it too.
2. My best friend Janine
- loved it and we are still talking about it but she prefers NTE
3. Mates/workmate
- one loved it the other hated it EoE

Quit the "you should watch NGE"-business a long time ago and never bothered to tell someone that i liked it. Besides - i have you guys to talk about it.

[Trajan]

Two, my father and my sister. My dad liked it alright but really hated Shinji, but stuck with it. My sister only saw Rebuild 1.11 and I think she felt it was decent but I've never really gotten around to showing her anything else.

[Gendo'sPapa]

About 6.

One roommate - he thought it was alright. But the guy was hard to read anyways. Might have been asexual.
Two friends in film school. They both though it was lame for the first few episodes, I told them to stick around & by the half-way point they were hooked & when we got to EOE they went nuts.
Little sister. At first she was iffy cause she thought Rei was going to be "a damsel-in-distress" but then she really enjoyed that the female characters were fully developed & felt real.
A girlfriend. She enjoyed it. Then I made up for it with about 2 seasons of Friends (terrible). ... She surprised me one day monhts later wearing a homemade plugsuit. Fun time. :)
A cinematographer I worked with. He saw me wearing an Eva shirt at a bar & after some drinks he impulse bought the whole series on DVD. A month later he wrote me an e-mail about how much he enjoyed it. Though he felt Shinji was "a pussy".

[LukeMM95]

Currently only 2.

I showed my brother the first Rebuild movie while on holiday and he enjoyed it. Unfortunately it hasn't convinced him to check out the show yet since he's currently watching other things like Attack on Titan and Fairy Tail.

The other was a fellow student at my uni. He showed me the anime he was watching and I pretty much told him to stop watching those shows and instead watch NGE. He said he would check it out but I haven't asked him about it in weeks.

I do plan on trying to get my friends to check it out, but most of them don't really care for anime.

[::KL7::]

Only 2 people so far.

First was a former co-worker. He enjoyed the first rebuild movie I lent him, and I told him I'd lend him the series and EoE. But he got a new job and I rarely see him. He's a cool guy and I trust him but I don't feel comfortable lending out my movies for a long period of time. I promised Zap and SSD I'd take care of them. Hehehehe

The other was my niece. She's only seen the first 2 rebuild movies so far, and she liked them. She said she still likes sao and attack on titan better though. :(. I am disappoint.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

How old is your niece? You're not mentally scarring children, are you?

[::KL7::]

Not intentionally. she's 14. It's probably still a bit awkward watching nge with her, that's why I started with 1.11 and 2.22 and she seemed pretty psyched for 3.0 when I showed her the trailer for it.

[Rosenakahara]

Have you prepared her for soul crushing?

[pwhodges]

None, I guess. I don't tend to move in circles that would be a good match... I have talked about it with the parent of a young teen, to try to raise an interest there, but then I suggested starting small, with Gunbuster, to build an interest in anime at all. Actually, I may send a copy of that as a present this Christmas.

[::KL7::]

Have you prepared her for soul crushing?

Not yet, where do I even start?

I don't tend to move in circles that would be a good match

Same for me. Other than the people I mentioned I can't really think of anyone else, friends or family who might like it.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Not intentionally. she's 14.

That's not so bad. I watched the show myself when I was 12, and I've turned out mostly fine.

[mechashiva]

Well, when my ex-boyfriend was in town (he's a trucker) on Halloween, I showed him the first two episodes to gauge his interest in it. Since we are MSTies, we sort of riffed on it a little bit but he seems interested, interested enough to watch the rest on his own while he's on the road. He's downloaded the episodes on his phone and he has to prioritize how much data he can use every month (I also recommended a bunch of other shows he'd like, like Over the Garden Wall and Steven Universe)

So he said he'll watch about an episode or two every week. Only time will tell. (crosses fingers)

[Chuckman]

The first episode of the series really is an uphill battle for most people. It's easy to see nothing but whining and Old Robocop bitching about budgets. If you don't know what you're getting into or have a familiarity with the tropes of the genre to be shocked by the deviation it might be tough to get into.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

It ends with a pretty good cliffhanger, though. Most people I've showed it to stuck around to see what happened to Sachiel in the first Eva-01 sortie, regardless of whether or not they had any complaints with mister .

[pwhodges]

Somewhat surprisingly I've just introduced a native Japanese girl in her 20s to the Eva films; she knew the name, but absolutely nothing about it. (She's fully Japanese, and has only left to study the piano away from her two pushy pianist parents.)

[Gob Hobblin]

May have tangentially introduced someone to Evangelion, but it started with them trying to introduce me to Evangelion.

I was in a Skype chat with a couple of boys who I run a D&D game for (students of my wife, good kids, I keep in touch with them). One of them (who has started an anime kick) asks me, out of the blue, "Are you familiar with...Evangelion?"

For the record, my Skype avatar is the same as my EvaGeeks avatar. So I'm sitting there for a moment, and I say, "No, tell me about it." So he goes into it a bit before the other kid (who is aware of who Pen-Pen is) turns to his buddy and says, "Dude, do you not recognize who that is?"

It did open the perfect opportunity to tell them both about the television series, as the movies are all they're tracking on.

Two more EvaGeeks in the making.

[TIWIH777]

Just last week I showed a buddy. The fourth person I've shown so far. did my standard order: rebuilds to gauge interest, then series. He found the first five eisodes to be a bit slow and hes not too keen on Shinji, says he needs to man up etc, but he enjoyed the show more when Asuka came in and Shinji got braver/more adjusted. Was my fourth time marathonning it and was awesome.

[Asukaner117]

Showed EoE to three of my ex-girlfriends when i was younger. Of course they didnt understand anything, and all of them broke up with me shortly after. When i think about it now it was pretty cringeworthy.

[Guy Nacks]

Showed EoE to three of my ex-girlfriends when i was younger. Of course they didnt understand anything, and all of them broke up with me shortly after. When i think about it now it was pretty cringeworthy.

Did you have them watch the series first? Because just showing them EoE on its own, especially with the hospital scene, can be a little too much if you haven't been eased into the characters and show.