Brazilian master's thesis on Eva

[AR-99]

or

Man-Machine Interface in Japanese Culture: Hybridization between technological and human body through animation Neon Genesis Evangelion

http://oatd.org/oatd/record?record=oai%5C:biblio.pucsp.br%5C:14147

Abstract (this be the only English in it)
The topic of this dissertation is the man-machine relation in Japanese culture. As this is a very broad topic, the primary goal of this study was to analyze the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion demonstrating how it shows the hybridization of human beings and machines in order to propose a reflection on the uses of new technologies in modern society. Although this object of study is part of the so-called otaku culture - that marks the production of Japanese pop since 1980, the main hypothesis of the research is that the construction of these hybrid bodies always existed in Japanese culture and that, contrary to what many Western authors state, for the Japanese this does not constitute a post-human condition. In Japanese tradition, various forms of puppet theater established no clear distinction between the body of the puppeteer and the body of the doll. In methodological terms, the proposal was to analyze the language of the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion, demonstrating how it shows the hybridization of human and machine without suggesting, however, that this type of relationship originates in modern Japan. It is hoped that this study will contribute to the field of communication both in the sense of clarifying certain aspects of Japanese pop culture as well as in the discussions regarding the interface between the human body and technology.

Purchase for R$ 30,13: http://www.editoracrv.com.br/?f=produto_detalhes&pid=4045

or download it: http://www.sapientia.pucsp.br//tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=16172

[UrsusArctos]

I can't read Portuguese, otherwise I might have decided to add that to my list of PhD paper reviews as a lark. Still, it's interesting that he picked up Evangelion for that particular topic: the go-to anime for it would have been Ghost in the Shell, and even the Gundam franchise with its newtypes and psycommu technology might have been better suited to the subject matter.

[AR-99]

I was wondering why I couldn't copy text from this PDF into Google Translate - it's blocked by the security setting.

[Restriktion]

I suggest we start a petition. If there's a serious attempt at launching a Lance of Longinus to the moon, this can also be translated into english.

[AR-99]

I heard about this from the guy who runs the evangelionbr and evageekboy profiles on Instagram. Guess he's not on here.

[A.T. Fish]

I didn't read the whole thing but it's pretty obvious the author is a fan of NGE that wanted an excuse to write about it, nevertheless he did a good job finding a theme and elaborating upon his thesis. The basic idea is that Japanese culture has a different view on the man-machine hybridization hypothesis in that they don't consider it to be a post-human condition but a human condition, whatever the hell this means (I think it's a bit superficial when it comes to explaining this). He cites the karakuri ningyo, a type of automated doll produced in Japan since the 17th century, as evidence that "robots" have been a part of the Japanese culture for a long time, and then uses anime to further exemplify this. The Japanese puppet theater is mentioned as an example of the amalgamation between man and "machine", and the shintoistic belief that inanimate objects can have souls is used to explain the differing views of the Japanese when it comes to man-machine hybridization.

Evangelion comes into all of this as an example of two different processes of man-machine hybridization, the Evas themselves, for being organic beings with mechanical constraints, and the synchronization process between the pilots and the Evas.

There is a similar work cited as a source but I didn't read that one.