Hey Everyone! I've been watching Eva for the past two weeks (up to ep. 18) and think its mediocre at best. Am I missing something here? Anyone else think this show is way too overrated?

Well, I might be going against the grain here, but I enjoyed Eva... I am probably a little biased because I watched it as it came out in the 90's, but I sat down and did a rewatch not to long ago and still enjoyed it.

I've not seen the dubbed version. If that's what you are watching, and the dubbing is bad, it could be playing a part in your boredom as some things like puns cannot be translated accurately, or it might have horrid VA's. I thought it was quite fun trying to find all the biblical references and what they were signifying in the show.

After the second time I watched it, I came away with a completely different interpretation of the anime. Which is usually a sign of good writing. To each his own though. If you've watch up to episode 18, and you don't care for it, it just might not be your cup of tea.

Context, context, context, context.

You're watching it in (I'm assuming) America in 2009. It came out in the mid nineties in Japan.

Don't assume that I'm just saying "Well, it did it first", or "It's been 15 years, things have advanced". It goes much deeper than that.

Have you heard of Japan's "Lost decade"? It was the 90s. The economy of Japan in the 80s grew like there was no tomorrow... and then the bubble burst, and there was no tomorrow. Japan's economy, as well as the people themselves sank into a yawning pit of despair. So when Eva came out, it hit home way too easily - unprepared people trying to deal with the end of the world.

And, well, yes, the things Eva did were new when Eva did them. You'd had decades of the Super Robot Genre before it, and Eva deconstructed the hell out of it: witness the knives and pistols that you're complaining about (also, the knives and pistols part will make more sense when you find out exactly what an Eva actually is.) Similarly, the Real Robot Genre had been around for a decade or two, and Eva threw a few good lobs its direction too.

It basically comes down to this: Eva was a context sensitive deconstruction of genres that you haven't been swimming in for the previous two decades. There is a good reason that Japan exploded around it. There's also a good reason why the reconstruction of the genre (TTGL) is as big as it is.

ALL that said - why westerners love it so much... I have no idea.

The first time I watched Eva with EoE I was just simply in a state of shock.

The second time I watched Eva I came away with a new understanding of reality and life.

The third time I jizzed my pants.

You mustn't run away, you mustn't run away, you MUSTN'T RUN AWAY!

:P

I think it's mostly just dated. Many of the tropes, that were groundbreaking at the time, have become cliche at this point. Eva was probably one many people's first "adult" anime, so I figure many have rather rose-tinted memories of it. It holds up okay, but having seen a LOT of anime since, it's not exactly amazing to me these days.

...I think this is just as bad as FMP!, which I dropped after 10 episodes.

I stopped reading your comment after that line. It might have been insightful or you might have said something I agree with. But, I just can't take you seriously after saying that.

Yes. Agreed.

whats the point of a giant mecha if your using knives and pistols

They need to negate the enemy's AT field to inflict damage; this normally needs short range attacks.

The only character in the whole series I like is Asuka. Probably because while everybody else is being angsty and emo and reluctant to pilot the Evangelions, she's energetic, eager, and willing to take the responsibility. On top of that, she has the most distraught history of the bunch and more reason than anybody else to be angsty, and it doesn't get to her until near the end. Shinji's a whiney bitch and Rei's a boring, emotionless doll. But other than that, I love the character and mech designs as well as some of the Angel designs.

It wasn't overrated when it came out.. That was a long time ago though.

I'm going to put this out there for fun and see what everyone thinks... I wrote this last year when I saw NGE the very first time. I was trying to clear up some misconceptions amongst the people I watch anime with. (I have a group of friends that pick a series to watch every winter; where we watch a few episodes once a week and do a pot luck dinner)

I wrote this before I saw Death/Rebirth and End Of Evangelion

This is probably why I didn't like the movies, since they kind of poo-pooed all over my ideas about what was going on.

The following text is reprinted in full from a group email discussion.

Sorry Rob, the lady is right. The KJV holds no mention of Lilith. Even the “Screech Owl” translation seems be invented more or less for dramatic effect.

I did, however, find some interesting coincidences in other places:

• Lilith was mentioned by name in the real Dead Sea Scrolls.
• One version of the story claims Lilith was not created by Yahweh, but by Gevurah. At its lowest level Gevurah is connected with creatures and Demons. Gevurah is an aspect of God in the Kabbalistic Sephiroth. The Tree Of Life which is depicted in Gendo Ikari's office.

