ok so like when i finished the series my first thought was ‘gee i wish i’d seen this when i was actually a teen my life might have turned out differently’ but afaict eva fans are also weird little freaks, but specifically about eva… are there people who watch it and are like “yes! seize the day!!” and then they go do that and that’s kind of the extent of their engagement?
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I have never known an Eva watcher to seize the day but
Might help to express that there are two general pools of western Eva fans - the one I enjoy came to it from torrents in the aughts, has an ironic distance from the show itself, and skews more queer and/or shitposter. They think the Rei/Asuka stuff is cringe-at-best and the merch is crass and absurd. The header for r/evangelionmemes says “Super Politically Correct Pedophilia Cartoon Sub” (after a criticism of its moderation) and its icon is Kanye.
Of course if you’re mostly enjoying Eva for a reading Anno hates and giggling about “Karl” this movie was absolutely not for you. But it’s also basically devoid of meaning for a general audience and declines to follow through on 3.0 telling a new story. You know, Shin Evangelion.
I haven’t been more alienated by a critical response than the sincere old head Eva fans (e.g. Gigguk) saying 4.0 gave them “closure.” What good is Cancelling the Apocalypse in Shinji’s world if he ends up in ours?
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No denying I’m a weird little freak tho
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It sounds like an example of when traditional psychoanalysis fails: a commonplace, as even therapists with “just become a productive member of society” goal have all turned to CBT because it actually has that result a lot more often. In theory psychoanalysis is supposed to have a more fulfilling outcome than that. One conception of psychoanalysis is dialectic, which is to say that the patient before analysis is assumed to be stuck oscillating unproductively between a thesis and an antithesis, and the analysis gets them past that into a new synthesis.
The antithesis “your neuroses are fixed” was contained in Evangelion from the very beginning. The minor character Kaji symbolized it from the point of view of Shinji (Kaji of course has his own neuroses, but Shinji did not perceive them). Whenever Shinji looked at Kaji, some part of him was wishing, “if only I could wave a magic wand and have his confidence”. But his real desire is different, right? And the original series fully understood what’s problematic here.
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I guess I’m restating the Deleuze and Guattari argument against Freudian psychoanalysis, which basically would say psychoanalysis in the 20th century plugged into capitalist processes supremely well by “correcting” everything towards heterosexuality.
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Yeah, and I find some irony there because the two genders are a prototypical example of a thesis and antithesis. If psychoanalysis had taken its own premises to their logical conclusion it would have aimed to foster queerness instead. But that would have also made psychoanalysis a fringe theory and the analysts themselves held the base desire to be at the vanguard of the elite instead, and so they twisted their own ideas.
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Oh yeah I totally see what you mean! In that case, it’s interesting to see Anno’s 90s interest in psychoanlysis reproduce this process. The folly…
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Watched Eva for the first time like last year as an extremely grown man and my reaction was, ah, pretty cool, liked that ending, the horny stuff sucked, nice to see where some of these tropes came from. In general I recommend consuming all media as an extremely grown person so it can’t affect you any more
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It’s less that this is an a moralizing story that tells folks to get un-depressed, it’s that this series is a complete statement on Anno’s experience creating Evangelion and his own methods of dealing and understanding it while examining the Eva fandom’s relationship to the characters as part of that.
And…it turns out this is in dialogue with the TV show to an impressive degree.
I dunno, I thought it was neat!
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The movie reaffirms Kawaru and Shinji’s relationship as a romantic relationship in the same way it does with Asuka, but also like Asuka, Shinji has to move beyond the confines of the original show in order to advance as a person. That doesn’t mean they weren’t important, and it doesn’t mean they weren’t real, it just means Shinji can’t break the cycle of Evangelion sticking to the original script.
Anno doesn’t even have kids, so I’m not sure why anyone is reading the bit where it’s showing how two of the cast who grew up and changed is a sign the movie is saying everyone needs to do that, rather than a narrative choice to show just how everything is different and how there is still a world that’s existing after the end of everything even if it’s hard.