I've been reading a lot of different things in a lot of different places... Much like Egg Shen in Big Trouble In Little China I take what I want, and leave the rest behind... just like your salad bar. Anyway I've come up with a narrative that I think helps illuminate Neon Genesis Evangelion or at least Gainax's research.

First I have to tell a little story about Ishtar.

It was a sad time after the death of the fair young god of spring, Tammuz. The beautiful goddess, Ishtar, who loved Tammuz dearly, followed him to the halls of Eternity, defying the demons who guard the Gates Of Time.

But at the first Gate, the guardian demon forced Ishtar to surrender her sandals, which the wise say symbolizes giving up Will.

And at the second Gate, Ishtar had to surrender her jeweled anklets, which the wise say means giving up Ego.

At the third Gate, she surrendered her robe, which is the hardest of all because it means giving up Mind itself.

And at the fourth Gate, she surrendered her golden breastcups, which is giving up the Sex Role.

At the fifth Gate, she surrendered her necklace, which is giving up the rapture of illumination.

And at the sixth Gate, she surrendered her earrings, which is giving up magick.

And finally at the seventh Gate, Ishtar surrendered her thousand-petaled crown, which is giving up godhood.

It was only thus, naked, that Ishtar could enter eternity.

This story is important for several reasons... it illustrates the need to remove all masks of humanity and reality in order to understand the nature of Universe. (this is the Buckminster Fuller Universe that is not a noun, but a system, a process... summed up in his famous quote “I seem to be a verb.”) This is also presented in the Gnostic gospel of Thomas when Jesus said “When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet and tread on them like little children, then you will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid...”

Anyway, keep a couple of things in mind. Between 4000BC and 400AD, religions didn't exist in a vacuum. The large agriculture of Bronze Age city-states couldn't exist without some trade routes and the back and fourth of several dominating empires caused many belief systems and folk traditions to mix together and influence each other. Also consider the average lifespan of a person was closer to 30 years so the sense of history was different. It could take five or six generations to span 100 years while nowadays a single person can live 100 years. Their history of the world may only cover a few hundred years to account for their culture, also their whole world may only exist within 30 square miles.

Just to keep our dates straight, Moses was born around 1391 BC. He is most directly responsible for the Torah a large chunk of what would become the Hebrew Bible known as the Tanakh and eventually the Old Testament. This puts the origins of these works in the middle Bronze Age, though the Tanakh wasn't codified until 450 BC, and most likely not finalized until 200 BC, by then the Iron age was in full swing. That leaves roughly a thousand years for various subgroups to intermingle with Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian cultures all throughout the late Bronze Age. It is from this strange brew that I found this version of Genesis.

Another widely taught version of this is that the Hebrew cosmogony originally told a story of Yahweh creating Adam to marry a local Goddess-associated figure named Lilith. Lilith was a follower of the Great Mother Goddess, Inanna—later known as both Ishtar and Asherah. She then is depicted in the Talmud and Kabbalah as first wife to Yahweh's first creation of man, Adam. In time, as stated in the Old testament, the Hebrew followers continued to worship "false idols", like Asherah, as being as powerful as Yahweh. Jeremiah speaks of his (and Yahweh's) displeasure at this behavior to the Hebrew people about the worship of the Goddess in the Old Testament. Lilith is banished from Adam and Yahweh's presence and Eve becomes Adam's wife. Lilith then took the form of the serpent in her jealous rage at being displaced as Adam's wife. Lilith as serpent then proceeds to convince Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

This is classically regarded as the fall of mankind, as this is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This is how they learn the shame of their naked bodies etc... One problem I've noticed is that in Hebrew when opposites are used together like creatures great and small, knowledge of good and evil... it is supposed to be inclusive of all things in between. Considering this, Lilith did not ruin mankind with the knowledge of evil. She freed mankind from ignorance by giving them the fruit from the tree of knowledge of all things. Science, mathematics, art, music, etc.

This echoes the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind so they might survive the wrath of the gods. Prometheus, like Lilith, was severely punished for his transgression. Of course his liver problems are nothing compared to Lilith being changed into the sex crazed, baby killing wife of Baphomet and goddess of prostitution.