The depressed bisexual teen me who saw something of themself in Shinji is happy to see a Shinji who could articulate their anxieties, depressions, take time, and recover in a way that’s a lot more impactful than getting a magic lecture on not being depressed by a low budget art film like the TV show’s final episodes. It’s a great cycle of a guy who made a show, now addressing folks who watched the show to connect with an shared experience of personal growth to me, and that’s really neat.
…and it has the same weird fucked up shit Evangelion had from the word go. And Kill la Kill had too for crying out loud.
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Specifically on the “fanservice” i.e. pantyshots it’s important to note that 3.0 did not
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The female cast vanishes for most 3.0, making it rather difficult to set up fanservice scenes. Before that, though, nearly every shot of Asuka in that movie has her ass in the center of the shot. Not to mention, it had the requisite ‘Ooops! I didn’t mean to walk in on you naked’ scene.
There was certainly less, but it was present. And again, while I’m fine with saying all of Evangelion is unwatchable because of it’s gross shit! It’s worth criticizing! But one movie with less (but still present) fanservice out of a TV show, four other movies, and countless spinoffs, and subsequent projects by the same staff, isn’t nearly enough for me to buy this argument.
Unless you mean it’s all trash for that reason, than by all means. This is a fair criticism of it and the entire franchise. I’ve said for years that I’ve thought this was a major issue with Evangelion. I’m pretty sure I’ve said it to multiple folks in the SB sphere.
But this movie has stuff I like in it despite those things, just like the other parts of Evangelion.
And if folks can talk about Kill la Kill (the anime where a sentient sailor suit forces itself onto a teen girl in a scene played as a joke) and say that show has cool stuff to say, I feel like I can say stuff I liked about 3.0+1.0 as well.
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concept: Eva is horny but absolutely doesn’t fuck
i still haven’t watched the rebuilds so idk if they change this vibe
as a counterpoint i’d say that High Life fucks but isn’t horny, but that film is all about the negative space around fucking so i might be off here
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I think it’s reasonable to expect a series to improve (i.e. reduce) fanservice over time so 4.0 marking a regression is what bothers me. I’m not actively rewatching the series and if anyone asked me I’d give them a heads up. It’s gross for no reason. So when the new movie has new fanservice it stands on its own because that’s new gross shit to view.
That you enjoyed the movie is fine. We’ll agree to disagree because I don’t think I’m coming around on this one. It works or it doesn’t.
I mean… Evas tear open the AT field and plunge their progressive knife into the core
Shinji always wants to cringe out of sight for several days after a battle, as if he had had public sex with all of Tokyo-3 gawping at him
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yeah, it’s super horny, all passion and confusion and shame. but no sense of… assurance, maybe?
eta: oh or sensuality. yeah that’s a big one i think
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Literally piloting another body while doing the deed, bit on the nose
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like as a character i would say Misato absolutely fucks but isn’t that horny, even if she hasn’t fucked anyone before or since Kaji
maybe the word i’m after is actually ‘libidinal’, and ‘horny’ and ‘fucks’ have been subject to the same internet-based semantic corruption that ‘liminal’ has
maybe i’m referring to different stages of psychosexual development? no coz there’s that whole sequence calling Misato out for being stuck on the oral
oh no guys has that one Canadian Jungian twerp seen eva
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of course. hope you don’t feel like anyone means to say you’re wrong to enjoy these films. Just want to make that clear. Eva is a passionate topic. I really despise these films but I can imagine other perspectives from which the stuff I really hate about it doesn’t get in the way of seeing some good in it, but I just don’t relate to it that way.
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don’t think so but this fucken amv set to him speaking was uploaded four hours ago. hard to feel like this existed before i searched for it
it’s rife with chaotic woman vibes, though. i think of the episode with the power outage when the kids have to crawl back to base through some maintenance tunnels and asuka says something like this about rei:
watch out for that one, she’s the righteous type. “do what it takes to get things done” type.
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