It's no mistake that the character of Lilith changes by the time of Tanakh being finalized. The end of the Bronze Age also marked the beginning of the end for not only the goddess, but for the status of women as well. By 325 AD, when Christianity is codified in the Nicene Creed, many writers such as Tertullian had redefined what it meant to be a woman:

. . . you are the devil's gateway. . . you are she who persuaded him whom the devil did not dare attack. . . . Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on your sex lives on in this age; the guilt, necessarily, lives on too.

Women were “sacks of dung” according to Origen; they deserved to be treated like untrustworthy slaves, Augustine reasoned; they were inclined to fornicate with devils according to Sprenger the Inquisitor... Women were no longer people. The rise of the patriarchal authoritarian power structure which began in the Sun God cultures of the Bronze Age was perfectly realized by the time Saint Paul transformed the teachings of Jesus.

This is why Nietzsche claimed that St. Paul had destroyed the evangel (good news) of Jesus and replaced it with a dysangel (bad news). The evangel of Jesus, as Nietzsche saw it was the sublimated Will to Power, the path of consciousness evolution to superhumanity. The dysangel of St. Paul was traditional Sklavmoral- “Slaves, obey your masters,” but nourish your resentment with the firm belief that you are good and they are evil and you will eventually have the pleasure of watching them burn in hell.

The finally brings us to the title:

Neon Genesis Evangelion

This can mean the good news of the new beginning. So who had the good news? Shinji Ikari saved the world and all humanity from certain doom by accepting the pain of individuality and rejecting Instrumentality.

So who had the dysangel? One could argue Seele (German for soul) did by taking the Dead Sea Scrolls and planning for the Angels, the Third Impact, and Instrumentality... but their idea of instrumentality is closer to the Nazi misinterpretation of Nietzsche. Also if you consider the Gnostic idea that evil and sadness and sickness exist because Yahweh the creator is a jealous, insane, vengeful deity and not the true god hidden to us you might even paint Seele as a misguided hero, trying to eliminate Yahweh and ascend to godhood so that we might know the true god.

If I was going to finger someone as St. Paul here, it's Gendo Ikari. His version of instrumentality is designed for one thing, to reunite himself with his lost wife. Not in the touchy, feely sadly romantic way either. In the sense of the traditional patriarchy... he just wants his property back. You can see it in the way he treats all of the other women in the series. They are merely pawns, sacrificial objects like Rei or useful puppets like Misato, Asuka or Ritsuko and her mother Naoko. His dysangel is the true ruination of mankind, not the spark of technology given by Lilith to mankind... in defiance of the gods.

[deleted]

I'd like to know your thoughts after you're finished with it-- and try watching the final movie as well. I kind of love the series so I find it interesting that you don't like it. Also, are you watching it with english dubbing. in that case, I give up.

[deleted]

[deleted]

The first season of FMP doesn't start to get good until the 2nd half (I'd say episode 15ish is when it gets into its proper swing), so sadly you've missed out on a good show. Not to mention FMP:TSR is my bread and butter :P I strongly recommend giving it another try, because I think it's better than Eva any day.

I didn't enjoy Eva much like you. Oh, and you'll strongly dislike the final episodes if you're only complaining about the characters thus far. The mindfuck scenes at the end made me want to vomit.

and lol....Bokurano did indeed do what Eva couldn't.

NGE is a very divisive anime. Many people think it's the best thing over, but there are a significant number who really don't. I'm definitely on your side on the overrated camp - I really couldn't enjoy it that much. I found the storyline contrived and confused, and the characters unlikable - I honestly didn't care about any of them.

At the end of the day, you should never feel bad for disliking something. Whatever anyone else says, you're allowed to like things that other people dislike, and you're allowed to dislike things other people like. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, or thinks that there is even a single song, anime series, TV show, film, book, play or work of art ever made which is deserving of universal adoration is an idiot.

I see that in this thread people seem to be giving or removing karma based on the poster's taste, rather than the quality of the post. I'm a little disappointed in you today, Reddit.

coolface.jpg

Everyone knows Eva is overrated. Watching it is like having a Psych 101 text book slammed into your head. That being said, the followup movie is incredible and the ending is confusing, but epic.

Eva sucked until I read the Wikipedia entry on it. Then it was interesting, though still boring.

Think of it this way now, if you don't finish Eva, how will you ever be able to pass JLPT Level 1?!